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The use of paper is widespread. It could be used in many purposes, starting from printing industry, over different type of packaging etc. At the same time significant amount of waste paper is generated. As material, paper has excellent recycling properties. Paper could be recycled several times, retaining its original quality. The main goal of this research is to present the current situation in the management of waste paper in the Republic of Serbia. It is evident that awareness of citizens is not satisfying in terms of paper disposal. This is also shown by surveys carried out in the cities Zrenjanin and Novi Sad, which can present the general situation in our country. The research presents the public opinion focused on potential causes of low recycling rate. Using STAN software and Material Flow Analysis (MFA), based on the available amount of waste paper, it is estimated which amount of paper is used as a secondary raw material, and which part of the waste paper ends on sanitary and unsanitary landfills. The results of the assessment may be the starting point for some further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Little is known about the reliability of different methods of survey administration in low back pain trials. This analysis was designed to determine the reliability of responses to self-administered paper surveys compared to computer assisted telephone interviews (CATI) for the primary outcomes of pain intensity and back-related function, and secondary outcomes of patient satisfaction, SF-36, and global improvement among participants enrolled in a study of yoga for chronic low back pain. Results Pain intensity, back-related function, and both physical and mental health components of the SF-36 showed excellent reliability at all three time points; ICC scores ranged from 0.82 to 0.98. Pain medication use showed good reliability; kappa statistics ranged from 0.68 to 0.78. Patient satisfaction had moderate to excellent reliability; ICC scores ranged from 0.40 to 0.86. Global improvement showed poor reliability at 6 weeks (ICC = 0.24) and 12 weeks (ICC = 0.10). Conclusion CATI shows excellent reliability for primary outcomes and at least some secondary outcomes when compared to self-administered paper surveys in a low back pain yoga trial. Having two reliable options for data collection may be helpful to increase response rates for core outcomes in back pain trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined response differences between paper-and-pencil versus computer administered surveys as a function of experimenter presence, survey length, and sensitive material, including sexuality-related measures. Three conditions were employed, one traditional supervised paper-and-pencil condition, one online computer administration condition that was supervised, and one unsupervised online computer administration condition. Missing data were greatest in the paper-and-pencil condition specifically at the end of this long survey in comparison to both online computer conditions. Of the four measures assessing sensitive material, more missing data were found in the paper-and-pencil condition but only for one measure assessing sensitive content. Researcher presence did not have an impact on performance. These findings have important implications for designing and interpreting survey outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about differences between, and the adequacy of, response rates to online and paper-based course and teaching evaluation surveys. Its aim is to provide practical guidance on these matters. The first part of the article gives an overview of online surveying in general, a review of data relating to survey response rates and practical advice to help boost response rates. The second part of the article discusses when a response rate may be considered large enough for the survey data to provide adequate evidence for accountability and improvement purposes. The article ends with suggestions for improving the effectiveness of evaluation strategy. These suggestions are: to seek to obtain the highest response rates possible to all surveys; to take account of probable effects of survey design and methods on the feedback obtained when interpreting that feedback; and to enhance this action by making use of data derived from multiple methods of gathering feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the concept of soft power in East Asia as it relates to the so-called decline of U.S. power and the simultaneous increase of military and diplomatic power exercised by China in the region. The author reviews soft power survey data and argues for the benefits of analyzing public opinion data in determining political power and influence in East Asia. A broad survey is utilized by the author to measure soft power in East Asia and the overall soft power of China is compared to other regional powers in categories such as economics, culture, and politics. The author concludes that the data show that Chinese soft power is relatively weak in East Asia.

Background: Germany is the second most common country of immigration after the US. However, people with own or familial history of migration are not represented proportionately to the population within public health monitoring and reporting. To bridge this data gap and enable differentiated analyses on migration and health, we conducted the health interview survey GEDA Fokus among adults with Croatian, Italian, Polish, Syrian, or Turkish citizenship living throughout Germany. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effects of recruitment efforts regarding participation and sample composition. Methods: Data collection for this cross-sectional and multilingual survey took place between 11/2021 and 5/2022 utilizing a sequential mixed-mode design, including self-administered web- and paper-based questionnaires as well as face-to-face and telephone interviews. The gross sample (n = 33436; age range 18–79 years) was randomly drawn from the residents' registers in 120 primary sampling units based on citizenship. Outcome rates according to the American Association for Public Opinion Research, the sample composition throughout the multistage recruitment process, utilization of survey modes, and questionnaire languages are presented. Results: Overall, 6038 persons participated, which corresponded to a response rate of 18.4% (range: 13.8% for Turkish citizenship to 23.9% for Syrian citizenship). Home visits accounted for the largest single increase in response. During recruitment, more female, older, as well as participants with lower levels of education and income took part in the survey. People with physical health problems and less favourable health behaviour more often took part in the survey at a later stage, while participants with symptoms of depression or anxiety more often participated early. Utilization of survey modes and questionnaire languages differed by sociodemographic and migration-related characteristics, e.g. participants aged 50 years and above more often used paper- than web-based questionnaires and those with a shorter duration of residence more often used a translated questionnaire. Conclusion: Multiple contact attempts, including home visits and different survey languages, as well as offering different modes of survey administration, increased response rates and most likely reduced non-response bias. In order to adequately represent and include the diversifying population in public health monitoring, national public health institutes should tailor survey designs to meet the needs of different population groups considered hard to survey to enable their survey participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential of citizen science to address complex issues has been recognized since the 1990s. However, the systematic integration of public opinion in research has been developed only recently, thanks to the spread of questionnaire web-based surveys and artificial intelligence techniques for data elaboration. Starting from this point, we decided to investigate the literature published in Scopus during the decade 2013–2023, regarding citizen science applications for environmental purposes. More specifically, the focus of our study was to evaluate citizen science's benefits and limitations for managing odour emissions in national industrial plants, as well as to discuss the potential integration of a participatory approach in such a field. In fact, according to European Directive 2010/75/EU, the integrated environmental permits released to reduce industrial pollution should also encourage strong public participation. In this systematic review we first applied the principles of PRISMA methodology to select the most significant papers. Then, we discuss the results of 14 publications, through bibliometric statistics and meta-analysis. Only three of them were discovered to have a specific focus on odour emissions. Overall, we pinpointed the main advantages and limitations of citizen science applied to odour pollution management, to open the door for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research in quality of life traditionally relies on paper-and-pencil questionnaires. Easy access to the Internet has inspired a number of studies that use the Internet to collect questionnaire data. However, Internet-based data collection may differ from traditional methods with respect to response rate and data quality as well as the validity and reliability of the involved scales. Objective: We used a randomized design to compare a paper-and-pencil questionnaire with an Internet version of the same questionnaire with respect to differences in response rate and completeness of data. Methods: Women referred for mammography at a Danish public hospital from September 2004 to April 2005, aged less than 67 years and without a history of breast cancer, were eligible for the study. The women received the invitation to participate along with the usual letter from the Department of Radiology. A total of 533 women were invited to participate. They were randomized to receive either a paper questionnaire, with a prepaid return envelope, or a guideline on how to fill in the Internet-based version online. The questionnaire consisted of 17 pages with a total of 119 items, including the Short Form-36, Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory-20, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and questions regarding social status, education level, occupation, and access to the Internet. Nonrespondents received a postal reminder giving them the option of filling out the other version of the questionnaire. Results: The response rate before the reminder was 17.9% for the Internet group compared to 73.2% for the paper-and-pencil group (risk difference 55.3%, P < .001). After the reminder, when the participant could chose between versions of the questionnaire, the total response rate for the Internet and paper-and-pencil group was 64.2% and 76.5%, respectively (risk difference 12.2%, P = .002). For the Internet version, 97.8% filled in a complete questionnaire without missing data, while 63.4% filled in a complete questionnaire for the paper-and-pencil version (risk difference 34.5%, P < .001). Conclusions: The Internet version of the questionnaire was superior with respect to completeness of data, but the response rate in this population of unselected patients was low. The general population has yet to become more familiar with the Internet before an online survey can be the first choice of researchers, although it is worthwhile considering within selected populations of patients as it saves resources and provides more complete answers. An Internet version may be combined with the traditional version of a questionnaire, and in follow-up studies of patients it may be more feasible to offer Internet versions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In POQ’s early years, survey data appeared only occasionally in articles and a focus on methodology was even less common. Today, by contrast, it is rare to find a POQ article that is not based on survey data, and many social scientists think of the journal as the leading forum for research on survey methodology. This sea change would have surprised the journal's founders and seems far from inevitable. An account of how and why the change occurred must answer at least two questions. First, what led a journal whose mandate was the study of public opinion in its widest sense to publish analyses based almost exclusively on sample surveys? Second, given the concentration on survey research, what led to an emphasis on methodology? This article focuses on the second question by examining the balance between substance and method over the journal's three-quarters of a century. It considers four kinds of evidence: the papers published in POQ; the POQ papers that have been the most influential; the POQ editors; and the authors who have appeared most often in POQ. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) held its 76th Annual Conference in Salzburg, Austria, with the theme "Public Opinion Research in a Technology-Driven World." The conference included interactive workshops, keynote presentations, and panel discussions on various topics such as cross-cultural survey methodology, fake news and disinformation, elections, gender and public opinion research, and more. Several awards were given to recognize outstanding papers and student contributions. The conference organizers also provided student travel grants, and an archive of conference presentations and international poll findings will be launched on the WAPOR website. The next WAPOR conference will be held in Seoul, South Korea in 2024. [Extracted from the article]

Background: Patient and public co-creation and involvement in health initiatives have been witnessing great expansion in recent years. From healthcare to research settings, collaborative approaches are becoming increasingly prevalent and diverse, especially in the field of rare diseases which faces complex challenges. Conference development and implementation, however, have been primarily guided by passive, information-sharing models. There is a need for conferences to evolve towards more inclusive, interactive, collaborative, and problem-solving platforms. Here, we aimed to report on a pioneer model, emphasizing a community partnership approach to conference co-creation that takes the World Conference on Congenital Glycosylation Disorders (CDG) as an exemplary case. Methods: To answer the need to overcome the lack of access to high-quality information which limits CDG diagnosis, research and treatment options, the World CDG Organization has been refining a community-centric model for conference co-creation. Focusing on the 5th edition of the conference, data on stakeholders' preferences was collected using an online survey and a poll to define the conference agenda, guide its development and select optimal dates for an all-stakeholder inclusive, relevant and participatory event. Results: We describe the complexities of the community-centric conference co-creation model, detailing its refined methodology and the outcomes achieved. The model is grounded on a participative approach to promote people-centered research and care for CDG patients. The involvement of the public in the conference co-creation and in participatory methods allowed the generation of knowledge on community needs and preferences. Conclusion: This paper describes a reliable, highly adaptable conference co-creation model that fosters community-building, disseminates understandable information, and serves as a borderless platform to incentivize multiple stakeholder collaborations towards CDG research and drug development. We argue this is a reproducible model that can be endorsed and more widely adopted by other disease communities and events. Plain English summary: In recent years, there has been a growing trend towards involving patients and the public in healthcare and research, transforming traditional conferences that follow a one-way information-sharing approach into inclusive and interactive platforms. This study presents a unique conference co-creation model established by the World Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation (CDG) Organization that emphasizes partnership with the community in its design and implementation. Besides involving the community in the planning phase, the model also uses other participatory methods. The 5th World Conference on CDG, held in 2021, serves as a prime example of this approach. The resulting community partnership model is shown to produce outcomes tailored to community needs, promoting people-centered research and care. This model is reproducible and easily adaptable by other disease communities and events to promote collaboration and problem-solving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Instead of focusing on "why voters appear to tolerate rather than punish" as most previous literature, this paper advances an alternative explanation: it seeks to explain how voters process information about corruption. Consistent with research on public opinion formation, this paper argues that voters can perceive the same event and make different interpretation about its meaning. Based on an original survey experiment conducted during the 2018 presidential election in Mexico, this study finds that citizens hold partisan attitudes and are motivated to protect these partisan predispositions, which make them interpret common events in different way. In particular, when this study informed voters that an unnamed candidate engaged in corruption, respondents unequivocally considered such actions as corrupt. However, when the name of their co-partisan candidate was explicitly mentioned as engaging in the same activities, voters rejected to qualify them as corrupt. Partisans are not "tolerating" or "condoning" corruption; partisans tend to choose interpretations that rationalize their partisan priors and justify their co-partisans' behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 26 May 2011, the Russian People's World Council issued a document entitled The Basic Values: The Fundaments of National Unity. The document, prepared by the Synodal Department for Church–Society Cooperation, provided a catalogue of 17 traditional values whose general framework was constituted by a combination of freedom, unity, patriotism, family, and devotion. At that time, the Moscow Patriarchate considered religious faith to be the foundation of traditional values and it continues to do so. The defence and promotion of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values were also central in the Russian National Security Strategy (2015); this was the case in the updated version of this document as well, put out in July 2021. Furthermore, they have been the core of the Moscow Patriarchate's participation in the Council of Europe and of Patriarch Kirill's speeches about the war in Ukraine. Finally, on 9 November 2022, The Foundations Of State Policy For The Preservation Of Spiritual And Moral Values was approved. This framework permits us to understand the strict interplay between the Church and the State in the Russian Federation and to see why it is important to refer to the concept of post-secularism when talking about the role of religion in post-Soviet Russia. Proceeding from the Abstract, the present paper aims to analyse this interplay in a specific sector of visual culture: the cinema and television industries. Manuel Castells highlighted the relevance of cultural values in the age of information and the connection between the values and social mobilization that follows it. He pointed out that the Internet has become a way to render this connection predominant, inevitably leading to the development of social movements and networks that have a religious basis. This is unquestionably true; surveys conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (OJSC «VCIOM») and by Nevafilm Research confirm that a high percentage of Russians watch films not only at the cinema or on television (especially the older generations) but also on the Internet (as far as the younger generations are concerned). The importance of this market is also confirmed by the success of the cinema and TV distributor Orthodox Encyclopaedia (2005); in the words of the philosopher Sergei Kravets, who, commenting on it during an interview published in 2006 by the website Sedmits.ru, declared that the expression "orthodox cinema" can be understood as a way to express Russian culture. He asserts that "the fact that today Orthodox films have begun to appear on the central TV channels testifies that Russian film producers and viewers have apparently begun to be aware of themselves as Orthodox, to feel that they are bearers of a special Orthodox culture. [..]". At the same time, consideration should be given to the importance of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Minister of Culture's condemnation of films such as Matilda or Monastery. In addition, it is important to consider that, according to a survey conducted in 2022 by the Levada Center, Russian people consider television the most reliable source of information (54%). The long-term implications of this tendency may have very important effects, not only in terms of its objectives but also in terms of the consideration that, after the beginning of the war, many Western film distributors withdrew their licenses from Russia. This paper will analyse "the effect of religion on the institutional system, the regulatory environment of the media and the public sphere" by studying the features of films and TV programs distributed by Orthodox Encyclopaedia, their relations with traditional values promoted both by the Kremlin and the Church, how these have contributed to strengthening the interplay between the Minister of Culture and the Moscow Patriarchate, and the impact this process has had on Russian society and Russia's relations with the European and Western World in the 2005–2022 period. A list of the films and TV programs being discussed will be provided, and then statements about the project and reviews of the serials and films will be analysed. The analysis will be conducted mainly through the official sites of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin and by browsing the Integrum database. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sorts out and discusses the different methods used in the analysis of China-related public opinion, builds a theoretical system of public opinion analysis methods on this basis, conducts case analysis and research on hot public opinion combined with corpus, and selects the semantic analysis method from the technical level supporting the public opinion analysis method. From the perspective of related technologies involving intelligent analysis methods, comparative analysis and improved applications are given, which provides an effective analysis basis for government public management departments to fully grasp and guide China-related public opinion. Sentiment tendency analysis is also an important direction of Chinese-related public opinion research. This paper sorts and analyzes China-related public opinion from the characteristics, applications, and text processing methods of different granularities and builds and improves the annotation model for the smallest granularity. The frequency, trend, and evolution characteristics of China-related public opinion events are sorted out and analyzed, and the trend analysis method is used to analyze the evolution trend of attention of public opinion events. The distribution of individual opinion acceptance, trust threshold, and opinion leaders are simulated by experiments. The impact on the evolution of China-related public opinion was determined. The experimental results show that the effect of the method proposed in this paper is improved by about 10% compared with the direct use of statistical learning methods for emotional orientation analysis. The SVM method also has obvious advantages over the Bayesian method, especially the combination of the SVM method and the bigram method which gives the best results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advancement of technology and the arrival of the era of integrated media, big data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and virtual reality are gradually changing the ecology of public opinion. This will bring new challenges to the technical discovery, data analysis, and response of network disease dissemination to public opinion. Internet data barriers are still widespread. The specific requirements are to explore the application mode of blockchain technology to bring a better service experience to the people. Therefore, this paper focuses on the dissemination of disease public opinion information and risk management research in the blockchain environment. Furthermore, the application of advanced blockchain technology is used to seek breakthroughs in the field of risk management of network disease transmission and public opinion in terms of technology and data. This paper systematically sorts out the research results of domestic and foreign disease transmission network public opinion, public opinion risk management, and blockchain through comprehensive use of literature analysis, grounded research, empirical research, simulation research, and other research methods. Based on theories of the disease transmission network, public opinion, risk management, blockchain, and system dynamics, we conduct research on network public opinion and risk management of disease transmission in the block chain environment. At the theoretical level, the research in this paper can promote the risk management of disease transmission network public opinion in the blockchain environment and carry out the construction of the theoretical system to deepen the application of blockchain technology in the field of disease public opinion risk management. At the practical level, the research in this paper can guide the improvement of the effect of public opinion risk management. Then, blockchain technology is applied to manage the risk of disease public opinion. In future research, the theory of public opinion risk management will be further enriched. We will apply blockchain technology to develop the evolution of the risk of disease public opinion transmission, carry out research on public opinion management and other aspects, and at the same time, try the design and development of a blockchain public opinion system. In this way, the innovation of blockchain in the development and application of disease network public opinion research will be promoted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents several abstracts of research papers presented at the 27th annual conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research held in Atlantic City, New Jersey from May 18 to 21, 1972. The paper entitled Some Reasons Why Information Campaigns Can Succeed by Harold Mendelsohn of the University of Denver indicates that information campaigns can be effective: if they are planned around the assumption that most of the publics to which they are addressed will be only mildly interested or not interested at all in what is communicated; if middle-range goals which can be reasonably achieved as a consequence of exposure are set as specific objectives; if, after middle-range objectives are set, careful consideration is given to delineating specific targets in terms of their demographic and psychological attributes, their life-styles, value and belief systems, and mass media habits; if mass communications researchers work together with practitioners in developing information campaigns that are based on solid social science principles and designed specifically to overcome the types of indifference that are manifested by well-defined targets; if in their evaluation as much attention is paid to delineating specific aspects of the communications process which contribute to success, as has previously been allotted to demonstrating failure. The paper entitled Mass Communication and Political behavior: A Reassessment of Two Decades of Research by Sidney Kraus claims that mass media, particularly television, play decisive roles in voting and political socialization.

This section presents several abstracts of papers presented at the 25th conference of the Public Opinion Quarterly in 1970. The paper Sociology and the Survey Method by Robin M. Williams, Jr., highlights potential contributions of survey research to the development of sociological theories which include providing essential descriptive data and facilitating discovery. The paper Impact of Survey Research on Economic Theory by Albert G. Hart, states that the resulting stress on distinctions between permanent and transitory elements has strongly stimulated the growth of rigorously formulated dynamic models in macro-economics and econometrics. The paper Classic Models of Communications Effects and Innovations in These Models by Clark Leavitt, proposes a holistic model to replace the hierarchical model with its assumption of a discrete chain of cognitive processes. The holistic model proposes that behavioral effects can be explained sufficiently by three processes, arousal, information acquisition and planning. The theme of the paper The Wrong Enemy by Daniel Yankelovich is that the generation gap theory, is a misleading and dangerous half-truth. While a real generation gap exists on a few important values, such as premarital sexual relations and organized religion, research shows that most other core values are shared by young people and their parents.

Across numerous African societies, a prevalent resistance to LGBTQ rights is evident. While prominent strides have been made on LGBTQ rights in various parts of the world, the African context has witnessed limited progress. Public opinion polls indicate that influential figures have succeeded in altering public sentiment towards LGBTQ rights in Western countries, yet such progress remains elusive in the African context. Mechanisms effective in shifting public attitudes toward embracing LGBTQ rights remain largely unexplored, especially in the African context. In this paper, we consider whether endorsement messages conveyed by trusted authorities possess the potential to foster a shift in attitudes towards embracing LGBTQ rights among a nationally representative sample of respondents in Ghana. Through a factorial experiment, we find that there are varying impacts of messaging from distinct trusted authorities in shaping attitudes toward embracing LGBTQ rights. Notably, pro-LGBTQ messaging from traditional and co-partisan leaders yields modest effects, while messaging from religious leaders exhibits no discernible impact. These findings hold significance for determining strategic focal points in potential endeavors to advance LGBTQ rights within the African context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public opinion polls have become vital and increasingly visible parts of election campaigns. Previous research has frequently demonstrated that polls can influence both citizens' voting intentions and political parties' campaign strategies. However, they are also fraught with uncertainty. Margins of error can reflect (parts of) this uncertainty. This paper investigates how citizens' voting intentions change due to whether polling estimates are presented with or without margins of error. Using a vignette experiment (N=3224), we examine this question based on a real‐world example in which different election polls were shown to nationally representative respondents ahead of the 2021 federal election in Germany. We manipulated the display of the margins of error, the interpretation of polls and the closeness of the electoral race. The results indicate that margins of error can influence citizens' voting intentions. This effect is dependent on the actual closeness of the race and additional interpretative guidance provided to voters. More concretely, the results consistently show that margins of error increase citizens' inclination to vote for one of the two largest contesting parties if the polling gap between these parties is small, and an interpretation underlines this closeness. The findings of this study are important for three reasons. First, they help to determine whether margins of error can assist citizens in making more informed (strategic) vote decisions. They shed light on whether depicting opinion‐poll uncertainty affects the key features of representative democracy, such as democratic accountability. Second, the results stress the responsibility of the media. The way polls are interpreted and contextualized influences the effect of margins of error on voting behaviour. Third, the findings of this paper underscore the significance of including methodological details when communicating scientific research findings to the broader public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the international community attempts to unite to combat climate change, American party politics could hardly be more divided on this issue. This paper offers an additional explanation for how US congressional politics on environmental policy has polarized: the ongoing education realignment in American party politics. As the Democratic Party increasingly relies on college-educated voters and the opposite is true for the Republican Party, this can affect the parties' positions on environmental policy based on public opinion research which finds a positive relationship between education and pro-environment attitudes. Using League of Conservation Voters legislative scorecards from 1983 to 2020, this paper finds the education realignment contributed to the removal of pro-environment Republicans and anti-environment Democrats in Congress in recent decades; and this primarily occurred through elite replacement rather than conversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This year's theme, "Working Together: The Essential Role of Public Opinion Research in Collaborative Science", recognizes the importance of careful public opinion research to collaborative science and reflects on the importance of collaboration to gaining knowledge. The regular proposal deadline is March 21, 2023, and the late proposal deadline is May 21, 2023. B 17th International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Science Studies (ICISSS 2023) b I March 13-15, 2023 i I University of Oxford, St. Anne's College, Oxford, UK i The International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Science Studies (ICISSS) invites academics, practitioners, consultants, scholars, researchers, and policy makers with different backgrounds and experiences to present their papers in the conference and to discuss their experiences, new ideas, research results, as well as any practical challenges encountered and/or the solutions adopted during their work. [Extracted from the article]

The paper considers American active learning (AL) practices that can be used in a virtual language learning classroom in Ukrainian higher education institutions to encourage students’ engagement, collaboration and evaluate their performance. The authors study the concept of AL, its main techniques and peculiarities of application; outline technologies and tools that have the potential to influence active language learning (ALL) in a virtual classroom; define the techniques that can be used to promote ALL in a virtual classroom (polls and surveys, discussions and forums, case studies, interactive lectures, simulations and games, collaborative projects, personalized learning). Particular attention is paid to online AL strategies applied by Columbia University and Cornell University (USA). Here belong Online Polling, Think-Pair-Share, a Minute Paper, Small Group Discussion and Short Student Presentation strategies, each of them requiring appropriate online learning platforms, services and tools for its effective implementation. They include Zoom videoconferencing platform with its breakout rooms, polling, screen sharing, whiteboard and nonverbal feedback features, Poll Everywhere, CourseWorks Quiz, Canvas Quiz features, collaborative online tools such as LionMail (Google) Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc. Another important issue considered in the paper is assessment and evaluation of students’ progress in AL. Assessment techniques used in Cornell University comprise Grading Rubrics, plagiarism detection, self-assessment, peer assessment, surveys and classroom polling. In this context, Canvas Rubrics, Canvas Assignments, FeedbackFruits, Gradescope, Qualtrics, Turnitin can be used as effective assessment tools. The authors conclude that the main advantages of ALL are its flexibility, collaborative learning opportunities, customization options, access to online resources while its challenges involve lack of face-to-face interaction, technical difficulties, high pricing plans for some online services and tools, variety of distractions such as social media, email, or other online activities, and limited learning environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the initial critical points of the EU's weakness in quickly responding to the crisis and the Chinese assertiveness in using vaccine diplomacy to achieve European political objectives. With the case study based on indicative research on public opinion, the paper provides a more profound understanding of the impact of Chinese-related activities in the CEE region, particularly concerning EU coherence and solidarity. The paper concludes that the Chinese presence in Europe via "vaccine diplomacy" threatens the unity of the EU and the CEE region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the arguments in the previous papers by Keller and Sparrowand Curtice and comments on the internet polling debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several reports published in the current issue of the journal are presented includng on measuring public opinion, opinion polling and review of opinion polls.

The objective of this paper is to better understand the evolution and institutional roots of Hong Kong's growing economic inequality and political cleavages. By combining multiple sources of data (household surveys, fiscal data, wealth rankings, national accounts) and methodological innovations, two main findings are obtained. First, he evidence suggests a very large rise in income and wealth inequality in Hong Kong over the last four decades. Second, based on the latest opinion poll data, business elites, who carry disproportionate weight in Hong Kong's Legislative Council, are found to be more likely to vote for the pro-establishment camp (presumably to ensure that policies are passed that protect their political and economic interests). This paper argues that the unique alliance of government and business elites in a partially democratic political system is the plausible institutional root of Hong Kong's rising inequality and political cleavages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of the 2016 presidential election polls on the stock market. Design/methodology/approach: The empirical model includes daily stock returns as the dependent variable and past asset prices, 10-year treasury rates, opinion polls and VIX (market uncertainty) as explanatory variables with a one-year lag. The model was estimated using two sets of daily polling data: from July 1, 2015, to November 8, 2016, and from June 1, 2016, to November 8, 2016. Additional descriptive statistics, such as means and standard deviations, were also calculated. Findings: The estimated results did not reveal any statistically significant effects of opinion polls in favor of one candidate over another on stock returns. Simple statistical tests, however, show that the market performed better when Trump held a polling advantage over Clinton. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the only study that has examined the effects of the 2016 presidential election polls on the US stock market. This study adds value to the understanding of the relationship between election polls and the stock market in the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significance of research on public opinion monitoring of social network emergencies is becoming increasingly important. As a platform for users to communicate and share information online, social networks are often the source of public opinion about emergencies. Considering the relevance and transmissibility of the same event in different social networks, this paper takes the COVID-19 outbreak as the background and selects the platforms Weibo and TikTok as the research objects. In this paper, first, we use the transfer learning model to apply the knowledge obtained in the source domain of Weibo to the target domain of TikTok. From the perspective of text information, we propose an improved TC-LDA model to measure the similarity between the two domains, including temporal similarity and conceptual similarity, which effectively improves the learning effect of instance transfer and makes up for the problem of insufficient sample data in the target domain. Then, based on the results of transfer learning, we use the improved single-pass incremental clustering algorithm to discover and filter popular topics in streaming data of social networks. Finally, we build a topic knowledge graph using the Neo4j graph database and conduct experiments to predict the evolution of popular topics in new emergencies. Our research results can provide a reference for public opinion monitoring and early warning of emergencies in government departments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research has ignored the influence of fluctuation factors on online public opinion in emergencies, which has led to low prediction accuracy. This paper determines fluctuation factors through text analysis and emotional calculation; it identifies the main factors that cause the fluctuation in public opinion through the Granger causality test. Furthermore, we built a trend prediction model based on the gray prediction model and optimized it by considering the fluctuation factors of online public opinion. Optimization enhances the precision of the model and makes it more suitable to forecast trends for online public opinion. Finally, by looking at a large number of online public opinion on four kinds of typical emergencies, we verified the validity of the proposed model. In short, this paper provides a novel theoretical perspective for trend prediction of online public opinion research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was designed to (a) gather band directors' opinions of skills and characteristics important to teaching and (b) examine the relative effectiveness of electronic versus paper survey methods. Survey respondents ranked lists of music, teaching, and personal skills or characteristics in order of importance and answered open-ended items regarding advice for 1st-year teachers and the struggles and rewards of band directing. The final response rate was 66% (N = 235). Personal and teaching skills and characteristics were ranked higher than music skills.The items "maintain high musical standards," "be able to motivate students," and "enthusiastic, energetic" were the highest ranked skills or characteristics. Perseverance, patience, and long-term vision were the most common forms of advice to Ist-year teachers. Issues related to classroom management and student success were the most-often-cited struggles and rewards of band directing, respectively. An experiment comparing response rate and response quality as a function of survey method (i.e., e-survey vs. paper survey) and follow-up notification (i.e., postnote, no postnote) also was completed using a smaller subsample of respondents (n = 102). Response rates for the e-survey conditions were better than those for the paper survey conditions. Greater proportions of respondents from the paper survey conditions completed the open-ended items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates whether lobbying influence is open to the highest bidder or boosted by congruence with popular opinion. Common wisdom holds that well‐endowed organizations prevail in lobbying battles. This perception contrasts with recent observations, which point to the decisive role of public opinion. This paper unites these seemingly contrasting stances by arguing that both economic resources and congruence with public opinion are paramount for lobbying influence. What matters, we argue, is the interplay between the two. Lobby groups that already enjoy substantial economic capacities are expected to benefit most from congruence with public opinion. We test our expectations in the context of European Union policy making. We draw from a sample of 41 policy issues for which public opinion polls were conducted, an extensive content analysis of 2,085 news articles and 183 lobbyists' survey responses. We demonstrate that interest groups with more economic resources are generally more influential, but only if their policy positions are congruent with a public majority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The publicly available texts of the George W. Bush administration from September 11, 2001, to March 19, 2003, as presented in The Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, were analyzed for word frequency and the words themselves analyzed for emotional weight using the NRC Emotion Intensity Lexicon. Transcripts of six television news agencies (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX, and PBS) were also analyzed for word frequency to determine the extent to which these agencies may have repeated and consequently amplified the rhetoric of the administration. Public opinion polling for this same period was examined in an attempt to gauge the effect the government's rhetoric concerning Iraq and Saddam Hussein and the echoing of that rhetoric by television news might be having on the public's receptivity to the idea of going to war with Iraq. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common assumption in the literature is that the actual level of income inequality shapes individuals' beliefs about whether the income distribution is fair ("fairness views," for short). However, individuals do not directly observe income inequality (which often leads to large misperceptions), nor do they consider all inequities to be unfair. In this paper, we empirically assess the link between objective measures of income inequality and fairness views in a context of high but decreasing income inequality. To do this, we combine opinion poll data with harmonized data from household surveys of 18 Latin American countries from 1997–2015. We find a strong and statistically significant relationship between income inequality and unfairness views across countries and over time. Unfairness views evolved in the same direction as income inequality for 17 out of the 18 countries in our sample. We find that individuals who are older, unemployed, and left-wing are, on average, more likely to perceive the income distribution as very unfair. Finally, we find that fairness views and income inequality have predictive power for individuals' self-reported propensity to mobilize and protest independent of each other, suggesting that these two variables capture different channels through which changes in the income distribution can affect social unrest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]