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This paper presents a review of literature, aimed at analyzing and understanding the nexus of knowledge on the topic of government budgetary responses to COVID-19 and identifying gaps for future research directions on crisis budgeting.

A systematic literature review approach was conducted by considering scientific journal articles written in English and published through 2020–2022. The databases used for the literature search in this paper were Scopus and Web of Science, resulting in 41 articles for final review.

This review found that in a crisis, budgetary responses were greatly determined by perceived uncertainties. In the case of the COVID-19 crisis, governments seemed to prioritize economic recovery. While many studies have documented budgetary responses to the crisis, most were written in the beginning of the crisis through documentary content analysis, leaving significant research gaps. Thus, this review offers directions for future research concerning governmental response to perceived uncertainty, logic behind governments' budgeting strategies, sustainable development principles within crisis budgeting and the prioritization of economic considerations in a health crisis.

This paper is one of the first to present insights into the state of research regarding the topic of government budgeting during the COVID-19 crisis. In addition, it provides insights from the literature for anticipating future shocks and crises, along with directions for future researchers in developing their research agenda.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2023-0057

This study aims to develop a realistic 3D printing-based simulator for the training and planning of the left atrial appendage occlusion (LAAO) to be used in the cath lab.

Starting from a pre-operative computed tomography dataset of a patient already treated with LAAO, the model was obtained, consisting in the right and left heart, opportunely assembled to replicate the position and orientation of the patient's anatomy while lying on the cath lab table. Different 3D printing techniques and materials were used to mimic the interaction between the cardiac tissue and the clinical instrumentation. The simulator was tested in the cath lab under proper image guidance by three LAAO expert operators. The clinicians were required to assign a score in terms of realism to each material used to fabricate the fossa ovalis and the LAA.

The simulated interventions were successfully performed by the operators, who were able to navigate in the system and release the occluder device as during a real procedure. The intraoperative images acquired during the simulations were highly comparable with data from a real intervention, with a mean percentage difference below 10%.

This study demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed simulator to faithfully replicate the LAAO procedure and its potentiality to be used for multiple purposes, including the training of the young clinicians, the evaluation of the most complicated cases and the design of novel occluder devices, in a fully realistic setting.