Abstract Unfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total N = 13,579), as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates.

The aim of this study is to investigate the determinants of Germany's OFDI in the last 21 years on the set of top ten Germany’s OFDI destination (United States of America, United Kingdom, China, France, Poland, Mexico, India, Turkey, Spain and Russia (Russian Federation)) by using panel data analysis. The research revealed that Germany’s OFDI are driven by market seeking motives (FDI vertical), and also highlighting the importance of the stable political environment, attractive tax environment, more trade openness, and stable macroeconomic environment of the top ten Germany’s partners for attractiveness of the Germany’s OFDI. It indicates that openness of an economy is statistically significant in attracting FDI.

The energy efficiency represents a global and multi-faceted issue. It is especially important in the former socialist countries belonging to the Balkan’s region being geographically located in the Southeastern Europe (SE). The research problem addressed in this paper focuses on the unexplored potential links between the energy efficiency and the economic development. Energy efficiency is deemed to be highly job intensive phenomenon. It delivers multiple long-range benefits by the means of increasing competitiveness, energy affordability, and decreasing energy bills. Furthermore, it seeks to tackle the important issues of reduced reliance on energy importing, reduction in harmful greenhouse gas emissions and freeing up of funds to be critically invested in other economic areas. Energy efficiency, efficient and effective policies have been found to be directly linked to job creation and deliverance of the economic stimulus. These types of jobs are related to the activities with the paramount aim in reduction of the energy consumption. Investments in energy efficiency in the buildings and construction sector have been found to have brought about the greatest macroeconomic impact. This impact is due to the increasing need for the construction of new buildings and renovation of existing ones, in addition to its considerable potential in activation of the above listed industries’ value chains. The introduction of energy management system (EMS) being exemplified through the set of processes which utilize data to maintain and enhance energy efficiency and operational efficiency could be one of the important avenues to pursue. On the other hand, the EMS reduces the energy intensity and detrimental environmental polluting impact.

This study seeks to test the existence of the crowding-out (orin) hypothesis in a sample of 17 Emerging Europe countries divided in two panels. The study employs a panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model based on three estimators, Mean Group Estimator (MG), Pooled Mean Group (PMG) and Dynamic Fixed Effect (DFE), in order to evaluate the of stability of short run and long run coefficients using consistently compiled public borrowing and private investment data between 2000 and 2019. The empirical findings of the paper generally confirm the existence of a crowding out effect in both long run and short run in European post-transition countries, and in the long run for European transition countries. More specifically, elasticity of private investment with respect to public debt is greater in the European transition countries than in the European post-transition countries. However, the findings on the crowding out (in) effect of government spending and economic growth on private investment are mixed and conflicting in both the long run and the short run. Accordingly, the study recommends that selected countries should reassess their austerity agendas employed for lowering debt levels, and follow new strategies for managing public debt burden.

After 21 post-war years Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) found itself in a “middle-income trap”. It is not classified into low income countries because workers and citizens do not accept low wages and low standard of living, nor does it fit into high income countries because those workers do not produce sophisticated products that ensure competitiveness, export and the basis for high wages and the standard of living. The development vision of BiH is to become a high income country. However, the state has neither suitable strategy nor policy.This paper represents a detailed research of multifaceted secondary sources (i.e. journal articles, government publications, internet sources, etc.), conducted in a cross-sectional time manner. By utilizing secondary sources of data we conducted our own calculations based on data from the World Bank, the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina.We hold that key sectors which would provide return to pre-crisis GDP growthrate of 6-7 percent per year, should be: financial system, diaspora and digitalizationof industry (with the introduction of suitable strategies and policies), each of whichwould contribute to GDP growth of two percent per year. The key agents of changeshould be the leaders of value chains (large-scale companies), cities-regions, gazellecompanies (fast growing small and medium size companies) and micro digital companies.

Innovation is the process of transforming the idea into its practical application. Innovation and invention are two different concepts. The criterion by which we distinguish innovation and inventiveness refers to the connection between the practical and the commercial aspect. In essence, innovation consists of a theoretical concept, technical invention and commercial exploitation. An implicit feature of innovation is that it must be useful. This distinguishes innovation from the invention, which has no practical application. This revised work deals with numerous secondary sources of information, such as the Internet, books, as well as statistical reports on innovation and the countries of the EU, America, Canada, and OECD countries; He studied a number of professional articles, manuals, master theses, doctoral dissertations, etc. Satisfied patient is the goal of all our innovative healthcare activities. The main topic of the discussion is whether innovation is a process or result? Innovation management applies to all types and forms of innovation and innovative processes. In conclusion, a constant change for the better, which improves the health and satisfaction of patients, reduces health care costs, is an imperative for every serious health institution. Pluralistic approaches and ratings show that the quality of health services has a different meaning for patients clients, health workers and managers. It is possible to innovate if we fully understand the nature of the challenges we face and if we manage to mobilize human resources for the necessary changes.

Background: Vitiligo is a common skin disorder characterized by macular depigmentation of the skin. Although the etiopathogenesis of the disease is still unclear, several studies have shown that within the cascade of pathogenesis of vitiligo, cytokines play an important role. Objectives: The aim of our study was to evaluate serum concentrations of interleukin- IL-2 (IL-2) and interleukin-2 soluble receptor (IL-2 sR) in patients with vitiligo and healthy subjects and also to asses a possible association between these cytokines and duration of the disease. were measured using enzyme-linked immunoassay techniques. Results: Both IL-2 (median 22.600 pg/ml, range 20.900-76.100) and IL-2sR (median 76.100 pg/ml, range 15.700-183.800) in the patient group were significantly higher when compared with that of the normal controls. When the serum cytokine level in vitiligo group were compared to total disease duration (Spearman correlation ρ ), serum IL-2 was negatively ( ρ = -0.000573, P = 0.9980) and IL-2 sR was positively ( ρ =0.241, P = 0.2797) correlated with total disease duration, but it is of borderline significance. Conclusions: Our results showed hight serum levels of IL-2 and IL2 sR among vitiligo patients which may highligth a functional role of these cytokines in the pathogenesis of this disease.