Designing and implementing a research integrity promotion plan: Recommendations for research funders.

Various stakeholders in science have put research integrity high on their agenda. Among them, research funders are prominently placed to foster research integrity by requiring that the organizations and individual researchers they support make an explicit commitment to research integrity. Moreover, funders need to adopt appropriate research integrity practices themselves. To facilitate this, we recommend that funders develop and implement a Research Integrity Promotion Plan (RIPP). This Consensus View offers a range of examples of how funders are already promoting research integrity, distills 6 core topics that funders should cover in a RIPP, and provides guidelines on how to develop and implement a RIPP. We believe that the 6 core topics we put forward will guide funders towards strengthening research integrity policy in their organization and guide the researchers and research organizations they fund.

COVID-19 vaccine acceptance: A comparative longitudinal analysis of the association between risk perception, confidence, and the acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Following the outbreak of COVID-19, scientists rushed to develop vaccines to protect individuals and ferry the world out of the pandemic. Unfortunately, vaccine hesitancy is a major threat to the success of vaccination campaigns. Research on previous pandemics highlighted the centrality of perceived risk and confidence as core determinants of vaccine acceptance. Research on COVID-19 is less conclusive, and frequently it relies on one-country, cross-sectional data, thus making it hard to generalize results across contexts and observe these relationships over time. To bridge these gaps, in this article, we analyzed the association between perceived risk, confidence, and vaccine acceptance cross-sectionally at individual and country levels. Then, we longitudinally explored whether a within-country variation in perceived risk and confidence was correlated with a variation in vaccine acceptance. We used data from a large-scale survey of individuals in 23 countries and 19 time-points between June 2020 and March 2021 and comparative longitudinal multilevel models to estimate the associations at different levels of analysis simultaneously. Results show the existence of cross-sectional relationships at the individual and country levels but no significant associations within countries over time. This article contributes to our understanding of the roles of risk perception and confidence in COVID-19 vaccines' acceptance by underlining that these relationships might differ at diverse levels of analysis. To foster vaccine uptake, it might be important to address individual concerns and persisting contextual characteristics, but increasing levels of perceived risk and confidence might not be a sufficient strategy to increase vaccine acceptance rates.

Representations of electronic cigarettes in Chinese media.

BACKGROUND: Electronic cigarettes (E-cigarettes) have become a debated issue for tobacco control over recent years. In this study we investigate how Chinese newspapers have covered E-cigarettes over the past ten years. METHODS: The study analyses the salience, patterns and content of news articles pertaining to E-cigarettes in regional and national Chinese outlets. A total of 476 articles are examined via content analysis and supervised automatic text analysis. The manual content analysis generates a coding scheme, which is then validated and applied to machine learning. The whole research methodology demonstrates satisfying human-human and human-to-computer reliabilities. RESULTS: The study reveals that E-cigarettes have not received enough attention in terms of its salience in the media, though the amount of coverage has been growing. A large share of the articles is published around May of each year - which is when the No Tobacco Day of the WHO takes place. The results point to four major themes on E-cigarettes: nicotine/constituents/features, tobacco control/regulation, children's use of E-cigarettes, and tobacco market/industry. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, E-cigarettes have not been a topic at the top of media agenda; however, we have identified a considerable growth of coverage about the potential concerns regarding young people's adoption of E-cigarettes advocated by parents and educators.

Does a 'protective' message reduce the impact of an advergame promoting unhealthy foods to children? An experimental study in Spain and The Netherlands.

The weight of evidence points to the advertising of food affecting food consumption, especially among children. Such advertising often promotes unhealthy foods. Current policy deliberations focus on developing effective 'protective' messages to increase advertising literacy and consequent scepticism about advertising targeting children. This study examined whether incorporating a 'protective' message in an advergame promoting energy-dense snacks would reduce children's snack intake. A randomized between-subject design was conducted in the Netherlands (N = 215) and Spain (N = 382) with an advergame promoting either energy-dense snacks or nonfood products. The results showed that playing an advergame promoting energy-dense snacks increased caloric intake in both countries, irrespective of whether the 'protective' message was present or not. These results point to the limitations of 'protective' messages and advertising literacy and provide policy makers with a rationale for extending the current prohibition of food advertising to young children in the terrestrial media to online environments.

Social influence in the darknet market: The impact of product descriptions on cocaine sales.

BACKGROUND: The rise of the darknet market, supported by technologies such as the Tor Browser and cryptocurrencies, has created a secure environment in which illicit transactions can occur. However, due to the lack of government oversight in this hidden online domain, darknet markets face significant challenges in upholding social order. Hence, this study explores the social dynamics that promote social order in a darknet market, focusing on the impact of item descriptions on sales. In particular, the study examines how text contained in product listings can influence sales and contribute to social order. METHOD: To conduct this analysis, we examined 4160 cocaine listings on AlphaBay, which was active from December 2014 to July 2017 and is one of the largest darknet markets in history. Using generalised additive models (GAMs), we assessed the impact of various listing description features, including content and semantic structure, on cocaine sales. RESULTS: The results showed that sales increased by 61.6 % when listings included delivery information in their description, compared to offers that did not. In addition, the standardised sentiment score (ranging 0,1) of the product description increased positively, and estimated sales increased by 260.5 %. We also found that international shipping reduced sales by 28.3 %. Finally, we found that listings stating the product origin increased sales for all continents except Asia. CONCLUSION: The study sheds light on the characteristics of product advertising that facilitate social order within a darknet market. Listings that include delivery details in the description reduce uncertainty about a critical stage of the transaction process while using positive language increases trust. This study makes both an empirical and a theoretical contribution by demonstrating the influence of ad descriptions on sales and the intricate role of social influences in shaping market order.

Assessing the perceived effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions on SARS-Cov-2 transmission risk: an experimental study in Europe.

We conduct a large (N = 6567) online experiment to measure the features of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) that citizens of six European countries perceive to lower the risk of transmission of SARS-Cov-2 the most. We collected data in Bulgaria (n = 1069), France (n = 1108), Poland (n = 1104), Italy (n = 1087), Spain (n = 1102) and Sweden (n = 1097). Based on the features of the most widely adopted public health guidelines to reduce SARS-Cov-2 transmission (mask wearing vs not, outdoor vs indoor contact, short vs 90 min meetings, few vs many people present, and physical distancing of 1 or 2 m), we conducted a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to estimate the public's perceived risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in scenarios that presented mutually exclusive constellations of these features. Our findings indicate that participants' perception of transmission risk was most influenced by the NPI attributes of mask-wearing and outdoor meetings and the least by NPI attributes that focus on physical distancing, meeting duration, and meeting size. Differentiating by country, gender, age, cognitive style (reflective or intuitive), and perceived freight of COVID-19 moreover allowed us to identify important differences between subgroups. Our findings highlight the importance of improving health policy communication and citizens' health literacy about the design of NPIs and the transmission risk of SARS-Cov-2 and potentially future viruses.

Microblogging and nanotweets: Nanotechnology on Twitter.

The social web represents a new arena for local, national and global conversations and will play an increasing role in the public understanding of science. This paper presents an analysis of the representations of nanotechnology on Twitter, analysing over 24,000 tweets in terms of web metrics, latent semantic and sentiment analysis. Results indicate that most active users on nanotechnology are distributed according to a power law distribution and that web metric indicators suggest little conversation on the topic. In terms of content, there is a remarkable similarity with previous studies of nanotechnology's representations in other media outlets. Related to content is the sentiment analysis that indicates predominantly positively loaded words in the corpus. Negative sentiments mainly took the form of uncertainty and fear of the unknown rather than open hostility.

Worldviews and discursive construction of GMO-related risk perceptions in Turkey.

This paper analyses the discursive construction of the genetically modified organisms (GMOs) issue in the Turkish political arena following the public debate on the pending legislation on biosecurity. The study proposes an operational approach to semiotic/actor network theory (Latour) applied to public representations of a new technology within the theoretical frameworks of social representation theory and cultural theory of risks. It aims to highlight how different worldviews produce different risk discourses of GMOs in Turkey. Using cluster analysis to inductively extract evaluative categories, we use these to identify themes by human coding. Lastly, we apply formal concept analysis to link themes to actors and their worldviews, establishing their semantic networks. Formal concept analysis revealed four discourse networks reflecting nationalist, Islamist, progressive (left) and neo-liberal worldviews. Finally, these structures will be grounded back in the articles for a richer interpretive analysis.

Researchers on research integrity: a survey of European and American researchers.

BACKGROUND: Reports of questionable or detrimental research practices (QRPs) call into question the reliability of scientific evidence and the trustworthiness of research. A critical component of the research ecosystem is the organization within which research takes place. We conducted a survey to explore the attitudes and beliefs of European and American researchers about the organisations in which they work, their own research practices and their attitudes towards research integrity and research integrity policies. METHODS: We administered an online survey (International Research Integrity Survey (IRIS)) to 2,300 active researchers based in the US and 45,000 in Europe (including UK, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland).  We employed a stratified probability sample of the authors of research articles published between 2016 and 2020 included in Clarivate's Web of Science citation database. Coverage includes researchers in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and medical sciences, who hold at least a master's level degree. RESULTS: In comparison to researchers in the US, European researchers admit to more QRPs and are less confident in maintaining high research integrity (RI) standards. In the US and Europe, many researchers judge their organization to fall short of best RI practice. All researchers recognize the benefits of RI, reliable knowledge and the trust of colleagues and the public, and there is support for RI training particularly among Europeans. CONCLUSION: To create and maintain a culture of integrity in scientific research, a collective commitment from researchers, their institutions and funders is needed. Researchers rely on many channels of communication about research integrity and thus the involvement of many different participants in the research system is required to make improvements. Policies must be developed to reinforce best practice rather than being seen as an irrelevance to the real business of research.

Shared understandings of vaccine hesitancy: How perceived risk and trust in vaccination frame individuals' vaccine acceptance.

Extensive research has framed vaccine hesitancy as a property of a heterogeneous group of individuals, ranging from total acceptance to complete refusal. Nevertheless, not much research has explored this heterogeneity, mainly focusing on central tendencies of single belief-related items. Using data from an original survey on a sample of Italian citizens, this paper examines this heterogeneity, exploiting individuals' cognitive variation to map clusters of individuals who share similar cognitive schemas on vaccine uptake. The results showed the existence three groups, characterized by a different articulation of predictors of vaccine hesitancy, revealing different understandings of vaccine uptake. We then analyzed within-cluster characteristics and showed that cognitive segmentation was connected to different levels of perceived risk, confidence, and support for vaccination. We further showed that cognitive clustering also entailed a mean of social stratification that was correlated with individuals' educational levels, and that the predictors of vaccine hesitancy were articulated differently in each group. This study, adopting a recent perspective in the analysis of systems of beliefs, moves one step further in disentangling the complexity of vaccine acceptance. Results suggested the usefulness of including individuals' cognitive characteristics in vaccine hesitancy research and in the development of interventions addressed at increasing vaccine acceptance.

How should COVID-19 vaccines be distributed between the Global North and South: a discrete choice experiment in six European countries.

Background: The global distribution of COVID-19 vaccinations remains highly unequal. We examine public preferences in six European countries regarding the allocation of COVID-19 vaccines between the Global South and Global North. Methods: We conducted online discrete choice experiments with adult participants in France (n=766), Germany (n=1964), Italy (n=767), Poland (n=670), Spain (n=925), and Sweden (n=938). Respondents were asked to decide which one of two candidates should receive the vaccine first. The candidates varied on four attributes: age, mortality risk, employment, and living in a low- or high-income country. We analysed the relevance of each attribute in allocation decisions using conditional logit regressions. Results: In all six countries, respondents prioritised candidates with a high mortality and infection risk, irrespective of whether the candidate lived in the respondent's own country. All else equal, respondents in Italy, France, Spain, and Sweden gave priority to a candidate from a low-income country, whereas German respondents were significantly more likely to choose the candidate from their own country. Female, younger, and more educated respondents were more favourable to an equitable vaccine distribution. Conclusions: Given these preferences for global solidarity, European governments should promote vaccine transfers to poorer world regions. Funding: Funding was provided by the European Union's Horizon H2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 101016233 (PERISCOPE).

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in eight European countries: Prevalence, determinants, and heterogeneity.

We examine heterogeneity in COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy across eight European countries. We reveal striking differences across countries, ranging from 6.4% of adults in Spain to 61.8% in Bulgaria reporting being hesitant. We experimentally assess the effectiveness of different messages designed to reduce COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Receiving messages emphasizing either the medical benefits or the hedonistic benefits of vaccination significantly increases COVID-19 vaccination willingness in Germany, whereas highlighting privileges contingent on holding a vaccination certificate increases vaccination willingness in both Germany and the United Kingdom. No message has significant positive effects in any other country. Machine learning-based heterogeneity analyses reveal that treatment effects are smaller or even negative in settings marked by high conspiracy beliefs and low health literacy. In contrast, trust in government increases treatment effects in some groups. The heterogeneity in vaccine hesitancy and responses to different messages suggests that health authorities should avoid one-size-fits-all vaccination campaigns.

Do cognitive styles affect vaccine hesitancy? A dual-process cognitive framework for vaccine hesitancy and the role of risk perceptions.

RATIONALE: In this study, we consider cognitive differences in vaccine hesitancy and how perceived risks intervene in this relationship. Recent research agrees on the existence of two cognitive processes, intuitive and analytic cognition. Different individuals lean toward one of these processes with varying degrees of strength, influencing day-to-day behavior, perceptions, and decisions. Thinking dispositions might influence, at the same time, vaccine acceptance and perceived risks of vaccine-preventable disease, but the implications of individuals' cognitive differences for vaccination uptake have seldom been addressed from a sociological standpoint. OBJECTIVE: We bridge this gap by adopting a dual-process framework of cognition and investigate how thinking styles have a direct association with vaccine hesitancy and an indirect one through perceptions of risk. METHODS: We use data from original surveys carried out between September and November 2019 on a sample of the Italian population, participating in an online panel run by a major Italian survey company. We use Karlson, Holm, and Breen (KHB) decomposition to compare coefficients of nested-nonlinear models, separate the direct and indirect association of cognitive processes with vaccine hesitancy, and disentangle the contribution of each measure of risk perception. RESULTS: Net of individual socio-demographic characteristics, intuitive thinking is positively associated with the likelihood of being vaccine hesitant, and this direct association is as important as the indirect one through risk perceptions. Affective risk perceptions account for over half of the indirect association, underlining the centrality of affective versus probabilistic approaches to risk perception. CONCLUSION: This study contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the importance of including cognitive characteristics in vaccine hesitancy research, and empirically showing individuals' qualitatively complex perceptions of risks. Taking into account individuals' preferred cognitive style and affective concerns might be important in developing better tailored communication strategies to contain vaccine hesitancy.

Systemic Mastocytosis: Radiological Point of View.

Radiological diagnosis of systemic mastocytosis (SM) can be hard to establish. This difficulty is mainly due to the variable radiological features involving many organ systems (e.g., respiratory, cardiovascular, lympho-reticular, digestive systems, and most commonly skin), and above all, to the broad spectrum of skeletal findings. Skeletal involvement is the most common and prominent imaging feature in patients with SM and represents a prognostic factor as it may entail an aggressive course of the disease. Diagnosis, largely established by histological evaluation of a bone marrow trephine biopsy, supplemented by imaging modalities such as radiography, CT, and magnetic resonance imaging, requires a team approach between the hematologist, radiologist, and pathologist. The general radiologist needs to be familiar with the imaging findings because they may be the first to suggest the correct diagnosis. The primary purpose of this review article was to equip clinicians with pertinent radiological semiotics by presenting relevant radiological features that assist early diagnosis and selection of an effective treatment.

Restarting "Normal" Life after Covid-19 and the Lockdown: Evidence from Spain, the United Kingdom, and Italy.

In this article, we examine the expectations of the economic outlook, fear of the future, and behavioural change during the first Covid-19 wave, for three European countries (Spain, the United Kingdom, and Italy) that have been severely hit. We use a novel dataset that we collected to monitor the three countries during the crisis. As outcome variables, we used expectations (e.g., economic outlook, labour market situation, recovery), fear (e.g., scenario of new outburst, economic depression, restriction to individual rights and freedom), and behavioural change across the following dimensions: savings, cultural consumption, social capital, and risky behaviour. We provide descriptive evidence that is representative of the population of interest, and we estimate the impact of exposure to shock occurred during the crisis on the same outcome variables, using matching techniques. Our main findings are the following: we detected systematically negative expectations regarding the future and the recovery, majoritarian fears of an economic depression, a new outbreak, and a permanent restriction on freedom, a reduction in saving and in social capital. Exposure to shocks decreased expected job prospects, increased withdrawal from accumulated savings, and reduced contacts with the network relevant to job advancement, whereas it had inconclusive effects over fears. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11205-021-02697-5.

Negative shocks predict change in cognitive function and preferences: assessing the negative affect and stress hypothesis.

In the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic, households throughout the world have to cope with negative shocks. Previous research has shown that negative shocks impair cognitive function and change risk, time and social preferences. In this study, we analyze the results of a longitudinal multi-country survey conducted in Italy (N = 1652), Spain (N = 1660) and the United Kingdom (N = 1578). We measure cognitive function using the Cognitive Reflection Test and preferences traits (risk, time and social preferences) using an experimentally validated set of questions to assess the differences between people exposed to a shock compared to the rest of the sample. We measure four possible types of shocks: labor market shock, health shock, occurrence of stressful events, and mental health shock. Additionally, we randomly assign participants to groups with either a recall of negative events (more specifically, a mild reinforcement of stress or of fear/anxiety), or to a control group (to recall neutral or joyful memories), in order to assess whether or not stress and negative emotions drive a change in preferences. Results show that people affected by shocks performed worse in terms of cognitive functioning, are more risk loving, and are more prone to punish others (negative reciprocity). Data do not support the hypotheses that the result is driven by stress or by negative emotions.

Assessing concerns for the economic consequence of the COVID-19 response and mental health problems associated with economic vulnerability and negative economic shock in Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Many different countries have been under lockdown or extreme social distancing measures to control the spread of COVID-19. The potentially far-reaching side effects of these measures have not yet been fully understood. In this study we analyse the results of a multi-country survey conducted in Italy (N = 3,504), Spain (N = 3,524) and the United Kingdom (N = 3,523), with two separate analyses. In the first analysis, we examine the elicitation of citizens' concerns over the downplaying of the economic consequences of the lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. We control for Social Desirability Bias through a list experiment included in the survey. In the second analysis, we examine the data from the same survey to predict the level of stress, anxiety and depression associated with being economically vulnerable and having been affected by a negative economic shock. To accomplish this, we have used a prediction algorithm based on machine learning techniques. To quantify the size of this affected population, we compare its magnitude with the number of people affected by COVID-19 using measures of susceptibility, vulnerability and behavioural change collected in the same questionnaire. We find that the concern for the economy and for "the way out" of the lockdown is diffuse and there is evidence of minor underreporting. Additionally, we estimate that around 42.8% of the populations in the three countries are at high risk of stress, anxiety, and depression, based on their level of economic vulnerability and their exposure to a negative economic shock.

Developments in identifying and managing mucormycosis in hematologic cancer patients.

INTRODUCTION: Mucormycoses represent a rare but very aggressive class of mold infections occurring in patients with hematological malignancies (HMs). In the past, patients at high risk of invasive mucomycosis (IM) were those affected by acute myeloid leukemia but over the last ten years the prophylaxis with a very effective mold-active drug, such as posaconazole, has completely modified the epidemiology. In fact, IM is now observed more frequently in patients with lymphoproliferative disorders who do not receive antifungal prophylaxis. AREAS COVERED: The attention was focused on the epidemiology, diagnosis, prophylaxis and treatment of IM in HMs. Authors excluded pediatric patients considering the different epidemiology and differences in treatment given the limitation of the use of azoles in the pediatric field. A systematic literature review was performed using PubMed database listings between February 2014 and February 2020 using the following MeSH terms: leukemia, hematological malignancies, stem cell transplantation, mucormycosis, molds, prophilaxis, treatment. EXPERT OPINION: The epidemiology of mucormycosis in HMs is changing in the last years. The availability of drugs more effective than in the past against this infection has reduced the mortality; however, a timely diagnosis remains a relevant problem potentially influencing the outcome of hematologic patients with IM.