Defining the risk of SARS-CoV-2 variants on immune protection

The global emergence of many severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants jeopardizes the protective antiviral immunity induced after infection or vaccination. To address the public health threat caused by the increasing SARS-CoV-2 genomic diversity, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases within the National Institutes of Health established the SARS-CoV-2 Assessment of Viral Evolution (SAVE) programme. This effort was designed to provide a real-time risk assessment of SARS-CoV-2 variants that could potentially affect the transmission, virulence, and resistance to infection- and vaccine-induced immunity. The SAVE programme is a critical data-generating component of the US Government SARS-CoV-2 Interagency Group to assess implications of SARS-CoV-2 variants on diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics, and for communicating public health risk. Here we describe the coordinated approach used to identify and curate data about emerging variants, their impact on immunity and effects on vaccine protection using animal models. We report the development of reagents, methodologies, models and notable findings facilitated by this collaborative approach and identify future challenges. This programme is a template for the response to rapidly evolving pathogens with pandemic potential by monitoring viral evolution in the human population to identify variants that could reduce the effectiveness of countermeasures

Die Erfassung von Job-Tasks in persönlichen Befragungen. Ein neues Instrument zur Erhebung von Anforderungen am Arbeitsplatz

The analysis of job tasks has become a field of growing scientific activity in recent years. Information on such tasks has been used to analyze various research questions, especially regarding changes in the overall structure of the economy and their implications for persons and firms. Arguably the most prominent of these research questions is the analysis of the consequences of technological change for job tasks, skill demand, and wage inequality. Despite the growing importance of this field of research, the range of actual task measures to be used in empirical analyses is rather limited. Therefore, we considered it worthwhile to develop a survey instrument to measure job tasks by asking the job holders directly. The resulting questionnaire module was administered in the fourth panel wave of the German National Educational Panel Study's (NEPS) adult stage. In this paper, we provide an overview of our conceptual background as well as the steps taken during the development of the survey instrument. Furthermore, we present an initial exploratory analysis of the data collected to validate the instrument

No time for smokescreen skepticism: a rejoinder to Shani and Arad

Shani and Arad (2014) claimed that tourism scholars tend to endorse the mostpessimistic assessments regarding climate change, and that anthropogenic climate change was a “fashionable” and “highly controversial scientific topic”. This brief rejoinder provides the balance that is missing from such climate change denial and skepticism studies on climate change and tourism. Recent research provides substantial evidence that reports on anthropogenic climate change are accurate, and that human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, including from the tourism industry, play a significant role in climate change. Some positive net effects may be experienced by some destinations in the short-term, but in the long-term all elements of the tourism system will be impacted. The expansion of tourism emissions at a rate greater than efficiency gains means that it is increasingly urgent that the tourism sector acknowledge, accept and respond to climate change. Debate on tourism-related adaptation and mitigation measures is to be encouraged and welcomed. Climate change denial is not