The analysis of mobile phones data at regional level in the EU reveals varying patterns in mobility trends during the Covid-19 pandemic. These depend on the temporal evolution of the pandemic in each EU Member State, the measures taken at local or national level to limit the growth of the pandemic, as well as the level of urbanization and type of economic activity in each region. During the first phase of the pandemic (March- April 2020) the decrease in mobility was in general uniform among regions in the same Member State, especially in Italy, Spain and France, where national level measures were adopted. A relaxation of the measures and a resulting rebound of mobility was evident during the summer period (July- August 2020). At the same time, a shift from urban to rural areas during the summer vacation period is evident, with especially touristic areas increasing the number of movements in the same Member State. The variance in mobility trends during the second wave of the pandemic (October- November 2020) was higher, a result of the predominantly local and regional level measures applied in each Member State. Those insights suggest a certain correlation between the level of mobility and the evolution of the pandemic at regional level. The association with high levels of Covid-19 prevalence is particularly strong in urban regions with high mobility levels. Apart from the obvious health dimension, the pandemic also led to a serious disruption of social and economic activities. Governments in many EU Member States and worldwide adopted measures aiming to decrease the risk of contagion. Such measures differed across countries and regions, as well as during the first and second wave of the pandemic and the period in between. While some Member States opted for a general limitation of activities, especially during the first wave, others opted for approaches based on awareness raising. Teleworking, where possible, was encouraged or even made obligatory. In many areas educational activities shifted to online modes during the first wave. Retail or entertainment activities in several cases had to adapt to timetable or capacity restrictions. Cross-national or –especially during the second wave- cross-regional or even intercity transport was limited by measures or lack of connections.Either as a result of the measures applied or because of changing choices at individual level as regards social distancing, the evolution of the pandemic led to fluctuations in the levels of personal mobility. Most importantly though -since mobility is one of the many factors affecting the speed and spatial pattern of the evolution of the pandemic- the fluctuations in the levels of mobility can be a good predictor for the levels of contagion in the short term future (2–3 weeks). At regional level, the level of urbanization and the economic activity profile are factors that influence how mobility is affected by measures to limit the pandemic. As a result, there is a high variation as regards how each European region reacted in terms of changes in levels of mobility.•“understand the spatial dynamics of the epidemics using historical matrices of mobility national and international flows;•quantify the impact of physical distancing measures  on mobility, including the phasing out of such measures as relevant;•feed epidemiological models, contributing to the evaluation of the effects of physical distancing measures on the reduction of the rate of virus spread in terms of reproduction number (expected number of secondary cases generated by one case);•feed models to estimate the economic costs of the different interventions, as well as the impact of specific control measures on intra-EU cross border flows due to the epidemic.”The case study presented here uses aggregate and anonymized movement data from a large number of Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) across EU Member States in order to monitor the evolution of mobility at regional level during 2020. The data were provided by European MNOs following a request by the European Commission for anonymized and aggregated mobile positioning data that would serve the following purposes in the fight against COVID-19 in order to :•“undersThe contributions of MNOs in 23 European countries were collected on a daily basis and the resulting dataset was further processed through standardization and normalization techniques to ensure its compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and to allow comparability across countries . The anaThe main research question addressed is how the diversity of regional profiles within countries and across Europe influences the trends in mobility observed during the pandemic. The differences in the spatial and temporal patterns between urban and rural areas can reveal some underlying factors that influence the impact of policy measures and explain the role of regional mobility in the propagation of Covid-19. The novel aspect of this work is the combination of a dataset covering 23 countries for the whole of year 2020 with a geographic information analysis technique that allows a deeper insight into the factors that affect mobility.2The use of mobile phone data for the analysis of mobility is already a well-established approach . Mobile Monitoring mobility at origin–destination level during the pandemic can be relevant for the design and evaluation of policy measures and especially non-pharmaceutical interventions. The type, duration and effectiveness of such measures differ significantly among countries and regions but also vary across time. A classification of the type of interventions applied in each EU Member State and their evaluation in terms of the impact on the number of contacts is available by ECDC  Fig. 1)Fig. 1). Work, education, retail and entertainment are the main drivers for mobility , but difThe average trip distance and overall transport demand fell significantly across Europe, although it is difficult to distinguish whether this is a consequence of policies or of voluntary behavioral changes . Local a3The primary dataset used here is a combination of the data provided by the Mobile Network Operators (MNO) in 22 EU Member States plus Norway. No data were made available for Cyprus, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Malta and Poland, The data definition and spatial resolution varies by operator, as does the time coverage of the data provided .Table 1D•Aggregation of daily movements registered by each MNO at NUTS3 level: the granularity of the original data ranged from cell to municipality level•Normalization of number of daily movements at NUTS3 level based on maximum total number of movements in each NUTS3 region: all data providers represent at least a 30% local market share and their data can be considered as representative of the population in the area they cover•Aggregation of NUTS3 level movements based on origin and destination: internal in the same NUTS3 region, outwards to other NUTS3 region, inwards from other NUTS3 region•Calculation of 3 mobility indicators , indexed based on the maximum aggregate value per region and each of the 3 origin–destination combinations•Calculation of 7-day moving averages to account for weekly variance•Definition of urban classification using the GISCO NUTS 2016 definition “•For comparisons at aggregate level between the types of urbanization , the indicators were weighted based on the 2019 population in each NUTS3 region In order to convert the data into a common format that allows comparability, we performed a number of data processing actions:The original data provided by each MNO consisted of Origin-Destination matrices corresponding to the number of registered movements between origins i and destinations j during a specific time period. While the structure of the datasets produced by each provider was common, the spatial and temporal granularity varied considerably among operators, even within the same country. Differences include the spatial unit used, ranging from detailed cell tower level data to coarse administrative units, and the use of hourly or daily frequency for the registration of movements. The volume of the data submitted on a daily basis by each operator varied significantly as a result, ranging from less than 50 kilobytes to more than 30 Megabytes, resulting in a total data flow of about 200 Megabytes per day. Regardless of the specificities of each data source, each dataset maintains its internal consistency over time and space, a property that allows the calculation of relative changes in the indicator values. In order to make the indicators comparable across the EU, we aggregated the registered movements at NUTS3 level and calculated their daily totals.The mathematical formulation of the three indicators follows a standardized structure for all spatial and temporal scales :(1)MZintIn order to explore possible correlations between mobility and the spread of the pandemic at regional level, we used data on reported cases from the Covid-19 European regional tracker . The tra4The detailed mobile phones data available allow the calculation of mobility indicators at regional level in a uniform format across the EU, even though the data structure and granularity may differ among operators. We used the dataset in two specific applications that are examples of how mobile phone data availability can serve in understanding the nexus between policy measures, mobility and the evolution of the pandemic:From the mobility point of view, we explored how activity responded in each phase of the pandemic depending on the epidemiological situation and the policy measures in place;From the epidemiological point of view, we investigated the potential correlation between mobility levels and the spread of Covid-19 at regional level.4.1Summarizing the results at the level of urban typology for the NUTS3 regions for which data are available reveals some visible patterns as regards the differences in mobility levels during the various phases of the Covid-19 pandemic . The defA pronounced reduction of individual mobility can be perceived starting in the second half of March 2020 and reaching the minimum levels of mobility on average about mid-April. While initially the decrease in mobility was practically the same for all three types of urbanization level, at the minimum -and for the entire period afterwards- the reduction in mobility was stronger in NUTS3 regions classified as predominantly urban. This can be probably explained by the difference in the type of economic activities in the three types of urbanization. A larger number of jobs in urban areas would be suitable for a shift to teleworking rather than in less urbanized zones . Retail With the intensity of the pandemic receding after May, accompanied by the relaxing of measures and citizen behavior, the mobility indicators recovered to comparable levels –about 90%- to those before the pandemic for all types of regions. Nevertheless, a reversal of the recovery trend can be observed in urban areas during the summer period. Holidays in educational activities and summer vacation for a large share of the labor force led to a noteworthy reduction of mobility indicators. In contrast, rural and intermediate regions continued their trend of recovery and actually reached –on average- the maximum level of the mobility indicator for year 2020. This indicates the considerable flow of residents in the major urban centers towards the main tourism and holidays destinations within each country.After September 2020, the emergence of a second wave of the pandemic and the subsequent implementation of new policies can be reflected in a new shift of mobility indicators downwards. Measures taken during this period tended to be of a local or regional level, as opposed to country-wide ones, as was the norm during the first wave.The trend was interrupted in the end of December/ beginning of January, with a marked decrease of the mobility indicator in all three groups. This was the result of the combination of the holiday period on one hand  and the emergency measures implemented in several Member States, on the other. The latter aimed at limiting the number of social interactions during the period in order to avoid spreading the disease even further . The relative impact for each regional profile differs again, with urban areas registering a stronger decrease, an observation that possibly indicates a certain movement to rural areas during the holiday period. The downward trend of the mobility indicator continued in January, without however reaching the minimums of March 2020, even though the epidemiological situation was comparably worse in many EU Member States.The countries in the EU that were hit the hardest during the first wave of the pandemic were Italy, Spain and France. They were also the first Member States that introduced strict measures that limit mobility, such as stay-at-home enforcement and closure of non-essential activities. The combination of those measures with the generalized perception of high risk of contagion led to a steep decrease of mobility across all regions in these countries . It is iDuring the summer period (July- August 2020) the level of mobility recovered in all Member States and Norway . There wA third phase of the pandemic in terms of regional mobility is visible during October and November 2020, when a second wave of the pandemic emerged. In terms of measures adopted, the main difference with the first wave was that restrictions in most Member States were applied at local and regional level (as opposed to country-level). As a result, a high variability at both Member State and regional level can be observed .Fig. 5AvAnother diverging pattern among regional mobility profiles can be observed in the variation across working and non-working days. The outwards and inwards mobility indicators tend to be symmetrical on a weekly basis for most part of the year. The number of movements leaving a NUTS3 region during a weekday is normally compensated by the number of movements entering the same region. This effect can be attributed to the large share of commuting trips between neighbouring regions, for which a return trip usually takes place within the same day. Return trips during the weekends may show a longer lag, since they may involve an overnight (or longer) stay at the destination. The influence of this duration is already reflected in the difference in the mobility patterns between weekdays and weekdays , with moNevertheless, the trend of inwards/ outwards mobility differs from the one of internal mobility. The number of trips outside each NUTS3 zone decreased significantly more than trips within each NUTS3 zone during the first wave of the pandemic. As The measures applied in November and December 2020 to limit the evolution of the second wave of the pandemic included the restriction of mobility between regions in several EU Member States. They had a clear impact on the ratio of outwards mobility, which reached levels comparable of those during the first wave in March-April 2020. Throughout the period March-December 2020, it is evident that fluctuations in the level of mobility were the result of the restrictiveness of policy measures to fight the pandemic.4.2While the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical measures in limiting mobility is easy to demonstrate, the impact on controlling the evolution of the pandemic is less straightforward. There are several indicators for the evaluation of the epidemiological situation at country and –in some cases- region level, including the measurement of daily and/or accumulated reported cases, hospitalizations, intensive care patients or deaths related to Covid-19. The latter may be the most reliable measure of the true impact of the pandemic in terms of human lives, but is also the result of a combination of numerous confounding variables that limit the ability to identify clear cause and effect relationships. For example, the number of Covid-19 related deaths in a specific region given a certain share of contagion in the population probably depends more on the local health system conditions, response mechanisms and demographics rather than on the virus propagation dynamics themselves.Since we are addressing the contribution of mobility on the dynamics of the pandemic, the most suitable indicator for the exploration of causality would be the number of infected individuals, a possible direct effect of social interaction and –by extension- mobility. The disadvantage of this measure is –however- its lower reliability. Especially during the early phases of the pandemic, the number of cases was seriously under-reported since the number of tests was limited and the sampling was biased. The testing strategies and –in consequence- the reporting quality improved by June 2020, even though still at varying degrees across countries. As a specific indicator, we use the 14-day notification rate of new Covid-19 cases per 100 000 inhabitants, one of the most frequently used indicators for reporting the pandemic’s evolution . The datVisualizing the notification rate at regional level over time  suggestsIf mobility and urbanization typology are both taken into account, however, the interpretation of the correlations changes. We used a simple observational model to explore a possible link between increased levels of mobility and high levels of Covid-19 incidence. We grouped the regions in the dataset according to their mean mobility indicator during July and August 2020, for all three types of mobility , and defined regions as having had high levels of mobility for any of the three types if the respective mobility indicator was over 90%. In a similar fashion, we grouped the regions in terms of their level of Covid-19 incidence in October 2020. We considered as regions of high incidence the ones that had an average 14-day notification rate in the 80% percentile within their country.This formulation allows us to test whether increased levels of mobility in a region eventually led to high numbers of reported Covid-19 cases, with the region population already accounted for. In addition, we combined the level of mobility and the urban typology of each region and created 6 different region categories (3 urbanization profiles × 2 mobility levels).The main test we performed was the comparison of the odds ratios of the six categories as regards the probability for a region to present a high incidence level in October 2020. We compared the odds of each category to those of the regions with an intermediate profile and low mobility. The mean odds ratios and the width of their confidence intervals provide a quantitative estimate of the relative probabilities. For internal mobility , the oddA similar picture overall can be drawn for inwards and outwards mobility , Fig. 11Notwithstanding the few unexpected results, we may still draw a conclusion that can be generalized at EU level. Urban areas tend to have a higher rate of Covid-19 cases and increased levels of mobility accentuate the urbanization effect. Both aspects reinforce the importance of population density and volume of social interaction as a factor of the disease propagation. In that sense, mobility should be seen as a means to facilitate social interaction rather than a driver itself. Movements between regions do not appear to have significantly accelerated the evolution of the pandemic in non-urban regions. We can therefore not claim any direct regional spillover effect due to increased mobility. On the other hand, we cannot discard another possible mechanism that could still explain most of the observations. The increase in mobility levels may be primarily an expression of the general increase in social interaction that -combined with the overall relaxation of personal protection measures- led to a new wave when the majority of the residents of urban areas returned after the summer holidays.5Several Mobile Network Operators have been providing aggregate and anonymized mobility data at fine spatial and temporal resolution in order to assist policy makers in monitoring the evolution of mobility during the Covid-19 pandemic. The analysis of Mobile Network Operator data at regional level (NUTS3) reveals varying patterns depending on the temporal evolution of the pandemic in each EU Member State, the measures taken at local or national level to limit the growth of the pandemic, as well as the level of urbanization and type of economic activity in each region.During the first phase of the pandemic (March- April 2020) the decrease in mobility was in general uniform among regions in the same Member State, especially in Italy, Spain and France, where national level measures were adopted. A relaxation of the measures and a resulting rebound of mobility was evident during the summer period (July- August 2020). At the same time, a shift from urban to rural areas during the summer vacation period is evident, with especially touristic areas increasing the number of movements in the same Member State. The variance in mobility trends during the second wave of the pandemic (October- November 2020) was higher, a result of the predominantly local and regional level measures applied in each Member State. Those insights suggest a certain correlation between the level of mobility and the evolution of the pandemic at regional level. The combination of mobile phones and epidemiological data at regional level reveals that urban regions are more prone to reaching high levels of Covid-19 prevalence. If accompanied by high levels of mobility, the epidemiological risk for urban regions becomes even higher. Nevertheless, since intra-zonal and inter-zonal mobility are only two of the numerous factors that affect the geographic distribution of the pandemic , it woulThe results suggest that there is a high degree of variability in the evolution of mobility and prevalence at regional level during the pandemic. The decrease in mobility was more evident in urban areas when country-wide restrictions were in place, presumably due to the higher share of activities that can be replaced with tele-working. Urban areas also show a decline in mobility during weekends and holidays, owing to the significant share of employment and education in their normal levels of activity. Non-pharmaceutical interventions are the primary driver for decreased mobility throughout the EU. Voluntary confinement appears to have played a role during the first wave of the pandemic, but gradually relaxed –as did general compliance to restrictions- until the second wave was evident. Mobility levels in non-urban areas tended to recover faster than in urban areas, possibly due to the increased movement of travellers from urban areas.Given the persevering nature of the pandemic and the considerable possibility of further waves in the future, a main lesson drawn from the analysis of dynamics of intra- and inter-regional mobility concerns the question of restricting movements between regions. The new waves in the pandemic in Europe following the holiday periods in summer and New Year appear to be a repercussion of the activity in the destination regions and not of increased mobility per se. Measures aiming to limit future contagions should therefore prioritize limiting unsafe interactions among the population before restricting travel options. Future work, once a better understanding of the Covid-19 transmission mechanism is achieved, can produce improved models of the role of mobility and regional profile and contribute in the identification of more effective prevention policies.Panayotis Christidis: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Biagio Ciuffo: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – review & editing. Michele Vespe: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – review & editing.


Family firms are a unique setting to study constructive conflict management due to the influence of family ties of the owning family imprinting a sense of common purpose and shared destiny, and high levels of trust. We study the relationship between shared vision and trust that intervene in the adoption of constructive conflict management. To achieve our purpose, we carried out a systematic indirect observation using a mixed methods approach. We used the narratives of 17 semi-structured interviews, audio-recorded and transcribed, of family and non-family managers or directors from five Spanish family firms in the siblings' partnership stage, combined with documentary data obtained from different sources. Intra- and inter-observer reliability were confirmed. Results show a dynamic relationship between shared vision and specific components of trust (benevolence and ability) at different levels of conflict management. We also provide evidence of specific processes of concurrence-seeking and open-mindedness in family and ownership forums accounting for the relevance of family governance in these type of organizations. Family firms are a sum of several subsystems which exhibit a particular resources configuration. This study sheds light on constructive conflict management in family firms opening interesting avenues for further research and offering practical implications to managers, owners, and advisors. Organizations are fertile ground for conflicts. They respond to the high demands of a highly changing environment, which exerts many pressures on the teams and demands people to solve their dissents, effectively collaborate, and make agile decisions  and assuming that novel ideas may fail Johnson, , trust wAlthough there is evidence that trust is present across the multiple levels of family firms  Qualitative (QUAL) consisted of collecting narratives, coding by an indirect observation system, and converting it into a matrix of codes. (2) Quantitative (QUAN): we conducted a polar coordinate analysis to quantify the narratives. (3) Qualitative (QUAL) to integrate qualitative and quantitative findings see .The following sub-section describes the indirect observation methodology employed to conduct the mixed methods study.Observational studies allow observing psychological phenomena in the natural context. In the last two decades, Anguera et al. have built a body of robust evidence regarding the use of observation in a variety of contexts supported by a “highly systematic data collection and analysis, stringent data quality controls, and the merging of qualitative and quantitative methods” , the awareness of the generational stage (generation), the family kinship (family ties), and the references to the milestones of the family history as a group or as individuals. The business dimension allowed coding the narratives regarding the specific attributes (or characteristics) of the company  or its environment or group of companies  and the role played in the organization (business role). The shared vision dimension is concerned with the perception of a “group member's genuine belief that they are working collaboratively toward a common purpose” Lord, , p. 8 anTool for the Observation of Social Interaction in Natural Environments .The polar coordinate analysis is a quantitative analytic technique widely used in observational studies  is normally distributed with μ = 0 and σ = 1. The calculation of the Zsum parameter, whose formula is sum as lags for each specific category from the prospective and retrospective perspectives. As a consequence, the same quantity of Zsum and lags are obtained for every specific category in each of the two prospective and retrospective perspectives.This technique was developed by Sackett  and impr Cochran . Zsum issum may carry a positive or negative sign, which will therefore determine which of the four quadrants will contain the categories corresponding to the conditional behaviors in relation to the focal behavior being displayed. The polar coordinates analysis helps to identify the activation or inhibition relation of the focal behavior and all or some of the categories of the observational instrument, which are the conditional or matching behaviors.Each Zsum criterium and Zsum matching values for each of the conditional behaviors. For a significance level of 0.05 the length of the vector has to be >1.96. Once the length and the angle corresponding to each vector are obtained, the angle must be adjusted taking into account the quadrant where each vector will be located.Vectors represent the relationships graphically. The length parameter of the vector  coinciding in three or more cases .In the following sub-sections, we will present the results of polar coordinate analysis differentiating the focal behaviors and conditional behaviors which were selected for analysis according to our previous theorization.The four subdimensions of family boundaries  selected as conditional behaviors showed significant associative relationships with shared vision and trust. In this sense, we found that the presence of an inspiring vision for the future or shared vision was activated in presence of narratives concerning family business systems whereas narratives regarding family members and non-family members were inhibitors of narratives of shared vision. The perception of a lack of shared vision and family business system were mutually activated, whereas lack of shared vision and non-family members were mutually suppressed or inhibited.Concerning trust, the family boundaries indicated that narratives regarding the several subsystems activated or inhibited narratives depending if these referred to the perception of trust, lack of trust or the specific components of trust. We found that mentions to the perception of trust did probably not emerge in the presence of narratives regarding the family business system. Indeed, references to a family system and family business system showed this inhibitory role of perception of the component of ability whereas elusions to non-family members and the external environment showed an activation effect of the perception of the capacity or ability to manage the tasks as a trait of trust. For the component of benevolence, we found the opposite direction such that elusions to the family system activated the perception of caring or the affection-based component of trust (benevolence) whereas family business system and non-family members exerted an inhibitory role.Narratives regarding the external environment and perceived conflict were mutually inhibited. The same type of relationship  was found between those narratives referred to the external environment and open-mindedness. The external environment seems to be perceived as trustful as long as narratives of ability and external environment are mutually activated.As shown in The indirect observation reported that shared vision narratives were inhibited in presence of mentions to controversies that produced tensions or interference (perceived conflict). Something similar was found between the presence of narratives of shared vision and references to conflict related to the process of transference of power, managerial roles and ownership (succession) in which they were mutually inhibited. We indirectly observed that shared vision was activated in the presence of mentions to the managing committee, ownership , and board of directors (it was coinciding in the five cases but in two of the cases it was in a different quadrant). On the contrary, mentions to family meetings, family council and family constitution inhibited the emergence of narratives regarding future goals or shared vision. Relationships between shared vision and processes of constructive conflict management are not supported by consistent findings across at least three cases. Although we found that a perception of lack of shared vision and perceived conflict exhibited a mutual activation relationship.Findings supported the relationship between shared vision and mentions to the tendency of the firm to engage and support processes oriented to result in new products, services or processes (innovativeness) in the expected direction given that narratives of future goals or shared vision are activated in the presence of these mentions to innovativeness. The same relationship was found with the subdimension of risk-taking orientation (both categories of risk-taking and risk-avoidance). Narratives of lack of shared vision also showed this relationship of activation with references to innovativeness and risk-taking orientation.Narratives regarding the perception of trust inhibited narratives of perceived conflict whereas narratives of trust were activated in presence of narratives of a specific conflict of succession. We found evidence about the relationship between narratives of trust and narratives regarding the different levels at the organization where conflict management took place. In this sense, trust was indirectly observed alongside mentions to collaborators and managing committee whereas mentions of trust were inhibited in presence of narratives concerning the board of directors. It is noticeable that an associative relationship between trust and managing committee was coinciding across five cases although not in the same quadrant. In From the scrutiny of the specific components of trust, we found a relationship between mentions to ability and perceived conflict. They were mutually inhibited. We also found that mentions to ability were activated in presence of elusions regarding the levels of collaborators and managing committee and that they were inhibited when participants referred to family meetings, family council, family constitution and ownership. Concerning narratives regarding the affective component of trust or benevolence, they were inhibited in presence of mentions to the board of directors and teams. We also found that narratives of lack of trust and trust were related to open-mindedness where they exerted an inhibitory role. Whereas, in close-mindedness narratives of trust exerted an inhibitory role and lack of trust activated the references to close-mindedness.We found that narratives of trust and innovativeness were related. Perception of trust and their components of benevolence, ability and integrity were associated with innovativeness in the sense that they were mutually inhibited. However, the perception of ability which was activated in the presence of narratives related to engaging innovation in collaboration with external parties or collaborative innovation.Given that we were interested in understanding constructive conflict management we conducted several analyses considering the different subdimensions as focal behaviors. As it is shown in We found evidence about the presence of open-mindedness at different levels of the organization. Precisely, findings indicated that this process is more probably present in family meetings and family council whereas it was not referred to during the elusions of ownership and collaborators. Concurrence-seeking and open-mindedness shared in some sense this structure of relationships, such as that narratives regarding concurrence-seeking and family meetings and ownership were mutually activated though they were inhibited when participants referred to collaborators. In managing committees, it close-mindedness did not seem present as the inhibitory relationship between narratives of both types indicated.As it is shown in Concerning the several business roles played in the company, the results obtained indicated that they conditioned shared vision, trust, constructive conflict management and innovativeness in different senses.For instance, we found that references to the members of the board of directors suppressed the presence of narratives of shared vision and trust. In other words, if the participants narrated experiences regarding the board of directors, these were not followed by mentions to shared vision and trust. It is noticeable that mentions to the general manager activated narratives concerning the component of trust related to personal skill and capacities (ability) whereas references to workers exerted the opposite effect, it meant that if the participants referred to ability they did not refer to trust stemmed on ability. Findings supported that perceived conflict and open-mindedness were not referred to managers.In this research, we provide evidence about the use of indirect observation as a rigorous approach to study narratives and extracting conclusions about complex phenomena  would hinder the perception of future goals or shared vision. It seems that benevolence stems from family ties and shared vision is referred to business goals according to the results. This finding might explain that shared vision does not seem to be a subject of conversation in family governance forums . A plausible explanation for this, is that shared vision is an antecedent of the creation of a governance bodies, particularly in siblings partnership stage, therefore shared vision is not a topic of conversation in family governance forums. In fact prior research suggests that the more aligned the values and vision of the family, the more they develop governance structures Parada, . This fiper se) which would lead to groupthink   (Arteaga and Menéndez-Requejo, Our study brings evidence that shared vision would promote innovativeness which contradicts some theorization about the potential harming of a shared culture as a sort of “collective blindness” that may inhibit the pioneering process and consequently innovation (Carnes and Ireland, The processes of constructive conflict as open-mindedness or concurrence-seeking does not emerge with the same strength in the picture of innovativeness. Although the findings suggest that the perception of conflict or the lack of conflict may hamper innovativeness, which is consistent with the paradoxes of conflict and innovation described in scientific literature: too much conflict hampers innovation but at the same time specific levels of conflict trigger organizational innovation Vollmer, . SomethiThis research reports interesting insights about trust and constructive management in the unique context of family firms (Elgoibar et al., Family governance is a fundamental level of constructive conflict management in family firms (Berent-Braun and Uhlaner, Trust promotion between family and non-family members should be included in the agenda of family firms to boost collaboration and innovativeness through constructive conflict management (Bennedsen and Foss, Despite the strengths of this research, we acknowledge that it is not exempt from limitations. We are aware that this study is an initial step to understand the dynamics of constructive conflict in family firms. It opens interesting avenues to further studies. For instance, the exploration of the relationships between shared vision, bonding and relational climate in the family firm require further exploration. Further research may explore a more heterogeneous group of cases in terms of their levels of innovativeness, size or geographical situation. Moreover, studying cases in different generational stages of ownership is a good avenue to extend this study. Indeed, studying cases which might not have been assisted by family business advisors may be an interesting opportunity. In this study, narratives provided by family members are more prevalent. Further studies may explore in-depth the perspective from non-family members.Further studies may investigate the potential of conflict management as a tool for balancing work and family in the context of family firms (Lu et al., Given that conflict is in the area of sensitive issues (Jehn and Jonsen, This research sheds light on the uniqueness of constructive conflict management in family firms. We provided empirical evidence of shared vision and trust as roots of constructive conflict management observed at different levels of the organization. Trust management demonstrates critical importance for obtaining constructive outcomes of conflict in this type of organizations. Conflicts of succession emerges as a critical moment for developing trust and shared vision. Although the role of conflict in innovativeness is confirmed, it is necessary to further explore in-depth open-mindedness and concurrence-seeking in family firms. This study paves the way to further research, which looks into family firms from a psychological perspective.The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.The study has been carried out following the ethical guidelines and procedures of the Doctorate Program of Psychology of Communication and Change of the both Autonomous University of Barcelona and University of Barcelona, to which the first author is a Doctoral candidate and the ethical standards for research established by the American Psychological Association . All parCA-A carried out the data collection, literature review, research design, writing the manuscript, coded the textual material, and trained and supervised the coders who participated in the data quality control procedures. IA and MP made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution through supervising all the stages of the research process, and reviewing the several drafts of the article. MA supervised the method and conducted the polar coordinate analysis. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The handling editor declared a shared affiliation with several of the authors CA-A, IA, and MA at time of review.


The supply of transplants or autologous materials for the repair or replacement of defective cardiovascular tissues is largely inadequate and it does not fulfill the increasing demand resulting from the generalized aging of the population. Although the mortality has decreased over time thanks to improvements in prevention and new intervention protocols, the quality of life of the patients is still often poor, due to the limited regenerative capacity of the cardiovascular tissues  or the use of implant devices made with non-living tissues not endowed with regeneration ability . In the last decades, the growth of the tissue engineering as a novel interdisciplinary framework to supply living materials able to regenerate lost tissues has made huge steps in refinement. This progress has been promoted by advancements in fabrication and refinement of biomaterials, and the possibility to combine cells with permanent or bio-absorbable scaffolds able to provide the necessary geometrical, chemical, and mechanical information to instruct proper cellular behavior. The aim of the present Research Topic was to collect experimental work and review articles illustrating improvements in the state-of-the-art for the production and application of biomaterials for the preparation of cardiac, valve, and vascular tissue replacements.Cathery et al., the Authors combined a commercial porcine-derived extracellular matrix patch with umbilical cord derived pericytes, to generate a vascular graft with increased mechanical resistance thus providing an ideal platform for implantation in pediatric surgery procedures such as the one for Fallot tetralogy. Amadeo et al. seeded valve interstitial cells inside decellularized porcine pericardium, to obtain a repopulated scaffold containing proliferating and mature cells capable of depositing extracellular matrix components. Given that the decellularization process removes major antigens such as αGAL , which can be obtained by bacterial fermentation. Alongside direct tissue replacement, biomaterials can be used to create 3D ex vivo models to study the processes involved in the development of congenital and acquired cardiovascular diseases, and to test novel therapeutic approaches aimed at reducing the burden of disease. The review by Iop identifies the advantages and limitations of bioengineering 3D tissue models in vitro for the study of common cardiovascular diseases such as arrhythmias, cardiac infections and autoimmunity, cardiovascular fibrosis, atherosclerosis, and aortic valve stenosis. A final example of cardiac disease modeling was provided in the study by Bracco Gartner et al. in which a tunable stiffness hydrogel (gelatin methacryloyl) was combined with human cardiac fibroblasts to create a 3D in vitro model of cardiac fibrosis. Results of this study showed the ability of these cells to modulate the mechanical properties of the extracellular matrix and thus controlling fibrosis not only through the release of paracrine signals, but also modification of tissue biophysical features.Decellularized scaffolds ideally reproduce the complex structure of the tissue of origin, however the use of natural and synthetic polymers provides a level of tunability and functionalization difficult to achieve in decellularized tissues. In particular, natural polymers are more sustainable, biocompatible and present natural ligands promoting cell adhesion. In the article collection, In summary, the publications within this Research Topic illustrate the multi-faceted role of biomaterials in the fight against cardiovascular diseases, which are endemic and increasingly relevant in our society. The spectrum of the applications of these materials indicate an increasing effort toward reducing the long-term symptoms of acute cardiac events, such as valve failure or myocardial infarction, and the push to find new therapeutic options to relieve burden of congenital cardiovascular diseases.PC and MP wrote the editorial. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


In recent years, the study of consumer behavior has been marked by significant changes, mainly in decision-making process and consequently in the influences of purchase intention  rational processes; (ii) emotional resources; (iii) the cognitive currents arising from the theory of social judgment; (iv) persuasive communication; (v) and the effects of advertising on consumer behavior  satisfaction between the act of buying and the results obtained , so purchases made in physical stores tend to be more impulsive than purchases made online. This type of shopping results from the stimulation of the five senses and the internet does not have this capacity, so that online shopping can be less encouraging of impulse purchases than shopping in physical stores (Moreira et al., Researches developed by Aragoncillo and Orús  reveal tFollowing the logic of Platania et al.  we consiAll authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


After decades of below replacement fertility, China is now experiencing rapid population aging and the lives of the growing older population are being shaped by massive social and economic change. Of particular importance, is the large-scale migration of working-age adults from rural areas to large cities in search of job opportunities. The departure of migrants from their rural hometowns has resulted in a large population of left-behind older men and women. This distinctively Chinese demographic phenomenon has spurred scholarly interest in the emotional well-being of this older left-behind population, but careful demographic description of aging, migration, grandparenting, and loneliness has yet to be conducted. We bridge this gap by describing the average remaining life spent lonely by older men and women in China. We use Sullivan’s method to calculate lonely life expectancy by urban/rural residence and by the migration status of adult children (as proxied by the presence or absence of coresiding children). We use data from the Harmonized version of the Chinese Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study and focus the analysis on adults aged 55-100. Preliminary results show that, at age 55, women on average spend 9% more of remaining life lonely than men and that rural men and women spend more of their remaining life lonely than their urban counterparts. We will extend these life table analyses by conducting multivariate analyses of the correlates of loneliness in urban and rural China to better understand the role of migration and grandparenting responsibilities.


The lessening of food wastage, specifically among nations where about half of its worldwide quantity is produced, has turned to be a mammoth challenge for environmental, social and economic sustainability, and represents one of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) within the Agenda 2030. The quantity of food being thrown away in spite of being in an edible condition has become alarming in middle and high income countries. The COVID-19 lockdown strategy, both at local and international levels, has expressively altered work, life and food consumption behaviors globally, directing to food wastage as a multi sectoral issue. Pakistan has no exception to such manifestations. The main objective of this study is to analyze the perceptions of rural people of Pakistan regarding food wastage during the COVID-19 pandemic. To evaluate whether behavior about food wastage among rural households varied or not during the pandemic, a descriptive survey was carried out using a self-administered questionnaire and 963 responses were selected for further empirical investigations. The findings of the study reveal that food waste actually decreased in spite of an increased amount of purchased food during the lockdown. Our results highlight that the effect of the pandemic has led to reduction in food wastage among rural respondents, an increased consciousness for the morals of food waste, and awareness of environmental impacts of food wastage. The conclusions of this study highlight that rural consumers of Pakistan are emerging with a new level of responsiveness about food wastage with possible positive impact on the environment in terms of decreased greenhouse gas (GHG) emission and other pollutants. The study findings imply that this pandemic time provides a suitable window to raise awareness about food wastage among rural as well as urban households while contemplating effective strategies to overcome the issue of food wastage in the country. The th most populated country in the world, having a population of about 225.2 million. Millions of people in the country don’t have an approach to balanced and healthy food, while food wastage is also massive in the country on a daily basis. The annual food wastage is estimated at around 36 million tons in parties, hotels, weddings, and households [th position out of 107 countries across the globe. World Food Program (WFP) 2020 highlights that about 1/4 of households in the country (49 million people) are facing moderate food insecurity while 10% of the household (21 million people) are facing serious food insecurity. In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the outbreak of Corona Virus Disease-2019 as a pandemic . To restuseholds . On the Food and Agriculture Organization” (FAO) of the “United Nations” (UN), an economy with high levels of malnutrition costs around three to four percent of GDP. In the case of Pakistan, it is estimated that malnutrition and its consequences cost the country 3% of GDPevery year, so the government set a target to achieve sustainable food security by 2025 [The situation of food security has strong links with the human capital of the country. According to “ by 2025 . It is iThe earlier research uncovered the different dimensions of food waste. First, the present literature on food wastage behavior has been significantly led by qualitative explorations investigating various problems relevant to barriers and motives to reduce food wastage. However, these studies were not able to create causality and connections among the concerned variables . Second,This study examines the behavior of food waste in rural households of Pakistan during the pandemic. Rural residents usually bear accessibility restrictions and food purchases may be well scheduled with the opportunity that the nearest food retail outlet is remote and transportation may not be readily available and costly. Reduction in food waste not only requires the determination of responsible factors but must recognize the perceptions of rural people during the pandemic with respect to gender, income level, size of households and distance for shopping. The study findings may help policymakers to devise policy in rural areas of Pakistan for prevention of food waste in the country.st -15th March 2021. A set of questions was asked about purchasing behavior of rural consumers, their food expenditures, production of food waste and food relevant behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. A consent form is obtained from participants willing to participate in the survey, then questionnaire was given or interviewed the questions of the questionnaire. The respondents who filled the questionnaire were asked to submit the consent form. The consent was taken from respondents at first, who were contacted through telephones. The respondents who were not willing to give consent or submit a consent form, are excluded from the sample. The respondents having age more than 18 years and main purchaser of food are allowed to participate in the survey. A set of qualitative questions was asked from respondents about their food purchasing behavior, waste productions, food expenditures and other food related behaviors. The data collected through online forums and mobile phones is treated collectively for empirical analysis as the same questionnaire was conveyed to both groups of respondents. Likert scale is used to quantify the information. The questionnaire is given in the A questionnaire in the local national language (Urdu) was administered in rural areas of Pakistan using the online platform and telephonic interviews. The respondents were contacted through mobile telephones if they do not have an easy access to the internet. A procedure of stratified sampling was adopted that produced a representative sample of the population. Stratified sampling is a method of partitioning a population into sub-populations called stratum. The members of the population are classified into homogenous subgroups. The sample was stratified using age, gender, income. Every member of the population is assigned only a single stratum. Then observations of each stratum are gained through simple random sampling so sampling errors are reduced in this way. There was random contact with the rural people of the country and few screening questions were asked with respect to their food waste behaviors, gender, age, and income level. The quotas were specified with respect to the age, gender, income and number of households. These quotas of different categories made the representative sample of the Pakistani population. The respondents of the survey were allowed to participate until the quotas of different categories were filled. Only those 18 years aged respondents were considered who confirmed their status as main food purchaser at household level. The final sample consisted of 963 rural household consumers of Pakistan due to evaluation of rural behavior of people about food wastage. Among the sample, 678 respondents provided information through online means while information from 285 respondents was collected through telephones. The data is collected through questionnaire and interviews in the period from 1The variables are described in the An ordered logit model is regressed to determine the behavior of rural respondents regarding household food waste during Covid-19. The biographic information is a source to determine the behavior of food wastage in different age groups. The income level of respondents is categorized into three categories because the per capita nominal income of Pakistan is about $1544 (Rs. 300000 estimated) in 2020. Food waste (FW) is a dependent variable which measures the change in amount of wasted food during the pandemic. The dependent variable is measured through the ordered nature of Likert scale by using an ordered logit model. The summary statistics of the variables are given in 2 = −2641.28).The coefficients of an ordered logit model assume the same relationship among all pairs of the groups and only one coefficient represents each variable . It is the main difference between the ordered logit model and a multinomial logit model. The Brant test is used to verify the assumption of stratification. The Brant test confirms the presence of proportional odds assumption considered by the ordered logit model  and FQD  are significant at 5% and 1% respectively. These findings reveal that purchasers of household food decreased the quantity of purchased food and also reduced the frequency of food purchasing. These food purchasers are not intended to increase the quantity of wasted food during the pandemic as compared with those participants who remained unaltered with respect to their habits of amount food purchasing and frequency of food purchasing as supported by earlier studies –17, 20. In the same way, the odds ratio of the variables FPI  and FQI  are also significant at 1%, showing that participants who raised the frequency of food shopping and quantity of purchased food are not intended to increase the wastage of food during the pandemic as compared with those who remained altered their behavior with respect to frequency of food shopping and amount of purchased food. The odds ratios of the variables NHH 0.863) and LYY (0.481) are also significant both at 1% depicting that as the size of household decreases there is more probability to increase the amount of food waste. Moreover, decreasing levels of income is also a reason for reduction of food wastage . It can 63 and LYConsumer behaviors in their eating and buying habits are significantly changed due to the Covid-19 pandemic . The finMoreover, the size of the household played an important role with respect to food waste during the pandemic in rural areas of the country . The finIt was found that a small percentage of respondents reportedan increase in food waste due to increased food stocks. The fear of food shortage caused “panic buying” behavior and purchased excessive food remained unused and spoiled . These wThe outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic at the beginning of 2020 had altered perceptions and ways of consumers using food products in a significant way. This study explored the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on awareness of rural Pakistani consumers, their behaviors and attitudes towards food waste and consumption. People are spending time at home and outdoor dining is restricted due to the pandemic, so there is a major change in the behaviors and attitudes of people with respect to health and food. People are more conscious to manage their budgets in healthy food and avoid food wastage. This behavior is not limited to urban areas, but rural consumers are also in line with these global changes. There is a need to explore the perceptions of rural people of Pakistan towards food waste in the time of pandemic as it is a less focused area in the literature. This paper is an attempt to explore the factors influencing the quantity of wasted food in rural areas of the country. Rural households usually bear accessibility constraints and their behaviors towards food purchase are well planned because grocery stores are remote and transportation means are costly and may not be available readily. So there are clear and vast changes in the way people are interacting, shopping and eating around the food in rural areas also. The prime objective of the study was to determine the food wastage behavior and consumer trends about food purchases in rural areas of Pakistan during the pandemic of COVID-19. The general findings of the study conclude that food consumption and quantity of food purchased increased due to shut down/limited operations of restaurants but food wastage decreased in rural areas of the country. These results suggest that the pandemic increased the level of awareness among rural people to avoid food wastage that creates significant environmental and economic problems in the country. The rural inhabitants have also realized that wasted food is a source of methane gas emissions, which is more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide. So we can also protect the environment by avoiding food wastage. The earlier studies on the topic focused on the urban areas of the country but this study is a first attempt to explore the food waste and food purchasing behavior in rural areas of Pakistan during Covid-19 pandemic. So the findings of this study has important implications for devising policy about rural areas of the country. The COVID-19 has altered the behavior of people about food wastage, so this behavior may be prolonged in future through proper awareness. This change in behavior will be fruitful for the environment and the economy, both. The food resources will be saved for the future generations and the growing population while the environment will be protected from methane. The earlier studies highlight that food wastage decreased in different regions of the world during the pandemic but there is ample space to investigate this problem in many more dimensions such as behaviors about food waste among different socio demographic groups. It would also be interesting to know the persistence of changed behavior with respect to food waste even after COVID-19 in future studies.S1 Appendix(DOCX)Click here for additional data file.S1 Data(XLSX)Click here for additional data file.


In the Funding statement, the name of the funder is spelled incorrectly. The correct spelling is Deanship of Scientific Research at Princess Nourah bint AbdulRahman University, Riyadh.


Quality assessment of stitched images is an important element of many virtual reality and remote sensing applications where the panoramic images may be used as a background as well as for navigation purposes. The quality of stitched images may be decreased by several factors, including geometric distortions, ghosting, blurring, and color distortions. Nevertheless, the specificity of such distortions is different than those typical for general-purpose image quality assessment. Therefore, the necessity of the development of new objective image quality metrics for such type of emerging applications becomes obvious. The method proposed in the paper is based on the combination of features used in some recently proposed metrics with the results of the local and global image entropy analysis. The results obtained applying the proposed combined metric have been verified using the ISIQA database, containing 264 stitched images of 26 scenes together with the respective subjective Mean Opinion Scores, leading to a significant increase of its correlation with subjective evaluation results. Panoramic images, constructed as a result of image stitching operation conducted for a series of constituent images with partially overlapping regions, may suffer from various distortions, including blur, ghosting artifacts, and quite well visible geometric and color distortions. The presence of such issues decreases the perceived image quality and in some cases may be unacceptable from an aesthetic point of view. Although modern cameras and smartphones are usually equipped with software functions making it possible to properly register the overlapping areas of individual photos to create panoramic images, some additional requirements should be fulfilled by users during the recording to prevent such problems. Nevertheless, the growing availability of software and hardware solutions causes higher popularity of panoramic images which may be useful, e.g., as wide background images, in virtual reality scenarios, as well as in mobile robotics for the Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (VSLAM) applications.Considering the modern applications of image stitching and image registration algorithms, related to the use of cameras mounted on mobile robots, the quality of obtained panoramic images is very important due to potential errors in vision-based control of their motion. In the case of decreased image quality, such images might be removed from the analysis to prevent their influence on the robot’s control. Another interesting direction of such research in mobile robotics concerns the fusion of images acquired by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) ,2.One of the most relevant factors, influencing the final quality of the panoramic images, is the appropriate choice of distinctive image features used to match the same regions visible on the “neighboring” constituent images. Nevertheless, some additional post-processing operations conducted after the assignment, such as blending and interpolation, may also have a significant impact on the quality of stitched images. Some obvious examples might be related to different lighting conditions and background changes visible on the constituent images which may cause some easily noticeable seams. Another factor, related to geometric distortions, is the influence of lens imperfections and a too low number of detected keypoints used for further image matching, particularly for constituent images with overlapping areas less than 15–20% of the image area. Although some corrections, e.g., calibration, chromatic aberration or vignetting corrections, may be conducted using both freeware and commercial software for image stitching, even after the final blending some imperfections may still be visible. Since a synchronous acquisition of constituent images using multiple cameras may be troublesome in many practical applications, some problems may also occur for moving objects, particularly leading to motion blur and ghosting artifacts.Although during several recent years a great progress has been made in general-purpose image quality assessment (IQA), the direct application of those methods proposed by various researches for an automatic objective evaluation of stitched images is troublesome, or even impossible. This situation is caused by significant differences between the most common types of distortions and those which may be found in stitched images. Therefore, the development of stitched images quality assessment methods is limited by the availability of the image databases containing panoramic images subject to different types of distortions typical for image stitching together with subjective quality scores. Since the first attempts to such quality metrics have not been verified using such datasets, there is a need of their additional verification, as well as the analysis of their usefulness in the combination with some other approaches.Such experiments are possible with the use of the Indian Institute of Science Stitched Image Quality Assessment (ISIQA) dataset consisting of 264 stitched images and 6600 human quality ratings. One of the methods recently proposed for quality assessment of stitched panoramic images, verified using the ISIQA database, is the Stitched Image Quality Evaluator (SIQE) proposed by the authors of this dataset . This meOne of the methods for the increase of the correlation of objective metrics with subjective quality evaluation results is the application of the combined metrics, successfully applied for general-purpose IQA ,6, multiThe motivation for the combination of the entropy-based features with some existing metrics has been related to the observed increase of the local image entropy for the regions containing some kinds of distortions typical for the stitched images. According to expectation, an increase of the global image entropy for lower quality images may also be observed. Nevertheless, as the image entropy is highly dependent on the image contents, a more useful approach is the comparison of the entropy-based features calculated for the constituent and the stitched images in a similar way as for 36 features extracted in the SIQE framework ,10, leadObjective image quality assessment methods may be generally divided into full-reference (FR) and no-reference (NR) methods. The latter group also referred to as “blind” metrics, seems to be more attractive for many applications since FR metrics require the full knowledge of the reference (undistorted) images. Since such “pristine” images are often unavailable, a partial solution for this problem might be the use of the reduced-reference methods where the knowledge of some characteristic parameters or features of the original image is necessary.Nevertheless, the FR quality assessment of the stitched images should be considered in another way since perfect quality panoramas are usually unavailable, however, there is still a possibility of some comparisons with constituent images that are typically at the disposal. Therefore, the stitched image quality assessment may be considered as an indirect assessment of the quality of the applied stitching method. In view of these assumptions, these methods cannot be directly classified as “purely” FR or NR IQA algorithms, since they use the data from additional (constituent) images but do not utilize any direct comparisons of the distorted panoramas with the “pristine” stitched images.One of the first interesting approaches to stitched IQA is based on the attempt of using the well-known Structural Similarity (SSIM) method  examinedColor correction and balancing in the image and video stitching has also been investigated in the paper , whereasThe application of the local variance of optical flow field energy between the distorted and reference images has been combined with the intensity and chrominance gradient calculations in highly-structured patches by Cheung et al. , allowinUnfortunately, regardless of their popularity and good results obtained in some other applications, some data-driven quality assessment methods cannot be successfully applied for the quality assessment of stitched images due to the necessity of training with the use of a great number of images . Some reOne of the methods partially utilized in this paper has been proposed by Solh and AlRegib ,10 who hAs mentioned earlier, one of the most interesting approaches to quality assessment of panoramic stitched images has been recently developed by the inventors of the ISIQA database . The maiThe detection of ghosting artifacts observed as some additional edges or replications of some image regions, caused by imprecise aligning of the overlapping regions of constituent images during the stitching procedure, is based on the use of the multi-scale multi-orientation decomposition. For this purpose, the use of the steerable pyramids has been proposed by the authors of the paper , who havAlthough the Pearson’s Linear Correlation Coefficient (PLCC) for the ISIQA dataset is equal to 0.8395 with Spearman Rank Order Correlation SROCC = 0.8318 reported in .Considering the necessity of the use of a large amount of the ground truth data for training to avoid overfitting of the trained model, there is a limited possibility of application of the deep CNN-based methods, as stated by Hou et al. . For thiAlthough the fundamental element for our research is the SIQE metric, its extension towards a combined metric requires an implementation of some additional metrics and calculation of additional features, as well as their further optimization making it possible to increase the correlation with subjective quality scores.s to 21, which is a trade-off between a reasonable computation time and accuracy. The subscript I denotes the reference image whereas J stands for the distorted image, and C is a constant added to prevent instability in case of the denominator value being close to zero.Two additional sub-measures have been incorporated from  for thisI has to be computed using the formula [I. These values have been computed for the same non-overlapping macroblocks as previously. Finally, the texture randomness index has been mapped to the object index in the following wayTo compute the overall quality index a weighted average of luminance and contrast index of each macroblock should be used. The weights’ values are obtained based on the reference image in the following way. First, the texture randomness index at macroblock  formula (2)t.. ofThe luminance and contrast index for The values of In our study, the reference image has been a region of interest (ROI) selected from each constituent image and the corresponding ROI found in the evaluated stitched image. All the formulas have been implemented as MATLAB functions. Instead of the third MIQM term, namely spatial motion index, partially utilizing the local entropy, we have used the additional global and local entropy-based features, leading to the increase of the proposed metric’s correlation with subjective MOS values.The initial experiments, conducted using 264 stitched images obtained for 26 scenes that are included in the ISIQA dataset  and stitched (s) images are subtracted, respectively. Regardless of these two differential features, their equivalents for the constituent and stitched images may be independently analyzed as well.Therefore, the additional entropy-based features  are defined as :(7)ent¯lAfter the experimental verification of the possible combinations, the initially considered combined metrics, referred to as EntSIQE, have been defined in two variants based on the weighted sum and weighted product :(9)EntSIThe additional extension of these metrics with the use of two indexes, originating from the MIQM approach (Equations  and 5)))5)), desFormulas  and (5),The additional useful feature, leading to a further increase of the correlation of the proposed metric with subjective scores is the variance of the local entropy that may be calculated subtracting the averaged variances determined for the constituent and stitched images according to:Hence, the final formulas may be expressed as:It is worth to note that the necessity of the use of additional weighting exponents in Formula  in compaTo verify the correlation between the objective and subjective quality scores for the 264 images from the ISIQA database, three correlation metrics being the most typical in the IQA research, have been used.Pearson’s Linear Correlation Coefficient (PLCC) between the objective metric Q the Mean Opinion Score (MOS) values, illustrating the prediction accuracy of the image quality, is defined as the ratio of the covariance to the product of the standard deviations:It should be noted that in many IQA related papers, the additional nonlinear regression is applied, usually with the use of the logistic function, according to the recommendations of the Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG). Nevertheless, in the case of the combined metrics, it does not lead to meaningful changes of the correlation coefficients  due to the nonlinear combination of various features. This has also been verified experimentally both for the original SIQE metric as well as for all the proposed combinations.n denotes the number of images. The second one is Kendall Rank Order Correlation Coefficient (KROCC) expressed as:To verify the prediction monotonicity, two rank-order correlations may be applied. Spearman’s Rank Order Correlation Coefficient (SROCC) is given as:fminsearch function with additional verification of the local minima.The calculations of all parameters as well as the optimizations have been conducted in MATLAB environment. For the optimization of exponential parameters The obtained results for the original SIQE metric as well as for the initially considered and finally proposed combined metrics are presented in As can be easily noticed much more linear relation between the proposed objective metrics and MOS values can be observed in comparison to the original SIQE metric. Analyzing the number and location of outliers, most of them are located closer to the linear trend visible on the scatter plots for the proposed metrics. The values of the parameters obtained for the proposed combined metrics are presented in Analyzing the obtained results, a significant increase of the correlation with subjective scores may be observed for the proposed approach. Since the values of the parameters used for all six metrics or features are not close to zero (for the EntSIQE Formula .The extensions of the recently proposed SIQE metric towards the combined metric proposed in the paper make it possible to achieve considerably higher correlation of the designed objective metrics with subjective quality scores of the stitched images delivered in the ISIQA database. The obtained results are promising and confirm the usefulness of the combined metrics also for the automatic quality assessment of the stitched panoramic images. As shown in the ablation study, the application of the additional entropy-based features utilizing the local image entropy and its variance is one of the crucial elements increasing the correlation with the MOS values, since their removal causes the most significant decrease of the PLCC, SROCC and KROCC values, obviously with the exception of the original SIQE metric.One of the potential directions of further research might be the application of the proposed approach for quality assessment of parallax-tolerant image stitching methods  as well


In this issue, we present promising developments in the field of bacterial enteric vaccines. For the last three decades, the development of new enteric vaccines has played Cinderella to the three ugly sisters Malaria, HIV and TB. Public health programs for enteric vaccines historically suffered from underfunding, despite enteric pathogens being major killers of infants in areas with a high burden of disease, despite the World Health Organization (WHO), non-governmental organizations and aid agencies committing resources to preventing cholera, typhoid, invasive non-typhoidal salmonellosis and shigellosis in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). A change came in 2010, when vaccination was chosen as the main intervention strategy to combat a major cholera epidemic in Haiti. This put vaccines in the spotlight as a control measure for enteric diseases. In 2013, the WHO established the stockpile for inactivated oral cholera vaccines (OCVs) to meet the global demand for this vaccine [The world received a further boost by the campaigns with newly developed rotavirus vaccines for infants, which have had a tremendous impact on the morbidity and mortality of this diarrheal disease, lowering the cost to public health as well as limiting the economic impact of the disease. The involvement of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) provided crucial financial support and guidance for these programs and also expedited the development and licensing of new bacterial vaccines for enteric diseases, exemplified by the incorporation of new typhoid conjugate vaccines (TCVs) in the public health programs of LMICs.The WHO collaborating centers played a role in smoothing regulatory hurdles associated with the quality control of the OCVs and new TCVs. In 2009, the WHO Expert Committee on Biological Standardization approved a major standardization program for new enteric vaccines with the assistance of one vaccine developer, Novartis Vaccines for Global Health . This program also benefited from the input of the WHO, the Coalition against Typhoid, PATH, BMGF, the International Vaccine Institute (IVI), the Oxford Vaccine Group (OVG) and others. This network delivered WHO workshops to train local laboratory staff, WHO international standards for batch release assays and ‘open access’ in vitro diagnostic tests for comparing the performance of vaccines used in different clinical trials or field settings. In addition, written WHO guidelines were produced such as the recently updated guideline on the safety and quality of TCVs [Currently, WHO international standards are being developed for Shigella vaccines, inactivated oral cholera vaccines and vaccines for invasive non-typhoidal salmonellosis. It is hoped that these reference reagents will aid the development of batch release assays and thereby the manufacture and deployment of these vaccines.The impact of the introduction of new TCVs and OCVs will slow the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance and will impact on the spread and evolution of antibiotic resistance organisms amongst humans and animal species used for food production. It will help to reduce outbreaks in areas subject to flooding and with an insecure clean water supply and protect the health of communities from life-threatening and debilitating diarrheal disease and enteric fever.A comprehensive update on the status of more than thirty candidate vaccines to protect against diarrheal disease ;Insight into serum markers of immunogenicity ;Studies highlighting the implementation of assays to improve the safety of vaccines containing outer membrane vesicles ;Studies describing methods which can be used to show the thermal stability of vaccines outside the cold chain ;Escherichia coli infections .In silico engineering of the fimbrial tip adhesin holds promise for new improved subunit vaccines to combat enterotoxigenic In this issue, the contributions from leading authors provide the following:This collection of reports taken together will help to improve our understanding of these new enteric vaccines and ultimately expedite their acceptance and use as public health tools in resource-stretched settings.


National Science Review [1].The two research articles from the Institute of Neuroscience of Chinese Academy of Sciences represent the new format for publishing significant findings as stated in an editorial of The first article describes the generation of a group of gene-edited macaque monkeys by CRISPR/Cas9 editing of monkey embryos that deleted the expression of a core circadian regulatory transcription factor BMAL1. These monkeys exhibited the loss of sleep and psychosis-like phenotypes. The second article describes the cloning of a group of monkeys by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), using a juvenile gene-edited monkey from the first study that exhibits the most severe circadian-disorder phenotypes. These two pieces together demonstrate that a population of customized gene-edited macaque monkeys with uniform genetic background will soon be available for biomedical research.NSR's philosophy is to avoid unnecessary lengthy delay in publishing significant findings, if the purpose of the delay is simply to wring out the last few percentage points of the results [2]. The timely publication of the main finding may in fact facilitate exhaustive investigations in follow-up work.The two articles went through the review and revision process thoroughly within 4 weeks. There is undoubtedly room for improving the two papers. For example, some reviewers inquire whether the five monkeys cloned by SCNT have been examined for the same array of phenotypes as the founder A6. To meet these requirements, the authors will have to delay the publications by several months.


Relational practice is characterised by genuine interaction between families and healthcare professionals that promotes trust and empowerment. Positive clinical outcomes have been associated with relational practice. To assess and examine in-hospital interventions designed to promote relational practice with families in acute care settings of emergency departments, intensive care units and high care units. The preferred reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines informed the design of this scoping review. To identify relevant studies, databases  and the search engine Google Scholar were searched using terms for core elements of relational practice and family engagement. Of the 117 articles retrieved, eight interventional studies met the search criteria. The interventions focused on relational practice elements of collaborating with and creating safe environments for families, whilst only one addressed healthcare professionals being respectful of families’ needs and differences. In relation to the nature of engagement of families in interventions, the focus was mainly on improving family functioning. Family engagement in the interventions was focused on involving families in decision-making. The scoping review revealed a limited number of in-hospital interventions designed to promote relational practice with families in acute care settings. Further research is encouraged to develop such interventions.The scoping review has highlighted specific elements of relational practice that have been overlooked in the mapped interventions. This provides guidance on where future interventional research may be focused. Families play an important role in caring for their loved ones in acute healthcare settings, whilst simultaneously assisting healthcare professionals (HCPs) with vital information for the treatment of the patient  and closely aligned to the aim of the review. The research questions were as follows: 1) What in-hospital interventions are available to promote relational practice with families in acute care settings of EDs, ICUs and HCUs? 2) What elements of relational practice did the interventions address? 3) What was the nature of family engagement in the interventions?A search strategy detailing search terms see  and idenThree authors were involved in the review process. Articles in English which were published between January 2005 and December 2018 were included in the review and this was informed by the interest in relational practice and quality outcomes of complex healthcare contexts in the literature  of the studies reported that the interventions had positive outcomes of improved family support and improved family decision-making  were retrieved that included interventions for promoting relational practice with families in acute care settings. All the studies in the review were conducted in developed countries, where health resources, cultural and social perspectives of a family’s role during illness and hospitalisation and the family’s experience of illness may be different from that of developing countries (Shields A limited number of studies  Shields . AccordiThe reviewed studies used different study designs with two studies being randomised controlled trials. Vincent  stated tSimilar to other interventional studies by Torke et al.  and HeylWhen considering the outcomes of the interventions reported in the included studies, the family members indicated that their perceived expectations and needs were met by the interventions. Torke et al.  recounteHCPs respecting families’ needs and honouring family differences in terms of their values systems and practices (Fletcher It was notable, that the interventions in the review, developed for acute care settings did address some elements of relational practice. Previous research has called for strategies to support family collaboration in acute care setting (Mackie, Marshall & Mitchell Fletcher  were addThe nature of family engagement in the interventions varied, according to the dimensions proposed by Knafl et al. . AlthougAlthough the authors were rigorous in the review process, by using a recognised methodology it is possible that some studies could have been missed. Publication in English as an inclusion criterion may have led to the omission of important interventional studies published in other languages. Most of the studies identified in this scoping review were conducted in the ICU, thus limiting translation to other acute care settings especially the ED, which is characterised by transient care and focuses on rapid throughput of patients.The findings of this review reiterate the fact that there is a scarcity of interventional studies focusing on genuine connection between families and HCPs in acute care settings. The interventions of the reviewed studies indicated variability regarding inclusion of the elements of relational practice and the nature of family engagement in the interventions. Taking into account the positive outcomes of family and HCP collaboration in the reviewed studies, it is recommended that ongoing training and education to capacitate HCPs relationally should be a major component in future interventions seeking to promote relational practice with families.