Can tourism development and economic growth mutually reinforce in small countries? Evidence from Singapore

This study investigates the causal relationships between international tourism development and the economic growth of a global city-state - Singapore - drilling into the temporal details of the tourism-economy nexus in small countries. Many studies have examined whether the tourism-led growth hypothesis or the economy driven-tourism growth hypothesis holds in large developed and emerging countries. Still, relatively few studies examine small countries' tourism-economy nexus, and the temporal details of the nexus have not been adequately examined. We examine the tourism-economy nexus in Singapore using quarterly data from 1991Q1 to 2020Q4 and the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Model, with the long- and short-run dynamics and the feedback loop of the nexus considered. Our statistical findings show that international tourism development leads economic growth by two quarters in Singapore. Also, there are both 'consistent' and 'contemporaneous' positive feedback loops between tourism development and economic growth, but those loops cannot last for more than a quarter. From the economic perspective, our study reveals that improving tourism activities may accelerate the post-Covid economic recovery of some small countries that rely on tourism. Yet, continuous input is required to sustain the tourism-economy synergy.

Low-intensity online intervention (LiON) for distressed young people in Hong Kong: Preliminary findings

Previous studies have demonstrated that low-intensity intervention is effective in improving mental health in young people. Whilst interventions have majorly been offered online during COVID-19 pandemic, it is not known whether low-intensity interventions delivered online can also help reduce the level of distress experienced by young people. The study aimed to determine whether a low-intensity online intervention (LiON) can reduce levels of distress in young people greater than those in similar initial distress levels but received no intervention. Young people aged 15 to 24 were recruited for the 4-weekly LiON intervention consisting of three modules namely sleep and relaxation, stress-coping and problem-solving. The reductions in distress level after intervention were compared to those that occurred over a period of 3 months among community young people with similar baseline K6 distress levels. Seventy-four young people (mean age 20.24 [SD 2.26] years, 71.6% female) received the LiON intervention from December 2021 to July 2022. We observed a greater improvement in their distress levels after receiving the intervention than those with no intervention in the community (beta -4.13, 95%CI -5.12, -3.07, p < .001, Cohen's f2 0.027). The findings offered evidence that the LiON intervention significantly reduced young people's distress level in addition to the improvement that may occur naturally. The use of LiON is adaptable to a wider variety of frontline community organizations. Future evaluation of its cost-effectiveness is warranted.

Rapid, sensitive detection of intact SARS-CoV-2 using DNA nets and a smartphone-linked fluorimeter

We report a single-step, room-temperature, 5-10 minute SARS-CoV-2 saliva self-monitoring method that overcomes the limitations of existing approaches through the use of fluorophore-releasing Designer DNA Nanostructures (DDNs) that bind with the multivalent pattern of spike proteins on the exterior intact virions and an inexpensive smartphone-linked, pocket-size fluorimeter, called a "V-Pod” for its resemblance to an Apple AirPod™ headphone case. We characterize the V-Pod fluorimeter performance and the DDN-based assay to demonstrate a clinically relevant detection limit of 104 virus particles/mL for pseudo-typed WT SARS-CoV-2 and 105 virus particles/mL for real pathogenic variants, including Delta, Omicron, and D614g. © 2023 SPIE.

Cost-effectiveness of an in-development adult-formulated pneumococcal vaccine in older US adults.

INTRODUCTION: CDC pneumococcal vaccination recommendations for older adults now include either 15- or 20-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV15/PCV20). However, an in-development 21-valent vaccine (PCV21), formulated based on adult pneumococcal disease epidemiology, could substantially increase coverage of disease-causing pneumococcal serotypes, particularly in Black older adults, who are at greater risk. The potential public health impact and cost-effectiveness of PCV21 compared to currently recommended vaccines in older adults is unclear. METHODS: A Markov decision model compared current pneumococcal vaccination recommendations to PCV21 use in Black and non-Black 65-year-old cohorts. CDC Active Bacterial Core surveillance data informed population and serotype-specific pneumococcal disease risk. Vaccine effectiveness was estimated using Delphi panel estimates and clinical trial data, with variation in sensitivity analyses. Potential indirect effects on adult disease from PCV15 childhood vaccination were examined. All model parameters were varied individually and collectively in sensitivity analyses. Scenarios with decreased PCV21 effectiveness and potential COVID-19 pandemic effects were also examined. RESULTS: In the Black cohort, the PCV21 strategy cost $88,478 per quality adjusted life-year (QALY) gained without and $97,952/QALY with childhood PCV15 indirect effects. PCV21 in the non-Black cohort cost $127,436/QALY gained without and $141,358/QALY with childhood PCV15 effects. Current recommendation strategies were economically unfavorable, regardless of population or indirect childhood vaccination effects. Results favoring PCV21 use were robust in sensitivity analyses and alternative scenarios. CONCLUSION: An in-development PCV21 vaccine would likely be economically and clinically favorable compared to currently recommended pneumococcal vaccines in older adults. While PCV21 was more favorable in Black cohort analyses, results for both Black and non-Black populations were economically reasonable, highlighting the potential importance of adult-specific pneumococcal vaccine formulations and, pending further investigation, potentially justifying a future general population recommendation for PCV21 use in older adults.

Performance of the World Health Organisation suspected COVID-19 case definition in cluster-associated and sporadic SARS-CoV-2 transmission in Malaysia.

INTRODUCTION: Cluster-associated transmission has contributed to the majority of COVID-19 cases in Malaysia. Although widely used, the performance of the World Health Organization (WHO) case definition for suspected COVID19 in environments with high numbers of such cases has not been reported. MATERIALS AND METHODS: All suspected cases of COVID-19 that self-presented to hospitals or were cluster screened from 1st April to 31st May 2020 were included. Positive SARS-CoV-2 rRT-PCR was used as the diagnostic reference for COVID-19. RESULTS: 540 individuals with suspected COVID-19 were recruited. Two-third of patients were identified through contact screening, while the rest presented sporadically. Overall COVID-19 positivity rate was 59.4% (321/540) which was higher in the cluster screened group (85.6% vs. 11.6%, p<0.001). Overall, cluster-screened COVID-19 cases were significantly younger, had fewer comorbidities and were less likely to be symptomatic than those present sporadically. Mortality was significantly lower in the cluster-screened COVID-19 cases (0.3% vs. 4.5%, p<0.05). A third of all chest radiographs in confirmed COVID-19 cases were abnormal, with consolidation, ground-glass opacities or both predominating in the peripheral lower zones. The WHO suspected case definition for COVID-19 accurately classified 35.4% of all COVID-19 patients, a rate not improved by the addition of baseline radiographic data. Misclassification rate was higher among the cluster-associated cases (80.6%) compared to sporadic cases (35.3%). CONCLUSION: COVID-19 cases in Malaysia identified by active tracing of community cluster outbreaks had lower mortality rate. The WHO suspected COVID-19 performed poorly in this setting even when chest radiographic information was available, a finding that has implications for future spikes of the disease in countries with similar transmission characteristics.

Clinical characteristics and associated factors of qualitative olfactory dysfunction.

BACKGROUND: Although interest in qualitative olfactory dysfunction (OD), including parosmia and phantosmia, has been increasing since the COVID-19 pandemic, little is known about the clinical characteristics and associated factors of qualitative OD. METHODS: Adult patients with subjective smell disturbance who underwent both the olfactory questionnaire and psychophysical olfactory function test were retrospectively enrolled. Demographic and clinical characteristics were analysed according to the presence or absence of parosmia or phantosmia. RESULTS: Among a total of 753 patients with self-reported OD, 60 (8%) and 167 (22.2%) patients reported parosmia and phantosmia, respectively. Younger age and female sex were related to both parosmia and phantosmia. The frequency of parosmia was significantly higher in patients with post-viral OD (17.9%) than in patients with the sinonasal disease (5.5%), whereas that of phantosmia was not different according to aetiologies of OD. Patients with COVID-19 had significantly younger ages and higher TDI scores than those with other viral infections. Remarkably, patients with parosmia or phantosmia had significantly higher TDI scores than those without but experienced more disruption in daily life. In the multivariate analysis, younger age and higher TDI score were identified as independent factors associated with both parosmia and phantosmia, while the viral infection was associated with parosmia but not with phantosmia. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with OD who have parosmia or phantosmia have higher odour sensitivity than those who do not, but experience more deterioration in the quality of life. Viral infection is a risk factor for parosmia but not for phantosmia.

Interface as the site of infrastructural change

This study contributes to critical infrastructure literature by investigating people's evolving interactions with surveillance infrastructure at the sites of 'interface', specifically focusing on the tracing infrastructure called Electronic Entry Register, devised by the South Korean government during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Highlighting the significance of the infrastructure's 'interface' as the site of agential interactions that engender new relations, this paper illustrated the diverse ways in which the structural organisations of tracing infrastructure transformed continually and the resultant meanings of surveillance shifted. To this end, a sequence of field research comprising walking interviews, observations, and sit-in interviews was conducted with 11 research participants across various urban sites in Seoul, a city with one of the highest penetration rates of smartphone use. This situated investigation within the geographical context of high sociotechnical potency is noteworthy because urban infrastructuring increasingly invites digital mediation. The empirical evidence demonstrates how the micro-struggles at the interface sites engendered significant infrastructural changes, which in turn reshaped the lived experiences of surveillance. The results flag the need to attend to the conceptual and analytical significance of 'interface' in studying digital infrastructure and reflect on how unfolding sociotechnical relations could express digital infrastructure differently.

‘I've left enough data': Relations between people and data and the production of surveillance

Exploring emergent relations between data-producing individuals and their data products, this study aims to contribute to the ongoing scholarly discussion on agencies in data practices. It focuses on shifts in surveillance structure in the era of Big Data, in which the individual becomes both a subject and an object in the production of data surveillance. Drawing on the concept of the ‘dividual', the study analyses data practices for a tracing system invented by the South Korean government during the COVID-19 pandemic, with findings from field research conducted with 11 research participants in various urban sites in Seoul. Highlighting how the tracing system positioned surveillance ‘in the hands of citizens', the study exposes the complexities of the relations that the participants formed with the data they produced, and how they reflexively reappropriated their practices through alterations and deflections on the basis of their tacit knowledge and imaginaries concerning digital data and their constituent positions in the knowledge production system. The resultant expression of surveillance was directly shaped by the evolving relationship between the producers (participants) and products (digital data). The study proposes that an intersectional focus on surveillance and critical data studies, with close attention to ordinary people's relations with data, has the capacity to inquire into the politics of data more fully. © The Author(s) 2023.

Changes in Tropospheric Nitrogen Dioxide Vertical Column Densities over Japan and Korea during the COVID-19 Using Pandora and MAX-DOAS

We investigated the impact of human activity during COVID-19 on the tropospheric nitrogen dioxide vertical column density (NO2 TropVCD) at three urban sites (Gwangju and Busan in Korea and Yokosuka in Japan) and one remote site (Cape Hedo in Japan) from Multi-Axis Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) and Pandora. Compared to the monthly mean NO2 TropVCD from 2015 to 2018 and in 2019, the values were lower in 2020 due to social distancing in Korea and Japan. High negative relative changes were observed from May to September (-30% to -18%) at the three urban sites;Cape Hedo, a remote site, did not show a significant difference in relative changes between previous years and 2020, suggesting that only anthropogenic emission sources decreased dramatically. In the case of Yokosuka, the 15-day moving average of the NO2 TropVCD exhibited a good relationship with transportation (R = 0.48) and industry (R = 0.54) mobility data. In contrast, the NO2 TropVCD at the Korean sites showed a moderate to low correlation with the industrial sector and insignificant correlations with transportation. The differences in correlations might be caused by the different social distancing policies in Korea (voluntary) and Japan (mandatory). By applying generalized boosted models to exclude meteorological and seasonal effects associated with NO2 TropVCD variations, we revealed that the decreasing trend from 2019 to 2020 was much steeper than that from 2015 to 2020 (a factor of two), and a significant change was identified in January 2020, when the first cases of COVID-19 were observed in both Korea and Japan. This result confirmed that the reduction in NO2 can be largely explained by the NOx emission reduction resulting from social distancing for COVID-19 rather than annual meteorological differences;however, in December 2020, NO2 recovered suddenly to its previous level due to an increase in human activities.

Incidence and sero-surveillance of feline viruses in Korean cats residing in Gyeonggi-do

Incidences of major feline viral diseases provide basic information for preventing viral disease in cats. Despite the growing interest in feline viral diseases, sero-surveillances have been lacking. In this study, we analyzed the diagnoses of feline viral diseases and conducted a sero surveillance of feline panleukopenia virus (FPV), feline calicivirus (FCV), feline herpesvirus-1 (FHV-1), and feline infectious peritonitis virus (FIPV) in Korean cats. Of the 204 confirmed cases since 2015, the numbers of diagnoses for FPV, FIPV, FCV, feline influenza virus, and FHV-1 were 156, 32, 12, 3, and 1 case, respectively. In total, 200 sera, collected between 2019 and 2021, were screened for the presence of antibodies against FPV, 2 FCVs, FHV-1, and FIPV using a hemagglutination inhibition test and a virus-neutralizing assay (VNA). The overall seropositive rates in cats tested for FPV, the 2 FCVs, FHV-1, and FIPV were 92.5%. 42.0%, 37.0%, 52.0%, and 14.0%, respectively. A low correlation (r = 0.466) was detected between the VNA titers of 2 FCV strains. The highest incidence and seropositive rate of FPV reveal that FPV is circulating in Korean cats. The low r-value between 2 FCVs suggests that a new feline vaccine containing the 2 kinds of FCVs is required.

Remdesivir Resistance Analyses from the Pinetree Study in Outpatients with Covid-19

Background: Remdesivir (RDV) is a broad-spectrum nucleotide analog antiviral approved for the treatment of COVID-19 in patients who are hospitalized or non-hospitalized and at risk of progressing to severe disease. Here we present SARS-CoV-2 resistance analyses from the Phase 3 PINETREE trial. Method(s): PINETREE was a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of nonhospitalized participants (N=562) with COVID-19 and >=1 risk factor for disease progression, randomized to receive RDV or placebo once-daily for 3 days. The whole genome of SARS-CoV-2 was sequenced from nasopharyngeal swabs collected at days 1 (baseline), 2, 3, 7, and 14 using next-generation sequencing. Emergent amino acid substitutions in SARS-CoV-2 from participants treated with RDV were tested in a replicon system to determine if they alter sensitivity to RDV. Result(s): Resistance analysis criteria included all participants in the RDV group and 50% in the placebo group with viral load above the lower limit of detection for the viral load assay. Of 281 participants who met these criteria, baseline and postbaseline sequencing data were available for 115/130 (88.5%) participants in the RDV group and 129/151 (85.4%) participants in the placebo group (Table 1). Among these, emergent substitutions in Nsp12 were observed in 8/115 (7.0%) in the RDV group and 7/129 (5.4%) in the placebo group. A total of 7 emergent amino acid substitutions in Nsp12 were observed in the RDV group, but not in the placebo group. Among these, only one substitution from one participant (A376V;first detected at day 14), showed reduced in vitro susceptibility to RDV, with a half-maximal effective concentration (EC50) fold-change of 12.6 compared with a wildtype reference. The participant achieved clinical recovery by day 14. None of the other substitutions impacted RDV susceptibility (EC50 fold-change <=1.4). Emergent substitutions in Nsp8, Nsp10, Nsp13, or Nsp14 were detected in 10/115 (8.7%) of participants in the RDV group and 10/129 (7.8%) in the placebo group, with substitutions in the RDV group showing similar susceptibility to RDV as the wildtype reference (EC50 fold-change <=2.3). Conclusion(s): Overall, emergent substitutions in the SARS-CoV-2 replication complex including Nsp12 were observed with similar frequency in the RDV and placebo groups, with only one participant developing a substitution associated with reduced in vitro RDV susceptibility, indicating a high barrier to the development of RDV resistance in COVID-19 patients.

Analyzing the Effect of Insole Materials on Vibration and Noise Reduction between Floors

The COVID-19 pandemic increased people's time at home and caused an 80% increase in noise disputes between floors. The purpose of this study is to propose suitable materials for making indoor shoes (insoles) to minimize noise between floors. Subjects without back pain and leg-related disease (e.g. arthritis, etc.) from three different age groups (childhood, adolescence, and adulthood) were recruited for the study. Five polymer insole materials were considered: Chloroprene Rubber (CR foam), Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer (EPDM foam), Natural Latex foam, Ethylene Vinyl Acetate (EVA foam), and Polyurethane (PU foam). From these materials, 20 combinations were prepared and randomly tested for noise and vibration. The results revealed a significant difference in noise and vibration levels based on the type of material used and the age of the subject. Nevertheless, all materials under consideration successfully reduced noise and vibration;in particular, type A-C greatly decreased. The CR foam material was especially effective at noise and vibration reduction (p<.01). This study suggests that adding insoles into socks that children wear at home could reduce noise vibration and disputes between floors. © 2023, The Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles. All rights reserved.

Sentiment analysis and counselling for COVID-19 pandemic based on social media

As COVID-19 emerged and prolonged, various changes have occurred in our lives. For example, as restrictions on daily life are lengthening, the number of people complaining of depression is increasing. In this paper, we conduct a sentiment analysis by modelling public emotions and issues through social media. Text data written on Twitter is collected by dividing it into the early and late stages of COVID-19, and emotional analysis is performed to reclassify it into positive and negative tweets. Therefore, subject modelling is performed with a total of four datasets to review the results and evaluate the modelling results. Furthermore, topic modelling results are visualised using dimensional reduction, and public opinions on COVID-19 are intuitively confirmed by generating representative words consisting of each topic in the word cloud. Additionally, we implement a COVID-chatbot that provides a question-and-answer service on COVID-19 and verifies the performance in our experiments.

A Zero-Knowledge-Range-Proof-based Privacy-Preserving Blockchain Platform for COVID-19 Contact Tracing

Contact tracing is an effective strategy to slow down the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the use of digital footprints as supportive evidences in the contact tracing process rises the privacy problems since private information must be shared to the contact tracing providers. This paper proposed a novel privacypreserving contact tracing procedure based on zero-knowledgerange-proof and blockchain platform, which helps users to prove whether they in contact with the confirmed patient without disclosing the exact location they have visited. The blockchain is used to guarantee anonymity through the use of address as an identity, and provide strong non-repudiation from transactions. Finally, we provide a proof-of-concept implementation of our proposal using Hyperledger Fabric and smartphone application. The evaluation showed that the proposed system can work as intended with minimal processing delay.

Proceedings of APCE-CECE-ITP-IUPAC 2022

In a demonstration of modern analytical chemistry at its best, the International Inter-disciplinary Conference of Chemical Analysis, APCE-CECE-ITP-IUPAC 2022 was held after two years of COVID-19-related delays in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The quadruple meeting included: 18th Asia Pacific International Symposium on Microscale Separations and Analyses, 17th International Interdisciplinary Meeting on Bioanalysis, 28th International Symposium on Electro-and Liquid Phase-Separation Techniques, and IUPAC Special Symposia by Division of Chemistry and the Environment. While, under normal circumstances, these conferences would take place in different countries, we have decided to bring together analytical chemists from all over the world for a conference covering all aspects of modern analytical chemistry. Our goal remained the same: bring together scientists from different disciplines who may not meet at other meetings. With plenary and invited lectures delivered by distinguished scientists, this in-person meeting allowed to broaden our knowledge, meet new friends, and start new collaborations. The organizers want to thank all speakers, sponsors, and participants for their support. Please, check the conference web for more information about the history, programs, photos, and videos.