ABSTRACT
Background: Smoking is considered to be one of the main risk factors that may affect the severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Previously, several meta-analyses with a limited or small sample size and insufficient methodology have been conducted investigating the impact of smoking on disease severity. Here, we use a more accurate method to identify the effect of smoking on COVID-19 disease severity. Methods: BMC, PubMed, Science Direct, Wiley, Springer, and Google Scholar websites were used to search for and select reliable articles to be included in the current analysis. Research articles that mentioned the relationship between smoking and COVID-19 severity were included. Results: Twenty-six research articles detailing 15, 713 confirmed COVID-19 cases comprising patients who smoke were selected to be included in this analysis. The analysis showed a relationship between smoking, severe COVID-19, and non-severe COVID-19 (OR=0:11;95%CI: 0.10-0.11;p<0.00001). Only 15% (2407) of the smokers suffered severe COVID-19, with the other 85% (13306) of smokers experiencing non-severe COVID-19. Conclusion: The current analysis found that only 15% of severe COVID-19 cases were smokers. Therefore, smoking is not significantly correlated with severe covid19. Copyright © 2023, Journal of Iranian Medical Council. All rights reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
ABSTRACT
Remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI) draws on Information and Communication Technologies to facilitate multilingual communication by connecting conference interpreters to in-presence, virtual or hybrid events. Early solutions for RSI involved interpreters working in interpreting booths with ISO-standardised equipment. However, in recent years, cloud-based solutions for RSI have emerged, with innovative Simultaneous Interpreting Delivery Platforms (SIDPs) at their core, enabling RSI delivery from anywhere. SIDPs recreate the interpreter’s console and work environment (Braun 2019) as a bespoke software/videoconferencing platform with interpretation-focused features. Although initial evaluations of SIDPs were conducted before the Covid-19 pandemic (e.g., DG SCIC 2019), research on RSI (booth-based and software-based) remains limited. Pre-pandemic research shows that RSI is demanding in terms of information processing and mental modelling (Braun 2007;Moser-Mercer 2005), and suggests that the limited visual input available in RSI constitutes a particular problem (Mouzourakis 2006;Seeber et al. 2019). Besides, initial explorations of the cloud-based solutions suggest that there is room for improving the interfaces of widely used SIDPs (Buján and Collard 2021;DG SCIC 2019). The experimental project presented in this paper investigates two aspects of SIDPs: the design of the interpreter interface and the integration of supporting technologies. Drawing on concepts and methods from user experience research and human-computer interaction, we explore what visual information is best suited to support the interpreting process and the interpreter-machine interaction, how this information is best presented in the interface, and how automatic speech recognition can be integrated into an RSI platform to aid/augment the interpreter’s source-text comprehension. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
On 31 December 2019, pneumonia of unknown cause was detected in Wuhan, China, and was first reported to the WHO Country Office in China. On 30 January 2020, the outbreak was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. It was an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection that occurred in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China and got spread across China and beyond. WHO officially named the disease - Corona virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) on February 12, 2020. It has been spreading worldwide for a period of atleast a year & half. This review article addresses the current scenario caused by the SARS- Co V along with the treatment protocols and ongoing vaccines.
ABSTRACT
Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on university students in Malaysian universities as well as its effect on their learning. Design/methodology/approach: The study employed a quantitative design, as the data were collected through a survey. The participants were 219 students, divided as follows: 102 local students and 117 international students in Malaysian universities. Findings: The findings showed no significant difference in terms of the psychological impact of COVID-19 among students according to the variables, nationality (local and international), gender and level of study. The descriptive analysis showed that the outbreak of COVID-19 made the students anxious, worried and restless. Besides, the outbreak of COVID-19 made the students unable to focus on their study, feel anxious about studying, have less confidence on their leaning and commit more mistakes than normal days. The psychological stress made online learning during the isolation period less effective and less helpful for students, which made them more worried about their academic achievement and future study plans. Originality/value: COVID-19 is a current issue, and the psychological effect of COVID-19 on local and international students and their learning has not been covered in previous literature. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.