Smart Tourism using Attractive and Safe Travel Recommendation Technology

The tourism sector was among the most affected sector during the COVID-19 pandemic and has lost up to USD 5.87 billion potential revenue. Since many countries closed the borders, including Indonesia, by applying travel restrictions and thus tourists postponed their visits. Whereas vaccine distribution has shown good progress as the vaccination percentage in Jakarta and Bali has shown promising results since the majority of its population has been vaccinated, and it helps many industries, including tourism, recover. However, the pandemic might change tourist behavior. In addition, information about tourist destinations is spread poorly in various sources, and it psychologically affects tourists' decision to visit. Many works have been published to address this issue with the recommendation system. However, it does not provide geopolitical variables such as PPKM in Indonesia to ensure safeness for the tourist. Therefore, this research aims to enhance innovations in the tourism industry by considering the geopolitics factor into the system using Multiple Linear Regression. The result of this research demonstrates the effectiveness of geopolitics added variable on three different cities Jakarta, Java, and Bali. It can be implemented in a wide area in Indonesia. For further research, the proposed model can be used in a wide area in Indonesia and developed for a more comprehensive recommendation system. © 2022 IEEE.

A systematic review of gut microbiota profile in COVID-19 patients and among those who have recovered from COVID-19.

OBJECTIVES: Given the scale and persistence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), significant attention has been devoted to understanding the relationship between human gut microbiota and COVID-19. In this systematic review we aimed to comprehensively assess the gut microbiota composition in patients infected with COVID-19 and those recovered from COVID-19 in comparison to healthy controls (HCs). METHODS: Peer-reviewed articles and preprints published up to September 1, 2022, were searched in Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid EMBASE, and SCOPUS. Observational studies reporting the gut microbiota profile in adult (≥18 years) COVID-19 patients or those recovered from COVID-19 compared to HCs were eligible for inclusion in this systematic review. The quality assessment of studies was performed using the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. RESULTS: We identified 27 studies comprising 18 studies that compared COVID-19 patients and six that compared recovered COVID-19 patients to HCs, while the other three studies compared both COVID-19 and recovered COVID-19 patients to HCs. Compared to HCs, decreased gut microbial diversity and richness and a distinctive microbial composition were reported in COVID-19 patients and recovered COVID-19 patients. In COVID-19 patients, Bacteroidetes were found to be enriched, and Firmicutes depleted. Decreased short-chain fatty acid (SCFA)-producing bacteria, such as Faecalibacterium, Ruminococcus, and Bifidobacterium, among others, were also observed in COVID-19 patients, which were not restored to normal levels in those who recovered. CONCLUSION: Gut dysbiosis was evident in COVID-19, and available data suggested that dysbiosis persisted even in recovered COVID-19 patients, with decreased Firmicutes and SCFA-producing bacteria.

Metronidazole, acyclovir and tetrahydrobiopterin may be promising to treat COVID-19 patients, through interaction with interleukin-12.

COVID-19 patients have shown overexpressed serum levels of several pro-inflammatory cytokines, leading to a high mortality rate due to numerous complications. Also, previous studies demonstrated that the metronidazole (MTZ) administration reduced pro-inflammatory cytokines and improved the treatment outcomes for inflammatory disorders. However, the effect and mechanism of action of MTZ on cytokines have not been studied yet. Thus, the current study aimed to identify anti-cytokine therapeutics for the treatment of COVID-19 patients with cytokine storm. The interaction of MTZ with key cytokines was investigated using molecular docking studies. MTZ-analogues, and its structurally similar FDA-approved drugs were also virtually screened against interleukin-12 (IL-12). Moreover, their mechanism of inhibition regarding IL-12 binding to IL-12 receptor was investigated by measuring the change in volume and area. IL-12-metronidazole complex is found to be more stable than all other cytokines under study. Our study also revealed that the active sites of IL-12 are inhibited from binding to its target, IL-12 receptor, by modifying the position of the methyl and hydroxyl functional groups in MTZ. Three MTZ analogues, metronidazole phosphate, metronidazole benzoate, 1-[1-(2-Hydroxyethyl)-5-nitroimidazol-2-yl]-N-methylmethanimine-oxide, and two FDA-approved drugs acyclovir (ACV), and tetrahydrobiopterin (THB) were also found to prevent binding of IL-12 to IL-12 receptor similar to MTZ by changing the surface and volume of IL-12 upon IL-12-drug/ligand complex formation. According to the RMSD results, after 100 ns MD simulations of human IL-12-MTZ/ACV/THB drug complexes, it was also observed that each complex was swinging within a few Å compared to their corresponding docking poses, indicating that the docking poses were reliable. The current study demonstrates that three FDA-approved drugs, namely, metronidazole, acyclovir and tetrahydrobiopterin, are potential repurposable treatment options for overexpressed serum cytokines found in COVID-19 patients. Similar approach is also useful to develop therapeutics against other human disorders.

Novel polymer composite coated with ethylcellulose nanoparticle from waste paper as an alternative material to extracorporeal oxygenation membrane

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenator (ECMO) is a valuable technology to support people with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and is recommended for COVID-19 patients. This study aims to fabricate polymer-based composite membranes coated with ethylcellulose nanoparticles from waste paper and identify the performance of the composite as ECMO candidates. Composite membranes were made from four types of polymers, namely, nylon, PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene), Pebax® MH-1657, and SBS (poly-(styrene-b-butadiene-b-styrene)). PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) 1 wt.% and ethylcellulose nanoparticles (3% and 10 wt.%) were used as membrane coatings to increase their hydrophobic properties. The success of cellulose isolation and ethylcellulose synthesis from waste paper was confirmed by the FTIR and XRD analysis. The size of the synthesized ethylcellulose nanoparticles was 32.68 nm. The coating effect on composite membranes was studied by measuring the contact angle, membrane porosity, protein quantification tests, and single gas permeation of O2 and CO2. Based on the protein quantification test, the protein could not pass through the Pebax/PDMS and SBS/PDMS composites coated with 10 wt.% ethylcellulose;this indicated less risk of plasma leakage. The gas permeation test on nylon/PDMS, PTFE/PDMS, and SBS/PDMS composites coated with 10% ethylcellulose resulted high CO2/O2 selectivity, respectively, 2.17, 3.48, and 3.22 as good indication for extracorporeal oxygenation membrane.

Insights Into the Selective Imprinted Polymer of Voriconazole from Host-Guest Interaction Perspective

The incidence of fungal coinfections, such as Aspergillus spp., in patients with COVID-19 has been widely reported. Voriconazole is the first-line treatment for aspergillosis. A challenging sample preparation process is required to perform therapeutic drug monitoring of voriconazole. Recently, Molecularly Imprinted Polymers (MIP) have been shown to improve the separation selectivity for biological samples. Monomer selection in MIP is often performed by trial and error, without a design strategy. Therefore, this study aimed to construct a high-affinity MIP for voriconazole based on its interaction with functional monomers. All structures were optimized with B3LYP/6-311G++(d,p) and DFT-D3 dispersion correction method. Calculations of vacuum and solvated frequencies were carried out using a structure with maximum binding energy from molecular docking. The results showed that complex five was the most stable, exothermic, spontaneous, and enthalpy-driven among the complexes. In addition, there are nine intermolecular interactions and one moderate hydrogen bond in the QTAIM and NBO analysis, whereas hydrogen bonds, van der Waals interactions, and hydrophobic interactions were observed in the NCI-RDG analysis. The findings of this preliminary investigation showed that voriconazole possesses high stability when combined with functional monomers. It also provides information and assistance for further laboratory MIP synthesis.

Readiness of Sub-Districts in Palu City, Central Sulawesi Province, Indonesia, to Face the Covid-19 Pandemic

Indonesia confirmed its first case of COVID-19 on 2 March 2020. Several provinces in Indonesia, including Central Sulawesi, experienced local transmission of the virus. This study aimed to explore the readiness and understanding of the sub-district government in handling COVID-19. This study was conducted from April to June 2020 using a cross-sectional design. Interviews were performed by distributing a closed questionnaire to the heads or secretaries of sub-districts in Palu City. The parameters of this study were the COVID-19 alert village indicators issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs. The results show that all sub-districts in Palu City have formed the COVID-19 Alert Task Force, which socialized clean and healthy living as well as sterilized public and social facilities. Forty-five (97.82% ) sub-districts had provided information about the nearest public health centers (Puskesmas) or clinics where residents receive medical treatment when getting sick. Meanwhile, 39 (84.8%) sub-districts had created and activated WhatsApp groups to handle COVID-19. In general, sub-districts in Palu City have been ready to face the COVID-1 9 pandemic, as they have carried out COVID-19 prevention and handling activities following the guidelines.

Risk Factors and Clinical Characteristics of Acute Kidney Injury in Patients with COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is associated with a worse prognosis in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. Identification of AKI, particularly in COVID-19 patients, is important for improving patients' management. The study aims to assess risk factors and comorbidities of AKI in COVID-19 patients. We systematically searched PubMed and DOAJ databases for relevant studies involving confirmed COVID-19 patients with data on risk factors and comorbidities of AKI. The risk factors and comorbidities were compared between AKI and non-AKI patients. A total of 30 studies involving 22385 confirmed COVID-19 patients were included. Male (OR: 1.74 (1.47, 2.05)), diabetes (OR: 1.65 (1.54, 1.76)), hypertension (OR: 1.82 (1.12, 2.95)), ischemic cardiac disease (OR: 1.70 (1.48, 1.95)), heart failure (OR: 2.29 (2.01, 2.59)), chronic kidney disease (CKD) (OR: 3.24 (2.20, 4.79)), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (OR: 1.86 (1.35, 2.57)), peripheral vascular disease (OR: 2.34 (1.20, 4.56)), and history of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) (OR: 1.59 (1.29, 1.98)) were independent risk factors associated with COVID-19 patients with AKI. Patients with AKI presented with proteinuria (OR: 3.31 (2.59, 4.23)), hematuria (OR: 3.25 (2.59, 4.08)), and invasive mechanical ventilation (OR: 13.88 (8.23, 23.40)). For COVID-19 patients, male gender, diabetes, hypertension, ischemic cardiac disease, heart failure, CKD, COPD, peripheral vascular disease, and history of use of NSAIDs are associated with a higher risk of AKI.

Resilience in alcohol use disorder: associations with negative and positive emotionality, quality of life, and disorder severity

In previous work looking at individuals exposed to childhood trauma, we have found that decreased neuroticism, impulsivity, and trait anxiety, and increased conscientiousness are associated with a decreased risk of alcohol use disorder (AUD), suggesting these characteristics contribute to a relative resilience to alcohol misuse. In the current study we confirm and expand on these findings using the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), which assesses resilience based on individual characteristics and coping mechanisms as well as social relationships. We analyzed CD-RISC data from two NIAAA protocols: 1) the Natural History Protocol (NHP) (n = 245;156 with AUD, 89 without AUD);2) the COVID-19 Pandemic Impact on Alcohol Protocol (C19PIA) (n = 280;77 with AUD, 203 without AUD). Participants ranged from non-drinking healthy volunteers to heavy drinkers. In addition to the CD-RISC, assessments included the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 disorders, and questionnaires related to problematic alcohol use, positive and negative affect, personality, perceived stress, and quality of life (i.e., physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and environment). Data analysis was conducted using general linear models, and analyses were run separately for the two independent samples due to differences in data collection methodology. For the C19PIA protocol sample, analyses were conducted on measures collected both pre-pandemic and during the pandemic. In both the NHP and C19PIA samples, CD-RISC score was negatively associated with neuroticism, negative affect, and perceived stress, and positively associated with extraversion, conscientiousness, positive affect, and all four quality of life measures. In the C19PIA sample, these results were consistent for analyses of both pre-pandemic and pandemic-associated measures. CD-RISC score was lower in individuals with AUD compared to those without AUD. In the NHP sample, which was enriched for individuals with AUD, greater resilience was associated with decreased AUD severity, and decreased anxiety and depression symptoms, among those diagnosed with AUD. A similar association between resilience and decreased AUD severity was observed in the C19PIA sample before the pandemic. Resilience was also associated with a reduction in impaired control over drinking in the C19PIA sample, both before and during the pandemic. The current findings highlight resilience as a key construct associated with multiple factors at the individual, social, and environmental levels. Of note, the same resilience-associated factors were observed both before and during the COVID 19 pandemic, with the latter representing a major stressor for many individuals. The finding that greater resilience is associated with decreased disorder severity and reduced depression and anxiety symptoms among those with AUD highlights the potential of resilience-oriented approaches to treatment. These approaches, often promoted for trauma-exposed individuals, could also prove beneficial for alcohol use disorder.Copyright © 2023

Random Blood Glucose, but Not HbA1c, Was Associated with Mortality in COVID-19 Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus-A Retrospective Study.

Previous studies have yielded inconsistent results on whether glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) and random blood glucose (RBG) are associated with mortality of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). This study aimed to assess the association of HbA1c and RBG with mortality among COVID-19 patients with T2DM. A retrospective study was conducted on 237 patients with COVID-19 and T2DM (survival (n = 169) and non-survival groups (n = 68)). Data on socio-demography, comorbidities, clinical symptoms, laboratory examination, and mortality were collected. Patients in the non-survival group had an older age range as compared with those in the survival group (60 (52.3-65.0) vs. 56.0 (48.5-61.5) years, p = 0.009). There was no statistical gender difference between the two groups. After matching was done, chronic kidney disease, NLR, d-dimer, procalcitonin, and random blood glucose were higher in the non-survival group compared to the survival group (p < 0.05). HbA1c levels were similar in survivors and non-survivors (8.7% vs. 8.9%, p=0.549). The level of RBG was independently associated with mortality of COVID-19 patients with T2DM (p = 0.003, adjusted OR per 1-SD increment 2.55, 95% CI: 1.36-4.76). In conclusion, RBG was associated with the mortality of COVID-19 patients with T2DM, but HbA1c was not.

A person-centered approach to capture health disparities and multidimensional impact of COVID-related stressors.

The COVID-19 pandemic has influenced people's lives in diverse ways. The authors utilized latent class analysis (LCA), a person-centered approach, to examine distinct patterns of COVID-related stressors and their associations with alcohol-related, mental health, and quality of life outcomes. Participants were 463 adults who completed the baseline assessment of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism COVID-19 Pandemic Impact on Alcohol Study from June 2020 to January 2022. Using cross-sectional data, three analytic methods (continuous sum score, categorical grouping, and LCA) were applied to model 17 COVID-related stressors. Regression analyses indicated higher COVID-related stress and endorsement of four or more COVID-related stressors were generally associated with worse health-related outcomes. LCA revealed four classes: Class 1: Minimal COVID-Related Impact (51.6%); Class 2: Work Interruptions (24.8%); Class 3: Family/Friends Affected by COVID (14.5%); and Class 4: Serious Financial Stress (9.1%). Racial/ethnic minorities were more likely to be in Class 3, whereas individuals with more years of education and higher income were less likely to be in Class 4. Individuals with a history of alcohol use disorder were more likely to be in Classes 2 and 4. Compared with Class 1, Class 4 reported highest levels of perceived stress, problematic alcohol use, anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, alcohol craving, loneliness, drinking to cope, and lowest levels of physical, psychological, social, and environment quality of life. COVID-related stressors disproportionately affected minority and vulnerable groups. Individuals who experienced multiple financial stressors had the greatest risk for negative health-related outcomes and may benefit from holistic interventions and community outreach. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The Influence of E-Leadership on Task Performance in New Work Era (preprint)

Organization began to adapt to remote working patterns in the early pandemic, while human resource management faces new challenges in adapting to these changes.  Furthermore, leadership is the main key in maintaining and improving Employee Job Performance. Therefore, this study aims to find effective New Leadership Styles in adapting to the New Work era. It was performed by analyzing employee perceptions of the Leadership Style (Transformational, Servant and Empowering Leadership) and measuring their effects on Employee Job Performance in current conditions. The survey was conducted through an online to 387 employees who had worked for at least 5 years and at least 2 years had worked virtually in an automotive manufacturing company in Indonesia which had implemented a virtual work pattern for most of its employees. Then, the data were processed using SEM Amos 25.0. Subsequently, the results showed that Employee Job Performance (EJP) has two important dimensions, namely Courtesy, and Sportsmanship, and is positively and directly influenced by the New Leadership Style. This study found an effective the New Leadership Style since the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly a leadership style with 9 dimensions namely (1)Openness, (2)Orientation to problem-solving, (3)Freedom at work, (4)Inspirational Motivation, (5)Intellectual Stimulation, (6)Individualized Consideration, (7)Coaching, (8)Participatory Decision Making and (9)Showing concern. The contribution of this study for organizational managers is as a soft reference for effective leadership competencies during the New Work period and a new reference for Leadership Science in Human Resources Management.

Sentiment Analysis towards Face-to-Face School Activities during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia

As the COVID-19 pandemic took place, many face-to-face activities have been stopped to suppress the spread. However, in the last few months, many of those activities including learning activities have started to switch from online back to face-to-face. One of the major activities is face-to-face learning activities which involve millions of students all over Indonesia. Consequently, this study focuses on analyzing public sentiment through Twitter tweets which were obtained through scrapping by using Tweepy. The tweets were labeled using a semi-automatic process, using TextBlob and manual annotation. Next, we trained an IndoBERT model to conduct sentiment analysis and found that public sentiment was dominated by a mix of both negative and positive sentiment, followed by neutral sentiment. Our model obtained an accuracy of 40.79% on unseen data. © 2022 IEEE.

Measuring the Effect of Midterm Exam on Final Exam of Online Learning during COVID-19 Pandemic: The Mediating Role of Assignments

This study measures the relationship between midterm exams, assignments, and final exams of online learning on university students during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research subjects were 206 students from six departments at the Faculty of Education, Universitas Negeri Malang. The data was obtained from the database of the Academic Information System of Universitas Negeri Malang. The results showed that the midterm exam had a significant effect on assignments, the midterm exam had a significant effect on the final exam, and the assignments had a significant effect on the final exam. The analysis shows that assignments significantly mediate the effect of the midterm exam on the final exam. © 2022 IEEE.

Analyzing Impact of Technology-Facilitated Knowledge Creation on Student Satisfaction in Distance Learning Education

Although Covid-19 cases are continuing to decrease, the practice of online learning has become common in education. Many education institutions have online classes besides face-to-face classes. However, many research reported several problems in distance learning practice mainly because of the limitation of interactive conversation and learning activities and finally lead to an ineffective knowledge creation process. It is reported that in a distance learning setting during the pandemic, the motivation and participation rate decreased while the absence and dropout rates increased. Knowledge conversion is a term to reflect the acquisition of new know-how or tacit knowledge from the learning activities. Currently, various technology vendor keeps making innovations to solve this problem, and available technologies that can be utilized to support distance learning education are increasing. Therefore, this paper aims to know the impact of the knowledge creation process on student satisfaction and explain how to utilize technologies throughout the knowledge creation chain. Based on the statistical analysis it is found that the knowledge creation process that is represented using the SECI model simultaneously has a significant positive effect on student satisfaction. This means all phases in SECI (socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization) are simultaneously able to improve student satisfaction. However, partially, only socialization and internalization that has a significant positive impact on student satisfaction, which indicates these two factors partially could lead to better student satisfaction if it is planned and managed appropriately. This paper also constructs a matrix that helps education practitioners choose the right technology for each knowledge creation phase. © 2022 IEEE.

Sentiment Analysis of Government Policy Regarding PPKM on Twitter Using LSTM

The Policy of PPKM Covid from the government has become a popular topic to be discussed among the public, especially on Twitter. Due to the many responses or opinions about the PPKM that has been implemented by the government in Indonesia. Sentiment Analysis is the basis for research on the issue of Indonesian PPKM by using a deep learning model, namely LSTM. The data collection of tweets is obtained through crawling the data of Twitter API using the 'snscrape' module with the keyword 'PPKM COVID' and the target data is 15,001 tweets. The data is processed and divided into two parts become 80% training data, 20% testing data and using the GRU, BiLSTM and RNN comparison models. Accuracy performance obtained from the four models include LSTM 90%, GRU 89%, BiLSTM 90% and RNN 85%. The comparison of the best accuracy results is obtained from the LSTM and BilSTM models. Furthermore, the result of sentiment obtained a high percentage for negative sentiment with a total percentage of 54.6%, while the positive sentiment had a percentage of 37.0% and neutral sentiment is 8.5%. © 2022 IEEE.

The chest X-ray radiologic severity index as a determinant of the severity of COVID-19 pneumonia: study based on the duration of treatment and inpatient rooms.

Introduction: The chest X-ray examination is an imaging modality that is widely used in screening for COVID-19 pneumonia. The problems with treating COVID-19 pneumonia patients are the high incidence and severity of the disease and the limitations of treatment room facilities. The chest X-ray Radiologic Severity Index is expected to assist clinicians in obtaining the relationship between the extent of lesions on X-ray and the duration of treatment and hospitalization for COVID-19 pneumonia patients. Results: This study used an observational method using a retrospective approach. The research subjects were COVID-19 pneumonia patients from March 2020 to April 2021 who were hospitalized at Doctor Kariadi General Hospital Semarang. A total of 105 subjects confirmed positive RT-PCR and received serial X-ray examination services during treatment. The calculation of the RSI value was carried out on all X-ray chest X-rays and then statistically analyzed using the paired T test and Mann-Whitney methods. There was no significant relationship between the value of RSI1 and the duration of hospitalization with p = 0.566, as well as the value of RSI2 with the duration of hospitalization with p = 0.715. There is a significant relationship between the values of RSI1 and RSI2 with the use of the intensive care unit with p < 0.000, respectively. There was a significant relationship between the values of RSI1 and RSI2 with the use of ventilators in treatment, with p < 0.000. Furthermore RSI1 and RSI2 have a good result as predictor of intensive care and ventilator usage. Conclusion: The chest X-ray RSI has no significant relationship with the duration of hospitalization. The value of the chest X-ray RSI has a significant relationship with the use of intensive care rooms and the use of ventilators in treatment. The increase in the RSI value can describe the severity of the disease so that it plays a role in planning the treatment room.