Design and construction of automated mechanical ventilation equipment

This document presents the requirements met for the design, construction and initial validation of a mechanical ventilation system to be used in patients with respiratory insufficiency, which in the initial context was due to the COVID-19 pandemics. The design required the use of computer aided drawing software (Computer Aided Design) CAD and the construction required the use of installed capabilities in mechanical, electropneumatic, electronic, biomedical and automation manufacturing of institutes and centers of the Universidad Don Bosco (El Salvador). The adjust-ment, configuration and programming tasks were in charge of research professors specialized in these dis-ciplines. The elements used for its construction were available in the Salvadoran market, considering the closure of borders as a government measure to face the expansion of the pandemics. After the design, manufacturing and commissioning stage, conditions of the supplied air were measured with the help of professionals dedicated to the maintenance of medical equipment and with the approval of internist doctors. The results achieved are those obtained with paramedical equipment and with first aid equipment, and consequently it has been foreseen that the equipment can be tested in a subsequent instance with the certified medical union. © 2022, Universidad Politecnica Salesiana. All rights reserved.

An Exploratory Analysis of COVID-19 in South America: Relationship Between Public Health Damages and Economic Impact in the Region

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, in the present work, we will use two main data visualization techniques, which are Cluster Analysis and Principal Component Analysis Biplot, over a dataset focused on South America;it contains variables related to both, economy and public health in South American countries;namely total cases, total tests, total deaths in public health case and GDP growth or Unemployment Rate in economic, we also considered a very important variable in this study which is the stringency index, it is the severity of the restrictions applied by each country to control the number of infected people. The mentioned analysis allowed us to lead to conclusions on which countries in South America had the best outcomes handling the pandemic in terms of public health and economic variables. By the time in which data was acquired - July 9th -, we found that Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay could be named as the countries which better handled the pandemic in South America and will have a good economic recuperation in the upcoming years, on the other hand;Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, and Venezuela were the most affected countries due to the pandemic and will also be the ones with the slowest economic recuperation. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

The impact of the COVID-19 health crisis on tourist evaluation and behavioural intentions in Spain: implications for market segmentation analysis. (Special Issue: COVID-19 and tourism.)

This research aims to examine consumers' evaluation and expected behaviour changes that may arise in the wake of COVID-19 and to develop a market segmentation. Rooted in the prospect theory, after reviewing health crises, data were collected from a Spanish sample (n = 1,000) relating to changes in consumers' evaluations of tourism products due to COVID-19 and their subsequent behavioural intentions. Findings indicate that conventional tourism may be undergoing a downturn as component of the leisure basket. Beyond a heterogeneous repercussion on tourism types and products, changes in relevance of purchase stages together with a reorganization of consumer planning are expected, with more local and individual holidays, more convenient dates, less use of vendors, more insurance contracting, and lower use of public transport and shared services. Moreover, the study provides evidence of the need of linking health risk and tourist behaviour as another behavioural segmentation base, identifying three different response behaviours. Finally, we outline improvements to hospitality and tourism management to face up to this situation.

Tell me what you are like and I will tell you what you believe in: Social representations of COVID-19 in the Americas, Europe and Asia

This study analyzes the range and content of Social Representations (SRs) about the COVID-19 pandemic in 21 geographical zones from 17 countries in the Americas, Europe and Asia (N = 4430). Based on Social Representations Theory, as well as the psychosocial consequences of pandemics and crises, we evaluate the perceptions of severity and risks, the agreement with different SRs, and participants' Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) and Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA). Different sets of beliefs are discussed as SRs, together with their prevalence and association with contextual variables. Results show that severity and risk perceptions were associated with different SRs of the pandemic. Specifically, those focused on Emerging Externalizing zoonotic and ecological factors (the virus is due to Chinese unhygienic habits and the overexploitation of the planet), Polemic Conspiracies (the virus is a weapon), views of Elite and Mass Villains (the elites deceive us and profit with the pandemic), and Personal Responsibility (the neglectful deserves contagion) during the pandemic. Furthermore, most of the SRs are anchored in SDO and, more strongly, in RWA orientations. Additional meta-analyses and multi-level regressions show that the effects are replicated in most geographical areas and that risk perception was a consistent explanatory variable, even after controlling for demographics and `real risk' (i.e., actual numbers of contagion and death). Results suggest that, while coping with and making sense of the pandemic, authoritarian subjects agree with SR that feed a sense of social control and legitimize outgroup derogation, and support punishment of ingroup low-status deviants.