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Novel coronavirus respiratory disease COVID-19 has caused havoc in many countries across the globe. In order to contain infection of this highly contagious disease, most of the world population is constrained to live in a complete or partial lockdown for months together with a minimal human-to-human interaction having far reaching consequences on countries' economy and mental well-being of their citizens. Hence, there is a need for a good predictive model for the health advisory bodies and decision makers for taking calculated proactive measures to contain the pandemic and maintain a healthy economy. This paper extends the mathematical theory of the classical Susceptible-Infected-Removed (SIR) epidemic model and proposes a Generalized SIR (GSIR) model that is an integrative model encompassing multiple waves of daily reported cases. Existing growth function models of epidemic have been shown as the special cases of the GSIR model. Dynamic modeling of the parameters reflect the impact of policy decisions, social awareness, and the availability of medication during the pandemic. GSIR framework can be utilized to find a good fit or predictive model for any pandemic. The study is performed on the COVID-19 data for various countries with detailed results for India, Brazil, United States of America (USA), and World. The peak infection, total expected number of COVID-19 cases and thereof deaths, time-varying reproduction number, and various other parameters are estimated from the available data using the proposed methodology. The proposed GSIR model advances the existing theory and yields promising results for continuous predictive monitoring of COVID-19 pandemic.

To date, very few treatments have been demonstrated to reduce the burden of morbidity and mortality from COVID-19. Although corticosteroids have been proven to reduce mortality in severe disease, there has been little convincing evidence on interventions that may prevent disease, reduce hospitalizations, and reduce the numbers of people progressing to critical disease and death. Ivermectin is a well-known medicine that is approved as an antiparasitic by the World Health Organization and the US Food and Drug Administration. It is widely used in lowand middle-income countries to treat worm infections. Also used for the treatment of scabies and lice, it is one of the World Health Organization’s Essential Medicines.1 With total doses of ivermectin distributed apparently equalling one-third of the present world population,1 ivermectin at the usual doses (0.2–0.4 mg/kg) is considered extremely safe for use in humans.1 In addition to its antiparasiticactivity, it has been noted to have antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties, leading to an increasing list of therapeutic indications. South African authorities approved the use of a drug used to control parasites in humans and livestock to treat coronavirus patients. Additionally, in January 2021, the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) announced that ivermectin, would be allowedfor use on compassionate grounds in a controlled-access program. Ivermectin locally has been used for the prevention and/or management of Covid-19 infection. This has resulted in a huge black market trade of ivermectin in South Africa as many health professionals and others have taken to social media and other platforms to profile this drug as an effective treatment for the covid-19 viral infection. Roman and colleagues (2021)1 conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate treatment effects of Ivermectin (IVM) on clinical outcomes and adverse events (AEs) in people with COVID-19.

Two-thirds of the world population do not have access to safe, affordable and timely surgery. This global surgical crisis largely affects low and middle-income countries, and it will surpass the challenges created by communicable diseases. The barriers of access to surgery range from cost of surgery and patient transportation to availability and quality of surgical infrastructure and providers. Mercy Ships is a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) providing free world-class life-saving and life-transforming surgery to the poorest of the poor in West Africa. In order to address barriers to access surgical assessment and care, Mercy Ships switched from centralised patient selection mainly in port cities or capitals to decentralised selection strategy staffed by experienced nursing teams travelling to remote locations nearer to patients' homes. In this way, the under-served rural population is given equal opportunity to access Mercy Ships’ free specialised surgical services. In each country served by the Mercy Ships, a 5 year country engagement program is created to focus on improving the quality of life for people living with disease, disfigurement and disability through free direct medical service to reduce the burden of unmet surgical needs. Moreover, our Medical Capacity Building teams concentrate in improving infrastructure and quality control, equipment donation and maintenance. Lastly, Mercy Ships partner with government and policy makers to improve and strengthen their local surgical care delivery system as an indispensable part of the healthcare system. In this vast sea of global surgical crisis, the vision of the Mercy Ships is to eradicate the ‘disease of poverty’ and effectively do itself out of a job. Mercy Ships' new and the world's largest (37,000 ton) purpose-built hospital ship, the Global Mercy, is joining our current ship, the Africa Mercy (16,500 ton) to save lives and to strengthen local surgical care service. This will more than double our capacity and impact in sub-Saharan Africa following COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover our state-of-art on-board simulation laboratories and traditional practical training of local healthcare providers will further enhance and build their medical capacity. The Global Mercy will become the largest floating and training platform to train next generation African medical and health care professionals so that they can save countless lives by training others in the future. We therefore invite you to partner with us in bringing hope and healing to the forgotten poor in West Africa.

Aims: To review the patterns of early-onset (

The concept of smart cities is driven by the need to enhance citizens' quality of life. It is estimated that 70% of the world population will live in urban areas by 2050. The electric grid is the energy backbone of smart city deployments. An electric energy system immune to adverse events, both cyber and physical risks, and able to support the integration of renewable sources will drive a transformational development approach for future smart cities. This article describes how the future electric energy system with 100% electricity supply from renewable energy sources requires the “birth of security and resiliency” incorporated with its ecosystem.

The Anthropocene can be read as being the era when the demand humanity makes on the biosphere’s goods and services—humanity’s ‘ecological footprint’—vastly exceeds its ability to supply it on a sustainable basis. Because the ‘ecological’ gap is met by a diminution of the biosphere, the inequality is increasing. We deploy estimates of the ecological gap, global GDP and its growth rates in recent years, and the rate at which natural capital has declined, to study three questions: (1) at what rate must efficiency at which Nature’s services are converted into GDP rise if the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals for year 2030 are to be sustainable; (2) what would a sustainable figure for world population be if global living standard is to be maintained at an acceptably high level? (3) What living standard could we aspire to if world population was to attain the UN’s near lower-end projection for 2100 of 9 billion? While we take a global perspective, the reasoning we deploy may also be applied on a smaller scale. The base year we adopt for our computations is the pre-pandemic 2019.

Population forecasts are used by governments and the private sector for planning, with horizons up to about three generations (around 2100) for different purposes. The traditional methods are deterministic using scenarios, but probabilistic forecasts are desired to get an idea of accuracy, assess changes, and make decisions involving risks. In a significant breakthrough, since 2015, the United Nations has issued probabilistic population forecasts for all countries using a Bayesian methodology that we review here. Assessment of the social cost of carbon relies on long-term forecasts of carbon emissions, which in turn depend on even longer-range population and economic forecasts, to 2300. We extend the UN method to very-long range population forecasts by combining the statistical approach with expert review and elicitation. While the world population is projected to grow for the rest of this century, it will likely stabilize in the 22nd century and decline in the 23rd century.

Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic from China in 2019, it has left the world leaders in great confusing due to its fast-paced propagation and spread that has left infected a world population of over Eleven Million persons with over five hundred and thirty four thousand deaths and counting with the United States of America, Brazil, Russia, India and Peru in the lead on these death toll. The pandemic whose increased mortality rate is targeted at ‘aged’ citizens, patients with low immunology as well as patients with chronic diseases and underlying health conditions. Study models covid-19 pandemic via a susceptible-infect-remove actor-based graph, with covid-19 virus as the innovation diffused within the social graph. We measure the rich connective patterns of the actor-based graph, and explore personal feats as they influence other nodes to adopt or reject an innovation. Results shows current triggers (lifting of inter-intra state migration bans) and shocks (exposure to covid-19 by migrants) will lead to late widespread majority adoption of 23.8-percent. At this, the death toll will climb from between 4.43-to-5.61-percent to over 12%.

As of September 2021, 117 COVID-19 vaccines are in clinical development, and 194 are in preclinical development as per the World Health Organization (WHO) published draft landscape. Among the 117 vaccines undergoing clinical trials, the major platforms include protein subunit; RNA; inactivated virus; viral vector, among others. So far, USFDA recognized to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech (Comirnaty) COVID-19 vaccine for its full use in individuals of 16 years of age and older. Though the approved vaccines are being manufactured at a tremendous pace, the wealthiest countries have about 28% of total vaccines despite possessing only 10.8% of the total world population, suggesting an inequity of vaccine distribution. The review comprehensively summarizes the history of vaccines, mainly focusing on vaccines for SARS-CoV-2. The review also connects relevant topics, including measurement of vaccines efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, associated challenges, and limitations, as hurdles in global vaccination are also kept forth.

Despite the numerous strides that have been made towards ensuring food security since the launch of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the gap between the rich and poor across and within countries is still worryingly too large. Around 57.7% of the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) population is food insecure compared to 26.4% of the world population. It is therefore necessary to make concerted efforts to improve food security in Sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the developing world particularly among the poorest and most vulnerable groups. This paper employs propensity score matching analysis to explore gender heterogeneity in the impact of bonding and bridging social capital on household food security on the basis of a nationally representative sample of Zimbabwean households. It offers five major findings. First, female headed households are more likely to have bonding social capital than their male counterparts. Second, there are no gender differences in the household’s ability to possess bridging social capital. Third, household spatial proximity to households with social capital improves the probability of the household possessing social capital. Fourth, both bonding and bridging social capital improves household food security. Finally, female headed households are more able to increase food security than those headed by males when they have both bonding and bridging social capital. The study argues that coping strategies should target putting the family at the core of inclusive development agendas such as food and nutrition assistance programmes in order to maximise the likelihood of easing food insecurity within communities.

It is a grand challenge to ensure the food security for a predicted world population of exceeding 9.7 billion by 2050, especially in an era of global climate change, land degradation and biodiversity loss. Current agricultural productions are mainly relying on synthetic chemical fertilisers to boost plant productivity but have undesirable effects on the environment and soil biodiversity. A promising direction in sustainable agriculture is to harness naturally occurring processes of beneficial plant-associated microbiomes to ensure sustained crop production and global food security. Despite the significant progress made in the development of beneficial microbes as inoculants to enhance plant performance, challenges remain with the translation of knowledge of plant and soil microbiomes to successful microbial products in the agricultural sector. Here, we highlight how fertilizer technology should be renovated by harnessing microbiome-based innovations to promote plant productivity and contribute to the end of hunger.

In times of crisis, humans have a tendency to turn to religion for comfort and explanation. The COVID-19 pandemic is no exception. Using daily and weekly data on Google searches for 107 countries, this research demonstrates that the COVID-19 crisis resulted in a massive rise in the intensity of prayer. During the early months of the pandemic, Google searches for prayer relative to all Google searches rose by 30%, reaching the highest level ever recorded. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that by April 1, 2020, more than half of the world population had prayed to end the coronavirus. Prayer searches remained 10% higher than previously throughout 2020, particularly so in Europe and the Americas. Prayer searches rose more among the more religious, rose on all continents, at all levels of income, inequality, and insecurity, and for all types of religion, except Buddhism. The increase is not merely a substitute for services in the physical churches that closed down to limit the spread of the virus. Instead, the rise is due to an intensified demand for religion: People pray to cope with adversity. The results thus reveal that religiosity has risen globally due to the pandemic with potential direct long-term consequences for various socio-economic outcomes.

The world population is tremendously growing and is putting a lot of pressure on our finite resources. Sustainable development is a crucial part of each new worldwide plan; the world has been attempting to set up a more sustainable way and different objectives and targets have been set to accomplish this. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set norms not only for emerging and agricultural nations, yet additionally for the industrialized countries. Therefore, it is essential to strengthen SDG synergies and reduce compromises across boundaries to achieve the SDGs everywhere. Sustainable development pursues human well-being without expanding ecological limits. It is assumed that the purpose for which sustainable development is enthusiastically defined at the global level must be within the limits of the earth. The research into the causal relationship between human development and SDGs and is achieved in an unsustainable way. There is a need to reorient existing patterns of human development within the capabilities of the Earth's ecosystem, as the SDGs achieved cannot be ecologically justified.

Agribusinesses are investing in different forms of AI robots, as there is a lot of hope that these machines will help meet the challenges within the agricultural industry, which is to efficiently produce more food for a growing world population. AI robots are expected to enhance production, while compensating for lack of manpower, reducing production costs, taking over unattractive (risky, heavy, and dirty) jobs and reducing the burden of food production on the environment. In spite of these promises, however, AI robots for agri-food also give rise to ethical questions and concerns, which have been little researched and discussed until now. To fill this gap, we developed a research agenda for future research in this area. To do this, we opened our analysis to focus on ethics AI robots generally to specifically identify which of these issues are most relevant to agro-robots. The question we want to find an answer to is: what are the most relevant ethical questions raised about AI robots for robots developed for the agri-food sector? And which questions are not mentioned in the literature, which are particularly relevant for agro-robots? Our paper will provide an overview over the key issues and areas which deserve further elaboration to come to a more mature ethics of AI agro-robots.

Conventional agriculture solely depends upon highly chemical compounds that have negatively ill-affected the health of every living being and the entire ecosystem. Thus, the smart delivery of desired components in a sustainable manner to crop plants is the primary need to maintain soil health in the upcoming years. The premature loss of growth-promoting ingredients and their extended degradation in the soil increases the demand for reliable novel techniques. In this regard, nanotechnology has offered to revolutionize the agrotechnological area that has the imminent potential over conventional agriculture and helps to reform resilient cropping systems withholding prominent food security for the ever-growing world population. Further, in-depth investigation on plant-nanoparticles interactions creates new avenues toward crop improvement via enhanced crop yield, disease resistance, and efficient nutrient utilization. The incorporation of nanomaterial with smart agrochemical activities and establishing a new framework relevant to enhance efficacy ultimately help to address the social acceptance, potential hazards, and management issues in the future. Here, we highlight the role of nanomaterial or nanocomposite as a sustainable as well stable alternative in crop protection and production. Additionally, the information on the controlled released system, role in interaction with soil and microbiome, the promising role of nanocomposite as nanopesticide, nanoherbicide, nanofertilizer, and their limitations in agrochemical activities are discussed in the present review.

Now a days, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in December 2020 states that Breast cancer is the number one common cancer around the world and it has surpassed lung cancer occurrence. WHO and IARC in 2020 have decided to join hands in eradicating or minimising deaths caused due to breast cancer by creating an awareness of breast health, early diagnosis and providing quality care to everyone in need. The occurrence of cancer has not gone down but doubled in the last 20 years. It was estimated to be 10 million in 2000 but has raised to an alarming 19.3 million in 2020. Currently it is projected that 20% of the world population will develop cancer. It is an utmost significant fact that Breast among other cancers can be cured if detected well in advance. The present study aimed to analyse the awareness about self- examination to find out the breast cancer among the female. The participants were patients and their relatives in a government hospital (n=100). Only, 24% of them had showed adequate knowledge on self-examination and 51% having known about it but, not on practicing. The remaining, 25% of even did not know about such a method. This study showed that the important of creating awareness among women, especially, on the illiterates.

La presente revisión ha tenido como objetivo: analizar la publicación de artículos originales de investigación descriptiva que tengan similitud acerca de evidencias de estrategias de gestión socioeconómicas que hayan conllevado al desarrollo económico sostenible y rentable derivado de la agroindustria de palma aceitera, ejerciendo una discusión crítica a las conclusiones. La metodología ha consistido en seleccionar 05 artículos acerca de una o las dos variables: estrategias de gestión socioeconómicas y desarrollo económico sostenible y rentable derivado de la agroindustria de palma aceitera. Entiéndase, que las estrategias de gestión socioeconómica subyacen en la producción de aceites y derivados. En ese tenor, el 2014 la producción alcanzó 200 millones de toneladas y la palma aceitera aportó 33 % del total mundial. Asia aportó 52,8 %, América 23,2 % y Europa 19 %. Actualmente en el mundo existen dos grandes modelos de producción de palma aceitera: A. Grandes plantaciones conducidas por empresas transnacionales: Shin Yang, Nestle, Marks & Spencer’s & General Mills, etcétera; y, B. El cultivo desplegado por pequeños productores. Muchas veces se presentan casos de modelos de combinación en los que funciona la colaboración entre pequeñas y grandes empresas. Se estima que el 2050 la población mundial alcanzará 9.100 millones de habitantes, convirtién­dose la demanda alimenticia en un factor deci­sivo para la sostenibilidad humana. En ese escenario, la agroindustria de palma de aceite y derivados resulta crucial para el desarrollo económico y sustentable de sus productores. Abundan críticas, pero la agroindustria de palma aceitera es una oportunidad para el desarrollo económico sostenible y rentable. No obstante, tiene que superarse los impactos ambientales negativos relacionados a tala de bosques, uso de suelos y todo daño irreversible a la biodiversidad, particularmente en la Amazonía. Paralelamente, se debe contrarrestar la corrupción de funcionarios, la violación de los derechos humanos y el despojo de tierras.

Dieser Essay beschäftigt sich in zwei Teilen mit der Entwicklung der humanen Weltbevölkerung. Diese Entwicklung ist nicht ausschließlich positiv zu beurteilen und hat in ihren Auswirkungen auf den Planeten ein Ausmaß erreicht, das diesen in seiner Funktionalität gefährdet. Teil 1 identifizierte zentrale Grenzen und Herausforderungen, denen die Menschheit gegenübersteht. Teil 2 zeigt mögliche Lösungsansätze auf.

Summary Soybean is one of the most important oilseed and fodder crops. Benefiting from the efforts of soybean breeders and the development of breeding technology, large number of germplasm has been generated over the last 100 years. Nevertheless, soybean breeding needs to be accelerated to meet the needs of a growing world population, to promote sustainable agriculture and to address future environmental changes. The acceleration is highly reliant on the discoveries in gene functional studies. The release of the reference soybean genome in 2010 has significantly facilitated the advance in soybean functional genomics. Here, we review the research progress in soybean omics (genomics, transcriptomics, epigenomics and proteomics), germplasm development (germplasm resources and databases), gene discovery (genes that are responsible for important soybean traits including yield, flowering and maturity, seed quality, stress resistance, nodulation and domestication) and transformation technology during the past decade. At the end, we also briefly discuss current challenges and future directions.

With coronavirus disease 2019, the risk of death has increased in the general population. In these unprecedented times and even otherwise, it is important for the health care professionals caring for Hindu patients to be aware of the end of life practices in Hinduism. There is limited information in the medical literature about traditions and practices followed in Hinduism which is observed by 15% of the world population. Hinduism is currently the third largest religion following Christianity and Islam. Based on Hindu beliefs about life, death, and reincarnation, we propose 10 end of life best practices for Hindu patients.

The death of a child affects the well-being of parents and families worldwide, but little is known about the scale of this phenomenon. Using a novel methodology from formal demography applied to data from the 2019 Revision of the United Nations World Population Prospects, we provide the first global overview of parental bereavement, its magnitude, prevalence, and distribution over age for the 1950–2000 annual birth cohorts of women. We project that the global burden of parental bereavement will be 1.6 times lower for women born in 2000 than for women born in 1955. Accounting for compositional effects, we anticipate the largest improvements in regions of the Global South, where offspring mortality continues to be a common life event. This study quantifies an unprecedented shift in the timing of parental bereavement from reproductive to retirement ages. Women in the 1985 cohort and subsequent cohorts will be more likely to lose an adult child after age 65 than to lose a young child before age 50, reversing a long-standing global trend. “Child death” will increasingly come to mean the death of adult offspring. We project persisting regional inequalities in offspring mortality and in the availability of children in later life, a particular concern for parents dependent on support from their children after retirement. Nevertheless, our analyses suggest a progressive narrowing of the historical gap between the Global North and South in the near future. These developments have profound implications for demographic theory and highlight the need for policies to support bereaved older parents.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has embodied the recent technology in the food industry over the past few decades due to the rising of food demands in line with the increasing of the world population. The capability of the said intelligent systems in various tasks such as food quality determination, control tools, classification of food, and prediction purposes has intensified their demand in the food industry. Therefore, this paper reviews those diverse applications in comparing their advantages, limitations, and formulations as a guideline for selecting the most appropriate methods in enhancing future AI- and food industry–related developments. Furthermore, the integration of this system with other devices such as electronic nose, electronic tongue, computer vision system, and near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) is also emphasized, all of which will benefit both the industry players and consumers.

La pandemia por Covid-19 ha afectado a toda la población a nivel, mundial, siendo las personas mayores uno de los colectivos vulnerables en esta situación. En España el 54,59% de la población es mayor de 65 años y de este porcentaje el 30,19% son personas dependientes. Detrás de estas relevantes cifras es importante tener en cuenta que por cada persona en esta situación hay al menos un cuidador informal además de los cuidados formales que recibe. En un año donde las personas mayores dependientes han tenido que pasar la mayor parte del tiempo confinadas y apartadas de sus actividades, familias y lazos sociales, es decir, todo aquello que para la persona es significativo en su vida, el cuidador informal ha tenido que asumir no solo los cuidados que anteriormente realizaba, sino una gestión emocional y terapéutica por la falta de los anteriores recursos. Debido a Covid-19 el cuidador informal se ha visto desbordado a nivel emocional por la situación vivida respecto a los cuidados de su familiar. El propósito de este trabajo es la elaboración de un programa de intervención para respuesta a las necesidades no cubiertas a nivel psicosocial de los cuidadores informales de personas mayores o en situación de dependencia durante este año de pandemia. Ofreciendo una herramienta para validar la importancia de su trabajo y el cuidado de las personas dependientes, además de dotar de estrategias y habilidades de gestión emocional. Trabajando el empoderamiento, la aceptación y orientación en valores. Con esta herramienta que se ofrece a los cuidadores informales se pretende mejorar la calidad de vida del cuidador y por ende de la persona mayor o en situación de dependencia.

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative, launched in 1988 with anticipated completion by 2000, has yet to reach its ultimate goal. The recent surge of polio cases urgently calls for a reassessment of the programme's current strategy and a new design for the way forward. We propose that the sustainable protection of the world population against paralytic polio cannot be achieved simply by stopping the circulation of poliovirus but must also include maintaining high rates of population immunity indefinitely, which can be created and maintained by implementing global immunisation programmes with improved poliovirus vaccines that create comprehensive immunity without spawning new virulent viruses. The proposed new strategic goal of eradicating the disease rather than the virus would lead to a sustainable eradication of poliomyelitis while simultaneously promoting immunisation against other vaccine-preventable diseases.

Aim This paper examines aspects of pandemic policy responses to the COVID‐19 and SARS‐CoV‐2 variants and presents an integrated view of the consequences of response tactics at national and health service levels for older adults. Background Nurses are positioned at the intersection of health service and policy implementation; therefore, their influence on clinical protocols and health policy directions post pandemic is crucial to preventing further premature deaths in the 65+ years age group and others. Sources of evidence Perspectives presented here are based on a critical evaluation of the many published reports, comments, research and insights concerning the pandemic. That evidence, combined with my experience in various fields of study and professional service, enables me to envisage what some decisions and policies may mean for older people, nurses and societies worldwide. Discussion Established information on world population patterns and the location and health of national groups has been made less reliable by population shifts caused by years of geo‐political conflicts and now the impact of the pandemic. Added to this already chaotic context, the pandemic has further disrupted societies, health services and economies. Ageist responses by these systems have further disadvantaged older people and generated trust deficits that need to be resolved. Conclusion When the pandemic recedes, policy and management decisions taken by governments and hospital administrators will be a telling indicator of whether the established systematic ageism exposed during the pandemic will continue to compromise the health and longevity of older adults. Implications for nursing, health and social policy The ascendency of nursing influence within the health and social policy environment must be further strengthened to enable nurses to champion equity and fairness in the pandemic recovery effort.

Vaccine nationalism is an obstacle to combating the global COVID-19 pandemic. Since the production of COVID-19 vaccines is still insufficient to meet the needs of the world population, developed countries primarily purchase them for their populations. The protection of intellectual property rights is another obstacle to the acceleration and widespread use of vaccine production. In order to overcome this obstacle, India and South Africa filed a waiver request before the World Trade Organization (WTO). This request aims to obtain official permission for the otherwise breach of the WTO Agreements provisions protecting intellectual property rights until the pandemic is over. The waiver request has become a topic of differing analysis. Some say the waiver request is unnecessary as the existing provisions of the GATT and TRIPS Agreements sufficiently serve the same purpose. In this article, the waiver request is considered critical and necessary. The provisions of the WTO Agreements that allow recourse to the national security exceptions or compulsory licensing were analyzed to evaluate whether or not they would be an alternative to a waiver decision. They concluded that resorting to these already existing procedures in the WTO Agreements would likely bring about further trade disputes and, therefore, a waiver decision is preferable. Finally, this article addresses the issue of quantity restrictions in the international trade of vaccines.

Se presenta los aspectos más resaltantes de la publicación de tres libros, la Primavera silenciosa por Rachel Louise Carson, publicado en 1962; Antes que la Naturaleza muera escrito por Jean Dorst, publicado en 1965, y Nuestro futuro robado escrito por Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski y John Peterson Myers, publicado en 1996, los cuales basados en evidencias científicas causaron un gran impacto en la población mundial, debido a que llamaron la atención acerca de la destrucción de la naturaleza, la pérdida de especies de animales y plantas, del uso discriminado de pesticidas como el DDT y de sustancias químicas que se comportan como disruptores que alteran el sistema endocrino de los organismos. Ponen en evidencia la importancia de los temas sociales y ecológicos y reconoce la necesidad de una reflexión desde la bioética y la educación ambiental, que forman parte del mismo discurso que relaciona lo científico y lo humano. Y de cómo estos libros de algún modo han influenciado en una serie de procesos y mecanismos y acuerdos que se han concretado para proteger al planeta, los hábitats y las especies.

Environment, food, and disease have a selective force on the present and future as well as our genome. Adaptation of livestock and the environmental nexus, including forest encroachment for anthropological needs, has been proven to cause emerging infectious diseases. Further, these demand changes in meat production and market systems. Meat is a reliable source of protein, with a majority of the world population consumes meat. To meet the increasing demands of meat production as well as address issues, such as current environmental pollution, animal welfare, and outbreaks, cellular agriculture has emerged as one of the next industrial revolutions. Lab grown meat or cell cultured meat is a promising way to pursue this; however, it still needs to resemble traditional meat and be assured safety for human consumption. Further, to mimic the palatability of traditional meat, the process of cultured meat production starts from skeletal muscle progenitor cells isolated from animals that proliferate and differentiate into skeletal muscle using cell culture techniques. Due to several lacunae in the current approaches, production of muscle replicas is not possible yet. Our review shows that constant research in this field will resolve the existing constraints and enable successful cultured meat production in the near future. Therefore, production of cultured meat is a better solution that looks after environmental issues, spread of outbreaks, antibiotic resistance through the zoonotic spread, food and economic crises.

Dieser Essay beschaftigt sich in zwei Teilen mit der Entwicklung der humanen Weltbevolkerung. Diese Entwicklung ist nicht ausschlieslich positiv zu beurteilen und hat in ihren Auswirkungen auf den Planeten ein Ausmas erreicht, das diesen in seiner Funktionalitat gefahrdet. Teil 1 befasst sich mit der Identifikation der zentralen Grenzen und Herausforderungen, denen die Menschheit gegenubersteht. Teil 2 wird mogliche Losungsansatze aufzeigen.

World population has almost doubled during the last century increasing dramatically the need for food to support the population over 7 billion persons. Precision agriculture is a type of innovative agriculture, based on new technologies, which aims to streamline the agricultural process. Parameters such as temperature, humidity, soil characteristics, and nutrients all play a role in plant development. Numerous sensors are available to measure the environmental factors and depending on datum, the devices monitor and control the parameter changes for each crop. Some existing technologies are more complex and very complicated for farmers to implement. The main goal of this project is to produce precision agriculture-based grid with high performance and low energy consumption.

BACKGROUNDPopulation aging proceeds with other socioeconomic developments, including educational expansion. Improvements in educational attainment lead to changes in demographic behaviors such as assortative mating, fertility, and the intergenerational transmission of education, which change the health of the elderly and the education of their offspring generation.OBJECTIVEWe examine such a jointly-changing process in South Korea.METHODSWe apply a recursive demographic model (Mare and Maralani 2006) by using the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing (KLoSA).RESULTSFirst, improvements in education lead to improvements in health among the elderly. Intermediate demographic factors make positive contributions to this improvement. Second, improvements in education lead to a decline in the ratios of offspring to the elderly because better-educated people have fewer children. However, this decrease is not substantial. Third, improvements in education increase the ratio of college-educated offspring to the unhealthy elderly because of improvements in both offspring's education and elderly health.CONCLUSIONThe results suggest that improvements in education change configurations of the elderly and their offspring's generations, mitigating the negative consequences of population aging, such as increasing burdens of elderly support.(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)1. Introduction: Alternative ways to measure population agingPopulation aging is a worldwide phenomenon, with the median age of the world population forecast to rise to 38.1 years in 2050 from 26.7 years in 2000 (Goldstein 2009). Population aging has important socioeconomic consequences because the age structure of a population determines the ratio of net producers to net consumers in a population. Hence, most industrialized countries are concerned about negative consequences of population aging and have attempted to develop pronatal policies that balance the population's age structure (Kalwij 2010; McDonald 2002). Population aging, however, also occurs in tandem with other socioeconomic changes such as educational expansion and improvements in health, which may mitigate the consequences of rising dependency ratios. Skirbekk, Loichinger, and Weber (2012) proposed a new measure of population aging-the cognition-adjusted dependency ratio (CADR)-and showed that the ranking for degree of population aging depends upon the measures: whereas India has fewer elderly people per working-aging individual than the U.S., the U.S. has fewer cognitively-limited elderly people per working-age individual than India. There is also evidence that increasing human capital per capita may offset the loss of total economic product due to fertility decline in a population level (Lee and Mason 2010) and the cost of supporting an elderly population may be reduced as the health of the elderly has continued to improve over decades (Martin, Schoeni, and Andreski 2010). In other words, -population aging is intrinsic to the processes that bring us a highly-educated population and comfortable standards of living" (Lee and Mason 2010: 179). In this study, we examine changing joint configuration of the elderly and their offspring in terms of health and educational attainment by applying a demographic model.Accounting for the changing configurations of the elderly and the offspring generation is important in population aging. This has been largely overlooked, however, in previous research. Earlier studies found that the better-educated enjoy better health and survival chances in later life than do the less educated (e.g., Cutler and Lleras- Muney 2008; Elo and Preston 1996). Based on this positive educational gradient in health and survival chances, recent studies have used educational attainment in projecting the size of the elderly population in the future (Batljan, Lagergren, and Thorslund 2009; Batljan and Thorslund 2009; Joung et al. …

The ongoing explosion of the world population is a fundamental driver of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the lack of progress in many Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. However, politicians and policymakers at both national and supra-national levels widely ignore this explosive population growth. This essay outlines the key challenges in developing public policies that explicitly address the need to contain global population growth—that is, to turn the exponential growth curve into a more incremental one. This is a highly sensitive topic on any political agenda, also due to its ethical and legal dimensions. But its sheer complexity and political sensitivity are not good reasons to avoid discussing it altogether.

The continent of Asia is of vital importance as overall 40 countries, with two densely populated countries India and China are been in it. In this region China and Pakistan share mutual friendly relations. The revival of the ancient silk road, reckoned to established cross-continental communication and trade infrastructure, which offer China with an unprecedented Geopolitical advantage in the future. China has utilized capitalist ambition for its emergence as the new superpower and requires further consolidation of global capital to sustain its status. The (BRI) Belt and Road Initiative of China, is estimated USD 8 trillion involving 70 countries which combined represent 60% of the world population and 40% off the global GDP, which offers tremendous prospects for global growth. The intervention of globalization has though blurred cultural, socio-economic and political norms and divides eventually reshaping their distinct peculiarities around the world. These changes have also reorganized the Geostrategic configurations through borderless transactions coupled with Economic Diplomacy. This article argues that now China’s cultural and Economic Diplomacy could play a pivotal role in mobilizing countries, especially Pakistan circumventing conspiracy theorism vis a vis protecting its assets and investments. And the economic supremacy tactics been carried by China.

COVID-19, which has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation, has become a public health emergency across the globe. It is a highly contagious disease, which elicits high levels of fear amongst the world population and is considered a threat to the world economy. As a response to this pandemic, international governments have devised unconventional measures to guard the health of their citizenry. Among these are the “new normal” country lockdown that mandates working from home, home-schooling of children, and physical/social distancing from friends and family. For the majority, this has resulted in momentary job loss and loneliness, and other psychological illnesses. Hence millions are frightened, depressed and panic easily as a result of the tension due to the uncertainty, which interferes with their job performance, livelihoods, international trade and the world economy. If not mitigated, this is likely to cause physical health deterioration, with severe mental illness being the outcome. To reduce mental health illnesses during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, evidence suggests prioritising regular participation in physical activity and exercise across lifespan. It is also important for medical experts who specialise in the care and management of mental health to recognise physical activity and exercise as a medicine that can ameliorate some mental illnesses and their associated risk factors. © 2021 Onagbiye et al.

Riassunto Il testo descrive gli aspetti salienti dell’attuale congiuntura mondiale. Attraverso una sintetica analisi del processo che ha portato al trionfo del liberismo globalizzato, si mostra come a cominciare dal 1990 la guerra alle migrazioni si inscriva in una vera e propria tanatopolitica (il lasciar morire). Infatti, i dominanti designano le migrazioni come il nemico del XXI° secolo perché temono che l’aumento della popolazione mondiale sia incontrollabile e che si sovrapponga ai cambiamenti climatici provocando - secondo loro - destabilizzanti invasioni di migranti nei paesi ricchi. In realtà temono che si imponga la necessità di una redistribuzione egualitaria della ricchezza mondiale che potrebbe permettere la sopravvivenza decente anche di oltre 10 miliardi di umani a condizione anche di eliminare tutte le fonti di distruzione del pianeta e innanzitutto l’estrattivismo di carbone, petroli, gas, uranio e terre rare. Abstract The text describes the salient aspects of the current world situation. Through a synthetic analysis of the process that led to the triumph of globalized liberalism, it is shown how starting in 1990 the war on migration is inscribed in a real thanatopolitics (letting die). In fact, the dominant people designate migration as the enemy of the 21st century because they fear that the increase in the world population is uncontrollable and that it overlaps with climate change causing - according to them - destabilizing invasions of migrants in rich countries. In reality, they fear that there is a need for an egalitarian redistribution of world wealth that could allow the decent survival of over 10 billion humans also on the condition of eliminating all sources of destruction on the planet and above all gas, uranium and rare earths.

Purpose To compare metastasis-related mortality, local treatment failure, and globe salvage after retinoblastoma in countries with different national income levels. Design International, multicenter, registry-based retrospective case series. Participants Two thousand one hundred ninety patients, 18 ophthalmic oncology centers, and 13 countries on 6 continents. Methods Multicenter registry-based data were pooled from retinoblastoma patients enrolled between January 2001 and December 2013. Adequate data to allow American Joint Committee on Cancer staging, eighth edition, and analysis for the main outcome measures were available for 2085 patients. Each country was classified by national income level, as defined by the 2017 United Nations World Population Prospects, and included high-income countries (HICs), upper middle-income countries (UMICs), and lower middle-income countries (LMICs). Patient survival was estimated with the Kaplan-Meier method. Logistic and Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to determine associations between national income and treatment outcomes. Main Outcome Measures Metastasis-related mortality and local treatment failure (defined as use of secondary enucleation or external beam radiation therapy). Results Most (60%) study patients resided in UMICs and LMICs. The global median age at diagnosis was 17.0 months and higher in UMICs (20.0 months) and LMICs (20.0 months) than HICs (14.0 months; P Conclusions This international, multicenter, registry-based analysis of retinoblastoma management revealed that lower national income levels were associated with significantly higher rates of metastasis-related mortality, local treatment failure, and lower globe salvage.

A growing world population with increasing levels of food consumption will lead to more dairy and swine production and increasing amount of manure that requires treatment. Discharge of excessive nutrients and carbon in untreated animal manure can lead to greenhouse gas emissions and eutrophication concerns, and treatment efforts can be expensive for small scale farmers in marginalized communities. The overall goal of this study was to determine the environmental and economic sustainability of four animal manure management scenarios in Costa Rica: (1) no treatment, (2) biodigesters, (3) biodigesters and struvite precipitation, and (4) biodigesters, struvite precipitation, and lagoons. Life cycle assessment was used to assess the carbon footprint and eutrophication potential, whereas life cycle cost analysis was used to evaluate the equivalent uniform annual worth over the construction and operation and maintenance life stages. Recovery of biogas as a cooking fuel and recovery of nutrients from the struvite reactor reduced the carbon footprint, leading to carbon offsets of up to 2,500 kg CO2 eq/year. Offsets were primarily due to avoiding methane emissions during energy recovery. Eutrophication potential decreased as resource recovery processes were integrated, primarily due to improved removal of phosphorus in effluent waters. Resource recovery efforts led to equivalent uniform annual benefits of $825 to $1,056/year, which could provide a helpful revenue source for lower-income farmers. This research can provide clarity on how small-scale farmers in marginalized settings can utilize resource recovery technologies to better manage animal manure, while improving economic and environmental sustainability outcomes.

Countries increasingly compete to attract and retain human capital. However, empirical studies, particularly those of migrants moving back to developing countries, have been limited due to the lack of education-specific migration flow data. Drawing on census microdata from IPUMS, we derive flow data by level of education and age group to quantify the level of return migration and examine the educational and age profile of return migrants for a global sample of 60 countries representing 70% of the world population. We show that return migrants account for a significant share of in-migration flows, particularly in Africa and Latin America, and, in all countries but six, return migrants are more educated than the population in the migrants’ country of birth. Our age decomposition reveals that young adults contribute the most to the positive educational selectivity of return migrants, particularly in Africa and Asia. While this paper does not quantify the net effect of return migration on education levels, it underlines the importance of the human capital contributions of young adult returnees. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11113-021-09655-6.

Objective The pandemic is expanding exponentially, burning, and threatening the world population regardless of differences. Cognizant of these, world nations make it their daily agenda and give due concern in preventing and intervening it. However, the prevention and intervention strategies are of more biological and less attention is given for the psychological impacts. So that this manuscript is intended to review the psychological impacts and mitigating strategies of COVID-19 in Ethiopia. Method Out the 63 downloaded articles, 26 articles were selected by considering relatedness, reputable journal, and pattern of writing and reviewed. Results Most reviewed studies reported negative psychological impacts including, boredom, loneliness, anger, violence and abuse, distress, low mood and irritability, anxiety, insomnia, hopelessness and worthless, and suicide. Other associated factors like poverty, fears of infection, duration of quarantine, lack of genuine and adequate information, lack of basic supplies, stigma, housing condition, and cultural issues potentially worsen the psychological impacts. Conclusion Psychological intervention strategies like mobilizing volunteers and professionals, identifying vulnerable population, assuring psychological readiness, offering adequate and genuine information, providing adequate supplies, improving communication for those in quarantine, utilizing counseling platform and rehabilitation program are of the cures for psychological impacts of COVID-19.

Agricultural land is becoming scarce and expensive day by day. With the rising world population, demand for food and land is continuously increasing which is necessitating to maximize food production per unit area. So the eyes are turning to Vertical framing approach which involves growing crops in stacked layers one above another in order to provide more crop yield per unit area of land. This article summarizes the complete concept of emerging area of agriculture with its various categories and techniques used throughout the world.

The Covid-19 pandemic currently infecting the world population comes from the Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) transmitted initially from animals to humans, then between humans. This disease is referred to as zoonosis. Covid-19 discourse is generally about zoonotic transmission from animals to humans. Not much attention has been given to the potential transmission from humans to animals. In several countries, cases indicating the exposures of animals with the Coronavirus have been found. Thus, a discussion on the vulnerability of exposure to animals with the Coronavirus is significant to scientifically discussed. Unfortunately, concerns about this problem are still voiced by the mass media. Limited studies have been found, especially in Legal Science. In Indonesia, the Covid-19 incidence has hit more than 200 thousand people, one of the highest in Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, animal protection policy is not part of the national program of Covid-19 Control. Indonesia has several laws and regulations concerning animal welfare and zoonosis control. This article presents our study's findings investigating how the animal welfare law is applicable to protect the animals from Covid-19. Using the method of normative legal analysis, we found several weaknesses in the legal norms. We also observed how the ethics of anthro-pocentrism and ecocentrism compete in animal welfare laws.

Bacterial phytopathogens significantly reduce crop yields and hence, pose a threat to the food supply of our increasing world population. In this context, bacteriophages are investigated as potential sustainable biocontrol agents. Here, recent advances in phage biocontrol are reviewed and considered within the framework of integrated plant protection strategies. This shows that understanding the pathogen's biology is crucial to develop a targeted strategy, tailored to individual pathosystems and driven by biotechnological insights. Moreover, the potential synergy of phages in contemporary farming practices based on the Internet of Things is proposed, potentially enabling a timely and cost-efficient treatment of plants at an early stage of the disease. Finally, these prospects are placed in the regulatory context of virus-oriented integrated pest control. ispartof: CURRENT OPINION IN BIOTECHNOLOGY vol:68 pages:60-71 ispartof: location:England status: published

CONTEXTO: No mundo, cerca de 450.000 novos casos de câncer de esôfago são diagnosticados a cada ano. OBJETIVO: Avaliar a tendência das taxas de mortalidade por câncer de esôfago no Brasil entre 1990-2017. MÉTODOS: Estudo de série temporal utilizando dados de mortalidade por câncer de esôfago em residentes ≥30 anos no Brasil de 1990 a 2017. Os dados foram estimados pelo estudo Global Burden of Disease (GBD) e analisados segundo sexo, faixa etária e unidade federal de Brasil. As taxas padronizadas de acordo com a idade foram calculadas pelo método direto usando a população mundial padrão do GBD. Mudança percentual média anual e intervalo de confiança de 95% (IC 95%) foram calculados para mortalidade por regressão de joinpoint. RESULTADOS: A taxa de mortalidade padronizada por idade no sexo masculino foi de 20,6 em 1990 e 17,6 / 100.000 em 2017, aumentando conforme a idade, sendo 62,4 (1990) e 54,7 (2017) para ≥70 anos. Nas mulheres, a taxa de mortalidade padronizada por idade foi de 5,9 em 1990 e de 4,2 / 100.000 em 2017. Houve redução das taxas de mortalidade em todas as faixas etárias e em ambos os sexos com grande variação entre os estados. CONCLUSÃO: Apesar das altas taxas de mortalidade por câncer de esôfago no Brasil, a tendência é decrescente, mas com diferenças regionais. A mortalidade foi cerca de quatro vezes maior nos homens. BACKGROUND: In the world, around 450,000 new cases of esophageal cancer are diagnosed each year. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the trend of esophageal cancer mortality rates in Brazil between 1990-2017. METHODS: A time series study using data on mortality from esophageal cancer in residents ≥30 years in Brazil from 1990 to 2017. Data was estimated by the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study and analyzed according to sex, age group and federal unit of Brazil. The standardized rates according to age were calculated by the direct method using the standard GBD world population. Annual average percentage change and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were calculated for mortality by Joinpoint regression. RESULTS: The age-standardized mortality rate in males was 20.6 in 1990 and 17.6/100,000 in 2017, increasing according to age, being 62.4 (1990) and 54.7 (2017) for ≥70 years. In women, the age-standardized mortality rate was 5.9 in 1990 and 4.2/100,000 in 2017. There was a reduction in mortality rates in all age groups and both sexes with great variation among the states. CONCLUSION: Despite the high mortality rates for esophageal cancer in Brazil, the trend was decreasing, but with regional differences. Mortality was around four times higher in men.

Maize breeding faces several challenges when the matter is abiotic stresses. For many years, the focus was to develop genotypes adapted to optimal environmental conditions, however, the need to ensure yields under unsuitable and unstable conditions of a climate-changing world is undeniable. Therefore, this review is addressed to the main abiotic stresses that jeopardize maize production worldwide, presenting an overview regarding losses and impacts imposed by them, stating what has been achieved through conventional and molecular plant breeding techniques, and the future prospects on this subject. The conventional breeding added to molecular techniques bring great expectations for developing abiotic stresses tolerant maize genotypes. Universities and research companies worldwide have contributed to expand and spread basic and essential knowledge, however, the entrance of large multinational companies might revolutionize the field. Genetic modified hybrids and projects of continental coverage will introduce many innovations and alternatives to ensure food security for the increasingly growing world population.

This study has examined the fiscal impacts of the demographic transition. Declining fertility rate and increasing life expectancy rate are expected to cause ageing in Pakistan. The population projections of United Nation’s World Population Prospects were used, for projecting the labour force, which uses different scenarios to project population namely low variant, medium variant and high variant scenario. The study found that projected labour force is expected to decline under the medium variant scenario. The study examined the impact of expected decline in labour force on output growth of Pakistan using growth accounting technique, and found that under medium variant scenario, Pakistan is expected to face a loss of 4% of GDP at the end of this century. On the expenditure side, this study attempted to measure the impact of demographic transition on pension expenditures. Due to the increase in the proportion of the dependent population pension expenditures are expected to rise from 1.2% of GDP in 2015 to 3.5% of GDP by the end of the century. Due to the increase in old-age dependency ratio and hike in pension expenditures of Pakistan pay-as-you-go pension system is expected to become fiscally unsustainable as fewer workers would be bearing the burden of aged population. This fact advocates transition from pay-as-you-go pension system to fully funded pension system.