Does tourism affect the long term course of COVID-19 pandemic in a country of destination? Evidence from a popular Greek island in 2020 where control measures were implemented

Greece opened its points of entry on July 1, 2020, with specific guidelines for travellers arriving by sea, air or land. The aim of this article is to examine the effect of tourism on the long term course of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic during the pre-vaccination era (June to December 2020) on the popular Greek island of Crete. To achieve this, a cross-sectional serosurvey, repeated at monthly intervals, was conducted to compare the seroprevalence in Crete with seroprevalence in the mainland of Greece. Crete welcomed nearly 2,000,000 travellers during the 2020 summer season. Left-over serum samples were collected and obtained from public and private laboratories located in Greece, including the island of Crete. These samples were tested for the presence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies. A total of 55,938 samples were collected, 3,785 of which originated from Crete. In Crete, the seroprevalence ranged between 0% (June 2020) and 2.58% (December 2020), while the corresponding seroprevalence in Greece was 0.19% and 10.75%, respectively. We identified 4.16 times lower seropositivity in Crete (2.58%) in comparison with the mainland of Greece (10.75%) during December 2020. Moreover, the monthly infection fatality rate (IFR) in Crete was calculated at 0.09%, compared with 0.21% in mainland Greece for December 2020. The island of Crete presented more than four times lower seroprevalence than the mainland of Greece, despite being a highly attractive tourist destination. This evidence supports the idea that tourism may not have affected the long term course of the COVID-19 pandemic in Greece. However, due to contradicting results from previous studies, further investigation is needed

Ruxolitinib for Glucocorticoid-Refractory Acute Graft-versus-Host Disease

BACKGROUND: Acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) remains a major limitation of allogeneic stem-cell transplantation; not all patients have a response to standard glucocorticoid treatment. In a phase 2 trial, ruxolitinib, a selective Janus kinase (JAK1 and JAK2) inhibitor, showed potential efficacy in patients with glucocorticoid-refractory acute GVHD. METHODS: We conducted a multicenter, randomized, open-label, phase 3 trial comparing the efficacy and safety of oral ruxolitinib (10 mg twice daily) with the investigator's choice of therapy from a list of nine commonly used options (control) in patients 12 years of age or older who had glucocorticoid-refractory acute GVHD after allogeneic stem-cell transplantation. The primary end point was overall response (complete response or partial response) at day 28. The key secondary end point was durable overall response at day 56. RESULTS: A total of 309 patients underwent randomization; 154 patients were assigned to the ruxolitinib group and 155 to the control group. Overall response at day 28 was higher in the ruxolitinib group than in the control group (62% [96 patients] vs. 39% [61]; odds ratio, 2.64; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.65 to 4.22; P<0.001). Durable overall response at day 56 was higher in the ruxolitinib group than in the control group (40% [61 patients] vs. 22% [34]; odds ratio, 2.38; 95% CI, 1.43 to 3.94; P<0.001). The estimated cumulative incidence of loss of response at 6 months was 10% in the ruxolitinib group and 39% in the control group. The median failure-free survival was considerably longer with ruxolitinib than with control (5.0 months vs. 1.0 month; hazard ratio for relapse or progression of hematologic disease, non-relapse-related death, or addition of new systemic therapy for acute GVHD, 0.46; 95% CI, 0.35 to 0.60). The median overall survival was 11.1 months in the ruxolitinib group and 6.5 months in the control group (hazard ratio for death, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.60 to 1.15). The most common adverse events up to day 28 were thrombocytopenia (in 50 of 152 patients [33%] in the ruxolitinib group and 27 of 150 [18%] in the control group), anemia (in 46 [30%] and 42 [28%], respectively), and cytomegalovirus infection (in 39 [26%] and 31 [21%]). CONCLUSIONS: Ruxolitinib therapy led to significant improvements in efficacy outcomes, with a higher incidence of thrombocytopenia, the most frequent toxic effect, than that observed with control therapy

The impact of Greek labour market regulation on temporary and family employment - evidence from a new survey

This paper uses an original dataset for 206 workplaces in Thessaly (Greece), to study consequences of Greece’s employment protection law (EPL) and national wage minimum for temporary employment. We find higher temporary employment rates especially among a “grey” market group of workplaces that pay low wages and avoid the national wage minimum. A similar factor boosts family employment. We also find that EPL “matters”, in particular, managers who prefer temporary contracts because temps are less protected definitely employ more temps. We discuss whether temporary and family work is a form of escape from regulation for less prosperous firms

Labour market regulation in Greece -- assessing impacts of human resources management practices and outcomes using a workplace survey

My thesis contributes to research on the consequences of labour market institutions for employment using an original Greek dataset I have constructed, the TERS. This survey gives a representative sample of micro-enterprises as well as small and medium enterprises. I investigate whether firms use temporary (and family) employment as "escape" routes from mandated wage floors (corporate collective wage agreements) and working conditions floors (employment protection legislation (EPL) monitored by the Labour Inspectorate). My basic hypothesis is thus that temporary and family work are forms of insurance for the poorer firms which cannot cope with EPL coupled with wage floors. I find significant wage floor effects, in particular, where firms have many workers at the minimum (or below it - in the case of "grey" market firms), they are more likely to employ temporary workers. The implication is that where firms have many workers on the minimum they are likely to worry about the possibility of a rise in the minimum, and hence will employ on a more temporary basis. Wage floors thus matter. I also find significant EPL effects. In particular, firms whose managers believe that temps have low EPL are more likely to employ temps, ceteris paribus. My result thus shows that an advantage of employing temps is quite simply their low EPL. My findings for family worker employment are similarly confirmatory. Workplaces in the "grey" category, paying low wages probably below nationally agreed rates, are much more likely to employ a high percentage of family workers, other things equal-they are easy to layoff, and less likely to complain about low wages. The policy implication of my research is therefore that Greece's wages and working conditions floors indeed appear both to promote precarious temporary employment, and also small-scale family business, which is not the way to grow and prosper

Hands-on software engineering with Golang: move beyond basic programming to design and build reliable software with clean code

This book distills the industry's best practices for writing lean Go code that is easy to test and maintain and explores their practical application on Links 'R' US: an example project that crawls web-pages and applies the PageRank algorithm to assign an importance score to each one

Employee Trust in Management: Evidence from the Greek Private and Public Sectors

In contrast to the vast literature on trust in management, the aspect of employee trust towards managers in Greece is still under researched. This paper aims to fill this gap by exploring the factors which determine employee trust towards managers in the case of the Greek dual labor market. Primary data collected through a questionnaire survey of employees are explored in a model where employee and workplace characteristics and employee’s experiences of economic depression are predictors of employee trust towards managers. The analysis of two different samples "public sector with workplace representation" and "private sector without workplace representation" allow for inferences and conclusions about the effects of the duality of the Greek labor market on employee trust towards managers. The results indicate differences in the effects of age, workplace tenure and hours worked on employee trust in management between public sector employees (trade union members) and private sector employees (not being members)

FAQ Stores Account

This article identifies an interesting class of applications where stream sessions may be organized into a hierarchical fashion- i.e. sessions may consist of sub-sessions. We argue that data streams of this kind have rich procedural semantics- i.e. behavior- and therefore a semantically rich model should be used: a session may be defined by opening and closing conditions, may have data and methods and may consist of sub-sessions. We propose a simple conceptual model based on the notion of “session ” similar to a class in an object-oriented environment having lifetime semantics. Queries on top of this schema can be formulated via HSA (hierarchical stream aggregate) expressions. 1. Motivatio

Biodegradable Microspheres for Transarterial Chemoembolization in Malignant Liver Disease

Transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) has revolutionized the treatment landscape for malignant liver disease, offering localized therapy with reduced systemic toxicity. This manuscript delves into the use of degradable microspheres (DMS) in TACE, exploring its potential advantages and clinical applications. DMS-TACE emerges as a promising strategy, offering temporary vessel occlusion and optimized drug delivery. The manuscript reviews the existing literature on DMS-TACE, emphasizing its tolerability, toxicity, and efficacy. Notably, DMS-TACE demonstrates versatility in patient selection, being suitable for both intermediate and advanced stages. The unique properties of DMS provide advantages over traditional embolic agents. The manuscript discusses the DMS-TACE procedure, adverse events, and tumor response rates in HCC, ICC, and metastases