Mental health of students during the Covid-19 pandemic: The effects of different parental practices

Mental health issues are a serious problem globally and have worsened since the Covid-19 pandemic. School students are experiencing high levels of stress due to the closure of schools. Students have to quickly adapt to online learning with minimal guidance during the early stage of the pandemic. Subsequently, students are allowed to go to school on a rotation basis. Therefore, a conducive home environment with support from parents plays an important role in helping students to cope with the uncertainties during the pandemic. We conducted a cross-sectional survey study where 761 high school students, aged between 13 to 18 years old were recruited in Malaysia. There was 468 female and 293 male students who participated in this study. Students' mental health was measured using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) while parental practices were measured using the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire. Parental practices were measured separately for father and mother in terms of positive parenting, involvement, poor monitoring and corporal punishment. Pearson correlation analysis showed that all parental practices were correlated significantly with mental health issues among high school students. However, based on the multiple regression analysis, only paternal poor monitoring, maternal corporal punishment, maternal positive parenting and paternal corporal punishment significantly predicted students' mental health with paternal poor monitoring being the strongest predictor of students' mental health. This study supported the importance of utilizing good parental practices in order to reduce mental health issues among students. © 2022 ACM.

BNT162b2 mRNA SARS-CoV- 2 vaccination does not cause upregulation of endothelial activation markers or hypercoagulability: A prospective, single-arm, longitudinal study

Background: Reports of thrombosis post COVID-19 mRNA vaccination have sparked concerns about safety. Aim(s): We prospectively evaluated blood samples of 18 participants who had received 2 doses of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine to determine if vaccination results in endothelial activation or hypercoagulability. Method(s): 18 participants who received the BNT162b2 vaccine were enrolled. Participants completed a questionnaire on their cardiovascular and thrombotic risk factors. Blood samples were collected at three time points: Pre-vaccination (day of vaccination), a median of 17 (IQR 16-18) days after the first dose and a median of 9 (IQR 7.5-14.5) days after the second dose of BNT162b2 vaccine. Endothelial markers included ICAM-1, VCAM-1 and P-selectin. Coagulation tests included PT and aPTT with clot waveform analysis, von Willebrand factor levels, Factor VIII and D-dimer levels. Statistical tests of association between endothelial and coagulation parameters were performed with repeated measures ANOVA and Mauchly's test of sphericity. Result(s): The median age of the participants was 35 years (IQR 31 -44), and 14 (78%) were female. 15 did not have any cardiovascular risk factors. There was a statistically significant increase in median ICAM levels post first (66.1ng/ml) and second dose of vaccination (69.5ng/ml)(p = 0.04), although this remained within the normal limit of ICAM levels. A statistically significant decrease in median PT (p = 0.005) and aPTT (p = 0.03) was observed post vaccination, with a corresponding statistically significant increase in aPTT clot waveform analysis (CWA) for maximum acceleration (max2)(p = 0.03) and maximum deceleration (max2)(p = 0.04) post first and second dose of vaccination. However, all evaluated endothelial and coagulation parameters remain within the reference ranges (Table 1). Conclusion(s): Our findings provide reassuring preliminary data that BNT162b2 vaccination does not result in endothelial activation or hypercoagulability. Mild variations in endothelial markers and coagulation parameters, though statistically significant, remain within the reference ranges and may be related to an inflammatory immune response to vaccination. (Table Presented).

Where have you been-the usage of machine learning for capturing travel history

Background and objectives: Travel history has become an indispensable part of emergency department (ED) patient assessment due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The ability to highlight travel from free text notes may augment travel history that is not completely captured in structured data fields. We explore if named-entity recognition (NER), a natural language processing (NLP) technique, can be used to extract travel history from ED free text triage notes (FTN) using a widely available, off-the-shelf, open-source NLP tool. Methods: The FTN of 10,000 attendances at an ED were reviewed by a team of annotators, and the countries, regions, or cities of travel were extracted. The annotated notes were used to train the native, out-of-the-box NER model in SpaCy 3.0.5, which is based on a deep convolutional neural network. Predictions made by the trained model were evaluated on a previously unseen test set. Results: The NER model achieved F1 score of 97.64%, precision of 98.68%, and recall of 96.6% in capturing travel history. Conclusion: Machine learning can be used to accurately capture travel history from ED FTN.

The Shift of Dental Education During and Post COVID-19

Education worldwide has been conducted in the traditional face-to-face classroom teaching style for ages, and this includes the education in dentistry. Since the introduction of online education and distance learning, teaching institutions have gradually made e-learning an integral part of teaching and learning activities. With the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic and closure of teaching institutions worldwide, the faculty of dentistry is amongst the many that were forced to leap onto the online education field abruptly. There is a sudden need for educators to resort to online teaching and e-learning becomes an essential tool to be developed as an alternative to traditional education methods. This article serves as a review to explore and discuss the common concerns and institutional readiness in delivering e-learning and review the methods currently utilised during this time of crisis. © Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia. 2021

The Chinese Way of Reforming Global Economic Governance: An Analysis of China’s Rising Role in the Group of Twenty (G-20)

Since the Global Financial Crisis engulfed much of the world in 2008, the Group of Twenty (G-20) has emerged as the self-acclaimed “premium forum” for international economic cooperation and policy coordination. The ascendency of G-20, of which China is a part, indicates the world’s preference for a more inclusive and informal economic governance model, moving away from the relatively restrictive Group of Seven (G-7) and the legalized Bretton Woods settings. This article analyzes China’s participation and increasingly critical role in the G-20. China’s main priorities in relation to the G-20 evolved over time. The initial focuses on containing financial contagion and reforming Bretton Woods institutions were followed by attempts to resolve bilateral trade issues with the US and to fight the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. China aspires to transform the G-20 from an ad hoc crisis management platform to one promoting proactive long-term global policy cooperation, partly in support of “a community with shared future for humanity” and the Belt and Road Initiative. However, public distrust of international economic interdependence, populist backlash against neoliberal globalization, as well as geopolitical, ideological, technological tussles between China and the West collectively present significant challenges to the G-20. © 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Exploring blended ic-pbl model & strategy for course based pbls in university: Using a case study in engineering education

The pandemic situation caused by COVID-19 amplifies the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity of society, suggesting that the unpredictability of this will be further maximized in 2021. Each field in society is selecting and executing digital transformations as one of the strategies to flexibly cope with such uncertainty and sudden changes in an environment that requires different lifestyles to lead daily lives. The education field is not an exception and universities are implementing digital transformations that move from face-to-face education that is held in a classroom environment to online learning in the virtual environment. Hanyang University has developed and operated an innovative teaching and learning model called IC-PBL (Industry-Coupled Problem/Project-Based Learning) to flexibly respond to rapid social changes and to cultivate outstanding individuals with capabilities needed in society. IC-PBL, which has been based on the face-to-face classroom environment, is also in the process of digital transformation due to such environmental changes. Previously, in IC-PBL, the online learning environment played an auxiliary role to support learning. However, as the online learning environment has suddenly been highlighted as the main learning environment of IC-PBL, various issues related to the design and operation of PBL classes in actual education fields are being raised. In this study, the results of participation observations, in-depth interviews with instructors and learners were analyzed through qualitative research on 8 classes in Hanyang University's engineering department. As a result, PBL courses strategies, in accordance with 5G, were presented to make PBL classes in blended environments into successful digital transformations. This demonstrates that PBL courses that have been mostly conducted only in face-to-face environments successfully achieved digital transformation in the post COVID-19 era and have presented strategies that can be used in educational attempts and practices necessary to create sustainable performance as a qualified class. © The authors, 2021.

Introduction: Southeast asia and the belt and road initiative: The political economy of regionalism, trade, and infrastructure

Since its launch in late 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become a significant factor in shaping China's economic and diplomatic relations with the world. China's increasing clout presents opportunities as well as challenges, especially for the developing economies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) which constitute major sites for investment and trade alongside the BRI routes. This special issue examines whether and to what extent China's economic ascendancy has impacted the proposed ASEAN Economic Community and the respective nations in the region. It deals with this question by grounding the analysis along three themes - institutions at a regional level, industry/sector, and particular ASEAN countries' economic relationship with China. A total of 12 articles are presented to illuminate the state of affairs at the regional level and in specific ASEAN economies. They point to the importance of managing trade and investment flows stemming from China's increasingly sophisticated national firms. This in turn hinges on forging 'rules of the game' at both the multilateral and bilateral levels, which potentially leads to mutually beneficial industrialization and long-term wealth creation. In addition to summarizing key findings of the articles in the special issue, this introductory essay examines some of the key themes confronting ASEAN in its engagement with the BRI such as institutions, global supply chains, and economic strategies. It concludes with a brief discussion on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the BRI in Southeast Asia, and on ways to enhance regional integration. © 2021 World Scientific Publishing Company.