The Relationship between Marine Sports Tourist Destinations, Social Responsibility, and Environmentally Responsible Behavior

This study investigated the structural relationship between tourist destination identification and environmental responsibility practices based on the social responsibility activities for visitors of marine sports tourist destinations where domestic travel has been active since COVID-19. Furthermore, we aimed to provide academic and practical implications by investigating the relationship between DSR, a major variable in sustainable marine sports tourism, and ERB. Data from a survey of tourists who participated in marine sports (n = 392) were analyzed using structural equation modeling and Hayes PROCESS macro with bootstrapping procedures. According to the analysis results, it was found that marine sports tourist DSR positively affected destination identification and ERB, and that tourist destination identification positively influenced ERB. Second, it was shown that the effect of the social responsibility of a marine sports tourist destination on ERB is mediated via the influence of tourist destination identification.

Screening and monitoring patients with COVID-19 pneumonia treated with immunosuppressive agents for hepatitis B reactivation.

Immunosuppressive drugs are used for treating coronavirus disease 2019COVID-19pneumonia. This study examined the current status of screening and monitoring patients with COVID-19 pneumonia treated with immunosuppressive agents for hepatitis B virusHBVreactivation. Of 123 patients whose hepatitis B surface antigen level was measured, 2 were HBsAg-positive. Antihepatitis B core/surface antibodies were measured in all 121 HBsAg-negative patients. HBV DNA was measured in 31 of 32 patients who were positive for either or both antihepatitis B core/surface antibodies. Of 34 patients requiring regular monitoring, only 4 were monitored. The HBV monitoring rate at the initiation of COVID-19 treatment was high. How-ever, HBV monitoring after COVID-19 treatment was difficult because most patients were transferred to other hospitals or had their treatment terminated.Copyright © 2022 Takeshi Matsui et al.

A pre-existing case of HBV infection with elevated HBV DNA after COVID-19 pneumonia treatment.

The patient presented with fever and appetite loss. Computed tomography (CT) revealed a moderate grade 2 pneumonia. Besides, further blood examination showed his HB antigen as negative, anti-HBs/c anti-body as positive, and HBV DNA level as 1.0 LIU/mL. Therefore, he was diagnosed with COVID-19. Administered treatments comprised oxygen inhalation and steroid therapy, including pulses, remdesivir, and baricitinib, which improved pneumonia. Interestingly, one month posttreatment, his HBV DNA level in-creased to 1.4 LIU/mL, followed by a further increase to 1.7 LIU/Ml, showing an improvement. Tenofovir alafenamide fumarate was thus administered. In clinical practice, immunosuppressive therapy is used for patients with moderate-to-severe COVID-19 pneumo-nia. However, close attention should also be paid to the elevation of blood HBV DNA levels during and after treatment.Copyright © 2022 The Japan Society of Hepatology.

Current status of telemedicine in Japan: implications for Korea. TT -:.

Background: Since the coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak, telemedicine has become an important means of providing medical care worldwide. This study aims to highlight the implications of establishing telemedicine policies in Korea. Japan's telemedicine policies were reviewed from the time of the first trial to the present official allowance. Current Concepts: Since telemedicine demonstration work began in 1971, telemedicine in Japan has advanced in four stages. The first stage was the operation of a remote regional comprehensive medical information system from 1971 to 1997. The second stage was when telemedicine was officially institutionalized from 1997 to 2018. The third stage was the time of expansion of telemedicine, from the announcement of the "Guidelines for the Implementation of Proper Online Care" in 2018 to when online first-time examinations were temporarily allowed in 2020. The fourth stage began in 2021 when the "Permanent Establishment of Special Cases for Online Care" was announced, and telemedicine has been officially allowed to supplement face-to-face care. Telemedicine usage was estimated to be about 53.65 million in 2021, and the total number of treatments in Japan in 2021 was estimated to be about 1.32 billion, accounting for about 4.1% of medical care. Discussion and Conclusion(s): For the Korean government to establish telemedicine, it needs to be promoted step by step through discussions with the medical community. Also, an appropriate medical remuneration system needs to be prepared along with guidelines reflecting the opinions of the medical community to secure the safety of telemedicine.Copyright © Korean Medical Association.

General Surgery Resident Case Numbers During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has had widespread effects on the healthcare system. For trainees, one particular detriment has been the cancellation of elective operations, reducing clinical experience and procedural volumes. Measures instituted to combat the pandemic have resulted in decreased cancellation of elective cases to varying degrees. The aim of this study is to evaluate the ongoing effect of the pandemic on resident operative volume. Method(s): Operative case numbers of general surgical graduates in 2019, 2020, and 2021 were extracted from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education case logs. Data included mean total cases/graduate and means for individual case types. Data was considered by overall number of cases and cases performed as surgeon chief. Analysis of variance was employed to compare groups with p<0.05 considered significant. Result(s): Mean total major cases differed significantly among groups with reduced volume noted for 2020 graduates but no difference in volume between 2019 and 2021 graduates (1070.5+/-150 vs 1054.8+/-155 vs 1074.1+/-164, p=0.0041). This same pattern was noted for surgeon chief total cases (288.6+/-69 vs 264.4+/-67 vs 286.2+/-73, p<0.0001) as well as several major general surgery subcategories including cases involving the stomach, small intestine, large intestine, biliary system, among others. Conclusion(s): Despite continued reduction in and alteration of elective surgery practice, improved pandemic measures have allowed for increased surgical volume. This has translated to increased operative experience for graduating surgical trainees that are comparable to case numbers that preceded the pandemic. Ramifications for the 2020 graduating cohort as well subsequent cohorts require continued evaluation.

SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination elicits robust antibody responses in children

Although children have been largely spared from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants of concern (VOCs) with increased transmissibility, combined with fluctuating mask mandates and school reopenings, has led to increased infections and disease among children. Thus, there is an urgent need to roll out COVID-19 vaccines to children of all ages. However, whether children respond equivalently to adults to mRNA vaccines and whether dosing will elicit optimal immunity remain unclear. Here, we aimed to deeply profile the vaccine-induced humoral immune response in 6-to 11-year-old children receiving either a pediatric (50 mu g) or adult (100 mu g) dose of the mRNA-1273 vaccine and to compare these responses to vaccinated adults, infected children, and children who experienced multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). Children elicited an IgG-dominant vaccine-induced immune response, surpassing adults at a matched 100-mu g dose but more variable immunity at a 50-mu g dose. Irrespective of titer, children generated antibodies with enhanced Fc receptor binding capacity. Moreover, like adults, children generated cross-VOC humoral immunity, marked by a decline of omicron-specific receptor binding domain, but robustly preserved omicron spike protein binding. Fc receptor binding capabilities were also preserved in a dose-dependent manner. These data indicate that both the 50-and 100-mu g doses of mRNA vaccination in children elicit robust cross-VOC antibody responses and that 100-mu g doses in children result in highly preserved omicron-specific functional humoral immunity.

Current status of guideline based screening and monitoring for HBV reactivation in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia treated with immunosuppressive agents

Background and Aim: Immunosuppressive agents (e.g., baricitinib [BAR], tricizumab [TCZ]) and steroids are used for treating coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia. These immunosuppressive agents are known to cause HBV reactivation. The current guidelines recommend HBV screening and HBV reactivation monitoring in Japan. However, the status of compliance among treated patients with COVID-19 pneumonia remains unclear. Herein, we report the status of compliance with the current guidelines on HBV reactivation. Method(s): We investigated the implementation of HBV screening and HBV reactivation monitoring for patients who received immunosuppressive agents in our hospital from April 2021 up to June 2021. Background factors related to the presence or absence of screening were analyzed. Result(s): There were 123 patients who received immunosuppressive agents in our hospital from April 2021 up to June 2021. The patients median age was 63 years old (31-95 years), and 90 patients were men. BAR/steroid therapy was given in 115 patients and TCZ/steroid therapy in 8 patients. Of the 123 patients in whom HBs antigen level was measured, 2 patients were positive for HBs antigen. Anti-HBc/ HBs antibodies were measured in all 121 HBsAg-negative patients according to the guidelines. Of 32 patients who were positive for either or both anti-HBc/HBs antibodies, HBV DNA was measured in 31 patients. Of 34 patients who required regular reactivation monitoring, 30 did not receive regular monitoring (6 died in the hospital, 11 were transferred to other hospitals, and 13 were terminated of their treatment early in the outpatient department of the hospital). Only 4 patients were monitored according to the guidelines. Of the 4 patients monitored, 1 was positive for HBs antigen and was given a nucleic acid analogue. In 1 patient, HBV DNA increased from signal-positive to 1.4 LIU/mL and then to 1.7 LIU/mL and nucleic acid analogue was started. The remaining 2 patients had undetectable HBV DNA or remained signal-positive. Conclusion(s): The HBV reactivation monitoring rate at the start of COVID-19 pneumonia treatment was high. However, HBV reactivation monitoring after the COVID-19 pneumonia treatment was difficult because most patients were transferred to other hospitals or had their treatment terminated.

Pretreatments for Microbial Analysis and Evaluation of Hygiene of Wet Towels and Wet Wipes

The demand for hygiene products has increased worldwide since the outbreak of global COVID-19. As the hygiene products market is expanding, it is necessary to manage microbial contamination in wet towels and wet wipes. This study evaluated pretreatment methods for microbial recovery from wet towels and wipes and microbial contamination levels in wet towels and wipes with the pretreatment method. Escherichia coli (NCCP14038 and NCCP14039), Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC25923 and ATCC29213), and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (NCCP10250 and NCCP11229) were inoculated on five fabric materials of wet towels and wet wipes. The recovery rates of the bacteria from wet towels and wet wipes using three pretreatment methods (pummeling, hand shaking, and portion cutting method) were investigated. Using the selected pretreatment method, the contamination levels of E. coli, S. aureus, and P. aeruginosa were evaluated for 238 wet towels and 244 wet wipes, which were collected in April to August, 2019. The presence of toxA and antibiotic resistance of P. aeruginosa isolated from wet towels were evaluated. The overall recovery rates of the pummeling method and hand shaking method were higher than the portion cutting method. Considering the convenience, the pummeling method was used to investigate the microbial contamination in the wet towels and wet wipes. P. aeruginosa was detected in two wet towels at an average of 9.9x102 CFU/towel. E. coli and S. aureus were not detected in both wet towels and wipes. P. aeruginosa isolates showed no resistances to piperacillin, piperacillin-tazobactam, aztreonam, and gentamicin, but had toxA. The results indicate that the pummeling method is the most appropriate pretreatment method for the recovery of microorganisms, and microbial analysis showed that this method could be useful in monitoring microbial contamination in wet towels and wet wipes.

Crowd cluster data in the USA for analysis of human response to COVID-19 events and policies.

We provide data on daily social contact intensity of clusters of people at different types of Points of Interest (POI) by zip code in Florida and California. This data is obtained by aggregating fine-scaled details of interactions of people at the spatial resolution of 10 m, which is then normalized as a social contact index. We also provide the distribution of cluster sizes and average time spent in a cluster by POI type. This data will help researchers perform fine-scaled, privacy-preserving analysis of human interaction patterns to understand the drivers of the COVID-19 epidemic spread and mitigation. Current mobility datasets either provide coarse-level metrics of social distancing, such as radius of gyration at the county or province level, or traffic at a finer scale, neither of which is a direct measure of contacts between people. We use anonymized, de-identified, and privacy-enhanced location-based services (LBS) data from opted-in cell phone apps, suitably reweighted to correct for geographic heterogeneities, and identify clusters of people at non-sensitive public areas to estimate fine-scaled contacts.

Current status of telemedicine in Japan: implications for Korea

Background: Since the coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak, telemedicine has become an important means of providing medical care worldwide. This study aims to highlight the implications of establishing telemedicine policies in Korea. Japan's telemedicine policies were reviewed from the time of the first trial to the present official allowance. Current Concepts: Since telemedicine demonstration work began in 1971, telemedicine in Japan has advanced in four stages. The first stage was the operation of a remote regional comprehensive medical information system from 1971 to 1997. The second stage was when telemedicine was officially institutionalized from 1997 to 2018. The third stage was the time of expansion of telemedicine, from the announcement of the "Guidelines for the Implementation of Proper Online Care" in 2018 to when online first-time examinations were temporarily allowed in 2020. The fourth stage began in 2021 when the "Permanent Establishment of Special Cases for Online Care" was announced, and telemedicine has been officially allowed to supplement face-to-face care. Telemedicine usage was estimated to be about 53.65 million in 2021, and the total number of treatments in Japan in 2021 was estimated to be about 1.32 billion, accounting for about 4.1% of medical care. Discussion and Conclusion: For the Korean government to establish telemedicine, it needs to be promoted step by step through discussions with the medical community. Also, an appropriate medical remuneration system needs to be prepared along with guidelines reflecting the opinions of the medical community to secure the safety of telemedicine.

Airbnb vs hotel? Customer selection behaviors in upward and downward COVID-19 trends

Purpose: To provide a dynamic view on accommodation choice behaviors during the pandemic, this study aims to examine the impact of recent trends on prospective travelers' preferences for hotels and Airbnb. Design/methodology/approach: The paper adopts a mixed methods approach that incorporates three independent studies (experimental analysis, online search pattern analysis and an econometric event study) to understand customer decision-making behaviors. Findings: The findings indicate that travelers prefer Airbnb entire flats/apartments to hotels when the pandemic is trending upward. This result externally validates travelers' preference toward Airbnb during periods of high risk. Interestingly, when the trends go downward, however, the same behavioral pattern was not identified. Research limitations/implications: This study provides important empirical insights into how the evolution of health crises influence customer decision-making for hotels and Airbnb. Future research needs to consider the role of socio-demographic factors in accommodation selection behaviors and examine how travelers react to cleanliness levels between Airbnb and hotels. Originality/value: As one of initial studies that empirically examine Airbnb customers' decision-making behaviors in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic's trends, this study provides a dynamic view on how the evolution of the pandemic influences accommodation choice behaviors. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Recommendations of Nutritional Treatment for Patients with COVID-19 Infection (2023).

The standardized nutrition support therapy can improve the nutritional status, immunity, quality of life, and clinical outcomes of patients with novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection. The latest Chinese government policy also clearly states that nutrition support therapy should be included in the whole process of treatment and recovery of patients with COVID-19. Therefore, the Beijing Quality Control and Improvement Center for Clinical Nutrition Therapy has organized relevant experts to formulate the Recommendations of Nutritional Treatment for Patients with COVID-19 Infection (2023), following the latest clinical nutrition guidelines, research evidence and clinical practice of nutrition support of COVID-19. The recommendations suggest that individualized nutrition management be implemented by fol-lowing the standardized pathway of nutrition management, which includes nutrition-risk screening, malnu-trition diagnosis, nutrition treatment and nutrition monitoring, and by taking into account the clinical char-acteristics of patients with COVID-19.Copyright © 2023, Peking Union Medical College Hospital. All rights reserved.

Multi-view POI-level Cellular Trajectory Reconstruction for Digital Contact Tracing of Infectious Diseases

Digital contact tracing is an effective solution to prevent such a pandemic, but the low adoption rate of a required mobile app hinders its effectiveness. A large collection of cellular trajectories from mobile subscribers can be an out-of-the-box solution that is free from the low adoption issue, but has been overlooked due to its low spatial resolution. In this paper, to increase the resolution of this cellular trajectory, we present a new problem that estimates the user's visited places at the point-of-interest(POI) level, which we call POI-level cellular trajectory reconstruction. We propose a novel algorithm, Pincette, that accomplishes more accurate POI reconstruction by leveraging various external data such as road networks and POI contexts. Specifically, Pincette comprises multi-view feature extraction and GCN-LSTM-based POI estimation. In the multi-view feature extraction, Pincette extracts three complementary features from three views: efficiency, periodicity, and popularity. In the GCN-LSTM-based POI estimation, these three views are seamlessly integrated, where spatio-temporal periodic patterns are captured by graph convolutional networks (GCNs) and an LSTM. With extensive experiments on two real data collections of two cities, we show that Pincette outperforms four POI estimation baselines by up to 21.20%. We believe that our work sheds light on the use of cellular trajectories for digital contact tracing. We release the source code at https://github.com/kaist-dmlab/Pincette. © 2022 IEEE.

Self-rated health implications of noise for open-plan office workers: An overview of the literature

In open-plan offices (OPO), workspaces without ground-to-ceiling dividers, noise is one of the most complained about aspects, causing physical and psychological impacts. With the increasing interest for a human-centric design, notably after the publication of ISO 22955, this review aims to identify the main noise sources in this office layout and the employees' perception of related health effects, evaluating the interventions proposed to overcome their impacts. Following the PRISMA guidelines, a review was conducted using the Scopus and PubMed databases, considering subjective questionnaires distributed in offices, which could include physical workspace assessment. It excluded studies limited to: (a) laboratory experiments;(b) isolated cognitive tests;(c) office layouts other than OPO;(d) systematic reviews;and (e) mathematical models. Sixty studies were identified and the screening process resulted in 11 selected for inclusion, which indicated irrelevant speech, chatting, and telephone ringing as the main noise sources causing productivity loss, stress, and low comfort rates due to distraction and lack of privacy. To overcome these impacts, researchers suggested the use of sound-absorbing surfaces, separated zones for different tasks and headphones, although their effectiveness relies on human behaviour and economic feasibility. Thus, the evidence indicates that noise is a recurrent issue in OPOs, it demonstrates the importance of appropriate acoustic performance of the workspace and the necessity of new studies regarding OPO workers' perception of noise and their health, particularly after the COVID-19 new safety guidelines. © The Author(s) 2023.

"You are on mute”: the impact of indoor soundscape on sexual well-being during the COVID-19 lockdown

Sexual well-being is a fundamental facet of the overall well-being of most individuals and implies the ability to have safe and pleasurable sexual experiences, beyond the absence of disease or disturbance. The extent to which people can achieve sexual well-being depends, among other aspects, on whether they live in an environment that promotes and support it. The present study focuses on the unexplored impacts of the perceived acoustic environment (i.e., the soundscape) on human sexual activity carried out in domestic settings. Verbal descriptions have been gathered from open-ended questions included in a survey administered to 848 respondents living in the UK (London area) and in Italy in January 2021 during the COVID-19 lockdown. Thematic analysis was used to extract a framework detailing the positive and negative impacts of the acoustic environment on sexual activity. The results show the mechanisms by which the acoustic features of the environment can impact on the sexual experience in terms of privacy, distraction, disruption or support, up to trigger coping strategies (e.g., controlling windows, playing music) and behavioural changes (e.g., lowering the volume of the voice) that can in turn limit or enhance the freedom of sexual behaviour, affect or foster sexual well-being. © 2022 Internoise 2022 - 51st International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering. All rights reserved.

A comparative analysis of domestic travel intentions and actual travel behaviors in COVID-19: focused on attitude-behavioral gap

This study aims to comparatively analyze domestic travel intentions and actual travel behaviors in the Korean market. Using mixed methods, Study 1 found that the perceived health risk is the determinant factor for explaining domestic travel intentions. The moderating roles of age demonstrated that seniors intend to travel less since they are more sensitive to the health risk. Study 2 confirmed that seniors traveled less than younger travelers during the pandemic. Unexpectedly, females traveled more than males during the pandemic. Lastly, the types of destinations (indoor vs. outdoor destinations) also influenced travel behaviors;seniors, preferred outdoor destinations to indoor destinations. © 2023 Asia Pacific Tourism Association.

Is it the best for barista robots to serve like humans? A multidimensional anthropomorphism perspective

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the use of contactless service robots in hospitality industries. However, the key drivers of consumer behaviors against service robots have been ill-understood. This study examines the interactive relationships between the physical (visual features) and psychological (service autonomy) dimensions of service-robot anthropomorphism and their impacts on consumer acceptance of service robots. Adopting an experimental vignette method (EVM) with 402 participants, the study reveals that the impacts of visual features on consumers' intention are affected by the level of service robots' autonomy;particularly, consumers showed the highest intention when the robots have medium visual features and high autonomy while their intention became lower for the same level of visual features with low autonomy. Interestingly, consumers showed the lowest intention with high level visual features, regardless of the levels of autonomy. Our results also show that human identity threats and consumer resistance play a significant counterproductive mechanism between service robot anthropomorphism and consumers' intention. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd

Stress Management Design Guideline with Smart Devices during COVID-19

Background Stress among the general population has been steadily increasing, and the COVID-19 outbreak across the globe amplified stress by changing how we live our daily lives. As the social cost of stress increases and individual lives become devastated, managing stress becomes a critical issue. Government organizations suggest general guidelines to cope with stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, smart devices such as smartwatches and smartphones detect and monitor physiological data as an integral part of our daily life, enabling us to recognize our stress level anytime, anywhere. However, there is a lack of studies regarding stress-relieving methods with smart devices. Methods We proposed a stress management flow correlating the human cognitive process with smart device interventions. Then, we developed a step-by-step guideline on a smartphone paired with a smartwatch to relieve physical stress with lack of movement, psychological stress with fear from uncertainty, psychosocial stress with loneliness and social isolation, and psycho-spiritual stress with limitations for faith community routine during COVID-19. We recruited 24 university students as participants (8 males, 16 females), and we measured perceived stress scale (PSS) score based on the case study to verify the new design guidelines. The participants ranged in age from 20 to 25 years (mean age = 22.08). We used 14 stress measurement questions to calculate the PSS (PSS maximum = 56). In addition, we used a one-way ANOVA to analyze the PSS results. Results In general, the results of one-way ANOVA for total PSS indicated a noticeable difference between before and after the prototype (F = 33.47;p < 0.01). The mean scores were 33.25 before the prototype and 28.13 after the prototype in the statistical analysis. Findings from this study advocated our new design guidelines with smart devices that help relieve stress but there are limitations such as constrained recruiting sample and the duration of the prototype testing, fundamental difference between short-term and long-term stresses, and limited scope of stress categories and smart devices. Conclusions This study's contribution is to expand smart device's usage to stress relief during COVID-19, not only limited to stress measurement. From this study, we hope to open a discussion on the role of smart devices to manage stress and how to design guidelines for user's quality of life. © This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits unrestricted educational and non-commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited.

Between Surveillance and Freedom: Techno-Politics in South Korea during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The South Korean response to the COVID-19 pandemic was mainly characterized—whether positively or negatively—as the efficient implementation of surveillance supported by the extensive deployment of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Yet, the fact that the South Korean management of the pandemic was also maintained by citizens’ voluntary participation in stringent quarantine policies has received little critical attention. Through the lens of techno-politics, this essay examines the distinctive interplay of digital monitoring systems and civic engagement in South Korea during the pandemic, with particular reference to data surveillance, horizontal collectivism, and a networked multitude. In capturing the essential features of South Korean pandemic politics as reflecting key components of techno-populism, this essay draws out some social theoretical implications of reconsidering the increasingly close relationship between technology and democracy in the pandemic period. © Pacific Affairs:.

Breaking the transverse-magnetic polarized light emission bottleneck of AlGaN LED using nano-patterned substrates and Al reflector

Ultraviolet light-emitting diodes based on Al-rich AlGaN semiconductors operating in the 210 nm-280 nm have drawn significant interest for many critical applications, including water purification, disinfection of air and surface as preventive measures of SARS COV-2, sterilization, etc. However, for the above-mentioned applications, the current technology still relies on toxic and inefficient mercury-based UV lamps. Driven by the immense need for an efficient, mercury-free, compact alternative technology, future water purification and disinfection technologies require the development of high-efficiency UV-C light-emitting diodes. To date, the external quantum efficiency (EQE) in AlGaN quantum well (QW) UV-LED heterostructures has been severely limited due to several factors including large densities of defects/dislocations, extremely low light extraction efficiency (LEE) of dominant transverse magnetic (TM) light, absorptive p -GaN contact, and total internal reflection (TIR). © 2022 IEEE.