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During the COVID-19 pandemic, online learning provides an essential means for teaching in higher education to avoid close human contact. Nevertheless, there is a general lack of understanding from current research regarding how to select appropriate pedagogies and technological tools to foster quality online interaction and discussion. As such, the chapter explores the potential of a knowledge building pedagogy that is supported by a technological platform called Knowledge Forum to enable more effective online interaction and knowledge construction in a higher education context. Participants were 38 teacher-education students engaging in groups for 18 weeks in a semester to design a teaching lesson via online discussion. Data were mainly from students' online learning and discussion activity. The main findings show that knowledge building pedagogy and technology was effective in creating a supporting learning environment for students (1) to engage in not only within-group, but also beyond-group interaction and discussion;(2) to work creatively with ideas for completing quality teaching lessons as group projects;and (3) to develop reflective peer-assessment and feedback capacity. Some implications for higher education teaching were also discussed. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe and caused formal educational sites to shift from in-person instruction to remote learning. University laboratory courses that were previously hands-on were also transformed into remote courses. This study investigates how university students perceived their experiences of remote laboratory courses across various disciplines. This study was conducted at a large public university in the Republic of Korea that offers a variety of laboratory courses. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, we collected online survey responses from 338 students and conducted in-depth interviews with 18 students. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Bonferroni post hoc tests of survey responses found that students' perceptions of their remote laboratory courses differed significantly (p <.05) by discipline (physics, chemistry, biology, earth sciences, etc.). Student interviews revealed that these differences in perceptions were attributable to the different emergent teaching strategies used in each course. Based on these findings, for remote laboratory courses in the post-COVID-19 era, we suggest that course instructors clearly set learning objectives, carefully design videos of experiments, offer collaborative and synchronous online sessions, provide guidance and feedback on lab report writing, and introduce supportive assessments. © 2023, Education Research Institute, Seoul National University.
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Face-mask occluded restoration aims at restoring the masked region of a human face, which has attracted increasing attention in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. One major challenge of this task is the large visual variance of masks in the real world. To solve it we first construct a large-scale Face-mask Occluded Restoration (FMOR) dataset, which contains 5,500 unmasked images and 5,500 face-mask occluded images with various illuminations, and involves 1,100 subjects of different races, face orientations, and mask types. Moreover, we propose a Face-Mask Occluded Detection and Restoration (FMODR) framework, which can detect face-mask regions with large visual variations and restore them to realistic human faces. In particular, our FMODR contains a self-adaptive contextual attention module specifically designed for this task, which is able to exploit the contextual information and correlations of adjacent pixels for achieving high realism of the restored faces, which are however often neglected in existing contextual attention models. Our framework achieves state-of-the-art results of face restoration on three datasets, including CelebA, AR, and our FMOR datasets. Moreover, experimental results on AR and FMOR datasets demonstrate that our framework can significantly improve masked face recognition and verification performance. © 2023 Association for Computing Machinery.
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Since the beginning of world-wide COVID-19 pandemic, facial masks have been recommended to limit the spread of the disease. However, these masks hide certain facial attributes. Hence, it has become difficult for existing face recognition systems to perform identity verification on masked faces. In this context, it is necessary to develop masked Face Recognition (MFR) for contactless biometric recognition systems. Thus, in this paper, we propose Complementary Attention Learning and Multi-Focal Spatial Attention that precisely removes masked region by training complementary spatial attention to focus on two distinct regions: masked regions and backgrounds. In our method, standard spatial attention and networks focus on unmasked regions, and extract mask-invariant features while minimizing the loss of the conventional Face Recognition (FR) performance. For conventional FR, we evaluate the performance on the IJB-C, Age-DB, CALFW, and CPLFW datasets. We evaluate the MFR performance on the ICCV2021-MFR/Insightface track, and demonstrate the improved performance on the both MFR and FR datasets. Additionally, we empirically verify that spatial attention of proposed method is more precisely activated in unmasked regions. © 2023 IEEE.
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The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a shift to virtual learning across many countries and school systems. It is worthwhile to examine the specific ways in which this shift is significant to teacher trainees preparing to work with multilingual learners (MLs). Considering the perspectives of teacher trainees preparing to teach MLs offers an opportunity to identify the questions and concerns that they are likely to have upon graduation. Examining these perspectives can also help to identify ways that teacher trainees can use virtual and remote teaching approaches more constructively. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study of an educator preparation program focused on preparing trainees in content areas along with English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), with a focus on the perspectives of teacher trainees who worked with MLs through virtual and remote modalities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper draws on data from an analysis of nine teacher trainees' response journals and course assignments, and includes themes identified from the teacher trainees' perceptions of virtual learning for MLs. The findings from the analysis revealed that teacher trainees emphasized the importance of establishing meaningful professional relationships in the virtual setting with their MLs, especially as a way to facilitate effective instruction and online classroom management. Participants also spoke about the importance of developing culturally responsive and sensitive instruction, and stressed the importance of engaging students and families in appropriate, linguistically accessible ways. Implications for future virtual instruction as well as teacher preparation are also discussed. © 2023 by the authors.
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Introduction: Sepsis refers to systemic inflammatory reactions caused by infections, which was the common complication after severe infections, trauma, burns, shock, and major surgery. Septic shock and multiple organ dysfunction syndromes associated with sepsis and its progression were common in intensive care units (ICU). Acute kidney injury (AKI) was a common complication of sepsis. The clinical mortality rate for sepsis was about 20%-50%, and may be as high as 70% if sepsis was associated with acute kidney injury (S-AKI). Therefore, there was a need to initiate the diagnosis and risk stratification of AKI in patients with sepsis, which will contribute to effective intervention and good prognosis. Currently, although the treatment of S-AKI was becoming better understood, diagnostic criteria for AKI were still based on elevated serum creatinine levels or decreased urine volume with the low sensitivity and specificity. Therefore, the use of current diagnostic criteria was not sufficient. The ratio of neutrophils to lymphocytes and platelets (N/LP) was a low-cost measure that could be obtained through routine blood tests and is often used to reflect the inflammatory state of the body. Its usefulness as a predictor of COVID-19 prognosis and the incidence of AKI after abdominal and cardiovascular surgery has been demonstrated. The aim of this study was to determine whether elevated N/LP is associated with the risk and severity of S-AKI within 7 days after admission to the ICU of adult sepsis patients in the Department of Intensive Care Medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University. Method(s): Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS22.0. Data with a normal distribution were expressed as mean +/- standard deviation, and data without a normal distribution was expressed as median and interquartile distance (IQR). When variables has normal distributions and homogenous variances, the independent sample T-test and one-way ANOVA were used to compare the means, and then the minimum significant difference (LSD) test was performed. The rank sum test was used to compare variables with non-normal distribution. P value below 0.05(*) was considered statistically significant. Result(s): A total of 45 patients with sepsis from 2021/01/1-2021/12/31 were enrolled in the first ward of Intensive Care Department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, among which 20 patients with sepsis developed AKI within 7 days after admission to ICU. The N/LP values of sepsis patients and S-AKI patients did not conform to the normal distribution, but satisfied the normal distribution after logarithmic conversion. Independent sample T test showed that there was a significant difference between the two groups. Further comparison was made between patients with sepsis and patients with S-AKI at each stage. The data were in line with normal distribution after logarithmic conversion, and statistical difference was found after one-way ANOVA. There were significant increases in S-AKI3 stage compared with sepsis patients, S-AKI3 stage compared with S-AKI2 stage and S-AKI3 stage compared with S-AKI1 stage. Conclusion(s): Elevated N/LP levels may be associated with the development of S-AKI and severe AKI in patients with sepsis within 7 days after admission to ICU. No conflict of interestCopyright © 2023
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As the amount of ventilation required in buildings has increased to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the inflow of high humidity outside air in summer has increased the processing rate of latent heat loads as well as sensible heat loads. Accordingly, the ability to handle the latent heat load with low energy consumption has become important in order to maintain a comfortable indoor environment. In this study, a humidity control device composed of a desiccant rotor was designed and manufactured, and performance experiments were performed. Using an empirical formula obtained through experiments, a thermal environment simulation was conducted for a school classroom. Furthermore, a temperature-humidity control device that combines a desiccant rotor and heat pump was proposed, and the performance and energy consumption were analyzed by comparing it with the existing heat pump design. With conventional temperature control method using a heat pump, the average indoor relative humidity values in August were 65.7 %, which exceeds the set relative humidity range of 50 +/- 5 %. On the other hand, when using the temperature-humidity control device, the average indoor relative humidity values in August was 50.2 %, a more comfortable indoor environment than when using a conventional method. In addition, the energy consumption was reduced by 3 % compared to existing heat pump design.
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Contact tracing, a major way to curb COVID-19 and other epidemics, has been employed worldwide, with human interviewing and proximity tracing technology as two major approaches. While previous research has contributed some understanding of people's perspectives on contact tracing technology, much of this is based in single countries or regions where technology has been deployed. To understand how culture influences people's perceptions toward human tracing and digital tracing, we replicated a mixed-methods survey study conducted in the U.S. in South Korea and compared participants' perspectives. South Korean participants preferred digital tracing to human tracing, contrasting with the U.S. context where no strong preference was observed. We discuss how observed differences in perspective align and contrast with the country's typical cultural dimensions, such as high power distance, informing the perspective that human tracing will have greater accuracy. We emphasize the need for culturally designing contact tracing technology to highlight personal benefits regardless of cultural dimensions, and leverage technology to support social interaction in human tracing. © 2022 Owner/Author.
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In this study, we built a sound dataset for COVID-19. Unlike other studies, we collect clinical data from patients with COVID-19 who agree to the Informed Consent Form. Therefore, the sound data from patients with COVID-19 are from subjects who were diagnosed with COVID-19 at the hospital. The dataset consists of 600 sounds which are 300 from patients with COVID-19 and 300 from non-COVID-19 subjects. For validation, we use ResNet to classify COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 sounds. © 2022 IEEE.
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This study was conducted to alleviate the difficulty of teaching online physics experiments. To this end, five methods for teaching online physics experiments based on a literature review are summarized: experiments using simulations, experimental videos, remote experiments, experiments focusing on data analysis, and hands-on experiments at home. In this study, the advantages and disadvantages of these five online experimental methods and the conditions for effectively using online physical experiments are summarized. Therefore, the results of this study should be useful for teaching actual online physical experiments. Although this study was initiated because of complete online education caused by COVID-19, online physics learning should continue to expand in ordinary learning situations. Therefore, the results of this study can be meaningfully used even after the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2022 The Korean Physical Society. All rights reserved.
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Background: Although patients with lymphoma appear to be particularly vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2, clinical evolution of COVID-19 in lymphoma has been under-represented. Purpose: To investigate the outcome of SARS-CoV-2 in patients with lymphoma and the risk factors for COVID-19 pneumonia. Methods: Among adult patients with lymphoma at Yeouido St. Mary's hospital, we retrospectively reviewed the medical records with diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 from January 2020 to April 2022. Results: A total of 117 patients (64 males) with median age of 53 years were identified. Sixty-eight were in complete remission when diagnosed of SARS-CoV-2. Sixty-one had more than one comorbidity and 29 had hypogammaglobulinemia. Thirty-four never had been vaccinated for SARS-CoV-2. During median follow-up of 61 days, COVID-19 pneumonia developed in 37 (31.6%) and 31 had persistent pulmonary conditions even after one month. Overall mortality was 6.0% (7 of 117), of which 4 were infection related. Multivariable analysis demonstrated that rituximab maintenance theraphy in follicular lymphoma (adj. OR of 3.67, 95% CI, 1.3-10.39, p = 0.01) was significant risk factor for COVID-19 pneumonia. Hypogammaglobulinemia (adj. OR of 2.27, 95% CI, 0.82-6.25, p = 0.08) and never vaccinated (adj. OR of 2.26, 95% CI, 0.85-6.01, p = 0.08) were not. Conclusions: In patients with lymphoma, SARS-CoV-2 causes pneumonia more frequently and most of them progress to COVID- 19 pneumonia. More aggressive vaccination and intervention for patients with lymphoma who have impaired humoral response related to rituximab maintenance, are needed.
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Objective: To investigate the local epidemic of COVID-19 caused by 2019-nCoV Delta variant in Zhenhai district of Ningbo, identify the transmission chain and provide reference for the prevention and control of COVID-19 epidemic. Methods: The incidence data of COVID-19 in Zhenhai from 6 to 18 December, 2021 were collected in field investigation. Field epidemiological investigation was conducted to understand the epidemiological characteristics of COVID-19 cases and analyze the transmission chains. Results: The first case might be infected with 2019-nCoV through direct or indirect exposure when passing through a medium-risk area, then a family cluster was caused, and the epidemic spread through close contacts of family members with others such as work, daily life, and moxibustion. The epidemic lasted for 14 days, and 74 confirmed COVID-19 cases were reported. The median incubation period was 4.0(3.0,5.8)d. All the cases were in a chain of transmission for more than 6 generations, and the intergenerational interval was 3.5(2.0,5.3)d. The gene sequencing result indicated that the pathogen was Delta AY.4 variant of 2019-nCoV. Both the epidemiological investigation and the gene sequencing results supported that the local COVID-19 epidemic in Zhenhai was associated with the COVID-19 epidemic in Shanghai. Conclusions: The transmission chain of this epidemic was clear. Delta AY.4 variant has obvious characteristic to cause case clusters in families, places with poor ventilation, and residential communities. It is suggested to strengthen the health management in key areas and key populations, and increase the frequency of nucleic acid testing.
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COVID-19 , Epidemics , China/epidemiology , Humans , SARS-CoV-2ABSTRACT
Objective: To evaluate effectiveness of the precise prevention and control strategies of dynamic zero COVID-19 in Ningbo, Zhejiang province. Methods: Based on the incidence data of COVID-19 and case epidemiological survey report in Ningbo in December 2021, the incidence curve of COVID-19 was generated and a dynamics model was developed to estimate the case number of under different intervention measures. The basic reproduction number (R(0)) and real-time reproduction number (R(t)) were calculated to evaluate intervention effect. Results: A total of 74 cases of COVID-19 had been confirmed in Ningbo as of 17 December, 2021. The R(0) was estimated to be 4.3. With the strengthening of prevention and control measures, the R(t) showed a gradual downward trend, dropping to below 1.0 on December 11 and 0.4 on December 14. The model fitting results showed that the actual case number was close to the estimated case number (76 cases) when the effectiveness of intervention was 90%. The number of cases decreased by 98.4% compared with that if no intervention was taken. Conclusion: The precise prevention and control strategies of dynamic zero COVID-19 have obvious effect, which can facilitate the rapid control of COVID-19 epidemic in Ningbo.
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Study Objectives: Social determinants of health (SDOH) impact patients’ health outcomes, yet screening methods in emergency departments (EDs) are inconsistent. Patients who seek care in EDs may be at greater risk for adverse SDOH than those seen by their primary care physician (PCP), but little comparable data is available. The authors sought to identify SDOH among ED Fast Track patients during the COVID-19 pandemic at an urban, safety-net hospital, measure preferred methods of resource referrals and barriers to accessing resources, and compare the prevalence of adverse SDOH among of ED Fast Track patients to that of adult PCP clinic patients. Methods: ED Fast Track patients were screened using a validated SDOH screener, and asked about the impact of COVID-19 on their SDOH. This was a convenience sample conducted from 1/15/21 to 4/13/21 and determined to be exempt by the IRB. Trained study staff completed screening and provided a printed resource guide. A two-week follow-up telephone survey assessed for barriers to resource connection. ED Fast Track patient data was then compared to concurrent SDOH data for adult PCP clinic patients, which collected the same validated SDOH screening data but was self-reported. Results: Among 414 adult ED Fast Track patients, 296 (71.5%) screened positive for at least one adverse SDOH, most commonly education (38.41%), food (35.0%), and housing insecurity (20.5%). Most (56.8%) endorsed COVID-19 affecting their SDOH. Fewer patients (36/156, 23.1%) reported attempting to connect with a resource. Barriers to accessing resources included having no time to call or visit the resource (59%), not recalling being given the resource guide (41%) or having lost it (28%). When compared to adult PCP clinic patients (Table 1), ED Fast Track patients were 10 times more likely to report at least one adverse SDOH (OR 10.0, 95% CI 6.9-14.4), 13 times more likely to report housing needs (OR 13.1, 95% CI 5.2-32.7), 8 times more likely to have food insecurity (OR 8.2, 95% CI 4.7-14.1) and 11 times more likely to have employment difficulty (OR 11.1, 95% CI 5.7-21.6). Conclusion: Most ED Fast Track patients reported at least one adverse SDOH negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Providing printed resource guides at ED discharge may be insufficient for linking patients to resources. ED Fast Track patients were far more likely to report adverse SDOH than adult PCP clinic patients based on the unadjusted odds ratio analyses. This finding, however, is limited by the negative impact of COVID-19 on ambulatory SDOH screening rate, and a potential selection bias as patients with adverse SDOH may have experienced difficulty accessing their PCP clinics. This finding further emphasizes the need to standardize and expand SDOH screening and strengthen further resources from EDs. [Formula presented]
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The following sections are included: Synopsis Introduction Rationale for Mitigation Insuring Economic Growth Other Implications for COVID-19 Pandemic References. © 2020 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
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Hoarding of staples has long worried policymakers due to concerns about shortages. We quantify how sticky store prices---delayed price adjustment to shocks by reputable retailers---exacerbate hoarding. When prices are sticky, households hoard not only for precautionary motives but also non-precautionary motives: they stockpile as they would during a standard retail promotion or for the purpose of retail arbitrage. Using US supermarket scanner data covering the 2008 Global Rice Crisis, an episode driven by an observable cost shock due an Indian ban on raw rice exports, we find that sticky prices account for a sizeable fraction of hoarding. Hoarding is mostly for own use and more prevalent among richer households. Our findings are consistent with media reports of distributional concerns associated with hoarding during the Covid-19 Pandemic.
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Background: Microbial translocation and subsequent lipopolysaccharide (LPS) activation of monocytes via TLR4 is likely to increase cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in persons living with HIV. LPS induces metabolic signaling in monocytes necessary for the production of inflammatory cytokines and a procoagulant, tissue factor (TF). Using primary monocytes, we tested the hypothesis that LPS-induced pro-inflammatory and-coagulant responses are supported by mTOR activity and contribute to CVD risk. Paradoxically, multiomics analyses here demonstrate that mTOR activates a metabolic pathway that limits abundance of these gene products in monocytes. Methods: Human primary monocytes were treated with LPS in the presence or absence of catalytic mTOR inhibitors (mTORi) and compared with untreated monocytes. Samples were analyzed using both RNAseq and metabolic profiling. Changes in cytokine production were determined by ELISA and intracellular flow cytometry. Phenotypic changes in monocyte activation status and TF expression were also monitored using flow cytometry. Results: Transcriptomic analysis revealed that treatment of primary human monocytes with mTORi potentiates both LPS-induced pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-1β and IL-6) and coagulation-mediating TF. We found NF-κB-driven transcriptional activity enhances expression of F3 (TF) with LPS stimulation after mTORi treatment. Metabolomic analysis revealed these changes were associated with depletion of NAD+ levels in mTORi-treated monocytes. The mTORi-mediated increase in TF+ monocytes ex vivo was blunted by NAD+ precursor supplementation. Conclusion: Collectively, our data support the hypothesis that mTOR signaling checks potentially harmful responses in pro-inflammatory monocytes. Thus, our results are relevant for understanding metabolism-related mechanisms of accelerated pro-inflammatory conditions in PLWH. They also are significant for SARS-CoV-2 infection, which also impairs the gut barrier, depletes NAD+ pools, and causes coagulopathy. This suggests that the LPS-and mTOR-related mechanisms defined here warrant investigation in SARS-CoV-2 cytokine storminduced pathogenesis.