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Progress is unidirectional by default. The global irreversible shift witnessed in the education sector with the COVID-19 pandemic left teaching and learning far from the same. The current study aims to consider global trends in hybrid education by exploring existing hybrid study models and recognizing institutional readiness by means of hybrid initiatives successfully adopted by institutions. Being conceptual research, the methodology of the current study is based on an extensive review of literature, related to hybrid education, selected carefully from the wealth of academic publications comprising scholarly articles, research journals, webpages, conference proceedings, dissertations, thesis, and authentic material related to the study. A conceptual framework represents the relationship between the research variables. Founded on the qualitative analysis of the data gathered, the study concludes that, while integration of technology in teaching is important, it does not imply total restructuring of what and how we teach. Flexibility in teaching, learning, and testing must become the basis for current pedagogy in meeting the goals of hybrid education. The implications of the current study are proffered to all stakeholders in education along with the recommendations for future research. © 2023 IEEE.
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Most studies on COVID-19 have been massively dedicated on how the disease was framed in the newspaper, its psychological effects, and its message or content disinformation. Research on the COVID-19 vaccination in newspapers and its acceptance among the masses is still quite scarce. The study adopted a corpus approach that involves wordlist, keyword list, collocates, and concordance analysis to analyse how 'COVID-19 vaccination' was framed in a focused and specialised English Malaysian newspapers corpus. #Lanscbox 5.0 corpus tool was employed in conducting the empirical analysis. The empirical analysis revealed that 'COVID-19 vaccination' was positively framed in different ways in the newspaper. The analysis of collocates and concordance lines revealed that the news reports mainly used Solution-oriented Frame which highlighted the Malaysian government's effort in combating the pandemic. The newspaper was also found to use Mathematical frame in the effort to convince the public with regards to the updates and statistics of vaccine takers. Nevertheless, the results also revealed the usage of sensational phrases that framed the COVID-19 vaccination negatively. These findings can enlighten newspaper practitioners on what should be done and avoided in framing such an issue in their writings as well as how the public will perceive it.
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The presence of N-heterocyclic ring systems as promising features in the molecular skele-ton of FDA-approved drugs, underlie the remarkable contributions of these heterocyclic nuclei in the field of medicine. Despite instability risks associated with the COVID pandemic, the US FDA approved 50 drugs (36 NMEs and 14 biological products) in the year 2021. The active ingredients of 32 drugs out of these 36 NMEs (almost 89%) contain saturated, partially unsaturated and aromatic N-heterocyclic moieties in their molecular assemblies, hence dominating the medicinal approvals. While 27 molecules (75% of these NMEs drugs) are prominent small NMEs. Herein, we have considered profiling those FDA-approved 27 small-molecule drugs which are decorated with N-heterocycles as privileged scaffolds. These drugs are grouped on the basis of a number of N-heterocycles present in their structural framework. The spectrum of these drugs in terms of their structural features and medicinal importance is summarized in this review. Also, the pertinent analyses of their drug-likeliness conferring some general pharmacokinetic principles are highlighted. © 2023 Bentham Science Publishers.
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Purpose: The study aims to develop an in-depth understanding of challenges faced by Indian women professionals during the pandemic and the human resource (HR) initiatives like effective communication, taken by the organizations to mitigate the plight of these professionals. Design/methodology/approach: A mix of two qualitative research methods namely focus groups in-depth and one-to-one in-depth interviews was used. A total of 32 females working with different organizations participated. Findings: The thematic analysis revealed themes related to challenges faced by working women-gendered burnout, mental health issues, increased household responsibilities, job insecurity, work-life conflict, gender inequalities, reduced internal communication and financial independence, domestic violence and exploitation. The major themes that emerged for the organizational initiatives were flexible working hours, equal women representation in response to planning and decision making, driving transformative change for gender equality, paid leaves for family care, caregiving bonus, leadership development seeds, increased female recruitments, transparent communication and counseling sessions. Research limitations/implications: The study establishes a holistic understanding of the plight of Indian women professionals and the consequent organizational interventions accompanied by transparent communication. It adds rigor to the evolving literature on COVID-19 and enriches the theoretical narrative of policy adaptations by industry practitioners for aligning them with employee needs. This helps in routing the policy design and implementation in light of the challenges faced. Originality/value: The study presents an in-depth understanding of challenges faced by women employees;and provides a foundation for identifying human resource management (HRM) interventions customized for working females. It also proposes a framework implementable in the recovery phase, deploying critical strategic shifts like reflection, recommitment and re-engagement of the women workforce in order to maximize their efficacy for rapidly evolving organizational priorities. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.
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Outness can be associated with benefits for lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youth, such as better mental health and increased self-esteem, but little is known about its predictors. Family functioning and family social support are important for many youth outcomes, though their relationship with outness is unknown. This study explored whether family functioning and family social support predicted youth outness longitudinally. Family functioning consisted of flexibility (ability to shift roles and rules in response to change), cohesion (closeness between family members), and communication. In addition to examining direct links with outness, sexuality specific and non-sexuality specific family social support were examined as mediators of the relationship between family functioning and outness, testing the hypothesis that only sexuality specific support would be significant. Data were used from a longitudinal study of LGB youth (N = 168). As predicted, adaptive family functioning was associated with outness one year later;this relationship was mediated by sexuality specific family social support, but not non-sexuality specific family social support. Results are discussed in relation to current events (such as the Covid-19 pandemic) that disproportionately impact LGB youth. Future research may investigate how to assist families in providing sexuality specific support. © 2023 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
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Objective: To find the correlation between the degree of androgenetic alopecia and the severity of COVID-19 disease. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of the Study: Dermatology department, PEMH, Rawalpindi Pakistan from Feb to Aug 2021. Methodology: A total of 227 patients (male and female) of COVID-19 admitted in a Corona ward of Pak Emirates Military Hospital, Rawalpindi, Pakistan were selected randomly. The degree of androgenetic alopecia was assessed with the help of using the Hamilton-Norwood Scale (HNS) for men and the Ludwig Scale (LS) for women, and the severity of COVID-19 was graded based on CT severity score (CTSS). Results: Out of the total, 161 (71%) were male, and 66 (29%) were female. Out of 161 males, 31 (19.2%) had no alopecia, and 130 (80.7%) had some degree of alopecia. Out of patients with alopecia, 33 had moderate alopecia, and 97 had severe alopecia. Out of 66 females, 32 (48.5%) had no alopecia, while 34 (51.5%) had some degree of alopecia. Conclusion: High frequency of androgenetic alopecia in severely ill-hospitalized patients of COVID-19 suggests that androgen has a vital role in the disease severity of COVID-19. © 2022, Army Medical College. All rights reserved.
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The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic affected everyone's life in every aspect. World Health Organization declared it as global emergency in March 2020 which leads to halt all the human activity around the world. While this pandemic was hazardous for human beings the nature was nourishing itself and seems to be on reset as the Pollution decreased due to this pandemic. In countries like China, Italy, USA and many more which initiated the lockdown in their countries to avoid the spread of this deadly virus has shown the reduction of air pollution. The emission of air pollutants were reduced due the lockdowns in many countries. In the paper different types of environmental pollution, their reasons and effects on nature are discussed and also the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on environment is discussed. © 2022 American Institute of Physics Inc.. All rights reserved.
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COVID-19 has impacted the social, economical and personal lives of every generation in every part of the country. In the times of pandemic, it is ICT ad various e-governance policies which have helped the human races to encounter the incalculable loss. In this a thorough discussion on a variety of e-governance policies which are already in place along with other innovations which can be implemented during this pandemic as well as post Covid-19 is done. Enormous application areas are identified and discussion on the number of innovations which can be applied by digitalization of existing sectors and businesses is also discussed upon. We will talk about the industry 4.0 along with its importance in existing times of pandemic. The main aim of this study is to investigate the role of e-governance in these difficult times. Digitization of health technology can innovate the procedures and methods which can facilitate in tracking and preventing the spread of corona virus. © 2022 American Institute of Physics Inc.. All rights reserved.
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Background: Compliance with preventive health behavior is crucial during dental visits. This study investigated using an audio device to increase dental patients' preventive health behavior.Methods: A randomized control study was conducted in private dental practices. The test group listened to an audio device containing public health messages related to COVID-19 and preventive health behavior. The control group listened to relaxing instrumental music with no public health messages.Results: A total of 65 participants (age 18-77 years) were allocated to each group. About 63% of the participants in the test group performed preventive health behaviors compared to the control group, but the difference was not significant. Significant differences in preventive health behavior were observed in both groups before and after treatment (p < 0.001). A significant difference in the awareness level was detected between the test and control group (p < 0.01). No significant differences were found in the knowledge and self-efficacy scores between the two groups (p > 0.05).Conclusions: An audio device used during dental treatment effectively delivered public health messages to improve preventive health behavior. Hence, an audio device can be used as alternative media to deliver public health information during dental visits.
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Objective: Vaccination is an effective strategy to reduce the burden of COVID-19. The purpose of this study was to determine the level of acceptance rate towards COVID-19 vaccine among Malaysians. Methods: An online questionnaire was distributed to 599 respondents via convenience method among Malaysians aged 18 years and above. Results: Out of 599, acceptance rate was 89.2% with majority of the respondents were female (68.4%), aged between 20 to 29 and 30 to 39 years (30.2%), married (57.4%), Muslim (61.1%), Selangor residence (34.3%), bachelor's holder (63.3%), nonhealth worker (53.1%), and healthy individuals (59.9%). The most likely reason for refusal of taking COVID-19 vaccine was due to the long-term effect of vaccine (49.6%), gender (p = 0.017) and occupation (p = 0.038) of the respondents were found to be significantly associated with the likelihood of taking the COVID-19 vaccine. Discussion: Despite the high acceptance rate, it is still vital to address concerns among the vaccine's sceptics by establishing faith in the vaccine's safety and effectiveness through proper vaccine information. Conclusion: The findings showed that Malaysians have a high level of acceptance for the COVID-19 vaccine.
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COVID-19 outbreak has tremendously impacted education by implementing online learning in schools and universities worldwide. Google Classroom (GC) is one of the online learning platforms favored by educators in facilitating online learning due to its various benefits. Due to its significance, there has been a growing trend in examining its users' perception of using GC during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, this review investigates the students' perception of using GC during the pandemic. Relevant articles for this review were identified from two leading databases: Scopus and Web of Science. Three main steps were involved in this review method: identification, screening, and eligibility processes. The selected articles revealed that the use of GC allows the students to acquire new knowledge and language skills due to its ease of use, usefulness, flexibility, and accessibility. Meanwhile, among the challenges the students face in using GC during the COVID-19 period involved device and connection issues, their readiness to use the platform, and the inability to receive instant instructor feedback. Educational institutions are then encouraged to improve their e-learning infrastructure and knowledge to accommodate the use of GC. Conversely, teachers should also optimise both asynchronous and synchronous learning through GC and anticipate their students' general limitations in using GC and online learning. © 2022 IJETAE Publication House. All Rights Reserved.
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Broiler population is one of the most important segments of livestock due to its significant contribution in white meat production. Infectious disease outbreaks adversely influence the production potential and consequently cause economic losses. Epidemiological data regarding magnitude of these disease outbreaks is of fundamental importance for planning of a comprehensive control strategy. With retrospective design, this study was conducted from January 2013 through December 2017 in order to assess the disease burden on broilers reared in different open type poultry houses. Out of total 658 commercial farms with capacity of 4221800 broilers, across Chakwal, a representative sample of 70 farms with capacity of 448000 broilers was randomly selected for collection and analysis of disease data. Five years' data of these randomly selected farms revealed highest (44.64%) crude morbidity during monsoon season followed by 23.92%, 22.12% and 17.49% for winter, spring and post-monsoon seasons respectively. The highest (14.90%) prevalence was recorded for new castle disease followed by infectious bursal disease (11.79%), pullorum disease (11.17%), colibacillosis (8.71%), infectious bronchitis (7.87%), inclusion body hepatitis (7.79%), chronic respiratory disease (7.67%), necrotic enteritis (6.48%), coccidiosis (6.09%), mycotoxicosis (5.43%), fowl cholera (4.74%), infectious coryza (4.41%), fowl typhoid (4.22%), omphalitis (3.71%) and hydropericardium syndrome (0.05%). Maximum share in crude morbidity was contributed by bacterial diseases with highest proportional morbidity of 48.68% followed by viral (40.32%), parasitic (5.80%) and fungal (5.20%) diseases. This epidemiological data represents true picture of study population and is a valuable tool for planning of prevention strategy and research priorities.
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The researchers performed this systematic review to offer insights into the trend of the corpus-based approach in studying metaphor in recent years and investigate the potential gaps and under-researched areas in the past literature on the topic. Two research databases, namely Google Scholar and Academics, were explored to collect data. The analysis of metaphor-related research studies published between 2015 and 2020 revealed more than 78 studies dealing with the topic of investigation. After the screening process, 23 studies that met the research criteria were retained for analysis. The selected articles were further analyzed using the two-step analysis involving quantitative and qualitative approaches, i.e., descriptive statistics, and thematic analysis. The findings revealed that metaphor studies employing the corpus approach tend to use existing corpus like the Reference Corpus instead of a specialized corpus. In addition, metaphor studies in this review centered more on written discourse than spoken data. Furthermore, there is also a lack of information on the corpus tool employed in the examined studies. Meanwhile, the thematic analysis unearthed potential gaps and under-researched areas, such as limited studies on COVID-19 metaphor even though the outbreak had started at the end of 2019. Future studies on this research could include more specialized corpora, specifically in the under-researched topics, to fill in the gaps in this area of study.
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Objective: To assess the working knowledge of health care workers (HCW) regarding the appropriate use of disinfectants against Coronavirus in hospital care settings using a questionnaire. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Combined Military Hospital Lahore, Pakistan, from Apr 2020. Methodology: Two hundred health care workers were consecutively selected and divided into two groups, irrespective of gender. Each participant had to fill a structured proforma containing twenty-five close-ended questions. Result: Group-1 participants were 126 (63%) and group 2 participants were 74 (37%). 117 (92.8%) group-1 participants were 20–30 years of age and degree holders while 40 (54%) group-2 participants were 31-40 years old and diploma holders. Significant awareness (p<0.001) regarding disinfectants was observed in group-1 (102 81%);all the degree holders were well aware of disinfectants and required less training. In contrast, in group-2, 44 (59%) were fully aware of disinfectants;the rest did not qualify and needed proper training. Participants with a good educational status and work experience of >10 years were the high achievers in both groups. Conclusion: This study revealed that majority of the participants knew about the correct usage of disinfectants and they were fully prepared to handle the ongoing pandemic. Another finding was that awareness was directly related to relevant education, prolonged work experience and age. Keywords: Awareness, Disinfectants, Health care professionals. © 2022, Army Medical College. All rights reserved.
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Because of their mortality rate, diabetes and COVID-19 are serious diseases. Moreover, people with diabetes are at a higher risk of developing COVID-19 complications. This article therefore proposes a single, non-invasive system that can help people with diabetes and COVID-19 to monitor their health parameters by measuring oxygen saturation (SPO2), heart rate, and body temperature. This is in contrast to other pulse oximeters and previous work reported in the literature. A Max30102 sensor, consisting of two light-emitting diodes (LEDs), can serve as a transmission spectrum to enable three synchronous parameter measurements. Hence, the Max30102 sensor facilitates identification of the relationship between COVID-19 and diabetes in a cost-effective manner. Fifty subjects (20 healthy, 20 diabetic, and 10 with COVID-19), aged 18-61 years, were recruited to provide data on heart rate, body temperature, and oxygen saturation, measured in a variety of activities and scenarios. The results showed accuracy of ±97% for heart rate, ±98% for body temperature, and ±99% for oxygen saturation with an enhanced time efficiency of 5-7 seconds in contrast to a commercialized pulse oximeter, which took 10-12 seconds. The results were then compared with those of commercially available pulse oximetry (Oxitech Pulse Oximeter) and a thermometer (Medisana Infrared Thermometer). These results revealed that uncontrolled diabetes can be as dangerous as COVID-19 in terms of high resting heart rate and low oxygen saturation. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee ESJ, Italy. Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (https:.
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Purpose: To report the degree to which post-graduate trainees in radiation oncology perceive their education has been impacted by COVID-19. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was administered in June 2020 to trainee members of Canadian Association of Radiation Oncology (CARO). The 82-item survey was adapted from a similar survey administered during SARS and included the Stanford Acute Stress Reaction and Ways of Coping Questionnaires. The survey was developed using best practices including expert review and cognitive pre-testing. Frequency statistics are reported. Results: Thirty-four trainees (10 fellows, 24 residents) responded. Nearly half of participants indicated that the overall impact of COVID-19 on training was negative/very negative (n=15;46%) or neutral (n=15;46%) with a small number indicating a positive/very positive (n=3;9%). Majority of trainees agreed/ strongly agreed with the following statements: “I had difficulty concentrating on tasks because of concerns about COVID-19” (n=17;52%), “I had fears about contracting COVID-19” (n=17;52%), “I had fears of family/loved ones contracting COVID-19” (n= 29;88%), “I felt socially isolated from friends and family because of COVID-19” (n=23;70%), “I felt safe from COVID-19 in the hospital during my clinical duties“ (n=15;46%), and “I was concerned that my personal safety was at risk if/when I was redeployed from my planned clinical duties” (n=20;61%). The changes that had a negative/very negative impact on learning included “the impact of limited patient contact” (n=19;58%), “the impact of virtual patient contact” (n=11;33%), and “limitations to travel and networking” (n=31;91%). Most reported reduced teaching from staff (n=22;66%). Two-thirds of trainees (n=22, 67%) reported severe (>50%) reduction in ambulatory clinical activities, 16 (49%) reported a moderate (<50%) reduction in new patient consultations, while virtual follow-ups (n=25: 76%) and in-patient clinical care activities (n=12;36%) increased. Nearly half of respondents reported no impact on contouring (n=16;49%), on-treatment management (n=17;52%) and tumour boards (n=14;42%) with the majority of other respondents reporting a decrease in these activities. Electives were cancelled in province (n=10/20;50%), out-of-province (n=16/20;80%) and internationally (n=15/18;83%). Conclusions: Significant changes to radiation oncology training were wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic and roughly half of trainees perceive that these changes had a negative impact on their training. Safety concerns for self and family were significant and strategies to mitigate these concerns should be a priority.
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Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a public health concern worldwide. This study aimed to assess the preventive behaviors, barriers, and drivers, including the knowledge and self-efficacy of COVID-19 in Malaysia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted during the COVID-19 outbreak by using a self-administered questionnaire. The instrument used was adopted from the World Health Organization resources. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the categorical data. Chi-square and independent t-test were performed to evaluate the associations between the variables and preventive behaviors. Results: A total of 465 (97.3%) respondents were recorded. The mean age was 34.3 +/- 11.8 years old. A high percentage of the respondents (99.4%) were aware of the COVID-19 outbreak, and their knowledge mean score was 18.74 (Standard Deviation [SD]: 2.51). The mean scores of self-efficacy, barriers, and drivers were 11.07 (SD: 1.72), 5.20 (SD: 2.81), and 39.71 (SD: 5.17), respectively. Barriers (Odds Ratio [OR]: 1.10;95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 1.01, 1.21;p < 0.05) and drivers (OR: 1.12;95% CI: 1.07, 1.17;p < 0.001) were found to be predictors for social distancing practices. Conclusions: Knowledge and self-efficacy were found to be at good levels, whereas self-efficacy, barriers, and drivers were revealed to be the predictive factors in determining the preventive behaviors. Adherence to preventive measures was largely affected by the behavioral drivers.
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COVID-19 is a life-threatening virus which affected people at a global level in just a matter of few months and is highly contagious. In order to reduce its spread, SOPs must be followed, such as washing hands, wearing face masks, and maintaining social distance. Hence, to aid the strict follow up of SOPs, this paper proposes a system to detect whether the people are wearing face masks and maintaining social distance or not in order to break the chain of COVID 19. The proposed system uses Deep Learning (DL) model based on Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architecture for training the facemask detector and OpenPose 2D skeleton extraction technique for detecting social distance. A DL model based on a 7-layered CNN architecture was proposed in this research to detect masked and unmasked faces. Based on the proposed technique, 99.98% validation and 99.98% testing accuracies were achieved. In addition to that, the maintenance of social distance which is the new normal nowadays was also detected using the images obtained from the internet as currently, there is no such database available for detecting social distancing. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.