71 research outputs found
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientific research in the life sciences
The COVID-19 outbreak has posed an unprecedented challenge to humanity and
science. On the one side, public and private incentives have been put in place
to promptly allocate resources toward research areas strictly related to the
COVID-19 emergency. But on the flip side, research in many fields not directly
related to the pandemic has lagged behind. In this paper, we assess the impact
of COVID-19 on world scientific production in the life sciences. We investigate
how the usage of medical subject headings (MeSH) has changed following the
outbreak. We estimate through a difference-in-differences approach the impact
of COVID-19 on scientific production through PubMed. We find that COVID-related
research topics have risen to prominence, displaced clinical publications,
diverted funds away from research areas not directly related to COVID-19 and
that the number of publications on clinical trials in unrelated fields has
contracted. Our results call for urgent targeted policy interventions to
reactivate biomedical research in areas that have been neglected by the
COVID-19 emergency
Adapting to Disruptions: Flexibility as a Pillar of Supply Chain Resilience
Supply chain disruptions cause shortages of raw material and products. To
increase resilience, i.e., the ability to cope with shocks, substituting goods
in established supply chains can become an effective alternative to creating
new distribution links. We demonstrate its impact on supply deficits through a
detailed analysis of the US opioid distribution system. Reconstructing 40
billion empirical distribution paths, our data-driven model allows a unique
inspection of policies that increase the substitution flexibility. Our approach
enables policymakers to quantify the trade-off between increasing flexibility,
i.e., reduced supply deficits, and increasing complexity of the supply chain,
which could make it more expensive to operate
Brain-Circulation Network: The Global Mobility of the Life Scientists
Global mobility and migration of scientists is an important modern phenomenon with economic and
political implications. As scientists become ever more footloose it is important to identify general patterns
and regularities at a global scale. At the same time cities, and especially global cities, have become impor-
tant loci of economic and scientific activity. Limiting research to international migration, would disregard
the importance of local innovation systems. The analysis of the mobility and brain circulation patterns at
global scale remains challenging, due to difficulties in obtaining individual level mobility data. In this work
we propose a methodology to trace intercity and international mobility through bibliographic records. We
reconstruct the intercity and international mobility network of 3.7 Million Life Scientists moving between
9,745 cities. We present several features of the extracted network, offer evidence that the international
innovation system is marked by national borders and linguistic similarity and show that international mo-
bility largely contributes to the scientific output of national research systems. Moreover we find evidence to
suggest that global cities attract highly productive scientist early in their careers
Understanding Online Migration Decisions Following the Banning of Radical Communities
The proliferation of radical online communities and their violent offshoots
has sparked great societal concern. However, the current practice of banning
such communities from mainstream platforms has unintended consequences: (I) the
further radicalization of their members in fringe platforms where they migrate;
and (ii) the spillover of harmful content from fringe back onto mainstream
platforms. Here, in a large observational study on two banned subreddits,
r/The\_Donald and r/fatpeoplehate, we examine how factors associated with the
RECRO radicalization framework relate to users' migration decisions.
Specifically, we quantify how these factors affect users' decisions to post on
fringe platforms and, for those who do, whether they continue posting on the
mainstream platform. Our results show that individual-level factors, those
relating to the behavior of users, are associated with the decision to post on
the fringe platform. Whereas social-level factors, users' connection with the
radical community, only affect the propensity to be coactive on both platforms.
Overall, our findings pave the way for evidence-based moderation policies, as
the decisions to migrate and remain coactive amplify unintended consequences of
community bans.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures, 3 table
Spillover of Antisocial Behavior from Fringe Platforms: The Unintended Consequences of Community Banning
Online platforms face pressure to keep their communities civil and
respectful. Thus, the bannings of problematic online communities from
mainstream platforms like Reddit and Facebook are often met with enthusiastic
public reactions. However, this policy can lead users to migrate to alternative
fringe platforms with lower moderation standards and where antisocial behaviors
like trolling and harassment are widely accepted. As users of these communities
often remain \ca across mainstream and fringe platforms, antisocial behaviors
may spill over onto the mainstream platform. We study this possible spillover
by analyzing around users from three banned communities that migrated
to fringe platforms: r/The\_Donald, r/GenderCritical, and r/Incels. Using a
difference-in-differences design, we contrast \ca users with matched
counterparts to estimate the causal effect of fringe platform participation on
users' antisocial behavior on Reddit. Our results show that participating in
the fringe communities increases users' toxicity on Reddit (as measured by
Perspective API) and involvement with subreddits similar to the banned
community -- which often also breach platform norms. The effect intensifies
with time and exposure to the fringe platform. In short, we find evidence for a
spillover of antisocial behavior from fringe platforms onto Reddit via
co-participation.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables, submitte
Puedes no ser capaz de hacer algo al respecto, pero puedes sacar lo mejor de la situación: Un análisis cualitativo de experiencias relacionadas con la pandemia en seis países europeos
The complex system of stressors related to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected the global population, provoking a broad range of psychological reactions. Although numerous studies have investigated the mental health impact of COVID-19, qualitative research and cross-country comparisons are still rare.El complejo sistema de factores estresantes relacionados con la pandemia por la COVID-19 ha afectado a la población mundial, generando un amplio rango de reacciones psicológicas. A pesar de que múltiples estudios han investigado el impacto sobre la salud mental de la COVID-19, las investigaciones cualitativas y las comparaciones entre países aún son infrecuentes
The mobility of scientists and inventors: patterns and determinants
Life Scientists working both at Universities and private institutions are very mobile. This fact is reflected both in their
tendency to move globally, from city to city, as well as from
institution to institution. This thesis addresses several questions regarding the mobility patterns of these scientists and
tests possible determinants for their relocation choice.
We develop a novel dataset tracking the mobility of 3.7 million scientists across 9,745 cities over two decades. We show
that mobility is marked by national borders and shared languages and that the mobility network is dominated by a small
set of “global cities”. We also find that only a few countries clearly benefit from international exchange. Moreover,
we find that young and prolific researchers gravitate towards
these “global cities”.
We use the mobility data to show how state and federal Stem
Cell funding restrictions in the US have affected the spatial
distribution of scientists as well as their propensity to leave
the country. In fact we find that differential state and federal
approaches to Stem Cell research has had the overall effect of
geographically concentrating scientists and averting an exodus of these researchers.
Finally, we analyze the impact of M&As in the Pharmaceutical Sector to establish if these shocks cause a higher than average turnover. High turnover of R&D personnel in this R&D
intensive sector is an undesirable outcome. We do in fact find
that turnover is higher following an acquisition. However,
as noted elsewhere, acquired companies experience often financial distress before the event and so defection starts even
before the deal takes place
Talent goes to global cities: The world network of scientists’ mobility
Global cities boast higher rates of innovation as measured through patent and scientific production. However, the source of the location advantage of innovation hubs is still debated in the literature, with arguments ranging from localized knowledge spillovers to network effects. Thanks to an extensive data set of individual scientist career paths, we shed new light on the role of scientist location choices in determining the superior innovative performance of global cities. We analyze the career paths of around two million researchers over a decade across more than two thousand cities around the globe. First, we show that scientists active in global cities are more productive in terms of citation weighted publications. We then show that this superior performance is in part driven by highly prolific scientists moving and remaining preferentially in global cities, i.e., central cities in the international scientist mobility network. The overall picture that emerges is that global cities are better positioned to attract and retain prolific scientists than more peripheral cities.ISSN:0048-7333ISSN:1873-762
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