ABSTRACT
Umrah is an Islamic pilgrimage that Muslims can perform at any time. Umrah will take place at the holy place, Mecca. Usually, before performing the umrah, the pilgrims will attend umrah courses to learn how to practice step-by-step procedures. However, the Covid-19 outbreak stopped the pilgrims from attending the live umrah course. This scenario causes difficulty for pilgrims to visualize the umrah practice. Therefore, we have developed a Non-Immersive Virtual Reality Umrah Simulation (NIVRUS) to help the pilgrimage visualize the umrah practice. This study has implemented a Waterfall Model as a development methodology in which phases are divided into sequential phases. Each phase must be completed before proceeding to the next phase. In this present study, the focus is on evaluating NIVRUS through a functionality test. The findings indicate that all the functions in NIVRUS properly function as expected. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Technology without doubt is one of the important elements to be considered for a vital change these days. The Small-to-Medium Enterprises (SMEs), especially in the agricultural sector are not an exception and faced numerous challenges in technology, particularly in digital marketing. It becomes worse when these enterprises were also affected by Covid-19 pandemic. However, to overcome these challenges, a shift or transformation towards digital marketing is deemed to be an appropriate alternative for business survival, which sets new trajectory of growth and the businesses become more as competitive players in the industry. Therefore, this paper is produced to identify the challenges of social media marketing for selected small traders of agricultural products. Eight respondents have been selected and a semi-structured interview was conducted between 20 March 2022 and 29 March 2022. The findings of the study indicated the main challenges faced by the selected small traders including knowledge, products and human resources. Based on the challenges, appropriate training has been identified, which is the basic of digital marketing. © 2022, Penerbit Akademia Baru. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The global pandemic of COVID-19 has had a huge influence on bioscience education in which digital technology and transformation has gained momentum and this pattern appears to be set to persist for the foreseeable future. Adopting new technology and changing biosciences education models, processes, and procedures has posed challenges to all stakeholders within the ecosystem. Aside from the move to online or distance learning, bioscience courses in higher education also necessitate the development of critical practical skills, which is yet to be fully addressed in digital platform context. This article examines the challenges and issues that biosciences education faces, as well as the tactics, methodologies, and alternatives that have been employed in the present pandemic context to reform biosciences education to enhance its resiliency and sustainability. This article also defines effective teaching criteria in biosciences education and considers whether higher education institutions can use virtual learning to offer the newest bioscience skills and knowledge to be future-proof and job-ready. © 2022 UPM Press. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19's global pandemic has had a significant impact on bioscience education, which has switched to online learning. Every entity within the higher education ecosystem, whether technical, pedagogical, or social, has faced a number of challenges as a result of this. Regardless, biosciences education stakeholders have been fast to implement innovative strategies to maintain high standards and quality of biosciences online teaching and learning. This paper focuses on the biosciences education transition toward developing resiliency, as well as the technology resources and approaches that have been deployed in the current context to change biosciences education to be robust in the face of the COVID-19 upheaval. Finally, significant insights into 'resilience sustainability' approaches that may be employed in relation to the digitisation of biosciences education in a concerted effort to promote resiliency, adaptability and sustainability in biosciences education are presented. © 2022 UPM Press. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Background: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has led to a strain on medical resources. The development of countermeasures to prevent its spread is evolving. Healthcare workers (HCWs) are at high risk for contracting and transmitting the disease. Methods: Serology testing of volunteer HCWs was performed at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh (the Center) in order to determine the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, as well as the associated risk factors, in the hope of implementing adequate prevention and control measures. Results: 1076 subjects participated in this study, of whom 24.3% were seropositive. The majority were nurses (379, 35%) or physicians (245, 22.2%). 392 (36.4%) of the 1076 subjects were caregivers for COVID-19 patients, and 463 (43.0%) reported contact with infected employees. There was a statistically significant association between taking care of COVID-19 patients and being diagnosed with COVID-19 (chi-square test, p = 0.046). There was a significant association between being in contact with infected employees and having a positive IgG result (chi-square test, p < 0.001). Conclusions: A baseline analysis of SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity in HCWs at a large tertiary care hospital in Riyadh was performed as the first part of a prospective study of HCWs. The reported seropositivity was 24.3% - higher than that of other hospitals in Riyadh. IgG testing was very useful in the detection of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, as it has high negative predictive value.
ABSTRACT
Gamification is progressively used as an essential part of today's campaigns to engage users and drive behaviour change. The gamified campaign would motivate people to be aware of health issues. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence on the needs of Gen Z on a gamified health awareness campaign, such as in defeating the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, this study intends to explore the Gen Z perception of gamified health awareness campaigns. In total, 170 Gen Z was involved in this study. The present study applied standard descriptive statistical methods for analyzing the data. The findings showed the need for a gamification approach for a health awareness campaign to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic among Gen Z. The study results will highlight the need for emerging a demanding gamified health awareness guideline as a parameter to develop an application that drives to change behaviours. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
This study assessed implications of the Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic on household food security among B40 households in Malaysia during Movement Control Order (MCO) using online survey data from 803 respondents. Results show that more 37.73 per cent the respondents experienced income shocks due to the COVID-19 crisis. For the coping strategies for that time, the study found that 83.31 per cent of these B40 households buy goods in stores that offer low prices, 3.74 per cent borrow money from relatives or neighbours to continue survival, picking vegetables around the house area with 32.28 per cent and 26.9 per cent to do business online. The results suggest that ongoing and future government responses should focus on structural changes in social protection by developing responsive for the long term and more focused to build up human capital among B40 households through skill and training to ensure the resilience of food security and sustainability among groups © 2020 Ubiquity Press. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Game designers need a precise model to design and develop a gamification application significantly when it drives to behaviour change.This situation is vital when we debate about implementing the gamification approach. However, there is a lack of guidelines or models regarding the gamified model to drive behaviour change in health awareness campaigns. This condition is real, especially the health awareness campaigns in defeating Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Concurrently, past research still lacks the theoretical foundations of gamification specifically to drive behaviour change in health awareness campaigns. Therefore, this concept paper reviews the frameworks and theoretical foundations, issues, and trends in the gamification models related to behaviour change. Finally, in this present paper, the researchers proposed a gamification model in health awareness campaigns to drive behaviour change named the GAMEBC Model. As Malaysia is very keen on promoting health awareness campaigns in facing the ‘new normal,’ this research significantly will contribute to Malaysia’s six-pronged strategy in COVID-19’s fight-resolve, resilience, restart, recovery, revitalize, and reform. © 2020, World Academy of Research in Science and Engineering. All rights reserved.