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The problem and the aim of the study. WHO has determined that COVID-19 is a pandemic, because it has become epidemic in all corners of the world. The effect of the spread of this pandemic, learning must change from the habits that have been done so far, such as learning is done online using several platforms as learning media. For more than two years, COVID-19 has been declared a pandemic, although until now signs of the spread of COVID-19 have decreased, but who has not lowered the level from pandemic to endemic. For more than two years the learning was also conducted online, causing many problems for students. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the implementation of online learning that has been carried out during the two years of the COVID pandemic. Three parts are examined in this study, namely the obstacles faced by students when carrying out online learning, student strategies to overcome these obstacles, and how students expect online learning to continue. Research methods. This research is qualitative research with the type of case study. Respondents in this study were 795 students in Indonesia. The instrument used in this study was 12 open questions which were divided into 5 parts, namely: respondent's identity, confirmation that the university had implemented online learning, obstacles faced by students, solutions made by students, and student expectations. This instrument is given online via a Google Forms. The data that has been obtained, then grouped into 4 groups with the help of Nvivo, then interpreted and described by the researcher. Results. The results showed that 83% experienced problems when online learning was implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic that hit Indonesia for 2 years. The majority of obstacles faced by students include inadequate internet network, equipment used, high internet quota, communication methods, too many assignments, and difficulty understanding the material presented. In conclusion, the implementation of online learning, students experience various obstacles. It was recorded that of 795 respondents, there were 83% experienced problems when implementing online learning. The majority of obstacles faced by students include inadequate internet network, equipment used, high internet quota, communication methods, too many assignments, and difficulty understanding the material presented. © 2023 LLC Ecological Help. All rights reserved.
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Objective: COVID-19 means Crown in Latin, COVID-19 is a type of virus that first spread in the city of Wuhan, China, and has spread throughout the world. This virus has an impact on all sectors namely the Economy, Health, and Education. This study aimed to determine the effect of school from home on working mothers during COVID-19 pandemia in Riau Province, Indonesia. Methods: This study used a cross-sectional design involving 132 working mothers who had schoolchildren in Pekanbaru City, Riau Province, Indonesia. The sampling technique uses purposive sampling with inclusion criteria for working mothers with schoolchildren who are willing to be respondents. The measuring instrument used to determine the psychosocial impact uses Self Reporting Questionnaire 29 (SRQ 29). Data were analyzed using univariate descriptive tests. Results: The results showed that more than half of them, namely 87 (65.9 %) working mothers experienced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Conclusion: There is a needs to implement policies and curriculum changes in schools, for example, don't give too many assignments, shorten study time, and need communication between school authorities and parents of students. © 2023 Academia Nacional de Medicina. All rights reserved.
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Background: COVID-19 associated pulmonary aspergillosis (CAPA) complicates the course of critically ill COVID-19 patients. Delay in diagnosis and reports of azole resistance in CAPA patients lead to adverse outcome. We had previously reported CAPA rates of 21.7% from our center with high mortality. To detect azole resistance in Aspergillus species isolated from CAPA patients, we performed azole resistance screening. Material(s) and Method(s): Aspergillus species isolated from tracheal aspirates of CAPA patients admitted in Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan during July 2020- January 2022, were screened for azole resistance as per CDC protocol. Minimum inhibitory concentration of screening positive strains were determined using YeastOne Sensititre plate. Result(s): 92 Aspergillus isolates were screened from 73 CAPA patients for azole resistance. Only 2 (2.17%) A. flavus isolates showed growth on voriconazole well, while other 90 (97%) isolates were screened negative for resistance (Table. 1). MICs of these two strains against posaconazole, voriconazole and itraconazole were 0.5 ug/mL, 1 ug/mL and 0.25ug/mL respectively. Table. 1: Aspergillus species distribution and growth on azole resistance screen agar Conclusion(s): We also did not find any azole resistance in this study. Periodic surveillance for the emergence of azole-resistant clinical isolates using molecular approaches is essential.
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In the published article, there was an error in Affiliation 1. Instead of "MinNan Science and Technology University, Quanzhou, China”, it should be "College of Business, MinNan Science and Technology University, Quanzhou, China.” There was also a mistake in the Funding statement. The funding statement for the Key Development Project of the Department of Science and Technology was displayed as "2015CBd051”. The correct statement is "Key Development Project of Department of Science and Technology (2015C03Bd051).'' Funding This research projectwas funded by BeijingMunicipal Philosophy and Social Science Planning Office "Research on the Coordinated Development of Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Financial Agglomeration and Industrial Structure Upgrading” (16YJB037) and Key Development Project of Department of Science and Technology (2015C03Bd051). The authors apologize for these errors and state that they do not change the scientific conclusions of the article in any way. The original article has been updated. © 2023 Wei, Xiao, Yaqub, Irfan, Murad and Yaqub.
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Purpose: To timely manage supply chain disruptions, experts have focused their attention on the impact of COVID-19 on industries worldwide. Epidemic outbursts are a specific supply chain risk with long disruption propagation, disruption persistence, and high uncertainty. This study aimed to investigate the role of R&D investment and firm performance in mediating the relationship between disruption risk and supply chain performance in Pakistani manufacturing industries and supply chain employees during the recovery phase of the COVID-19 pandemic via the application of the dynamic capability theory. Methodology: From 21 July 2020 to 23 August 2020, 318 employees from supply chains of manufacturing industries in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Pakistan, participated in this cross-sectional online web-based survey. The four standard research scales were used to examine the research and development, disruption risk, firm, and supply chain performance. The response link was distributed to respondents via Facebook, WhatsApp, and email. The study analyzed the data using structural equation modeling and a partial least squares technique. Results: The study's findings suggest that disruption risk, research and development investment, and firm performance all improve supply chain performance, but the mediation effect is unsupported by the data. These measures help plan a better supply chain in the face of disruption risk. They provide one of the timely empirical conclusions on the role of R&D investment in mitigating risk disruptions and improving supply chain performance. Copyright © 2023 Sulehri, Ullah, Maroof, Uzair, Murtaza and Irfan.
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Objective: To determine the frequency and outcomes of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) in patients with influenza, COVID-19 and community acquired pneumonia (CAP) admitted in critical care units of a tertiary care hospital in Pakistan. Method(s): A prospective cross sectional study was conducted at the Aga Khan University from Nov 2019-June 2020. Adult patients admitted in critical care units with CAP, influenza and COVID-19 pneumonia were included. IPA was diagnosed as per EORTC/MSG criteria. Clinical information and outcome were collected on predesigned performa. Result(s): A total of 140 patients [70 Influenza, 35 COVID-19 and 35 CAP] were included. Of total, 20(14.2%) patients were found to have invasive aspergillosis with 10/35(28.5%), 9/75(12.8%) and 1/35(2.8%) patients in COVID-19, influenza and CAP groups, respectively. Duration of symptoms was 12.5+/-12.13 days in CAPA and 7.56+/-4.0 days in IAPA patients (p=0.24). Mean APCHE II score was 17.4+/-8.42 and 16.6+/-6.27 in patients with CAPA and IAPA respectively (p=0.85). 9(90%) CAPA patients required vasopressor support compared to 3(33%) patients in IAPA (p=0.020). 7(70%) CAPA patients required invasive mechanical ventilation compared to 4(44%) IAPA patients (p=0.37). Length of stay in hospital was highest in CAPA patients (18.3+/-7.28 days) compared to IAPA patients (11.7+/-5.33 days) (p=0.036). The number of deaths in IAPA patients and CAPA patients was 3(33.3%) and 5(50%), respectively (p=0.526). Conclusion(s): A higher proportion of patients with COVID-19 developed IPA compared to influenza and CAP. CAPA patients had a significantly longer stay in hospital and mortality.
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BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Increase in online banking activities has been observed in the new normal of the Covid-19 pandemic. Previous studies argued that fraudsters tend to prey on unexpected events. This threat is also frightening online consumers of retail banking. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate how online retail banking users can be motivated enough to avoid online banking fraud threats while no compromise on health. METHODS: The population of the study is online banking customers in Pakistan. This study obtained data from 470 respondents who used online banking services by using questionnaires through an online survey. The structure Equation Modeling approach is used to investigate the relationship among study research variables. FINDINGS: Findings from a nationwide online survey confirmed the impact of the pandemic on consumer responses for online retail banking intention. Structure Equation Model results found that Perceived Vulnerability β = 0.24, Perceived Severity β = 0.31, and Response Efficacy β = 0.32 has significant impact on precautionary behavior. Surprisingly, Self-Efficacy was not significant to consumer precautionary behavior during the new normal of COVID-19. CONCLUSION: This study contributes to the literature on online banking and protection motivation theory. Results imply that bankers must invest in online banking and provide a secure environment that prioritizes the safety of the online transaction and create awareness to decrease the threat of fraud during the uncertain situation. The findings of this study particularly call for bankers, retailers' attention to online management of security systems. © 2021 IJHCUM. All rights reserved.
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Objective: The objective of this study is to report the frequency and clinical characteristic of IFI in COVID-19 patients. Method(s): This observational study was conducted in Karachi, Pakistan from March 2020-April 2021. Patients with COVID-19 associated aspergillosis (CAPA) were diagnosed using ECMM/ISHAM criteria modified to include tracheal aspirate culture and/or Galactomannan Index (GMI) >4.5 in the possible CAPA category. COVID-19 associated candidemia (CAC) was defined by isolation of Candida species from blood cultures. COVID-19 associated mucormycosis (CAM) was defined as updated EORTC/MSG criteria with inclusion of COVID-19 as host factor. Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia (PJP) was defined by consistent clinical and radiological features and PCR positivity. Result(s): During the study period a total of 123 (3.3%) IFI in 3506 hospitalized COVID-19 patients were identified. This included 78 (2.2%) CAPA patients (42 probable;36 possible), 29 (0.8%) CAC (5 C. auris;24 non-C. auris), 10 (0.3%) CAM (7 pulmonary;3 rhinocerebral), 3 (0.08%) PJP and three (0.08%) cases of rare invasive fungal infections (2 C. neoformans;1 Trichosporon asahii). Outcome data was available on 117/123 patients. Of these 117 patients, 78 expired (66.7%). These include 52/74 (70%) CAPA patients, 17/27 (63%) CAC patients, 7/10 (70%) CAM patients and 2/3 (67%) PJP patients. Conclusion(s): We report a rate of 3.3% IFI amongst hospitalized COVID-19 patients at our center. We consider this rate to be an underestimate due to less bronchoscopic procedures and inclusion of only candidemia cases. We also report higher mortality rate with IFI in our patients than global data probably due to delayed diagnosis, co-infections and limited therapeutic options.
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The numbers of cases and deaths due to the COVID-19 virus have increased daily all around the world. Chest X-ray is considered very useful and less time-consuming for monitoring COVID disease. No doubt, X-ray is considered as a quick screening method, but due to variations in features of images which are of X-rays category with Corona confirmed cases, the domain expert is needed. To address this issue, we proposed to utilize deep learning approaches. In this study, the dataset of COVID-19, lung opacity, viral pneumonia, and lastly healthy patients' images of category X-rays are utilized to evaluate the performance of the Swin transformer for predicting the COVID-19 patients efficiently. The performance of the Swin transformer is compared with the other seven deep learning models, including ResNet50, DenseNet121, InceptionV3, Efficient-NetB2, VGG19, ViT, CaIT, Swim transformer provides 98% recall and 96% accuracy on corona affected images of the X-ray category. The proposed approach is also compared with state-of-the-art techniques for COVID-19 diagnosis, and proposed technique is found better in terms of accuracy. Our system could support clin-icians in screening patients for COVID-19, thus facilitating instantaneous treatment for better effects on the health of COVID-19 patients. Also, this paper can contri-bute to saving humanity from the adverse effects of trials that the Corona virus might bring by performing an accurate diagnosis over Corona-affected patients. © 2023, Tech Science Press. All rights reserved.
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COVID-19 is reported as an extremely contagious disease with common symptoms of fever, dry cough, sore throat, and tiredness. The published literature on incidence and gender-wise prevalence of COVID-19 is scarce in Pakistan. Therefore, the present study was designed to compare the distribution, incubation period and mortality rate of COVID-19 among the male and female population of district Attock. The data were collected between 01 April 2020 and 07 December 2020 from the population of district Attock, Pakistan. A total of 22,962 individuals were screened and 843 were found positive for RT-qPCR for SARS-CoV-2. The confirmed positive cases were monitored carefully. Among the positive cases, the incidence of COVID-19 was 61.7% among males and 38.2% among females. The average recovery period of males was 18.89±7.75 days and females were 19±8.40 days from SARS-CoV-2. The overall mortality rate was 8.06%. The death rate of male patients was significantly higher (P<0.05) compared to female patients. Also, the mortality rate was higher (P<0.05) in male patients of 40-60 years of age compared to female patients of the same age group. Moreover, the mortality rate significantly increased (P<0.05) with the increase of age irrespective of gender. In conclusion, the incidence and mortality rate of COVID-19 is higher in males compared to the female population. Moreover, irrespective of gender the mortality rate was significantly lower among patients aged <40 years.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Female , Humans , Incidence , Male , Pakistan/epidemiology , Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction , SARS-CoV-2ABSTRACT
Telecommunication technology continues to develop starting from 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, and currently entering the 5G era. The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) based telecommunication industry in Indonesia consists of three big names: Telkomsel, XL, and Indosat. During the Covid-19 pandemic, activities carried out outside the home should be done online. People hope that the internet network can work properly. However, the reality is not as expected, because many networks are experiencing slow internet problems and many complaints are delivered through social media. Therefore, this research aims to find the insight opinions that have been conveyed to the telecommunications operator in social media. This research used the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) algorithm to classify text sentiment (negative or positive) about telecommunication providers. The experiment with text data from Twitter is conducted after preprocessing and weighting of the Word2Vec process. The confusion matrix experiment shows that the CNN algorithm's performance reaches an average accuracy value of around 86.22%. The experiment was carried out by dividing the training data and testing the data 5 times in 10 times. The study results indicated that disruption of cellular telecommunications operators provided many sentiments, especially negative sentiment at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2022 IEEE.
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Online purchasing is increasing because customers are shifting to digital wallets and digital money, as these services are provided by different microfinance and other commercial banking sectors, and different online brands are working in Pakistan to support environmental sustainability. The objective of this study was to demonstrate to what extent low distribution charges and low transit time is contributing to impulsive buying when customers can use digital money in Pakistan. The study was conducted using survey research. Importantly, 650 questionnaires were distributed to the respondents with a received response rate of 40%. The study found that digital money (e-wallet) is positively associated with impulsive buying. Moreover, the moderating role of distribution charges and low transit time has been significant in impulsive buying has been significant. This study concludes that low transit time and load distribution charges must be considered by online businesses and brands working in Pakistan to ensure productivity and capture a larger market share of impulsive buying in Pakistan. Also, the current study contributes a theoretical framework to the knowledge and literature related to impulsive buying. The scope of this study is limited to the online businesses and brands that are working to provide products and services to the Pakistani people with the help of digital money and digital transactions. Significantly, this study provides significant future directions that are important to consider for upcoming studies to focus on and contribute to effectively. Copyright © 2023 Wei, Xiao, Yaqub, Irfan, Murad and Yaqub.
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The government's endeavors in organizing the COVID-19 Social Assistance program often encounter problems and lead to the opinion of many parties. One of the opinions expressed on social media is twitter. Sentiments from these opinions were then analyzed to find out the assessment and discussion of each sentiment that can be used as evaluation material for the Social Assistance program. In this study, the sentiment of each preprocessed text was obtained using a labeling process with an assessment of polarity and subjectivity from TextBlob library. The results of neutral, positive, and negative sentiment assessments were weighted using TFIDF. Words that have been formatted into numeric then classified using the Random Forest algorithm. The parameters in this case were in accordance with the documentation on sklearn. An evaluation of the algorithm was also carried out using the 10 kfold cross validation method as a performance validation of the results of testing each piece of data. The performance obtained is quite satisfactory. © 2022 IEEE.
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Waste management of the nonwoven polypropylene (PP) fabric has become an emerging issue due to its increased usage. This study presents the upscale recycling of PP nonwoven fabric scrap generated during medical-grade disposable gown manufacturing. To prepare PP and carbon black (CB) nanocomposite, a two-step novel melt blending process is used. A maximum density of 937 kg/m(3), shore D hardness of 74.45, and highest improvement in UV degradation resistance with a carbonyl index of 0.40 is recorded at 2 wt% of the CB while melt flow index is the lowest at 0.5 wt% of the CB. The results of this study revealed the peak melting point (161.81 degrees C), thermal degradation temperature (421 degrees C), highest flexural strength (49.16 MPa), and Izod impact strength (6.76 kJ/m(2)) are at 0.50 wt% of CB loading. A morphological study indicated that the highest agglomeration of CB particles was found at 2 wt% CB. The results showed that the optimum value of CB in PP nanocomposite is 0.5 wt%, at which the majority of the properties are maximized. This research might pave the way for the recycling of nonwoven PP waste fabric and provide an alternative to the exciting virgin raw materials.
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The numbers of cases and deaths due to the COVID-19 virus have increased daily all around the world. Chest X-ray is considered very useful and less time-consuming for monitoring COVID disease. No doubt, X-ray is considered as a quick screening method, but due to variations in features of images which are of X-rays category with Corona confirmed cases, the domain expert is needed. To address this issue, we proposed to utilize deep learning approaches. In this study, the dataset of COVID-19, lung opacity, viral pneumonia, and lastly healthy patients' images of category X-rays are utilized to evaluate the performance of the Swin transformer for predicting the COVID-19 patients efficiently. The performance of the Swin transformer is compared with the other seven deep learning models, including ResNet50, DenseNet121, InceptionV3, EfficientNetB2, VGG19, ViT, CaIT, Swim transformer provides 98% recall and 96% accuracy on corona affected images of the X-ray category. The proposed approach is also compared with state-of-the-art techniques for COVID-19 diagnosis, and proposed technique is found better in terms of accuracy. Our system could support clinicians in screening patients for COVID-19, thus facilitating instantaneous treatment for better effects on the health of COVID-19 patients. Also, this paper can contribute to saving humanity from the adverse effects of trials that the Corona virus might bring by performing an accurate diagnosis over Corona-affected patients.
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This paper examines the volatility of Shariah indices of the gulf cooperative council due to coronavirus. Do GCC Shariah indices that are affected by the bad news of coronavirus? and attempts to analyze the impact of (Cov-NC) and (Cov-DC) on the movements of Shariah indices. The study used the GCC Shariah Indices viz., S&P Domestic Shariah of each country separately. New corona cases (Cov-NC) and new death cases (Cov-DC) are the dependent and independent variables used from Jan 1, 2020, to Dec. 31, 2020. The threshold-GARCH model is used to make the study more significant in terms of volatility in stock index prices due to the outbreak of the pandemic. The analysis shows that there is a negative leverage effect of bad news has more than the impact on conditional variance than good news. Here, GCC Shariah Indices are impacted due to coronavirus (Covid- New cases, Covid death cases) news spread in the market. Diagnostic analysis is based on AIC, SIC, and HQC criteria. Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman Shariah indices are lower values in comparison to the higher values of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE Shariah indices. At-last T-GARCH model is more suitable for Bahrain, Oman, and Kuwait Islamic indices. © 2022, Statistical Economic and Social Research and. All rights reserved.
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Regional attempts to reduce pollution levels emerging from the European Union (EU) relative to 2010 are contrasted with unique policies of individual member countries' aims to achieve a 10% reduction per country. Given this scenario, this research expands on the topic by developing a novel framework that links macroeconomic policies, total national expenditure per person, traditional energy use, renewable energy use, and CO2 emissions levels in EU countries from 1990 to 2016. The study utilizes the second generation cross-sectional-autoregressive-distributed lag (CS-ARDL) panel data method. According to the study's findings, the monetary instruments of growth exacerbated the adverse effects of CO2 emissions, and by tightening monetary policy, the harmful effects of CO2 emissions levels have been reduced. Further, the Granger causality test indicates a bidirectional causality between monetary policy and CO2 emissions levels, and unidirectional causality from the policy assessment for energy use. The finding confirms that the assessment policy recommendations on energy consumption have future effects on ecological value.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has a long-lasting influence on global economies. Households are expected to consume more electricity for their usual routine activities due to mandatory stay-at-home restrictions, resulting in greater energy utilization. The proposed study seeks to investigate the most relevant energy consumption factors amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The study employs a structural equation modeling approach to evaluate the responses from 511 Pakistani residents. Empirical results report a positive and significant association among perceived behavioral control (PBC), perceived environmental concern (PEC), perceived monitory benefits (PMB), and intention to save energy (ISE). Positive anticipated emotions (PAE) is found to be a significant predictor of ISE and energy-saving behavior (ESB). As a step further, we extend the analysis to find the moderating effect of perceived COVID-19 disruptiveness (PCD) between the relationship of ISE and ESB. Results reveal that PCD positively moderates this relationship. Based on research findings, policy implications and future research directions are provided for practitioners, researchers, and academicians to fulfill the country’s energy needs on its way to a future of sustainable development. Copyright © 2022 Ahmad, Irfan, Salem and Asif.