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Online social networks are at the limelight of the public debate, where antagonistic groups compete to impose conflicting narratives and polarize the discussions. This article proposes an approach for measuring network polarization and political sectarianism in Twitter based on user interaction networks. Centrality metrics identify a small group of influential users (polarizers and unpolarizers) who influence a larger group of users (polarizees and unpolarizees) according to their ideological stance (left, right, and undefined). This network polarization is computed by the Bayesian probability using typical actions such as following, tweeting, retweeting, and replying. The measurement of political sectarianism also uses Bayesian probability and words extracted from the tweets to quantify the intensity of othering, aversion, and moralization in the debate. We collected Twitter data from 33 conflicted political events in Brazil during 2020, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on our methodology and polarization score, our results reveal that the approach based on user interaction networks leads to an increasing understanding of polarized conflicts in Twitter. Also, a small number of polarizers is enough to represent the polarization and sectarianism of Twitter events. © 2014 IEEE.
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Context: Solid waste management during the Covid-19 pandemic has caused environmental effects that have not been sufficiently studied, especially in Latin American cities. This study presents a char-acterization of waste in Honduras during the Covid-19 lockdown, which uses a novel methodology that allows collecting information without the need for fieldwork.Method: This study was implemented in three phases (data recording, training, and data generation). All activities were carried out with the support of virtual tools such as forms and group calls. The participants received four training sessions and characterized their residues for seven days.Results: The waste generation per capita was 0,475 kg/inhab/day at the national level and 0,549 kg/inhab/day in Distrito Central [the central district]. There is an increase in the proportion of non -usable inorganic waste and a decrease in organic and recyclable waste. It is estimated that each house-hold generates 3,7 masks nationwide and 4 masks in Distrito Central on a weekly basis.Conclusions: The per-capita generation of household waste decreased during the lockdown, which may be due to a decline in families' purchasing power given the reduction in the economic activities. The appearance of a new residue is recorded: disposable masks and gloves.
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Around the world, Indigenous groups have been among the communities most severely affected by COVID-19, and the ability of health systems and social policy responses to support Indigenous responses to the pandemic has been affected by challenges of intercultural communication, sometimes compounded by racist and exclusionary social and political attitudes. The Brazilian Amazon has been a particularly extreme case. This article reflects on the experience of a group of Indigenous leaders and non-Indigenous anthropologists working to promote intercultural approaches to epidemic response in the Rio Negro region of Northwestern Amazonia. It brings together findings from in-person fieldwork on Indigenous responses to infectious disease outbreaks that affected the region before the COVID-19 pandemic and from remote research on COVID-19 response conducted in 2020 and 2021.
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The main aim of this investigation was the implementation of Augmented Reality Technology (ART) in an activity of the education sector in elementary schools, with a deficient infrastructure of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the northwest’s region of the Mexican Republic in the Mexicali and San Quintin cities. Also in this analysis evaluated the possibility of implementing the ART in industrial companies of Baja California State, Mexico and as a novel way to develop distance training processes, considering the current limitations of the Covid 19 pandemic. Another limitation of the training activity is the lack of economic resources on some occasions to attend events in other cities or places of training. This scientific study was very relevant because this analysis verified that the use of the ART in the activities and the aspects of ICT mentioned made it possible to work and generate productive and representative results. As the deficiency and lack of ICT is an occurrence in some regions of Mexico and is a concern of government and industries of the persons in charge of educational and industrial operations, this investigation would be an alternative method to make educational courses at distance or personality with students. This can also apply to industrial workers with training courses at distance or personality to improve the yielding operative workers. They used in some healthy activities to understand any thematic the ART in training courses as the understanding the Covi19 in some public or private clinics or hospitals and generates the adequate tools to combat it. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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Background: Health care in times of pandemic has required a great commitment of the members of health care teams, who have been affected by the many changes. Objective: To describe the experience of caring for a nursing assistant in Bogotá during the Covid-19 pandemic. Methods: Qualitative study, biographical account, an interview was conducted at a nursing assistant frontline care, and thematic analysis of information. Results: The central theme allows to approach the process of going through change, of which five sub-themes are developed that make visible the vulnerability of the participant in this situation and the urgent need for attention. Conclusions: Frontline care in times of pandemic has had many implications that go beyond the professional work and are reflected in the personal, family and social life. © 2021, Fundacion Index. All rights reserved.
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The diaphragm is the most important respiratory muscle, and its function may be limited by acute and chronic diseases. A diaphragmatic ultrasound, which quantifies dysfunction through different approaches, is useful in evaluating work of breathing and diaphragm atrophy, predicting successful weaning, and diagnosing critically ill patients. This technique has been used to determine reduced diaphragmatic function in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and interstitial diseases, while in those with COVID-19, diaphragmatic ultrasound has been used to predict weaning failure from mechanical ventilation. © 2021 Lux et al.
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The Coronavirus outbreak has imposed different levels of stay-at-home orders worldwide to help contain the disease spread, thus promoting severe impacts over the global economy. The World Bank expects 90% of the world economy to go into recession, being this the most severe global economic crisis since the second world war. Consequently, electricity consumption has fallen sharply in many countries, so as in Brazil, what provoked critical effects over many electricity sector stakeholders. In this context, this article discusses the main consequences of COVID-19s outbreak over the Brazilian electricity sector and some measures taken by the government and the regulator to address such issues. Further, this work proposes a long-term electricity demand forecast methodology, taking into consideration bottom-up technics for general demand growth and top-down technics for the expansion of distributed generation in Brazil. The model uses as input economic forecasts from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and Brazilian market consolidated expectations disclosed by the Brazilian Central Bank. The model proves to be useful to long-term demand forecast by producing results adherent to official forecasts published by Brazilian governmental institutions. © 2003-2012 IEEE.
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The present research aims to propose a model for the recovery of residual public spaces to improve the quality of life of the district of San Borja´s inhabitants. San Borja is in the process of densification and requires a more significant number of public spaces that offer, in addition to vegetation, public places for active and passive recreation, such as spaces for sports and games, walking pets, and relaxation. These needs have increased due to the confinement caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, it was noted that the median strip, or central reservation of the avenue, can be recovered for people to use. Therefore, a four-phase study was carried out that included reviewing the literature and observing two cases. In conclusion, a model was proposed to recover the public space of the median strips of San Borja Norte Avenue and San Borja Sur Avenue to improve the quality of life of the inhabitants of San Borja, which can be replicated in other avenues with residual spaces with similar characteristics. © 2021 Institute of Physics Publishing. All rights reserved.
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The neurobiological processing of eating behavior is transmitted to the cortical and subcortical nuclei where multisensory stimuli are integrated, such as olfactory ones, associated with emotion, learning and memory. With this review, the implications between emotional memory and olfactory stimuli, and neurobiological basis are analyzed and described. Also, the main cognitive processes involved in the preference for hypo and hypercaloric foods and their relationship with eating disorders such as obesity are indicated, a condition that converges with a negative effect during the COVID-19 disease. It requires the application of neuropsychological methods that include the measurement of the effect of multisensory stimuli to assess food preference. Since olfactory stimuli and emotional memory participate in food choices, promoting or not the development of eating disorders. Adapting the paradigms of neuropsychology such as the alimentary Stroop would underpin the generation of strategies for the prevention of the development of eating disorders such as obesity.
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The present study examines the impact of COVID-19 on Maldivian tourism, highlighting the loss of tourists and tourism earnings for the period 2020Q1 to 2021Q2 and analyses the recovery rate of inbound tourists' arrivals post border re-opening (i.e., 2020Q3 - 2021Q2). Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) model was employed to generate monthly forecasts for 2020 and 2021. The results indicate an estimated loss of 1.9 million tourists between 2020Q1 and 2021Q2. A massive drop in tourist arrivals caused an estimated loss of USD 3.5 billion in tourism earnings by June 2021. Results further indicate that with an average monthly recovery rate of 3%, inbound arrivals have recovered 34% of forecasted levels and 40% of 2019 levels by June 2021. The measures implemented by the government of Maldives played a vital role in the recovery of inbound tourism. However, the rebound of tourists has not reached the desired levels except for the arrivals from Russia. Therefore, additional strategies must be implemented for the quick revival of the Maldivian tourism industry. This study expands and enriches tourism management knowledge in the face of a massive crisis highlighting important managerial and policy implications for reviving the tourism industry of the Maldives.
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As society becomes digitalized, online social networks tend to be primary places for debate but can turn into a battlefield for imposing conflicting narratives. Automating the identification of online conflicts is a challenge due to difficulties in defining antagonist communities and controversial discussions. Here, we propose a polarization approach for understanding Twitter conflicts in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic, where a small group of polarizers influences a larger group of polarizees according to their ideological leaning. Polarizers are automatically identified by centrality metrics in following, retweet, and reply networks and manually labeled as leftists, rightists, or undefined. We collected and analyzed the polarization of 21 potentially conflicted political events in Brazil. Our results show that polarizers adequately represent the polarization of events, the traditional media is giving way to a new breed of tweeters, and retweet and reply play different roles within a conflict that reflects their polarization level. © 2021 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.
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Concerns about the advances of the COVID-19 epidemic have sparked many debates around the world. One such discussion revolved around the use of the drug called chloroquine, initially thought to be effective in reducing the mortality rate of the infection. Particularly in Brazil, even after new studies pointed to the drug's ineffectiveness, the federal government kept the recommendation of this drug as an official treatment. The publication of an official authorization of the use of chloroquine on Twitter sparked an intense debate on social media with arguments against and in favor. This paper studies the dynamics of interactions among different user groups around this discussion, relying on network science and topic modeling analyses. Our results highlight two distinct behaviors in Twitter interaction networks, where retweets serve as positive reinforcements within information bubbles and replies act as a space of direct debate. Also, discussions are seeded by public figures, but regular users carry on the debate per se. The topic modeling analyses revealed three observable user groups in this debate: strong supporters of the Brazilian government, progressive opposition to this government, and moderate users that oppose to this specific topic but do not reject the government agenda as a whole. © 2021 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.
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The impact of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in intervened patients seems to cause large postoperative mortality, although its incidence varies among centres. Primary aim was to evaluate the incidence of COVID-19 on the patients intervened in our General and Digestive Surgery Department, during the maximum impact of the pandemia in Spain. Secondary outcomes were evaluating perioperative mortality, and determining the risk factors for COVID-19 infection. Materials and Method: Retrospective single centre study of consecutive patients undergoing general and gastrointestinal surgical procedures with more than 24 hours of in-hospital stay, from February 1, 2020 to April 30, 2020 in a tertiary referral centre in Madrid, Spain. Results: A total of 441 patients were analysed: 423 were non-COVID-19 patients while 18 of them had COVID-19. Preoperative and operative characteristics were similar for both groups, unless for the American Society of Anesthesiologists grade. The incidence of COVID-19 in our intervened patients was 4.1%. Postoperative mortality was high among surgical patients with COVID-19, with a mortality rate of 22.2% compared to a 2.8% in non COVID-19 patients. The risk factors for COVID-19 infection were a prolonged postoperative stay (OR: 1.035 [95% CI: 1.007-1.065]) and the need of a reintervention (OR: 5.025 [95% CI: 1.650-15.311]). Conclusion: Surgical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemia resulted in a low infection rate but a high postoperative COVID-19 mortality. The decision to intervene must be carefully balanced against the additional risk for patients in a high transmission setting. © 2021, Sociedad de Cirujanos de Chile. All rights reserved.
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This article discusses the interruption of Teaching and learning activities at Brazilian federal universities at the time the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, as well as the extent to which the lack of access to the internet would prohibit remote resumption of those activities. Political-educational strategies for tackling the pandemic that are in line with WHO recommendations are addressed. Then the universities’ immediate responses to the necessary suspension of face-to-face activities are discussed. Finally, official data are reported measuring the size of the problem of internet access among higher education students. Given that 98% are connected, there is an urgent need to enable internet and digital literacy for 2% without access. However, there are no consistent justifications for prolonging the interruption of Teaching and learning activities. Emergency remote Education emerges as an immediate path in the midst of the pandemic, but it is blended learning methodologies that tend to consolidate in the post-pandemic world – which, sooner or later, will require new attitudes and strategies from Brazilian federal universities. © 2021. All Rights Reserved.
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Successive waves of immigration have long shaped societies, cultures and traditions, and supported the growth and development of host economies. Immigrants are consumers, taxpayers, investors, job creators and entrepreneurs. However, immigrant communities, and immigrant entrepreneurs in particular, face distinctive challenges in regard to good understanding of the local context and local market, awareness of laws and regulations, networking, nuances of language and mentality, or cultural aspects of doing business. Each of these elements individually, and all of them together, may determine the success of a venture. Migration is a complex phenomenon that touches on a multiplicity of economic, social, psychological and security aspects. It is through social connections that individuals learn about migration destinations and evaluate the potential of migration. To migrants, who are often not equally equipped with human, financial, and cultural capital, social connections are a vehicle to mobilise resources in a person's social environment what is particularly relevant in migrants willing to establish and run a business. Social support that networks provide comes in different forms and can involve tangible assets, information, guidance, or motivation. Social support is an effective resource in reducing stress and promoting well-being. This paper aims to investigate the role and importance of social support for immigrant entrepreneurs in Portugal. It examines perceptions of informational, instrumental, appraisal and emotional support. The study explores the meaning of social support for immigrant business venturing before and during the coronavirus crisis. It seeks to understand how social support is activated in different situations. Findings suggest social support is one of key functions of social relationships, a mean of relevant business-related resources for immigrants and of utmost importance in major crisis situations such as the Covid-19 outbreak. © 2020 Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited. All rights reserved.
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Objective: To identify COVID-19 pandemic effects on mental health in an academic community from a federal university. Methods: Transversal study carried out with 586 individuals from the academic community from the Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre. We elaborated an online multiple-choice questionnaire hosted in the RedCap platform. We elaborated the questionnaire based on a guide content, which addresses the main considerations of mental health during the pandemic. Aspects of mental health, such as anguish, irritability, among others, were the outcome evaluated. We carried out the statistical analysis in the Statistical Package for Social Sciences software and the association between variables was evaluated through the Chi-square test and the student T-test. The signifi cance level adopted was 5%. Results: 586 individuals participated: 81% women, 72,8% Exploratory, transversal, and quantitative study, where the scenario was the Universidade Federal de Ciência da Saúde de Porto Alegre (UFCSPA), located in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The transversal study is characterized by the direct observation of a sample of individuals in a single moment, 58,2% with per capita income of minimum 5 salaries, and 90,3% white. The most prevalent feelings were: Impotence (93,5%), anguish (90,8%), fear of losing relatives, friends or familiars (90,1%), irritability (85,3%) and sadness (89,9%). We found that female sex is a factor of risk to present most of the feelings, except irritability and boredom. Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic affected the mental health of the academic community, reinforcing the necessity of establishing psychological intervention protocols in the pandemic. We found a signifi cant statistical difference between the sexes, in which the psychological effects are more severe in the female sex. © 2021 Departamento de Enfermagem/Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo. All rights reserved.
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Objective: To estimate the prevalence and factors associated with symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress in university professors in the health field during the pandemic period of COVID-19. Methods: This is an analytical, cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach with 150 university professors in the health field. The instruments used were: a form for collecting socio-demographic, economic and labor data. Mental health was assessed using the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21). The association between the variables studied and the prevalence of symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress was verified by bivariate analysis followed by Poisson regression, with robust variance. Results: The final sample consisted of 150 individuals with a mean age of 41.4 ± 7.9 years with the majority being female (74%). 50% of the teachers had symptoms of depression, 37.4% reported symptoms of anxiety and 47.2% had symptoms of stress. After multiple analysis, it was observed that the symptoms of depression were associated with the variable working in more than one institution of higher education. The variables that were shown to be associated with anxiety were: age group ≥ 40 years and people without a steady partner. Stress was associated with the variable marital status without a steady partner. Conclusion: The prevalence of symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress in university professors in the health area was high, and sociodemographic and labor factors remained associated with the investigated outcomes. © 2021, Editora Cientifica Nacional Ltda. All rights reserved.