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This is a summary report of the series of workshops on FAIR research information in open infrastructures that was jointly organised by the State Scientific and Technical Library of Ukraine (SSTL) and Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology (TIB) which have been collaborating under the framework of Joint German-Ukrainian project supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany and the Ministry of Science and Education of Ukraine. The workshops successfully harnessed the enthusiasm and experience of librarians, researchers, software providers, public funding body representatives, content providers, scientometricians and information specialists in an attempt to shed light and define criteria which assist discovery and reuse of research information by third-parties and make it FAIR. The series of workshops consisted of four separate workshops which addressed single aspects of FAIR– findability, accessibility, interoperability and reuse concerning research information. Due to Covid-19 travel restrictions workshops were held online between September 2020 and January 2021.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a great challenge, especially for families. We aimed to analyze the impact of the pandemic on childcare for and the work–family balance of pediatric surgeons in Germany. An anonymized questionnaire on the working and familial situation before and during the COVID-19 pandemic was sent to the members of the German Society of Pediatric Surgery and trainees in pediatric surgery (April–July 2021). One-hundred-fifty-three participants (59% female) completed the questionnaire. A total of 16% of the males and 62% of the females worked part-time. Most (68%) had underage children. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 36% reported a decrease in patients and interventions, and 55% reported an increase in the organizational workrelated burden. Childcare for underage children during lockdown was organized mainly with the help of institutional emergency childcare (45%), staying home (34%), one parent working from a home office (33%), or staying home by themselves (34%). Before the lockdown, 54% reported a good work–family balance. During the lockdown, this worsened by 42%. Most of the families had to organize themselves. Different means such as a home office, flexible working hours, and different models for childcare can help to improve the situation.

The perspective of procurement and supply chain management is changing dramatically; traditionally, it was seen as a support function; however, the procurement function is receiving increased attention and investment as an essential contributor to the strategic success and a business enabler. While an end-to-end digital supply chain is an opportunity as it unleashes the next level of strategic growth and involves minimal investment in infrastructure, it is still a challenge to optimize and transform. Furthermore, the recent pandemics and geopolitical disruptions of Covid-19, the Ukraine-Russian war, Brexit and the US-China trade war; have structurally changed the global economy and revealed a new risk assessment that will result in the re-introduction of buffers, boundaries across industries and a partial return to regionalization with sort of de-globalization in which existing just-in-time getting replaced by just-in-case strategy.

COVID-19 is spreading at a rate that could cause fear for international trade. In the past three months, the total number of confirmed cases has increased. The virus has confined more than half of the planet, contaminating the functioning of industries, dysfunctioning infrastructure at the national level, such as health care, transport, commerce and public services. The slowdown in production in China has had effects worldwide, reflecting China's growing importance in global supply chains and in commodity markets. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where foreign trade represents on average 60% of its economy, is severely affected by this pandemic. The economy is in recession, prices continue to climb, the value of the currency continues to depreciate and leads to a loss of confidence.

The global preparedness and response to the rapid escalation to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)-2-related disease (COVID-19) to a pandemic proportion has demanded the formulation of a reliable, useful and evidence-based mechanism for health services prioritisation, to achieve the highest quality standards of care to all patients. The prioritisation of high value cancer interventions must be embedded in the agenda for the pandemic response, ensuring that no inconsistency or discrepancy emerge in the health planning processes. The aim of this work is to organise health interventions for breast cancer management and research in a tiered framework (high, medium, low value), formulating a scheme of prioritisation per clinical cogency and intrinsic value or magnitude of benefit. The public health tools and schemes for priority setting in oncology have been used as models, aspiring to capture clinical urgency, value in healthcare, community goals and fairness, while respecting the principles of benevolence, non-maleficence, autonomy and justice. We discuss the priority health interventions across the cancer continuum, giving a perspective on the role and meaning to maintain some services (undeferrable) while temporarily abrogate some others (deferrable). Considerations for implementation and the essential link to pre-existing health services, especially primary healthcare, are addressed, outlining a framework for the development of effective and functional services, such as telemedicine. The discussion covers the theme of health systems strategising, and why oncology care, in particular breast cancer care, should be maintained in parallel to pandemic control measures, providing a pragmatic clinical model within the broader context of public healthcare schemes.

Published on 5 May 2020 Does the pandemic require derogation from human rights treaties? This question has sparked significant debate, notably spurred by Alan Greene’s provocative argument that failing to derogate would denature ordinary human rights law and leave the start and end points of the crisis unclear. Others disagree: Scheinin argues the principle of normalcy, contained in General Comment 29, should continue to apply. Only where ordinary human rights provide inadequate flexibility should derogation be considered, and even then the principle should continue to limit the derogations. Several analyses have complemented this debate, analysing the ECtHR’s practice (Molloy), the detail of the European derogations save San Marino’s (Zghibarta), the prospect of enhanced political supervision of derogation particularly following PACE Resolution 2209 (2018) (Epure), the mechanics of notification under the ECHR (Holcroft-Emmess) and the overarching Treaty frameworks (Emmons). The UN Human Rights Committee itself has weighed in, issuing a statement criticising aspects of Covid-19 derogation practice on 24 April.

This viewpoint note discusses the covid-19 pandemic from the lens of complexity thinking and resilience engineering (RE). It intends to raise questions and encourage critical thinking on the underlying theoretical foundations of the responses adopted so far to cope with the pandemic. Insights arising from this analysis can be useful for the refinement of complexity and RE theory and practice, as well as for the further development of non-medical practices to address the pandemic and its effects.

Introduction: COVID-19 Ag Respi-Strip, an immunochromatographic (ICT) assay for the rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2 antigen on nasopharyngeal specimen, has been developed to identify positive COVID-19 patients allowing prompt clinical and quarantine decisions. In this original research article, we describe the conception, the analytical and clinical performances as well as the risk management of implementing the COVID-19 Ag Respi-Strip in a diagnostic decision algorithm. Materials and Methods: Development of the COVID-19 Ag Respi-Strip resulted in a ready-to-use ICT assay based on a membrane technology with colloidal gold nanoparticles using monoclonal antibodies directed against the SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 highly conserved nucleoprotein antigen. Four hundred observations were recorded for the analytical performance study and thirty tests were analyzed for the crossreactivity study. The clinical performance study was performed in a retrospective multicentric evaluation on aliquots of 328 nasopharyngeal samples. COVID-19 Ag Respi-Strip results were compared with qRT-PCR as golden standard for COVID-19 diagnostics. Results: In the analytical performance study, the reproducibility showed a between-observer disagreement of 1.7%, a robustness of 98%, an overall satisfying user friendliness and no cross-reactivity with other virus-infected nasopharyngeal samples. In the clinical performance study performed in three different clinical laboratories during the ascendant phase of the epidemiological curve, we found an overall sensitivity and specificity of 57.6 and 99.5%, respectively with an accuracy of 82.6%. The cut-off of the ICT was found at CT < 22. User-friendliness analysis and risk management assessment through Ishikawa diagram demonstrate that COVID-19 Ag Respi-Strip may be implemented in clinical laboratories according to biosafety recommendations. Conclusion: The COVID-19 Ag Respi-Strip represents a promising rapid SARS-CoV-2 antigen assay for the first-line diagnosis of COVID-19 in 15min at the peak of the pandemic. Its role in the proposed diagnostic algorithm is complementary to the currently-used molecular techniques.

Webinar held on Nov. 7 for the CIVICA consortium (Social sciences universities) - What's wrong with the current scholarly communication system (or, why do we need Open Science?) - Open Science definition and tools - Focus on research evaluation, Open Access, FAIR data, Open Science in Horizon Europe