ABSTRACT
The purpose of conducting this study is to examine the effect of employee citizenship behaviour and trust on employee engagement among medical staff in one of public hospital located in the Northern Region of Malaysia. This research is carried out by using a quantitative method through the distribution of the self-directed questionnaires. Simple random sampling is utilised in this research. The sample size consisted of 160 medical staff who have participated voluntarily to involve in the study. Based on the multiple regression analysis, results presented a significant effect of citizenship behaviour on employee engagement (β=.55, t=8.07, p=.00) among medical staff in this institution. Similarly, a significant effect of trust on medical staff engagement (β=.49, t=3.34, p=.00) is presented in this study. In the current scenario, the public health institutions should actively penetrate the elements of citizenship and trust in order to remain the desired level of medical staff engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2023 Author(s).
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This paper explores the disruption factor of practising WFH towards productivity that affected higher education in Malaysia during the outbreak of COVID 19. There is a disagreement with the WFH itself, but this impact can be mitigated or even reversed when people prefer integration. This research analyzed, reviewed and clarified in depth the technology readiness factor from previous studies. For the sake of a lack of understanding, this paper acknowledges and discusses the conceptual practice of working from home that contributes to productivity in higher education in a single setting in developing countries. This research examined the factor of the technology readiness of WFH that affect the productivity of Malaysia's higher education learning. The analysis findings will shed some light on our perception of the problematic technology readiness element in WFH practice. It also offers the current information corpus to researchers and a pledge to extend the study stream on WFH processes. It also provides researchers with the existing corpus of knowledge and promises to expand the research stream on WFH practices. The empirical findings will suggest the challenge of technology readiness during working from home and how to face it by the academician in possible ways to obtain considerable potential for improving productivity a higher education institution in Malaysia. © 2023 AIP Publishing LLC.
ABSTRACT
Background. After COVID-19 emergence, medical education witnessed a shift from face-to-face education to digital education, which inevitably affected medical students. Globally, due to the closure of schools and universities, medical education was shifted to electronic learning (E-learning). This paper aimed to assess the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on medical education and determine medical students' knowledge, attitude, and practices towards E-learning in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.Materials and Methods. An online cross-sectional study was conducted among 500 undergraduate students of seven medical colleges in the Kurdistan Region, Iraq, in November 2021, to assess their state during the COVID-19 pandemic and how this affected their education.Results. There were 50.6% of males and 49.4% of females. The mean age was 20.6 ( +/- 1.5 SD) years. Approximately 17% of participants mentioned having financial issues, while 19.2% of students experienced health-related problems. As many as 67% of participants reported that the Internet quality was good or very good, whereas 46.8% of students disagreed that E-learning was a possible substitute for traditional learning. About two-thirds of participants agreed or were neutral that downloadable content was better than live content;however, only 19.2% of students agreed that E-learning could be used in the clinical aspect. A total of 52.2% of participants disagreed that E-testing could replace traditional learning methods. Surprisingly, 86.4% of students stated that they regularly used the Internet in their study.Conclusions. E-learning was the main adjustment made in the educational system, including medical education. The study concluded with insights into how different circumstances could have different conse-quences on the efficacy of medical education. E-learning showed effective results in continuing learning until the educational system switched to a blended system. Training programs for medical education personnel are vital in effective E-learning opportunities.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic affected public health, economy, social life, and the environment. It infected and killed millions of people around the world. Most of the recent literature has focused on the medications to combat this virus, including antivirals and vaccines, but studies about its effect on the environment are still rare, particularly on the water sector. Most of the studies concentrate on the effect of water availability on COVID-19, the effect of the used medications on the water, and the probability of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 through water. Herein, we have summarized the effects of COVID-19 on the water sector from many perspectives. We show different methods to detect the effect of the pandemic on water and also methods to investigate the presence of the virus or its RNA in the water. We also show the different effects of its presence in the wastewater, the probability of transmission, the detection of different variants, and the prediction of new waves. We also show the disadvantages and advantages of the pandemic in the water sector. We finally suggest some recommendations to face this pandemic and the future pandemics for the governments and water policymakers, water treatment plants, general population, and researchers. The aim of this review is to show the different aspects of the pandemic in order to give a general idea about what must be done in order to minimize its effect and any probable pandemic in the future.
ABSTRACT
Twitter is a viable data source for studying public opinion. The study aims to identify public opinion and sentiments toward Covid-19 vaccine and examine conversations posted on Twitter. The study examined two Datasets;one of 7500 tweets collected using RapidMiner from June 7–17, 2021, and 9865 tweets collected from Kaggle on the 3rd of January 2021. It used Naive Bayes model to classify, analyze and visualize tweets according to polarity, K-means clustering, and key tweet topics. The study showed that positive sentiments were dominant in both times;it also realized that positive polarity increased over time from January to June 2021. In addition, vaccine acceptance became more prevalent in the tweets' discussions and topics. Understanding sentiments and opinions toward Covid-19 vaccine using Twitter is critical to supporting public health organizations to execute promotions plans and encourage positive messages towards Covid-19 to improve vaccination mitigation and vaccine intake. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
Containing the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic has and continues to be a priority around the globe. Pursuant to this, scientists have focused on understanding the virus spread's behavior and patterns to develop mitigation plans. Artificial Intelligence agent-based simulations (ABS) have been used by scientists to simulate virus spread and control. ABS can model different variables and decisions in specific environments and contexts to find ways to reduce the transmission and diminish the severity of this pandemic. This paper presents a review of literature on ABS modeling to contain the virus through pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions and the impact of the virus spread on economies. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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Ultrasound technology is a green and environment-friendly technology that rarely causes thermal damage to food products. In this review, we present an overview of the application of ultrasound technology for the dehydration of food products, including pre-treatments such as ultrasound, osmotic dehydration, and ultrasound-assisted osmotic dehydration. Dehydration promotes the preservation of food products and increases the shelf life of the food products by reducing water activity. In addition, the ultrasound-assisted drying of food products is highlighted. The influence of ultrasound and ultrasound-assisted osmotic dehydration parameters on drying kinetics and food quality is also discussed. The application of pre-treatments enhances the mass transfer rate, increases the drying rate and drying efficiency, reduces drying time, and helps to retain food properties such as texture and nutrition value. Generally, ultrasound and osmotic dehydration application decreases water activity, increases rehydration ability, improves product color, and reduces nutrient losses. To conclude, we have discussed the use of ultrasound applications for improving the quality and safety of produce before and after the drying process.
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BACKGROUND: The Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is a highly pathogenic zoonotic betacoronaviruses and a global public health concern. Better undersetting of the immune responses to MERS-CoV is needed to characterize the correlates of protection and durability of the immunity and to aid in developing preventative and therapeutic interventions. While MERS-CoV-specific circulating antibodies could persist for several years post-recovery, their waning raises concerns about their durability and role in protection. Nonetheless, memory B and T cells could provide long-lasting protective immunity despite the serum antibodies levels. METHODS: Serological and flow cytometric analysis of MERS-CoV-specific immune responses were performed on samples collected from a cohort of recovered individuals who required intensive care unit (ICU) admission as well as hospital or home isolation several years after infection to characterize the longevity and quality of humoral and cellular immune responses. RESULTS: Our data showed that MERS-CoV infection could elicit robust long-lasting virus-specific binding and neutralizing antibodies as well as T and B cell responses up to 6.9 years post-infection regardless of disease severity or need for ICU admission. Apart from the persistent high antibody titers, this response was characterized by B cell subsets with antibody-independent functions as demonstrated by their ability to produce TNF-α, IL-6, and IFN-γ cytokines in response to antigen stimulation. Furthermore, virus-specific activation of memory CD8+ and CD4+ T cell subsets from MERS-recovered patients resulted in secretion of high levels of TNF-α, IL-17 and IFN-γ. CONCLUSIONS: MERS-CoV infection could elicit robust long-lasting virus-specific humoral and cellular responses.
ABSTRACT
Since its burst in early 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has deeply affected every aspect of daily life, from international trade and travelling to restrictions on an individual level, becoming a complex multi-level and highly multi-faceted problem. Due to its overarching influence and deep impact, it can be seen as one of the most disruptive Grand Challenges of our time. Different from most other lasting Grand Challenges, such as Climate Change, the pandemic exerted its influence with little ramp-up, rapidly transforming health and health systems, human lives, goods and economic flows, decision-making mechanisms, research and innovation, and many other aspects of life in a very short span of time. Grand Challenges require extraordinary efforts from society as a whole since they need holistic, effective, collaborative endeavours to solve them. One such unique orchestrated effort can be observed in the subsequent series of virtual massive EUvsVirus (https://www.euvsvirus.org/ ) events and committed collaborations (‘hackathon', ‘matchathon', ‘launchathon', ‘community', ‘EIC Covid platform', and the unparalleled ‘Academia Diffusion Experiment' [ADE], analysed in chapter "Academia Diffusion Experiment: Trailblazing the Emergence from Co-Creation” of this book). While this chapter explains ‘what' has been produced with the ADE, inspired by the EUvsVirus phenomenon, the ADE chapter describes ‘how' it has been done. Both are extremely unique in terms of content, procedure, motivation, collaboration, effects—and they attempt to trailblaze at highest level co-creation, co-evolution, and co-dreaming. Hence, situated as the last chapters of this book. This chapter will shed light on the EUvsVirus events, where over 30,000 individuals from 40 countries came together and addressed the complexity of this massive challenge in a pioneering and groundbreaking way. The chapter is focused on analysing the EUvsVirus hackathon (alongside its mentioned unique spillovers) as a tool, method, and process capable of channelling and activating individuals' and institutions' concerns, wills, and commitments into a unique orchestrated open, collaborative response to an urgent Grand Challenge, the pandemic. We are producing a multi-vortex tornado model, resembling the EUvsVirus phenomenon, its components, mechanisms, behaviour and how to replicate it to achieve such disruptive, global organisational effort of co-creation. Especially, the emergence of such collaboration in the face of such urgency leads to the assumption that there are crucial lessons to be learned from this endeavour, quite fittingly encapsulated by these words: ‘We are learning That though we weren't ready for this, We have been readied by it'. Amanda Gorman's New Year poem (https://amandagormanbooks.com/#the-hill-we-climb-and-other-poems or https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2022/01/06/exp-amanda-gorman-nye-poem.cnn ) © 2023, The Author(s).
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This paper investigates how Umrah and Hajj travellers' needs and wants are influenced by their acceptance (behaviour) of new norms practices (social distancing, hygiene standards, wearing face masks) in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The cross-sectional survey utilises the purposive sampling method with 216 respondents. Partial-least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLSSEM) was used to confirm the study model and test the hypotheses. Additionally, this study validates the role of age in influencing the new norms of travel behaviour through the PLS-SEM multi-group analysis (MGA). Path Analysis results revealed that psychological needs, safety needs and selfactualisation influence the new norms of travel behaviour. However, self-esteem and belonging needs insignificantly affect their new norms of travel behaviour. Based on the MGA, this study confirms that age / generation plays a significant role in the new travel behaviour practices. This study contributes to the literature on religious tourism and the necessary new norms and changes explicitly relating to Umrah and Hajj travel through the lens of Maslow's theory of hierarchical needs. The study also contributes to a better understanding of tourists' post-pandemic needs and motivational facets, which helps redesign religious travel experiences.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic affected public health, economy, social life, and the environment. It infected and killed millions of people around the world. Most of the recent literature has focused on the medications to combat this virus, including antivirals and vaccines, but studies about its effect on the environment are still rare, particularly on the water sector. Most of the studies concentrate on the effect of water availability on COVID-19, the effect of the used medications on the water, and the probability of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 through water. Herein, we have summarized the effects of COVID-19 on the water sector from many perspectives. We show different methods to detect the effect of the pandemic on water and also methods to investigate the presence of the virus or its RNA in the water. We also show the different effects of its presence in the wastewater, the probability of transmission, the detection of different variants, and the prediction of new waves. We also show the disadvantages and advantages of the pandemic in the water sector. We finally suggest some recommendations to face this pandemic and the future pandemics for the governments and water policymakers, water treatment plants, general population, and researchers. The aim of this review is to show the different aspects of the pandemic in order to give a general idea about what must be done in order to minimize its effect and any probable pandemic in the future.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND AND AIM: Worldwide health systems have been strained by the COVID-19 pandemic. Surging numbers of critically ill adult patients demanded urgent system-wide responses. Our Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) underwent a care delivery model redesign and rapid shift in processes and resources to care for critically ill adults at the peak of the pandemic. We describe novel adaptions made to accommodate adult patients for the first time in this paediatric setting. Personal insights of clinical staff, leaders and adult care partners about the experience of caring for critically ill adult patients are shared. METHOD(S): Program components included;preparation, education, collaboration (both interprofessional and interorganizational), continuous process improvement, and staff well-being initiatives. Interprofessional team impacts gathered during the implementation phase of the program and 10 months following were analysed using Havelock's Theory of Change framework1. RESULT(S): The Adult COVID-19 program facilitated rapid team capacity building and supported responsive care for adult patients. Over 12 weeks, 35 adults (426 patient days) received care in the PICU. Staff acknowledged;1] the burden of providing high quality care for adults, 2] the opportunity for individual and team growth and 3] guiding paediatric principals of strength-based, family-centered care enhanced the quality of care provided and provider perceptions of accomplishment. CONCLUSION(S): This program facilitated a rapid transformation and expansion in models of care and processes, successfully enhanced the team's capacity to deliver quality evidence-based service to adults with COVID-19 and was a source of personal growth and meaning for the health care team.
ABSTRACT
Twitter is a viable data source for studying public opinion. The study aims to identify public opinion and sentiments toward Covid-19 vaccine and examine conversations posted on Twitter. The study examined two Datasets;one of 7500 tweets collected using RapidMiner from June 7–17, 2021, and 9865 tweets collected from Kaggle on the 3rd of January 2021. It used Naive Bayes model to classify, analyze and visualize tweets according to polarity, K-means clustering, and key tweet topics. The study showed that positive sentiments were dominant in both times;it also realized that positive polarity increased over time from January to June 2021. In addition, vaccine acceptance became more prevalent in the tweets' discussions and topics. Understanding sentiments and opinions toward Covid-19 vaccine using Twitter is critical to supporting public health organizations to execute promotions plans and encourage positive messages towards Covid-19 to improve vaccination mitigation and vaccine intake. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
Containing the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic has and continues to be a priority around the globe. Pursuant to this, scientists have focused on understanding the virus spread's behavior and patterns to develop mitigation plans. Artificial Intelligence agent-based simulations (ABS) have been used by scientists to simulate virus spread and control. ABS can model different variables and decisions in specific environments and contexts to find ways to reduce the transmission and diminish the severity of this pandemic. This paper presents a review of literature on ABS modeling to contain the virus through pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions and the impact of the virus spread on economies. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
This study was found in foreign institutions because it has reached an inorganic department of universities with Elian modernization and the framework of general education policy. This study discussed research because it does not continue to support existing learning environments that are not compatible with modern technology due to the situation and weakness of the Internet. There is no effort for any other reason. The most important conclusion of this study is that not only the most important research results of this study, as well as a personal interview with the request, as well as proposed solutions for proposed solutions and personal populations but genuine Interviews with certification and modern cultural Ellis is also accepted for education and especially in college formats. © 2022 IEEE.
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This chapter explores the relationship between feminist slow scholarship and geographical research methodologies. A group of feminist geographers comprising five graduate students and four tenured faculty across five universities in Canada and the United States came together (virtually) in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and uprisings against racism to reflect on how principles of feminist slow scholarship can inform geographical research methodologies. In the process of our collective writing and reflection, we identified feminist care ethics, attention to temporality, and embodied emotional labour as interconnected elements from feminist slow scholarship that are also fundamental to research. We explore these elements through examples drawn from our own experiences. We conclude that feminist slow scholarship offers a way of doing care-full research as part of collective endeavours to change the university and world around us. © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Sarah A. Lovell, Stephanie E. Coen and Mark W. Rosenberg;individual chapters, the contributors.
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The emergence of COVID-19 (SARS-COV-2) has resulted in millions of deaths worldwide. Nigeria has recorded over 2000 deaths due to the disease. Development of alternative medicine from plants against SARS-COV-2 can be a potential therapy for treatment of secondary complications. To investigate plants with potential to manage respiratory tract infections. The plants were extracted and screened for phytochemical constituents;their acute and subacute toxicity profile was evaluated. The plant extracts were tested against clinical microbial isolates associated with respiratory tract infection. All the plants extract were found to have acute toxicity dose above 5000 mg per kg body weight. Among the four tested medicinal plants Guiera senegalensis was found to have significant zone of inhibition against Klebsiella pneumonia and Moraxella catarrhalis more than the standard drug (Gentamicin). Guiera senegalensis has been used in traditional medicine to treat bacterial infections without any report of toxicity. The preclinical study indicated that Guiera senegalensis can be used in the management of respiratory infections associated with symptoms of COVID 19. Guiera senegalensis can therefore be used as a potential medicinal plant for management of secondary bacterial infections in Covid19 patients. Copyright © 2007 The authors.
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Weather and sociodemographic indicators are important to comprehensively understand rapid spread of COVID-19 at a given spatial scale and spatial analysis is very useful in studying the causes of disease. This study evaluates the influence of weather variables, sociodemographic characteristics and their corresponding records of COVID-19 in Iraq governorates. The assessments of these relationships were based on R0 estimated from the time series data of COVID-19 infections, and by using geographically weighted regression (GWR) and linear regression modelling. The results showed that global estimates of these relationships from the linear regressions are generally poor. On the contrary, GWR results show spatially varying patterns. Among weather variables, increasing wind speed leads to rising COVID-19 infection. Population density is one of the sociodemographic characteristics that contribute to higher COVID-19 infection. COVID-19 infections, on the other hand, decreased in cities with a good health index and access to piped water. The findings of this study are therefore of great value to policymakers to design appropriate measures to reduce COVID-19 infection. This demonstrates the importance of spatial information methods in quantifying the impact of different variables on disease spread.
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In this study, the problem of finding an optimal location and size of a distributed generator (DG) in distribution systems with considering operational distribution system constraints is proposed with the objective of maximizing DG hosting capacity (MDHC), reducing system loss, and improving voltage stability index (VSI). The proposed objective function is formulated as a multi-objective mixed-integer nonlinear optimization in order to solve it simultaneously. To solve this problem, the coronavirus herd immunity optimizer (CHIO), a bio-inspired metaheuristic optimization method, is herein proposed to simultaneously tackle a discrete and continuous DG integration problem in distribution systems. Extensive simulations on an IEEE 69-node system with different load levels and DG numbers are performed using MATLAB software to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed method. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method efficiently improves overall distribution system performance when compared to different DG numbers and load levels. Furthermore, the CHIO optimization method shows encouraging results and almost obtains the best results in all proposed cases when compared with well-known metaheuristic optimization methods such as genetic algorithm (GA), the hunger games search (HGS), the chaotic neural network algorithm (CNNA), and the water cycle algorithm (WCA). The CHIO can successfully offer a notable solution for the DG integration problem, and the obtained results, for example in case 1, revealed outperforming the CHIO compared to other methods in terms of the MDHC (i.e., 99.999 %), voltage profile improvement (i.e., the minimum voltage magnitude of 0.9696 p.u), VSI improvement (i.e., 29.16 %), and system loss reduction (i.e., 66.95 %) compared with the base case, respectively © 2022, International Journal of Intelligent Engineering and Systems.All Rights Reserved.
ABSTRACT
This study aims to determine the effect of distributing scientific information via e-learning and distance education. The study sample consisted of (100) male and female students in this specialization from the perspective of students of medical sciences at Al-Nisour University College. The questionnaire was used as the primary method for collecting data related to the research variables. The results of the study yielded a variety of conclusions. It was found from this study that students respond to the availability of equal opportunities for them to obtain electronic scientific knowledge. It was also found that the other section of the students had problems with the type of content of the lectures. This study recommends the use of modern technology in e-learning after identifying the obstacles it faces. © 2022 IEEE.