Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic in March 2020, which led to the implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions that had inadvertent physical, mental and social effects. The purpose of this retrospective study was to examine the experiences and responses of Canadians to these interventions on Twitter using the Kübler-Ross Change Curve (KRCC) during the first six months of the pandemic. Tweets were analyzed using sentiment analysis, thematic content analysis and KRCC. The findings highlight that many Canadians attempted to adapt to the changes but had a predominantly negative outlook on policies due to the financial and social repercussions. The definition of health is often redefined to be more encompassing of the many components that contribute to one’s well-being. Health is described as an overall state of physical, mental, emotional, economic and social well-being . Mental On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) a global pandemic . To reduWhile these measures were put in place to protect people from an unknown virus, this had unintended individual, social, and economic repercussions worldwide . Canada Resilience research states that when people have more control and stability during a stressful event, they are more capable of coping with stress . As mentThe effects of past epidemics and pandemics on mental health have been studied extensively and highlight the lasting negative impacts they can have. During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, researchers found an increased incidence and prevalence of depression and distress among the general population, family members of patients and healthcare workers ,8. In thDuring the 2003 SARS epidemic, it was found that individuals in China and Taiwan who were quarantined and experienced the perceived threat of SARS had a high incidence of depressive symptoms and were at an increased risk of developing mental health disorders. There was also a statistically significant increase in suicide rates in the years following the epidemic . In one The Kübler-Ross model was designed by physician Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross based on the observation that terminally ill patients and their relatives experienced similar emotions during bereavement . These iIn recent years, social media has become an important tool for self-disclosure, social support and encouragement, particularly with the long-term use of physical distancing measures throughout the COVID-19 pandemic ,14. ReseThe purpose of this retrospective study was to analyze the statements that Canadians made on Twitter regarding their experiences with the perceived threat of COVID-19 and the non-pharmaceutical interventions implemented during the pandemic. The tweets were analyzed to determine the presence of prominent themes and sentiments using the stages of the Kübler-Ross Change Curve to assess the stress resilience and adjustment of Canadians during the pandemic, as these are essential components of developing healthy coping mechanisms and positive long-term mental health .It is predicted that the content of the tweets may be helpful in assessing whether people reach the critical stage of acceptance or integration in the Kübler-Ross model over several months. The responses may shed light on public perception regarding the appropriateness of government interventions and supports. The sentiment regarding government interventions could highlight if the interventions helped Canadians during the pandemic, how their mental well-being may have been affected and possible recommendations to COVID-19 policies to promote resilience.This study did not require ethics approval as it collected publicly available information from Twitter. To protect the privacy of Twitter users, no identifiable or personal information is presented in this study.Using the advanced search feature of Twitter, a search was conducted using keywords from five categories: COVID-19, Canadian policies, finances, non-pharmaceutical interventions and mental health pertaining to COVID-19 . Within Tweets were manually geolocated by reviewing tweets and Twitter user profiles for location information to ensure that the included tweets were from users living in Canada and impacted by Canadian policies regarding COVID-19 during the first six months of the pandemic.From this sample, a sentiment analysis was conducted using the Microsoft Excel Azure Machine Learning add-in. These tweets received a sentiment ranging from positive, negative, neutral or mixed. These sentiments were then manually verified to ensure accuracy of the analysis.A thematic content analysis was conducted using NVivo 11. The sample population was coded by month, and using a bag-of-words model, a query was performed to tokenize tweets and determine common words. These words were grouped together by similarity to determine prominent themes in the tweets. Once the themes were extracted, they were compared with the sentiments that were expressed in each month to determine the strongest sentiments associated with each theme.In addition, the Kübler-Ross Change Curve was used to assess which stage of the KRCC the user was experiencing at the time of the tweet. Using the existing bag-of-words model, each tweet was reviewed and assigned to the appropriate stage(s) of the curve based on the words that best fit each stage of the KRCC. Combining sentiment analysis, thematic content analysis and the KRCC, tweets were analyzed to determine how Twitter users were experiencing changes associated with the pandemic based on each stage of the KRCC, the themes that were strongly associated with their reactions and whether they had positive, negative or neutral sentiments towards those themes. Based on when the tweets were posted, the KRCC demonstrates the progression towards interacting with change and whether there are indications of stress and potential negative impacts.The accounts were also assessed to determine whether the user was an individual, organization, researcher or news reporter. The sentiments, themes and KRCC stage were compared by month to determine whether there were trends between March and August 2020. The content of the tweets was analyzed to identify possible impacts of COVID-19 response policies on mental health and to identify opinions regarding the efficacy and repercussions of COVID-19 response policies and how this impacted the resilience and stress levels for Canadians.This study explored issues that were most prevalent among Canadian Twitter users and how they navigated them during the first six months of the pandemic. The sentiment analysis and thematic content analysis identified the theme(s) within the tweets and the sentiment that was associated with them. The Kübler-Ross Change Curve identified what stage of the curve the users were likely experiencing when they wrote the tweet. Researchers agree that positive and negative sentiments interact . A sentiThe sentiment analysis found that 71/153 (46.4%) of tweets expressed a negative sentiment. Among the negative sentiment tweets, 51/71 (71.8%) belonged to individuals, 12/71 (16.9%) belonged to organizations (for-profit and non-profit), 5/71 (7.0%) belonged to news reports and 3/71 (4.2%) belonged to researchers. This shows that most of the tweets came from individual accounts and were a good representation of the general Canadian public.The four categories that were referenced the most from March to August were Canadian policies, financial concerns, impacts of NPIs, and direct health impacts. The Kübler-Ross Change Curve was a critical tool in understanding the stages of adaptation that Canadians were experiencing throughout the many changes of the pandemic. There are seven categories: shock, denial, frustration, depression, experimentation, decision and integration. The tweets analyzed did not display integration as data collection occurred early during the pandemic and integration may take longer than the six-month timeline of this project. The stages that were present in the sample are shown in Shock is the initial stage of the KRCC when a person is faced with an unexpected change . From thDenial is the second stage of the Kübler-Ross model when a sudden change can become difficult to believe or accept and this is expressed through disbelief by the individual ,12. In MFrustration is the third stage of the Kübler-Ross model when an individual recognizes the change and can become upset or angry because of it ,12. In MDepression is the fourth stage of the Kübler-Ross model when an individual feels overwhelmed with the new change and lacks the energy to interact with the change ,12. In MExperimentation is the fifth stage of the Kübler-Ross model when an individual begins engaging with the new situation ,12. In MDecision is the sixth stage of the Kübler-Ross model when an individual is learning to interact in the new situation and is feeling more positive about the future ,12. In MIntegration is the final stage of the Kübler-Ross model when an individual has fully accepted and integrated with the change and becomes a renewed person ,12. ThroThe themes that were present in the tweets were based on six categories: Canadian policies, financial concerns, impacts of NPIs, direct health impacts of COVID-19, research, and support and encouragement. Tweets categorized as Canadian policies were ones that referenced policies surrounding the COVID-19 response, mentioned the actions of politicians or compared policies in Canada to those of other countries. Financial concerns were tweets that mentioned the effects of economic policies, such as the Canadian Emergency Relief Benefit (CERB) and Employment Insurance (EI) and stress due to financial difficulties experienced directly and indirectly from the pandemic. Impacts of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) referred to the effects of physical distancing measures in place such as school closures, isolation/quarantine, and the importance of personal protective behaviors. Direct health impacts were related to concerns regarding the health and safety of citizens, the disclosure of those who experienced COVID-19-related symptoms and impacts of physical or mental health issues that may have resulted indirectly from the pandemic. Research referred to tweets that shared new information on research advancements in understanding COVID-19 and its impacts, vaccine development, and treatment. Support and Encouragement referred to tweets that shared words of encouragement for others and provided support for people.This theme received the most negative remarks on Twitter from March to August 2020. Most users expressed that government policies were not implemented early enough to protect people from COVID-19. Some referenced that while Canada was not prepared for the 2003 SARS epidemic, the government should have been better prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic 17 years later.Canada made sweeping reforms to infectious disease control after SARS, such as the creation of the Public Health Agency of Canada, a stronger federal presence in public health, enhanced surveillance, and increased preparation and equipment for infection control ,21. WhilThe major subthemes in this category were opinions on the efficacy of the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit, experiences with unemployment and the changing work landscape, and stress from financial difficulties. To reduce the spread of the virus, many retail stores and small businesses were required to close during lockdowns. This led to many lay-offs and small business owners being forced to close, while big businesses such as Walmart, Costco and Amazon were allowed to continue operating and saw more profit . While CSome Twitter users expressed that CERB would discourage people from seeking permanent employment and allowed them to take advantage of taxpayer dollars. Some tweets stated that lower income groups would use this as an opportunity to not seek employment. One person tweeted, “Why work? When #refugees arrive in #Canada, they hit the jackpot. No need to work”. Contrary to this belief, the economic impacts of the pandemic disproportionately affected refugees and immigrants . StatistWhile CERB and other governmental financial aid temporarily helped people who experienced job loss, this brought up the debate of universal basic income (UBI) in Canada. UBI is an income paid to individuals regardless of employment status or education . As the Within this theme, the major subthemes that were present were disclosure regarding isolation, the efficacy of NPIs and coping with NPIs. In March, while many tweets were encouraging people to follow public health protocols, by May when the number of COVID-19-positive people continued to increase, people felt that Canada had not learned from SARS and could have kept the number of community cases lower if swift action had been taken to reduce transmission. In August, all tweets about NPIs were negative. Some of these tweets expressed a belief that the government did not do enough to curb the spread of COVID-19, that NPIs were unfair and ineffective, and that social isolation was having negative effects on the mental health and well-being of Canadians.A cross-sectional study on the mental health of people that experienced isolation and quarantine during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in China found that those who were isolated experienced high rates of depression, anxiety, and stress, especially during the first week of isolation . FurtherTwitter users also highlighted that due to the confinement required by lockdowns, many cases of domestic abuse increased during the pandemic. This left many victims of abuse unable to leave their abuser and seek help . For exaThis theme was present in tweets that described the number of active cases of COVID-19, the death toll, people’s personal experiences with COVID-19, and possible long-term health effects. In March, the majority of tweets were concerned with flattening the curve and reminding people to follow public health protocols to reduce the number of active cases. One tweet listed the number of people that died from COVID-19 in March from various countries around the world. The tweets from March to August showed a shift in the countries that had the highest active cases and death rates. In the very beginning of the pandemic China and Italy were leading the world in deaths from COVID-19, but this quickly changed with the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada seeing a rapid surge in COVID-19 transmission.By May 2020, when lockdown restrictions started to ease, some tweets expressed concern about a second wave because at the time it was not known where the source of the transmission was coming from, whether it was community or travel, and because COVID-19 testing was not mandatory. One tweet stated, “B.C. could see 2nd wave of COVID-19 in September bigger than the first. Do not forget to wear your masks and sanitize regularly.”Another concern with COVID-19 as expressed by 4/33 of the direct health impact tweets , was theAs SARS-CoV-2 is a relatively new virus, there is still much being researched about its long-term effects. Since COVID-19 manifests differently in different people and is still not well understood, it is still feared by many Canadians. The fear of the virus coupled with isolation during the pandemic has likely had a significant impact on the mental health and well-being of many Canadians.Shock and denial were the most common stages that were present in the first couple of months of the pandemic. This aligns with the KRCC when the change is first introduced and participants are interacting with it ,12. ThesDenial is the next stage and usually comes when the participant has had some time to analyze the change and develop opinions about it . The conFrustration is the third stage in the KRCC when people are attempting to interact with the new system and trying to reduce the stress response ,28. WhilDepression is the fourth stage when participants may lose hope in the change, especially if they are not seeing its efficacy . The claExperiment is the fifth stage that people may experience in change management as they start to see the benefits of the change and stress levels decrease . These tThe analysis demonstrates that the sixth stage, decision, was initially higher in April and increased again in August. Tweets that demonstrated decision included how people adjusted to the changes, the scientific accomplishments in treating and preventing COVID-19 and optimism about the future. These expressed gratitude to public servants and frontline workers that helped people throughout the pandemic and appreciation towards businesses that adjusted to the pandemic, such as becoming online retailers.While this study was conducted at the beginning of the pandemic and was not able to see people’s progression towards integration, if continued support is provided to people throughout the adjustment period, it can be expected that people will be able to reach integration and have a positive outlook on the experience. It is important to note that reaching integration is contingent upon the level of support that people receive and resilience they can develop during the adjustment period and may mean increasing the support available ,28.This study looked at the tweets from the first six months of the pandemic. Therefore, one limitation of the dataset is that it does not capture any issues that have emerged since August 2020; especially related to vaccination which we thought would confound the current results. As the pandemic has been rapidly changing, follow-up studies are needed for tweets that may be related to various changes in policies from lockdowns to vaccination mandates after August 2020. Another limitation is that the data were gathered exclusively from Twitter and may not be representative of the entire population of Canada. It is also important to note that Twitter has accounts that are operated by Twitter bots and while measures were taken to reduce the likelihood of including these tweets in the sample, it is difficult to be certain that we were 100% effective. In addition, in order to ensure that the included tweets belonged to Twitter users in Canada, a manual geolocation process was undertaken using public profile information; however, this information is not always reliable or available.This study analyzed Twitter data to understand the perspectives of Canadians to the COVID-19 response in Canada. While the government attempted to implement swift action to reduce the spread of COVID-19 early during the pandemic, many Twitter users expressed that it was not effective in containing the virus. Based on the KRCC, the level of impact that the pandemic had on Canadians determined how well they were able to adjust to the change. These findings demonstrate that for more Canadians to be able to adjust to changes and maintain good or excellent mental health, there may need to be more supports made available to help people adapt, achieve their highest potential, and positively contribute to society, especially the most vulnerable in communities. These data also speak to the communication available to Canadians by different governmental bodies and how well messages may or may not have been related to an individual’s real life.


We are very pleased to announce the three outstanding young scholars who are receiving the 2022 AAPPS-APCTP C.N. Yang Award (C.N. Yang Award): Guancong Ma (Hong Kong Baptist University), Jianwei Wang (Peking University), and Meng-Ru Wu (Academia Sinica). This year, a total of 31 nominations were received; the nominees hailed from 11 different countries and their respective areas of research were represented in 10 distinct sessions of the Asia Pacific Physics Conference (APPC-15) (see Table https://www.appc15.org/ ), which will be held in a hybrid format from August 21 to 26, 2022, in Seoul, Korea.The C.N. Yang Award was established to honor and encourage young researchers with prominent research achievements and to promote the next generation’s leading scholars in physics in the Asia Pacific region. This award had been presented during the Asia Pacific Physics Conference (APPC), which has been held approximately every three years. Notably, starting in 2019, the Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies (AAPPS) and the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP) jointly established the AAPPS-APCTP Chen-Ning Yang Award (C.N. Yang Award) in order to make it an annual event. The C.N. Yang Award Committee consists of members from the AAPPS Council, AAPPS Divisions, and renowned scholars recommended by APCTP. This year, the awards will be presented at APPC15  can emerge in the parameter space of non-Hermitian systems. Dr. Ma was the first to experimentally realize higher-order exceptional points.Dr. Ma pioneered and made continuous contributions to topological wave research. He played a key role in the first realization of a topological transition in sound and subsequently led a series of works that contributed to the vibrant development of topological acoustics. His work on topological physics contributed to the new realm of non-Abelian physics, which is a cornerstone of quantum-logic operations that are described by unitary matrices. He has also made impactful contributions to acoustic metamaterials, demonstrating the excellent sound-proofing capabilities of metamaterials. Dr. Ma later used absorptive metamaterials to break the focusing diffraction limit in three dimensions. Recently, he blurred the boundary between solids and fluids by first demonstrating fluid-like elasticity in a solid-based mechanical metamaterial and conversely realized transversality and spin-orbit interactions in a fluid-acoustic system.Jianwei Wang, Peking University“For his contribution in integrated photonic quantum information science and technologies”Dr. Jianwei Wang is an assistant professor in the Physics School of Peking University. He received both a BS (2008) and MS degree (2011) in optical engineering at Zhejiang University (China) and then obtained his PhD (2016) in physics at the University of Bristol (UK). Dr. Wang is currently leading a group called the “Integrated Quantum Optics Lab” in the Physics School of Peking University. His research focuses on quantum information science and technologies with photons. He has developed large-scale integrated quantum photonic circuits and devices in silicon and has developed versatile technologies to understand quantum foundations and to explore applications of quantum information theory in communications, simulations, and computing. Dr. Wang realized the world’s first integrated optical quantum chip with over 500 components, which significantly pushed the development of the field. He has made significant contributions to on-chip generation, manipulation, and measurement of complex entanglement structures, including multiphoton entanglement and multidimensional entanglement. His team recently demonstrated the first topologically protected Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen entanglement sources, showing the possibilities of making robust quantum photonic devices. His group realized the first on-chip Gaussian sampling quantum computer that can be reprogrammed to implement quantum simulation of molecular dynamics. Dr. Wang realized the first photonic quantum simulator that can learn the Hamiltonian of quantum systems using hybrid quantum-classical algorithms. His group recently demonstrated the first programmable quantum processor with qudits and also on-chip implementation of eight-qubit cluster-state quantum computing and the benchmarking of error correction with photons stepping toward universal quantum computation. In addition, his group demonstrated the first chip-to-chip entanglement distribution and quantum teleportation, showing a pathway to a chip-based entanglement quantum network.Meng-Ru Wu, Academia Sinica“For his contributions in understanding the origin of heavy elements and in the theoretical development of collective neutrino flavor oscillations in neutron star mergers and in supernovae”Dr. Meng-Ru Wu is currently an associate professor at the Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei. To understand the origin of heavy elements is one of the open problems in physics and astrophysics. The multi-messenger observations of GW 170817 provide evidence for heavy elements being derived from the merger of neutron stars. Dr. Wu, with his collaborators, studied theoretical topics related to r-process nucleosynthesis and neutrino flavor conversions in mergers and supernovae. His work showed that r-process nucleosynthesis in outflows ejected viscously from post-merger black-hole accretion disk systems can robustly produce elemental abundance distributions that match well with what is inferred from the solar system and metal-poor star observations. For the theoretical modeling of kilonova lightcurves powered by the nuclear energy released from the decay of unstable nuclei made in the r-process, Dr. Wu and his collaborators found that the thermalization of particle species produced by different decay channels can largely affect the observable. He performed neutrino detection analysis and nucleosynthesis calculations to predict the elemental yields. For neutrino flavor conversions, he showed that neutron star merger remnants generally host favorable conditions for novel fast neutrino flavor conversions to occur within a length scale of centimeters.Dr. Wu’s research work offers a new way to potentially understand the exact nucleosynthesis yields of very heavy nuclei with upcoming observations. In another important work, Dr. Wu showed old kilonova remnants residing inside our Milky Way can produce gamma-ray lines from the decay of a few long-lived r-process nuclei, which may be detectable by next-generation gamma-ray telescopes and could yield clues to key questions related to the merger r-process and the property of neutron star binaries.The 23rd International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation (GR23) and the 2022 annual meeting of the Division of Gravitation and Relativistic Astrophysics, Chinese Physical Society, were successfully held in Liyang, China, from July 3 to 8, 2022. GR23 was hosted by the Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Organizational support was provided by Beijing Normal University, Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study of UCAS, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Hunan Normal University, Jilin University, Lanzhou University, Shanghai University, Sun Yat-sen University, Tianjin University, University of CAS, Yangzhou University, Zhejiang University of Technology, Universe , the Division of Gravitation and Relativistic Astrophysics of the Chinese Physical Society, the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Due to COVID-19, GR23 was held as a hybrid conference, with online and onsite components.GR23 is the latest in the series of triennial international conferences held under the auspices of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation (ISFRG). The conference series constitutes the principal international meetings for scientists working in all areas of relativity and gravitation. GR23 was attended, in terms of both online and onsite participants, by more than 1100 scholars from 52 countries and regions in the world. Seventeen plenary speakers and 386 parallel speakers discussed aspects of the recent progress that has been made in relativity and gravitation. Professor Adam Riess from Johns Hopkins University, who was awarded the 2011 Novel Prize in physics, gave a public lecture titled “Surprises from the Expansion of the Universe.”Professor Nils Andersson, the ISGRG President, chaired the awards ceremony. There was a brief presentation of the two 2022 thesis prizes, i.e., the Jürgen Ehlers Prize in areas of mathematical and numerical general relativity, and the Bergmann-Wheeler Prize, which encompasses a broad area that includes all approaches to quantum gravity. This presentation was followed by three talks from the IUPAP Early Career Award winners of 2020–2022, who are Davide Gerosa from the University of Milano-Bicocca, Christopher Berry from the University of Glasgow, and Katerina Chatziioannou from Caltech.At the ISGRG General Assembly, the new ISGRG Fellows were announced. The 2022 ISGRG Fellows are Beverly Berger, Robert Caldwell, Roberto Emparan, John Friedman, Malcolm Maccallum, Mukund Rangamani, Harvey Reall, Luciano Rezzolla, Sheila Rowan, Susan Scott, and Matt Visser. Moreover, it was announced that GR24 will be hosted by the University of Glasgow, UK.http://gr23beijing.com/.Documents pertaining to GR23 Figs.  and 2, iThe 48th Council Meeting of the Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies (AAPPS) was held online from 4:30 p.m. to 6:48 p.m. (UTC+9hr) on May 26, 2022, via a Zoom session hosted by the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP). The participants were Jun'ichi Yokoyama (president), Hyoung Joon Choi (vice president), Nobuko Naka (secretary), Keun-Young Kim (treasurer), Gui-Lu Long (ex officio member as a former president), and council members Tao Xiang , Xiu-dong Sun , Ruiqin Zhang , Mio Murao ), Akira Yamada (the Japan Society of Applied Physics (JSAP)), Woo-Sung Jung ), Kurunathan Ratnavelu , Rajdeep Singh Rawat (Institute of Physics Singapore), Fu-Jen Kao , and Nguyen Quang Liem . Present as observers were Anisa Qamar , Yunkyu Bang (president of APCTP), Jae-Hyung Jeon (executive director of APCTP), Mirim Lee (AAPPS liaison staff member), and Dayoung Yang . Council members Jodie Bradby ) and Meng-Fan Luo  were absent and Ying-Jer Kao  was present as a proxy on behalf of Luo.(1) Secretary Naka reported the presence of 13 council members (including the proxy) out of 17 council members, and the quorum was declared as fulfilled. [Note: the number of council members present during the 48th Council Meeting changed from 13 to 16.] She informed that the minutes of the 47th Council Meeting were circulated and already published in the AAPPS Bulletin.(2) President Yokoyama opened the 48th Council Meeting and welcomed the participants. The agenda was adopted as prepared by the president.(3) Yokoyama explained that some months ago there was an application for membership to AAPPS by the Pakistan Physical Society and introduced Anisa Qamar, the immediate past president of the Pakistan Physical Society. As a representative of the society, Qamar explained the history and current status of the Pakistan Physical Society and their desire to join AAPPS.Prof. Abdus Salam arranged the 1974 International Nathiagali Summer College, and at this event, Pakistani physicists decided to establish a formal professional body. In 1986, the establishment of a national society of physics was proposed at the National Symposium on Frontiers in Physics. In March 1990, the government of Pakistan formally acknowledged the Pakistan Physical Society. The main objectives of the society are to promote and advance physics, to acknowledge and support excellent researchers and teachers of physics, and to foster linkages between Pakistan and societies/institutions worldwide. Major activities of the society include the organization of conferences and workshops through five local chapters, conducting of executive council and general-body meetings, and awarding prizes. The society offers four categories of membership, as a fellow, honorary fellow, member, or an associate member. A graduate student, holding at least a BS degree or equivalent, is eligible to apply to become a member. Subscription rates are categorized into annual and lifetime fees. Funds of the society are derived from membership fees, grants from the government or international bodies, and donations. The Pakistan Physical Society has, at present, an executive council and five divisions .Yokoyama asked if the government of Pakistan automatically renews funds every year. Qamar answered that the society applies for a grant every year because at the governmental level, Pakistan’s financial situation is sometimes unstable. Last year, the society made amendments of the constitution and introduced field divisions. The joint sector of all divisions has just started. Qamar was the first female president in the society. She expects that there will be a great deal of progress in different fields in the coming years. The society has organized the first regional e-conference in January 2022 in connection with the centennial celebration of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), which was attended by 10–11 eminent speakers and approximately 200 participants.Kurunathan Ratnavelu commented that a treasurer position is missing in the executive council of the Pakistan Physical Society. Qamar answered that the society does not have a governmental fund yet and they will appoint a treasurer when it becomes necessary. Ratnavelu wondered if approval by the government will be needed once again after significant amendments of the constitution are made. Qamar responded that it will not be needed as the amendments would change only minimal aspects of the constitution.Yunkyu Bang, the president of APCTP, stated that Prof. Abdus Salam, who had initiated the foundation of the Pakistan Physical Society, also played an important role in the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP). ICTP and APCTP share the same mission of promoting theoretical physics. APCTP has 17 member countries covering almost all countries in the Asia Pacific region but he noted that a very important society is still missing. Bang invited the Pakistan Physical Society to join APCTP. Qamar showed interest and promised to conduct further discussions.After Qamar left the meeting, Yokoyama asked whether the council members approve of the Pakistan Physical Society becoming the 20th member of AAPPS. Woo-Sung Jung pointed out that the decision should be made via vote. In the vote, all 15 council members present agreed and the application by the Pakistan Physical Society was unanimously approved.(4) Vice President Choi reported on the status of preparations for APPC15. The deadline for abstract submission has been extended to May 31st. The number of confirmed invited speakers is 360, excluding those in the Division of Astrophysics, Cosmology and Gravitation (DACG), the Division of Nuclear Physics, and the Division of Plasma Physics (DPP). Already 250 abstracts were submitted from invited speakers (110 are to be reminded). The original plan of having 400 invited speakers will be reached after including speakers from the three listed divisions. At present, the total number of contributed and poster presentations is 140, which corresponds to only 25% of the original plan of 400 contributed talks plus 200 poster presentations. Choi expects more than 90 additional abstracts from DPP. He stated that at APPC15, contributed talks by graduate students as well as by researchers and professors are encouraged. Altogether, we may have approximately 600 abstracts, which is less than the original goal of 1,000 abstracts. Choi would consider it to be a success if we reach 800 abstracts at APPC15.Registration was planned to start on May 25th but was delayed for a couple of days due to technical issues. The registration fee for middle- and high-school teachers and retired professors will be exempted following the policy of KPS. It should be noted that the exemption is not automatic and requires contact to the secretariat by email. Rajdeep Singh Rawat asked if the exemption is only applied to Korean participants. Choi answered that it is not restricted to Koreans. The temporal list of the invited speakers and titles of submitted abstracts were shown. The opening time of APPC15 will be at 9 am. One room will be prepared for a hybrid session on Sunday and Monday, in which the council meeting (CM), ordinary general meeting (OGM), opening ceremony, and the special sessions, including the Global Physics Summit and the Role of Physics in the Green Economy, will be held.KPS will provide hotel rooms for those who will come for the CM/OGM. The housing and meals for three nights and four days, starting from Saturday, will be supported. Inside Korea, only two rules regarding COVID-19 remain: masks must be worn indoors and one must self-isolate at home for seven days after testing positive for omicron. If you pass the COVID test when you enter Korea, you can go out of the airport without quarantine. It is expected that the Korean government will eventually announce the lifting of all COVID-19 restrictions and that COVID-19 infections will be treated similarly to an ordinary cold. Airports in Korea are not as convenient to use as compared to pre-pandemic times, but the COVID-19 infection rates are presently low inside Korea. Yokoyama asked if there is a vaccination requirement for travelers entering into Korea. Bang mentioned that foreigners need a certificate of vaccination from their own country. One of the difficulties for participants may be flight costs, which are becoming quite high. The presidents of member societies are invited to participate in the Global Physics Summit. They can participate in person or virtually. Yokoyama confirmed that the onsite venue is at Yonsei University. Yokoyama stated that arriving in Korea is one thing but returning to home countries could cause another problem. When returning to Japan, travelers need to take a PCR test no earlier than three days before the returning flight. Rawat stated that returning to Singapore is even simpler, as there is no need for a PCR test. Rawat thanked Choi for his support to the council members.Rawat asked Choi if they provide any registration-fee waiver or even partial waiver to the participants with financial difficulties. Choi responded that, although he recognizes the need and difficulties, it is hard to waive the registration fee. Choi added that speakers had to travel previously for APPC14 held in Malaysia, and the support provided was usually limited to their travel. Ratnavelu explained that at APPC14, such participants paid the registration fee for the commitment and then we covered the airfare. However, this time, the only expense is the registration fee. Choi concluded that simply waiving the registration fee is not easy. A significant expense arises as we have more than 10 parallel sessions for five days. Regardless, the registration fee of APPC15 is lower than that for the online participant of the March Meeting of the American Physical Society (APS), which was planned in a hybrid format.Tao Xiang asked if the receipt of 200 more abstracts is only expected for poster presentations. Choi clarified that both poster presentations and contributed talks  are expected. Yokoyama wondered if the participants prefer the poster format. Choi responded that some students, who are not confident in English, might prefer the poster presentation. Rawat asked if prerecorded presentations are advised for participants who are not comfortable with live oral contributions or have an Internet connection issue. In some conferences, a question-and-answer time is designated following the playback of each prerecorded presentation. Choi stated that live talks are encouraged and a recorded presentation will be accepted as an exception when the speaker absolutely needs to do so. Meanwhile, all poster presenters can submit recorded explanations. The poster session will be held in a metaverse platform where participants appear as avatars. The same poster session room was used at the KPS Spring Meeting, which was convenient and interesting for participants but quite expensive.Yokoyama asked how many plenary speakers were fixed. Choi answered that 11 speakers out of 14 planned were fixed. He added that three or more additional plenary speakers can be included in the session by changing the last parallel session. He hopes that member societies of AAPPS further encourage submissions for contributed talks and posters.(5) Yokoyama stated that he received one proposal for the venue of APPC16, which was from the Chinese Physical Society, Beijing.As a brief introduction to the Chinese Physical Society, Beijing, founded in 1932, Xiang explained that the membership is now 40,000 and there are eight working groups and 32 committees. The society organizes approximately 100 conferences and meetings annually. The executive board comprises the president and six vice presidents. The annual Fall Meeting, held two years ago, was attended by more than 5,000 participants.Subsequently, Xiang introduced the proposal from the Chinese Physical Society, Beijing, to host APPC16 at the China National Convention Center in Beijing in the autumn of 2025. He explained that the convention center and the hotel are located at a very convenient place within the Beijing Olympic Green and right next to the Bird’s Nest. 100 meeting rooms and advanced audio-visual facilities are available in the convention center. A total of 5000 rooms can be provided at the hotels. The preliminary conference dates are October 7–11, 2025. The budget plan consists of registration fees, funds from the municipal and central governments, on-site exhibiting companies, and publishers. As a point of reference, the Chinese Physical Society, Beijing, also successfully organized APPC11 in Shanghai. Xiang hopes that COVID-19 will not be a serious problem for the conference in 2025 and would work under the assumption that the conference will be held in an in-person format. To summarize, the Chinese Physical Society, Beijing, is well-positioned to host APPC16.Following the explanation by Xiang, Fu-Jen Kao proposed holding the conference in 2024. He stated that considering the recent progress of AAPPS, including increasing regional exchange activities, holding APPC every two years is worth considering. Xiang responded that the tradition has been to hold APPC every three years but that he passes the decision to AAPPS. Gui-Lu Long reminded that the former council members had previously discussed this issue, but the conclusion was to hold APPC every three years in conjunction with the council term and OGM. Kao commented that APPC does not have to synchronize with the council term. Yokoyama stated that another option is to have it every year, by simply associating APPC with a local society meeting or a division meeting. Yokoyama added that unlike the former time, now we have four divisions, each of which organizes its annual meetings, and the CN Yang Award was changed from every three years to a yearly award. Bang stated that although he is not qualified to say anything about this issue as an observer, APCTP made remarkable progress in every direction these years and we should take this opportunity for the further rapid growth of our community, as an equal counterpart to the European Physical Society (EPS) and APS. He supported Kao’s suggestion of the interval of every two years as a timely change.Yokoyama mentioned that it depends largely on how many member societies show interest in hosting the conference. Long expressed the same concern. Rawat suggested talking with different societies and people, as both leadership and a great deal of work are required to hold a conference. Long stated that we will lower the target number of participants from 1000 to 800. Kao pointed out that an annual meeting of a local society helps to increase the target. Long suggested holding APPC every three years, while inviting AAPPS scholars to join the AAPPS sessions included in a national conference in the other two years. Yokoyama agreed that some of the divisions may organize such a joint meeting and it is a good way to start holding more frequent APPCs. Choi stated that in order to have APPC more frequently, the preparations should be done more systematically, e.g., by utilizing the same website and contact network as used for annual meetings organized by local societies. To reduce labor and costs, Choi pointed out the need for a committee to handle these matters for APPC.Kao proposed setting up an APPC working group (WG) under AAPPS. If we have a long-term view of increased activities in the Asia Pacific region, then it will be good to have an APPC WG whose members do not change every year. Choi stated that it will be helpful when we have more divisions in the near future. Rawat supported the suggestion of setting the APPC WG as a subcommittee, just like the CN Yang Award committee under AAPPS. Yokoyama suggested proposing the new WG at a council meeting in August, so that more member societies can participate in the organization of APPC.Considering the situation with COVID-19 and current travel restrictions, Xiang suggested holding the next APPC in 2025, with the anticipation that international travel will become more normal. In the future, if more societies are interested in hosting APPC, then we can consider having it every two years. Choi supported the proposal by Xiang and added that the actual preparations for APPC will start in 2024. Had we planned to hold APPC16 in 2024, then there would have been more uncertainty regarding the evolving state of the COVID-19 pandemic, as preparations would need to begin in 2023.When the call for applications was made, Yokoyama asked if a membership fee could be put on top of the registration fee. Rawat commented that it depends on local laws. Long explained that a local account is difficult to open in China. Xiang stated that the money potentially derived from membership fees would be a small amount and it would be better to get support from industries and from publishers. Yokoyama also asked if there is any possibility to associate with a local event. Xiang explained that the annual meeting of the Chinese Physical Society, Beijing, would not be held in Beijing during that time frame and that APPC will be an independent meeting. Yokoyama added that the size of APPC is much smaller than that of the annual meetings of the society, and as such, association with a local event would not be appropriate.Yokoyama concluded that we shall endorse the Chinese Physical Society, Beijing, to host APPC16 in Beijing in 2025, and that we shall consider establishing a WG to discuss whether future APPCs should be held in shorter intervals. These proposals were unanimously agreed upon by the council members.(6) Rawat, the chair of the selection committee of the CN Yang Award 2022, reported on the current status of the selection process. Rawat expressed his thanks to Dayoung Yang for her exceptionally good work. We have received 31 nominations from nine different fields and the preselection process has been completed. The final selection stage is to set up a meeting in the coming week or so. The timeline is slightly behind the schedule but conducting the final selection in June should be fine.(7) Yokoyama reported on the progress regarding the preparation of the code of conduct for AAPPS. He has collected the respective codes of conduct from various societies and associations, such as JPS, JSAP, AIP, KPS , EPS, and APS. The rules of endorsement, prepared by former President Long, could be used as a part of the code of conduct for AAPPS. Yokoyama asked the council members to send him the code of conduct of their respective member societies if an English version exists. After compiling the collected codes with the members of the code-of-conduct WG, a draft will be proposed in a future council meeting.(8) Yokoyama reported on the cosponsoring of conferences.The Thai Physics Society previously asked for the nomination of plenary speakers for the Siam Physics Congress (SPC2022) in Thailand, to be held in June. As the focus of the conference is carbon neutrality, which is applied physics rather than fundamental physics, Yokoyama asked Akira Yamada of JSAP for a recommendation. Yamada kindly found two plenary speakers. The Thai Physics Society also asked AAPPS for financial support. Although we usually do not support such a conference, Yokoyama considered this event to be a worthy opportunity to use a part of $5000 USD, which was provided by JSAP on top of their membership fee. Yokoyama discussed with the vice president, treasurer, and secretary and a contribution of $1500 USD was allocated.We have already provided $2000 USD of financial support to the Nepal Physical Society for an international conference (ICFP2022), which virtually refills the unpaid membership fees. The Nepal Physical Society asked for speakers to be nominated, and Long, Yokoyama, and Choi attended the conference as plenary speakers.(9) Naka reported on the status regarding the induction of the next group of council members. We have so far received 12 candidates from nine member societies. She will make a slate soon after the nomination deadline on May 31st and circulate it to the presidents of the member societies for secondment. She pointed out a few typos in the bylaws and constitution, which should be discussed at the OGM in August.(10) Long briefly explained the current status of the AAPPS Bulletin (AB). He mentioned the editorial board structure and the continued cooperation with Springer Nature and the improved citations of AB. There were 115 total citations in 2021, which was a remarkable improvement as compared to previous years. Articles in high-energy physics, particle physics, plasma physics, and bioscience contributed significantly. There were a total of 18 citations for 23 articles published in 2021, which means an estimated impact factor of 5, and there was a significant jump from 2020 to 2021 in terms of the quality of the papers.A problem lies in the small number of publications. Presently, a large percentage of the article publishing charge (APC) has been paid for by APCTP. If we could have AB included in the Web of Science and Scopus, Long posits that there would then be more free submissions and then AB could run self-sustainably by the APC collected from the authors. He asked Mio Murao, an expert on quantum information, to contribute and for Choi to make a call to APPC15 participants to request the submission of their best articles to AB.News and Views are published as one item, electronically, every two months, on the Springer Nature website. The articles are separated in the printed version with a table of contents to allow the readers to access them more easily. This year, four or five original research papers were accepted. A few days ago, AB received an email from EPS asking to publish one of the papers in AB as an article in EPS Newsletters. This shows that AB is getting noticed by EPS. Yokoyama mentioned that AB previously published one article from EPS and EPS published one article from AB. Regarding the editorial board members, Long asked council members for recommendations and, in particular, for recommendations for individuals with backgrounds in applied physics. The senior editors come from member societies, and editors are appointed on an expertise basis. Yokoyama expressed his gratitude to Bang for APCTP’s financial support.(11) Treasurer K.-Y. Kim gave a brief report on the financial status of AAPPS. The balance is 85,873,176 KRW or $71,560 USD, in addition to the Leo Koguan Foundation’s $36,500 USD . The only expense last year was the establishment fee for the Division of Condensed Matter Physics and up to now, this year’s only expense was the support of $1500 USD for SPC2022 held in Thailand. The account statements include membership fees , AB contributions, and support from APCTP of $468,360 USD. DACG has been supporting and will continue to support the domain fee of $113 USD until 2025. (12) Yokoyama announced that the next council meeting will be organized online sometime in late July or early August 2022. The main agenda of the OGM in August will be to report on our activities of the last 2.5 years. Long asked Choi to send invitations and hotel information to the council members.The 49th Council Meeting of the Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies (AAPPS) was held online from 3:00 p.m. to 5:38 p.m. (UTC+9hr) on July 28, 2022, via a Zoom session hosted by the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP). The participants were Jun'ichi Yokoyama (president), Hyoung Joon Choi (vice president), Nobuko Naka (secretary), Keun-Young Kim (treasurer), Gui-Lu Long (ex officio member as a former president), and council members Xiu-dong Sun , Ruiqin Zhang , Mio Murao ), Akira Yamada (the Japan Society of Applied Physics (JSAP)), Woo-Sung Jung ), Rajdeep Singh Rawat (Institute of Physics Singapore), and Nguyen Quang Liem . Present as observers were Yunkyu Bang (president of APCTP) and Dayoung Yang . Council members Jodie Bradby ), Tao Xiang , Kurunathan Ratnavelu , Fu-Jen Kao , and Meng-Fan Luo  were absent. Hai-Qing Lin  and Ying-Jer Kao  were present as proxies on behalf of Xiang and Luo, respectively.(1) Secretary Naka reported the presence of 14 council members (including the two proxies) out of 17 council members, and the quorum was declared as fulfilled. President Yokoyama informed that the minutes of the 48th Council Meeting were circulated by e-mail.(2) Yokoyama opened the 49th Council Meeting and welcomed the participants. He introduced Hai-Qing Lin and Ying-Jer Kao, who were present as proxies. The agenda was adopted as prepared by the president.(3) Vice President Choi reported on the status of preparations for APPC15. On the top website of APPC15, three logos of the 70th anniversary of the KPS, the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development, and the Centennial of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) are posted. On the morning of Monday, August 22, we have two speakers in the plenary session followed by the parallel sessions, which include the special session on the Global Physics Summit. In the afternoon, there are two parallel sessions (with a break), including the special session on the Role of Physics in the Green Economy (without a break) as well as the poster session. The ceremony of the CN Yang Award will be held from 1:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. in a hybrid format, right before the afternoon parallel sessions. Three winners of the CN Yang Award will deliver talks in the fully online session from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.The schedule of contributed talks was already announced to all speakers. The schedule of the 14 plenary speakers is not fully fixed yet. One change will be made on the slot of one plenary speaker from Europe, whose time zone is not good. The alternative slot will be the period of the break from 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Then, there will be room to have one more plenary speaker. Choi stated that we currently have no plenary speaker from the particle physics field, and recommendation is welcome. So far, slightly more than 1000 abstracts, including 510 invited talks, 330 contributed talks, and 190 posters, have been accepted. This means that we reached the initial goal of making APPC15 successful.The deadline for the early-bird registration was July 15 and over. The regular registration will start on August 1 and continue until the end of the conference. About 800 people have so far made the registration. The withdrawal rate seems to be lower than the previous experience of 10% for other conferences. The local organizing committee decided to waive the registration fees for five participants from Nepal and another five from Myanmar. The registration fee for retired professors and high-school and mid-school teachers is exempted.On Sunday, August 21, the Ordinary General Meeting (OGM) will be held in the faculty meeting room of the Physics Department at Yonsei University, Seoul. The room was recently renovated with equipment for hybrid meetings. Among presidents of member societies and council members, five people will attend the meetings in person, while others will participate virtually.Yokoyama asked about the distribution of member countries and regions. Choi answered that 40% of the abstracts were submitted from inside Korea. JPS, JSAP, the Chinese Physical Society, Beijing, and the Physical Society located in Taipei made the next largest contributions for another 40%. Some significant numbers of participants choose their society as the American Physical Society (APS). Choi added that probably not all of them live in the United States (US), but are APS members in other countries/regions. Many abstract authors from India and Pakistan requested a full or partial waiver of the registration fee. The waiver was limited to participants from Nepal and Myanmar, which are included in the UN list of least developed countries. Choi explained that he plans to discuss with Gui-Lu Long shortly to prepare an editor session.Yokoyama explained that AAPPS and AAPPS Bulletin had received an invitation from the KPS to participate in the virtual booth on the metaverse platform for the exhibition and poster sessions. Choi explained that the booths for AAPPS, AAPPS Bulletin, and APCTP are provided free of charge, thanks to the support of the KPS. When you access the platform website, you will be asked for your email address. After clicking the confirmation email, you can enter the metaverse after choosing your avatar, clothes, and the head. In the poster session, the presenters can discuss using the shared presentation materials with the participants. At the booths, we will provide links to materials such as viewgraphs, videos, and websites of AAPPS and AAPPS Bulletin. Yokoyama suggested adding power-point presentations to introduce the activities of AAPPS, prepared by the president.Yokoyama suggested making recordings of plenary sessions for later service, for example, for member societies that cannot send many participants to APPCs. Choi responded that we do not have any plan to record scientific sessions but may record the first hybrid session for the opening, the first plenary session, and the special sessions. Rawat conveyed a question if all the presentations will be given in parallel Zoom sessions. Choi answered that we have a special Internet connection for APPC15 from a cable company, independent of the Yonsei University’s Internet line, which enables all sessions to progress with live talks and live Q&A. Rawat pointed out that we need permission from all the speakers for recording, and recorded videos should be set only playable and not downloadable. Choi responded that we cannot hamper recording by the audience as recording videos is one of the standard tools in the Windows operational system. Rawat also commented that students feeling uncomfortable with languages sometimes prefer pre-recorded presentations. Choi answered he knows it but encourages students to deliver a live presentation for educational purposes. If some speakers request recorded presentations, we will consider it positively but will not announce it. We should be careful handling large-size recordings to be virus-free.Yokoyama asked about the number of parallel sessions. Choi responded that there are 13 subjects on top of special sessions and the session for Women-in-Physics. The average number of sessions running simultaneously is 17. The technical aspects of the sessions are controlled by secretaries, and the session chairs handle academic or scientific parts only. Invitations to session chairs will be sent in the next week.(4) The plan for Sunday, August 21, the day before the start of APPC15, was discussed. Normally, we have a council meeting, OGM, new council meeting, and extended council meeting. The extended council meeting will be attended by outgoing and incoming council members. Considering the time difference of the member countries/regions, the starting time and duration of the first council meeting were set at 10:00 a.m. and two hours, respectively. After a lunch break, the OGM will start at 1:00 p.m., whose agenda includes a report on the AAPPS activities of the past 2.5 years and the election of the new council members. The previous election was easy because we had the same number of candidates and available positions. This time, we have more candidates than the number of seats, and the election should be done in a hybrid manner. The duration of OGM is estimated to be two hours.Woo-Sung Jung explained the agenda of the previous OGM, prepared by the AAPPS headquarters. He confirmed that the vote is confidential and that the introduction of participants took the longest time among the agenda items. Yokoyama stated that, unlike other APPCs, we have APPC15 in the middle time of the year while our term continues until December. He commented that all the forthcoming council meeting(s) after August would be a kind of extended one participated by both outgoing and incoming council members. He considers that it is better to have some term overlaps, as the new members will become familiar with AAPPS activities. Long stated that it is up to the president to decide whether to invite new council members. The term of the new secretary will start in January 2023, and the new president has time to consider the appointment.Yokoyama stated that one hour would be enough for the new council meeting (not observed by current council members), while Jung pointed out that it took more than one hour in 2016. The time of the new council meeting was set at 3:30 p.m.–4:30 p.m. The ending time of the new council meeting is tentative, and the current council members will wait in another Zoom room for the new council members to join the extended council meeting. The extended council meeting was scheduled (tentatively) from 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Choi confirmed to prepare four different Zoom meeting rooms for Sunday.(5) At the time of the previous OGM, the president of the KPS mentioned that we should have more members from more different countries and regions in the council. Yokoyama asked about opinions on the possibility of expanding the size of the council, considering the increasing number of member societies of AAPPS. Yokoyama explained that this issue involves an amendment of the Constitution, which requires approval at a General Meeting. He had thought that such an important issue should be discussed well at in-person meetings rather than online meetings forced during the COVID-19 time. Choi pointed out that we would need to inform the member societies well in advance, e.g., six months before to discuss. Long expressed his opinion that it is the right time to discuss this issue. Rawat and Ruiqin Zhang supported proposing an amendment of the Constitution at the OGM in August 2022. Choi also agreed and wondered if what number would be appropriate. Jung suggested just raising the point and not immediately deciding the number. Mio Murao asked about the possible disadvantage when the council is expanded and if we expect that some of the agreements will become difficult to reach, for example. No concrete cons were pointed out.Meanwhile, President Yokoyama received a written proposal to increase the number of council members from Ying-Jer Kao as the president of the Physical Society located in Taipei. Yokoyama asked for opinions from council members, and the proposal was seconded by all the present council members.Subsequently, the number to be increased was discussed. Murao asked about what was the number of member societies when the number of council members was defined as 15. Long introduced that the members at the time of the AAPPS foundation in 1989 were 15 societies plus the ASEAN Institute of Physics and South East Asia Theoretical Physics Association. The latter two are presently no active members. Jung stated that the number of member societies was 16 in 1997 and has increased by four as of today. He proposed 20 council members for the amendment. Kao wondered if an odd number would be more favored for voting. Yokoyama explained that the ex officio and secretary, who are voting members, are not included in the current number of 15 and a treasurer, if they were not elected, is a non-voting member of the council. The 20 means the upper limit, and no change will be proposed for the lower limit of 9. Rawat asked if the quorum is defined by an absolute number or in percentage. Naka confirmed that it is defined as two-thirds of the council members, and there is no need for an amendment regarding the quorum. Long added that the maximum number of council members from member societies in one country/region is also defined in percentage.Yokoyama finally proposed to decide on the tentative upper limit of 20 and to make the final decision with the opinions of member societies at the OGM. The motion was unanimously agreed upon by the council members.(6) Yokoyama reported on his recent activities as the president. He attended the conference of the Italian Physical Society held online and then made his first international trip after the COVID-19 pandemic to attend the IUPAP Centennial Symposium in Trieste. Yokoyama briefly showed the presentation slide. He explained cooperation with APCTP, whose support is always appreciated, organization of APPCs, support for the regional activities organized by the Nepal Physical Society and the Thai Physics Society, as well as the division activities. Women-in-Physics activities are popular here, and the number of female physicists exceeds that of male physicists in some countries. There is significant diversity among our member societies in terms of size, structure, and stage of development and decline. Statistics about Japan represent no increase in GDP, no inflation, and no increase in our salary over three decades. Thus, Japan has established a stationary state as an environment-friendly society with a sustainable economy. However, the government debt increases more and more, and it will reach some limit beyond which we would not be able to sustain. The budget for science has not increased very much in Japan compared to the year 2000. Meanwhile, China and Korea have significantly increased spending on science, leading to the rapid growth of research on physics in the region.Yokoyama also introduced activities of some members of the Division of Nuclear Physics (DNP) to support physicists in Myanmar. The country was democratized in 2011 but turned to military rule by the coup d’état in 2021. There was a Campaign for Civil Disobedience against the military government, which led to a serious division between people involved and not involved in the movement. The DNP has been organizing lectures and experimental courses or even inviting researchers to Japan for further education, without discrimination whether those who joined or not joined the Campaign. Yokoyama expressed that he wishes to provide some support to these activities in Myanmar from AAPPS. However, they are not a member society of AAPPS, and it may not be a good idea to spend the AAPPS money. He suggested using the honorarium, which he had received for writing an article published in the AAPPS Bulletin, for donation on behalf of AAPPS. Yunkyu Bang expressed no objection.After the IUPAP meeting, Yokoyama met the president-elect of the IUPAP, who showed interest on the AAPPS Bulletin and proposed cooperation with IUPAP. In order to meet this request, Yokoyama suggested even strengthening the News and Views section of the AAPPS Bulletin, which is its unique feature. Long welcomed the proposition. Long added that the quality of papers in the AAPPS Bulletin is significantly increasing, and the problem of the small number of articles will be resolved in the future with cooperation with Springer Nature.(7) Just before the COVID-19 pandemic, Yokoyama attended the annual meeting of the Physical Society located in Taipei and introduced the activities of AAPPS at the council meeting of the society. He further proposed to start a joint award between AAPPS and member societies for young researchers. The council members of the society agreed to establish one. AAPPS council also agreed to try it as a joint pilot program of AAPPS and the society. The first-year prizes were given to three researchers who delivered excellent talks at the annual meeting and had relations outside the society region after one year’s postponement due to the pandemic. The winners received gold medal plates from AAPPS, which were donated by the AAPPS president, and monetary prizes from the Physical Society located in Taipei. The cash prize was approximately 100 USD as a token. The current president, Kao, intends to continue this program.Yokoyama recently reported on this pilot program at the AAPPS committee meeting inside JPS. They were positive about establishing a new joint award for AAPPS and JPS. The idea of JPS is that they will select winners of the AAPPS-JPS Award among nominees for the CN Yang Award who were recommended by JPS divisions but not the final recipient of the CN Yang Award. JPS can nominate up to 19 candidates for the CN Yang Award, and usually, not all the divisions make nominations. The nominees are all excellent, and JPS will consider them as candidates for the AAPPS-JPS Award. Yokoyama explained that, by doing so, we could encourage talented young researchers and increase the visibility of AAPPS more prominently in member societies. He learned at the IUPAP meeting that the Young Scientist Prize (currently renamed the Early Career Scientist Prize) was established for the purpose of making young researchers know about the IUPAP. A draft of guidelines for the joint award with member societies was prepared and explained by Yokoyama.Long expressed his support for this scheme. He added a comment that we should be careful about the naming of the joint prize not to be confused with the CN Yang Award. Long also suggested raising the profile of the award to make AAPPS much more visible. Yokoyama responded that it would be unfortunately more difficult to achieve. Rawat stated that he considers formulating the joint awards a fantastic idea. He wondered if a certificate will be prepared by the local society. Long suggested including the logo of AAPPS in the certificate. Kao stated that he would share an exemplary certificate prepared by the Physical Society located in Taipei with the council members for reference. Consequently, the draft of guidelines for joint awards was approved by the council members.(8) The code of conduct making has been pending for quite a while. At the previous council meeting, Yokoyama reported that he had collected the respective codes of conduct from various societies. A draft of the Code of Conduct of AAPPS was presented by Yokoyama, and he asked for opinions and comments by the time of the next council meeting when it will be finalized.(9) Thanks to the generous support of APCTP, the website of AAPPS has been under complete renovation. Yokoyama asked council members to give any inputs and opinions. Choi suggested carefully confirming the names of member societies.(10) Yokoyama explained that the Physics Society of Iran wishes to join AAPPS. Following the convention, he asked the society to fill out the questionnaire form. The form says that the establishment year is 1963, while the website says that the creation was in 1932, which means the society is as old as the Chinese Physical Society, Beijing. The society has 2500 regular members and more than 8000 student members. The society organizes annual meetings and has a division structure, publishes the Iranian Journal of Physics Research, and awards a number of prizes. They wish to join as an associate member till someday when the political sanction by the US is lifted, and they can send money abroad.Rawat commented that the level of physics research in Iran is high, and Singapore has a substantial number of Iranian students. According to his involvement in the International Physics Olympiad (IPhO), the Iranian team always does very well. They are also known internationally as they organized IPhO 2007 in Isfahan with great success. Therefore, Rawat considers it is good to involve them in AAPPS. Bang explained that APCTP previously had a few Iranian postdocs. Because of the US sanction, however, newly coming Iranian researchers cannot open a new bank account in Korea, which made them finally not come. Yokoyama stated that he personally knows many Iranian physicists and has published a collaborated paper with one of them.Yokoyama summarized that he hopes to make a final decision on whether we should accept them or not after having a presentation by the president of the society at a future council meeting.(11) Yokoyama explained Clause 7.3 of the Constitution, stating, “Any Member Society which is in arrears in the payment of membership fees shall have no vote at General Meetings.” Previously, not all the member societies gathered at the OGM, and some societies in arrears of payment usually did not come. However, the next OGM will be held in a hybrid format, and some member societies with unpaid fees may attend. Yokoyama asked what we should do, i.e., send them the electronic voting ballot, ask them to finish the payment, or having joint activities with AAPPS to virtually support, or simply follow the Constitution.Rawat stated that we should follow the clear statement in the Constitution. Long also respects the Constitution and states that member societies with unpaid fees can take part in the activities (including participation in the OGM) but should not have a vote. Long recommended that Naka write a letter notifying Clause 7.3 to those members and give them a chance to make a payment by the time of the OGM.(12) Rawat conveyed a question about the AAPPS fellowship. He explained that fellowship makes the society more visible, and fees from fellows are funding resources in Singapore. Yokoyama responded that we do have some AAPPS honorary fellows already, but we do not ask them to pay. Long explained that rules to appoint an AAPPS honorary fellow have been formulated by Prof. Seunghwan Kim. Only very limited scholars, such as Nobel Prize winners and past presidents who made a significant contribution to AAPPS, have been appointed so far. Rawat suggested including the list of AAPPS honorary fellows on the new website.Yokoyama announced that the next council meeting would be held on August 21, 2022, and closed the meeting.


A key aspect of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) Tech program was an active Clinical Studies Core including Committees with unique expertise to facilitate the development and implementation of studies to test novel diagnostic devices for Covid-19. The Ethics and Human Subjects Oversight Team (EHSO) was tasked to provide ethics and regulatory expertise to stakeholders in the RADx Tech effort. The EHSO developed a set of Ethical Principles to guide the overall effort and provided consultation on a wide range of ethical and regulatory concerns. Having access to a pool of experts with ethical and regulatory knowledge who met weekly to tackle issues of importance to the investigators was critical to the overall success of the project. I.Think back to the start of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic when there were no vaccines, therapeutics, or widely available diagnostics. There was an urgent need for rapid development and testing in these areas, but the social value of developing these products as quickly as possible had to be balanced with the need to minimize harm to the subjects willing to enroll.1https://www.covid19testus.org/what-is-test-us/publications/Full list of publications at The Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) Tech program was part of the overall National Institutes of Health (NIH) supported RADx initiative to speed innovation in the development, commercialization, and implementation of technologies for COVID-19 testing. University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School was the coordinating site for the RADx Tech COVID-19 Clinical Studies Core (CSC), which is publicly branded as “COVID-19 Test Us.” The effort required a multi-site, national effort in collaboration with academic, commercial, and community partners to test novel COVID-19 diagnostic technologies All RADx Tech CSC studies were based at UMass Chan and involved prospective sample collections with the goal of collecting data from diverse populations and settings. In order to accomplish this goal, the group included academic collaborators from UMass Chan, University of Massachusetts - Lowell (UML), Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and Northwestern University (NW) along with four Practice-Based Research Networks in Oregon, Iowa, Kansas and Georgia, all managing testing locations. Contracts were also established with University of California San Francisco (UCSF)/Eureka Digital Platform, Quest Diagnostics, Care Evolution Healthcare Technology, and the device manufacturers.The UMass Chan team developed a platform study design to facilitate a series of device studies. Each study included key outcomes such as accuracy, speed, ease of use, accessibility and user acceptability. The master protocol and model consent form were then amended for each new device to be tested. Devices tested included a range of samples to be collected  and collection methods . All studies included a standard comparator assay and results were reported to participants.In collaboration with Eureka the CSC developed a digital, paperless enrollment platform to allow for the consent process, data entry and data collection. The UMass Chan Institutional Review Board (IRB) served as the single IRB (sIRB) of record for all but a few studies that were reviewed by a commercial IRB. The UMass Chan sIRB reviewed 23 reliance agreements, 165 protocol submissions and amendments for a total of 240 final study documents.As of May 2022, more than 15000 participants were enrolled to complete six studies on four devices, all of which received Emergency Use Authorizations from the Food and Drug Administration. Additionally, a multi-site biorepository was created that includes more than 1700 blood, mid-turbinate, saliva and nasopharyngeal samples for future research.In order to coordinate this time sensitive national effort across academic medical centers, local provider networks, and vendors, the CSC established five teams: Study Design and Analysis (SDA), Study Management (SM), Study Logistics (SL), Community Health, Equity, and Engagement (CHEE) and Ethics and Human Subjects Oversight (EHSO). This manuscript will focus on the EHSO Team and describe one of a number of cases where input from the EHSO was sought.II.The EHSO provided ethics and regulatory expertise to any of the effort's stakeholders . The RADx Team approach is distinct from an embedded ethics approach where an individual ethicist is embedded in the research team to integrate ethical considerations into the design and conduct of a study or research effort EHSO met weekly during the same hour every week. Issues for discussion were brought to the group in advance or during the meeting. As studies launched and closed, four members of the team (the authors) moved to a drop-in format so CSC and others could drop in with “just-in-time” concerns. In addition to the weekly EHSO meetings some team members also attended a weekly CSC meeting meant to share progress and facilitate coordination across all teams and study leadership.An early task of EHSO was to develop principles to guide the entire effort. See Box I.Another early task was to work with the Study Management and Study Design teams on the development of the master protocol and consent documents. The goal was to create a master protocol and consent that could be efficiently amended by the study team and reviewed by the UMass Chan sIRB as each new collaborator and device joined the RADx Tech effort. The EHSO was asked to review key sections of the master protocol. Key ethical questions that led to discussion included: 1) when collecting more than one sample which sample should be tested with the novel device and in what order, 2) what number of samples is feasible to collect from each participant, and 3) if samples will be banked should it be a part of the master protocol or a separate protocol. The EHSO also reviewed content and format of the consent form and other participant facing materials. These documents were then shared with the CHEE team to assure that the documents met health literacy standards, were appropriate for a diverse audience and translated into additional languages as needed by the population to be approached for enrollment.Box I: Guiding Principles for the Conduct of COVID-19 Test Us Research Studies.•RADx Tech's commitment to the rapid execution of much needed diagnostic testing for COVID-19 is balanced against our commitment and responsibility to protect research participants’ welfare, including voluntariness, privacy, protection of confidentiality, and safety.•Sample populations and research participants should represent national diversity, including but not limited to age, race, ethnicity, sex, socioeconomic status, and local context.•Research is to be conducted in collaboration with community, State, and Tribal stakeholders (as applicable) in a manner that is respectful and transparent.•Respect for research participants begins at recruitment and extends through the dissemination of key study findings back to the community.•Research should be offered to participants at times and locations that are convenient for them, which may include early mornings, evenings, weekends, and access via public transportation.•The informed consent process is an active, ongoing process between the potential research participants and the study team. It includes a discussion about the RADx Tech effort, COVID-19, the specific test being studied, and reasons why they may or may not want to participate.○Study teams will work with potential participants to enhance their understanding of important aspects of the study in advance of enrollment.○Participant-facing materials should be in everyday language and use visual aids.○Participants should be informed up front that the goal of the research is to see if an experimental test works and if it is easy to use.○Participants should be informed about the performance characteristics of the experimental test and standard test to assess risks of participation.•The approach to biobanking specimens for future use should be made clear to participants.This document is intended for all individuals involved in the design and execution of evaluations of novel point-of-care technologies under RADx Tech. The principles below should inform all decision points.III.The SDA team brought a key issue related to ethics and study design to the EHSO: return of research results. In mid-2020 there were few COVID-19 diagnostics available and those that were available and had emergency use authorization (EUA) were suboptimal in terms of their specificity and sensitivity A key component of diagnostic test development is to determine how accurate the test is in identifying true positives. The next step is to assess performance in populations known to have the virus of interest and those who don't; the goal is to have a test that is both specific and sensitive It was relatively quickly decided that concordant results would be returned to participants as soon as possible. The results being as accurate as possible under the circumstances. Delivering this information was a way to respect the subject's interest in knowing their infection status. Those who were found to be positive on both tests were educated about the implications of the result and referred to their primary care providers. It was not a difficult decision to agree that recommending an individual with two positive results isolate themselves to prevent infection to others.Prior to the development of vaccines, getting a positive result meant a higher risk of developing severe disease leading to hospitalization and possibly death The next challenge was what to do with discordant results, when the novel and standard test results were not the same. The team wanted to minimize the number of false positive results shared with study participants to balance the benefit of reducing community spread of the virus with the logistical, economic, caregiving and psychological burdens of isolation, the challenges of separating caregivers from elderly parents, and the possibility of losing income or even their jobsall participant results to account for the extra time to conduct the tie breaker, EHSO recommended that the participants with test results that indicated the need for a tiebreaker to be notified of their discordant result and told what to expect next. The tie breaker protocol was described in the master consent form. A script was developed to notify them of the result, that a tie breaker would be conducted, and they would be alerted as soon as the results were available (See Box II).Balancing the accuracy of the results with the burden of uncertainty for the participant, the EHSO recommended that when the standard test is positive but the novel test negative, the positive results should be shared with the participant, and they should be counseled to consider their results as positive for COVID-19. The EHSO also endorsed the idea of notifying the participant of the discordant results ASAP. Rather than delay the disclosure of Box II: Script for Conversations with Participants about Discordant Results.Test needs to be confirmedAs you may remember, you had two (2) COVID-19 tests done. One was the STANDARD test, and the other was the RESEARCH test. In your case, the STANDARD COVID-19 test was negative. However, the RESEARCH COVID-19 test was positive. If you hadn't been in this study, you would have only had the STANDARD COVID-19 test done, and we don't have enough experience with the RESEARCH COVID-19 test to know what that positive result means. For that reason, you can assume that you had a negative COVID-19 test result. To be cautious, we will be re-testing your original sample again with a different STANDARD COVID-19 test. We will contact you as soon as the result is available in about 2-3 days.If you are concerned about the results of the RESEARCH COVID-19 test and would like to have another STANDARD COVID-19 test with a new sample, you can return to [research site] and receive a second COVID-19 STANDARD test at no cost.We encourage you to wash your hands often, cough and/or sneeze into your elbow, wear a mask in public, and continue social distancing all per CDC guidelines websitehttps://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html.Monitor your symptoms, and if you begin to feel unwell, please contact your primary care provider. If you do not have a primary care provider or health insurance, you can call [insert local provider contact] to establish care.Seek immediate medical attention in an Emergency Department if you develop any severe symptoms, including but not limited to: difficulty breathing, chest pain, unable to eat or drink enough, or severe vomiting, diarrhea, or weakness. If possible, please call ahead prior to going to the Emergency Department.Participants were also told they could return to the study site for additional testing and/or be referred to other testing locations . Another consideration was the staff time needed to make these calls. The assumption was that the number of discordant results of this type were expected to be low and would not create an overwhelming burden on front line study staff to engage with each participant in this situationOutcome: This approach was adopted, approved, and implemented. Less than 1% of the test results were discordant.IV.Investigators faced ethical questions during the design and implementation stages of their human subjects research. The urgency to quickly obtain actionable guidance is amplified in the context of a public health crisis. The RADx Tech COVID-19 Clinical Studies Core sought input on a weekly basis for more than a year with early questions focused on development of subject-facing materials, return of research results, and assent processes when enrolling minors.Having access to a pool of experts with ethical and regulatory knowledge who met weekly to tackle issues of importance to the investigators was critical to the overall success of the project. Investigators were able to efficiently make decisions, prepare IRB submissions, and obtain IRB approval. Over time EHSO developed a core group of members who were consistently in attendance each week, and when possible, questions were sent to the entire group ahead of a scheduled meeting to facilitate discussion. The shift across many domains to a virtual meeting space extended to EHSO enabling contributors from across the country.EHSO discussions were robust and collaborative with input from all in attendance. Joining the varied expertise in research ethics, regulatory knowledge, adult and pediatric care, community engagement, and study design created an opportunity to provide focused and effective feedback from a variety of key perspectives to investigators. Investigators ultimately remained responsible for final decisions and IRB submissions.V.The overall RADx Tech effort led to six studies on four SARS-CoV-2 devices, all of which received EUA, plus a biorepository of nasal, saliva, and blood samples from more than 1700 participants. The RADx Tech effort was facilitated by the efficient use of a platform study protocol adapted to each trial, an efficient use of the sIRB model and the availability of the EHSO.We believe the model of embedded ethics and regulatory expertise adopted by the RADx Tech effort was a resounding success and facilitated the rapid pace required during a public health emergency. This model should be considered for future national efforts as well as multi-site trials aimed at public health emergencies. Sponsors and institutions should consider supporting these efforts and/or encouraging investigators to connect with their local research ethics expertise.


Crowdfunding is emerging as an alternative form of funding for medical purposes, with capital being raised directly from a broader and more diverse audience of investors. In this paper, we have systematically researched and reviewed the literature on medical crowdfunding to determine how crowdfunding connects with the health care industry. The health care industry has been struggling to develop sustainable research and business models for economic systems and investors alike, especially in pharmaceuticals. The research results have revealed a wealth of evidence concerning the way crowdfunding is applied in real life. Patients and caregivers utilize web platform–based campaigns all over the world to fund their medical expenses, generally on a spot basis, using donation-based or even reward-based schemes, regardless of the health care system archetype . Academics have also focused on funding campaigns and the predictors of success  and on social and regulatory concerns, including heightened social inequality and stigma. While equity crowdfunding is disrupting the way many ventures/businesses seek capital in the market, our research indicates that there are no relevant or consistent data on the practice of medical equity crowdfunding in health care, apart from a few anecdotal cases. The Covid-19 pandemic brought some of the most intricate subtleties in health care to public attention, specifically the timing and riskiness of pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) in its different stages and the methods and levels of funding for R&D. Complexity in R&D is not isolated to vaccines alone but extends to medical care in general and to all high-end pharmaceutical products.Development of new pharmaceutical products proceeds sequentially, and each step must be satisfied before the compound is approved by health authorities. On average, the entire process takes seven years  is the practice of liaising between borrowers and lenders through web platforms, by-passing traditional financial institutions . Secondly, we selected studies that investigated the specific field of crowdfunding . No further screening between the crowdfunding archetypes was necessary, given our objective. Most of the final 115 papers selected were articles (81); there were also a few notes (9), reviews (8), letters (6), short surveys (5), editorials (3), conference papers (2) and one book chapter.The analysis of the final sample showed that the earliest publication year was 2012, which is consistent with the relatively recent field of studies on crowdfunding in health care. The concentration in publications is unbalanced towards the more recent years, with 57% of the items published from 2019 to 2021, highlighting the vitality of the topic under discussion. Of the papers selected, 62 focused mainly on the global situation or had no connection to specific geographical areas, and 53 referred to local specificities, with 27 papers covering cases in the USA, 10 in Canada, 4 in Europe and 3 in the UK; in the Asian area, 7 papers covered cases in China and 2 in Indonesia.Twenty-three publications were linked to economic and social science outlets  and 9 to engineering fields and multidisciplinary journals, but for the vast majority (83 items), the outlets for publication were health care-related journals  Table . This isWe began by analysing all the items extrapolated from the systematic search through the lens of the major crowdfunding archetypes. Interestingly, this analysis revealed that there is much discussion on charity- and donation-based models, which possibly provide limited support to the funding of health care R&D, given the small amounts raised compared to the overall picture. Furthermore, there is no undisputed evidence on the practice of lending and equity crowdfunding in health care. To expand our understanding of crowdfunding-based mechanisms in health care, we went back over the final sample and re-clustered all the records manually, using an inductive approach based on the research domain, the main objective and the primary findings of each contribution. These findings are presented in “In setting out our results, we opted for a thematic discussion , although the evidence would suggest that there is no practical benefit compared to the more regulated U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded access programmes  and their correlation to campaign performance. Overall, our findings in Sect. The predictors of success in medical crowdfunding campaigns have been studied from many angles, in various countries and under different circumstances. A number of factors have been shown to affect the output of a single initiative dramatically. These range from interpersonal relationships , reciprocity in helping, attitude towards donating (target audience), perceived control of behaviour, perceived trust, project information and the patients’ characteristics .Equity crowdfunding is certainly disrupting the way many ventures, especially small to medium start-ups, seek capital on the market, thus proving itself to be a powerful instrument for the distribution of risk and the rewarding of socialization. At the same time, no relevant or consistent data are available on equity crowdfunding in health care, apart from a few anecdotal cases where platform- and crowd-raised funds have been used as a medium for seeding and angel investing in early biotech start-ups.Our assessment of the literature indicates that many scholars and practitioners have been studying medical crowdfunding, exposing gaps in the economic and health care systems, especially those paid for by the public purse, arguing how far this on-trend practice can exacerbate and widen social inequalities. On the other hand, as the data suggest, crowdfunding is giving new hope to patients all over the world who are unable to access medical care, whilst helping small investors and donors to seed projects in the most unmet areas of medical need, such as rare diseases. We firmly believe that this may be the first step toward a different way of proceeding, a new ecosystem where stakeholders, from private and public investors to patients and society, play a new and different role in the sustainability of health care for the good of us all.Over the past decades, investments in health care across all subsectors have been dramatically increasing. However, this vast appetite for funds has provided no assurance of a better outcome in public health or for the investors’ wealth. While economic and health care systems still struggle with accessible and affordable medical care, the industry’s returns on investment have been shrinking over time. Social responsibility, sustainable growth, fair access to medicines and the cost of medical care are still burning topics at the core of the global health care agenda. We believe that attempting to use change the approach to pricing and late-stage business models as the only hammer to crack health care funding will come up short of expectations.With the caveat that our review only examined papers in English, and there may be studies in other languages that make different suggestions, the changes being proposed are merely tweaks and will not be sufficient on their own—at least not without a profound disruption in the way the health industry is currently funded and the way it engages with its stakeholders to act early on the many signals coming from evidence out in the real world.The abundance of single-case, donation-based campaigns proves that the art of pricing is not enough to ensure fair access to treatment; added to which, putting up obstacles may threaten investment in life sciences and, ultimately, evolution in health care and, critically, in global health. Three main hypotheses were developed from our findings. The first hypothesis is that medical crowdfunding, specifically equity and lending crowdfunding, is still at an early stage and will naturally and gradually expand from small, isolated start-up applications to capital-heavy industries, involving health care in general and pharmaceuticals in particular, where R&D costs now make up over one billion dollars. The second hypothesis is that health care ventures are simply too capital intensive to be fruitful and sustainable to apply them to small-scale institutions, despite the fact that equity fundraising is already soaring in industries that are equally capital intensive, like real estate . Thirdly, the possibility of conceptualizing additional and innovative funding schemes that can draw on the wealth of experience acquired from medical crowdfunding should be investigated. Despite the limitations and gaps that need to be filled, this study may not produce an immediate result, but can at least open the eyes of those in power and possibly point them in the right direction.