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This study integrates advanced machine learning techniques, namely Artificial Neural Networks, Long Short-Term Memory, and Gated Recurrent Unit models, to forecast monkeypox outbreaks in Canada, Spain, the USA, and Portugal. The research focuses on the effectiveness of these models in predicting the spread and severity of cases using data from June 3 to December 31, 2022, and evaluates them against test data from January 1 to February 7, 2023. The study highlights the potential of neural networks in epidemiology, especially concerning recent monkeypox outbreaks. It provides a comparative analysis of the models, emphasizing their capabilities in public health strategies. The research identifies optimal model configurations and underscores the efficiency of the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm in training. The findings suggest that ANN models, particularly those with optimized Root Mean Squared Error, Mean Absolute Percentage Error, and the Coefficient of Determination values, are effective in infectious disease forecasting and can significantly enhance public health responses., Competing Interests: The author declares that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper., (Copyright: © 2024 Lulah Alnaji. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The social distancing imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the digitalisation of societies, which also influenced habits related to the consumption and dissemination of news. In this context, older individuals are often blamed for contributing to disinformation, which is associated with the echo chambers fostered by social media. Mass media, social media and personal communication tools act as mass, social or personal intermediaries when it comes to keeping up to date with the news. This paper analyses the preferred intermediaries of older online adults (aged 60 and over) for following the news and how they change over time. We analysed two waves of an online survey-based longitudinal study conducted in Canada and Spain, before Covid-19 pandemic (2016/17), and during Covid-19 (in 2020). We found that most participants exclusively use mass intermediaries or combine mass with social and personal intermediaries to keep abreast of the news. However, only 28% of respondents inform themselves exclusively through the alleged echo chambers of social and personal intermediaries. Results also show that media ecologies evolve in different directions, and, despite the forced digitalisation driven by the pandemic, digital media usage did not always increase or evolve towards newer technologies. This paper contributes to understanding the diverse intermediaries used by older adults to obtain news and how such media ecologies can contribute to contrasting different sources of information beyond the alleged echo chambers of social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although concepts such as research without borders have become more commonplace in recent decades, few studies have investigated the capabilities that global researchers require to cross both cultural and disciplinary borders. This paper explores global capabilities along with strategies and spaces that may facilitate academic researchers' acquisition and development of global research competence. The study's dataset comprises responses of 26 participants across 15 countries -- all of whom are members of a specific comparative education society -- who contributed their views via e-questionnaire. Findings indicate that research capacity building is a dynamic process and global competence calls for complex skills and conscious attitudes. Commitment to expand scientific curiosity beyond one's own culture and academic discipline appears to be a main criterion in achieving global competence. Results of this study are not meant to be prescriptive but rather exploratory and informative for a broad group of academic stakeholders.

This article delves into the issues of equity, diversity, and inclusiveness (EDI) in the engineering disciplines in Canada and Spain and presents the challenges faced by underrepresented individuals and ways to promote an inclusive and diverse environment. Two strategic lines are identified: (a) facilitating university education access to underrepresented and minority groups and (b) guiding such students during university training to set them up for successful future careers. Accordingly, this article shows how the strategies mentioned above are implemented in some selected Canadian and Spanish universities, clearly distinguishing the approach taken in the two countries. In Canada, there is a more decentralized approach to addressing EDI issues, wherein the universities devise their agendas independently. In Spain, on the other hand, there is a stronger and more direct involvement of the government to ensure a comprehensive, system-wide approach to tackling EDI issues in academia. This article helps education policymakers to devise and implement pragmatic strategies for achieving EDI and the relevant UN-defined sustainable development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to review academic papers on the experiences of binary and non-binary trans people in physical education (PE), published between January 2000 and August 2022. The selection process yielded 16 articles from Brazil, the UK, Spain, Canada, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand, and the USA. The discussion focuses on five themes for analysis: (a) school policies and control, (b) curriculum activities, (c) social environment, (d) transgendering while surviving, and (e) trans-positive experiences. The systematic review highlights the fact that heteronormativity is still present in schools and PE spaces, positioning, categorizing, and policing dissenting bodies and gender identities, which means that many trans students did not have good memories of PE classes. Many similar situations were faced by both binary and non-binary trans students, although with some notable differences. It is thus necessary to deconstruct the prevailing cis-heteronormativity during PE lessons to eradicate the discrimination that (re)produces a hostile environment for these students.

Purpose: Microteaching is a teacher training method based on microclasses (groups of four or five students) and microlessons lasting no more than 5-20 min. Since it was first explored in the late 20th century in experiments at Stanford University, microteaching has evolved at the interdisciplinary level. The purpose of this paper is to examine the networks found via an analytical bibliometric study of the scientific output related with microteaching in teacher training, through a study and examination of the Web of Science database. Design/methodology/approach: This research was conducted with the VOSviewer tool for content analysis through data mining and scientific network structure mapping by means of the normalisation technique. This technique is based on the association strength indicator, which is interpreted as a measurement of the similarity of the units of analysis. Findings: Two hundred and nine articles were thus obtained from the Web of Science database. The networks generated and the connections among the various items, co-authorship and co-citation are presented in the results, which clearly indicates that there are significant authors and institutions in the field of microteaching. The largest cluster is made up of institutions such as Australian Catholic University. The most often-cited document is by Rich and Hannafin. Allen (1968), who defines microteaching as a technique based on microclasses and microlessons, is the author most often cited and has the largest number of connections. Research limitations/implications: This research's limitations concern either aspects that lie beyond the study's possibilities or goals that have proved unattainable. The second perspective, which focuses on skill transfer, contains a lower percentage of documents and therefore has a weaker central documentary structure. Lastly, the authors have also had to bear in mind the fact that the scientific output hinges upon a highly specific realm, the appearance and/or liberalisation of digital technologies and access to those technologies in the late 20th century. Originality/value: This research shows that microteaching is a promising area of research that opens up vast possibilities in higher education teacher training for application in the realm of technologies. This paper could lead to several lines of future research, such as access to and the universal design of learning from the standpoint of different communication and pedagogical models based on microteaching.

As humanity reaches the 5.0 industrial revolution, education plays a critical role in boosting the quality of human resources. This paper reports bibliometric research on emerging TiP during 1993-2022 in the educational field to analyse its development on any level of education during the last three decades. This study employed a Scopus database. The findings are that the trend of TiP publication in educational fields has tended to increase every year during the past three decades and conference paper became the most published document type, the USA is the country which produces the most publications; "Students" being the most occurrences keyword and total link strength. The publication of the TiP is ranked to the Quartile 1, which implies that a publication with the cited performance is a publication with credibility because the publisher has a good reputation. Researchers can find the topics most relevant to other metadata sources such as Web of Science, Publish, and Perish.

Objective: Pharmacotherapeutic Follow-up is the Professional Pharmaceutical Care Service aimed at detecting Drug-Related Problems for the prevention and resolution of negative medicine outcomes. The Dader Method is considered a clear and simple tool to develop Pharmacotherapeutic Follow-up. This research aims to analyze the evolution of the international scientific production related to Pharmacotherapeutic Follow-up and the Dader Method to show the current situation of this Professional Pharmacy Assistance Service. In addition, from the data obtained, we give a critical perspective on the implementation of the Dader Method in Community Pharmacy, considering its advantages and disadvantages based on the published scientific literature. Methods: Using bibliometrics tools, indicators were obtained to analyze the international production of scientific articles on Pharmacotherapeutic Follow-up and the Dader Method during the period (1999-2022) through the Scopus database. Results: The results showed a growth in the international scientific production of publications on Pharmacotherapeutic Follow-up, obtaining 30,287 papers, placing the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Spain as the five most productive countries. The publication of 83 papers on the Dader Method places Spain with the highest number of publications, followed by other Spanish or Portuguese speaking countries, among which Brazil and Colombia have the most prominent number of published papers in Latin America. The most frequent international journal covering the topic of Pharmacotherapeutic Follow-up was the American Journal of Health-Pharmacy (12.4%), while on the Dader Method, the journal Pharmaceutical Care Spain (21.7%) is in the first position, followed by Farmacia Hospitalaria (8.4%). Conclusion: The publications on the Dader method highlighs the greater productivity of the University of Granada and the author María José Faus Dáder. The inclusion of patients in the PTF service using the Dader Method, is more frequent in the hospital context, and is based on the presence of defined chronic pathologies (mainly diabetes), polymedication or specialized care follow-up, with elderly population being the most represented in all cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]