ABSTRACT
Background: Understanding the profile of antibody responses following acute COVID-19 infection is required. Aim: to describe the pattern of IgG anti-COVID-19 antibody production in patients with acute infection using the LABScreen COVID Plus assay. Results: The overall seropositivity was 69/73(94.5%). Anti-Spike, Spike 1 and spike S2 subunits were positive in 78.1%, while anti spike receptor binding domain (RBD) was detected in 68.4% and anti nucleocapsid protein in 61.6%. The overall positivity of the assay reached 100.0% during the second week post symptoms. The mean fluorescent intensities (MFI) of anti-Spike S1 was higher in the second week than the first week, p=0.03. MFI of anti-Spike S2 was significantly higher in PCR positive patients in comparison with the negative ones, p=0.006. When compared to the RT-PCR results;the overall antibodies positivity, anti-Spike, and anti-Spike2 antibodies had sensitivities (100% and 84.7%) and specificities (28.6% and 50.0%) and accuracies (86.3% and 78.1%). Patients' outcome correlated significantly with the time of hospital admission, p=0.001. Conclusion: COVID-19 IgG antibodies are detectable with considerable frequencies during the first two weeks post infection. Anti S2 antibodies correlates well with the RT-PCR results. The LABScreen COVID Plus is a sensitive assay for the detection of post-acute COVID-19 infection antibody responses. © 2020 The author (s).
ABSTRACT
It is evident that the impacts of COVID-19 crisis on education inevitably require a myriad of innovations on the delivery of conventional financial management courses in higher-educational institutions. The Future-Ready Financial Management Course (FRFMC) was one of a plethora of innovations that was developed to uncover the gap in the current curriculums. It also aims to cultivate and expand the abilities of students by enriching teaching contents and optimizing teaching methods through the Future-Ready Curriculum using a modified Attracting, Informing, Positioning and Delivering model. The development of FRFMC is extremely important as it can be used a means to attract non-finance students background to show interest in studying finance. Furthermore, the FRFMC dramatically changed the way higher-educational institutions, specifically educators in a financial management course to engage more efficiently and effectively with their new batches of digitally native and technologically savvy students. The reality is, many students are now on remote learning mode, highly depending on technology especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. While many students are considered sophisticated users of technology, few non-finance students are found struggling to learn the basics of finance for entrepreneurs. The FRFMC intends to cater to both groups of students. A number of 431 questionnaire surveys were collected among the non-finance student of Universiti Malaysia Kelantan and observations was adopted as the mechanisms to examine the students’ experience during the FRFMC implementation. The findings show that financial management courses can indeed be taught in a more innovative and effective way in order to draw the interest of non-finance students to take up more technical courses in the future. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic is today regarded as one of the largest global public health crisis. The pandemic has not only endangered people’s lives, but has also jammed economic outputs of many countries the world over. As a result, different economic levels in various parts of the world have experienced a massive direct impact as a result of COVID-19. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs), in particular, had taken the worst blow, and the sectors of SMEs badly affected by this ongoing public health crisis include transportation, tourism, and food services, as well as accommodation. Government intervention is henceforth becoming increasingly important amidst the current extraordinary circumstance and are certainly required to be more comprehensive and unconventional than usual. In order to minimize the negative effects of the pandemic on SMEs, which are a vital organ of a nation’s economy, a comprehensive and creative form of assistance is therefore urgently needed to save them. Hence, this study aims to identify priority assistance programs most needed by SMEs. Besides, this study also examines how the assistance programs launched by the government match the actual needs of SMEs. Last but not least, this study also explores SMEs’ ability to survive the current crisis, in particular, by measuring their capacity to survive from possible risks of insolvency. Notably, this study finds that the role of government in supporting the growth of micro SMEs is becoming increasingly important and critical. Micro SMEs support programs therefore must be comprehensive and not focused on financial support programs alone. Advisory services and trainings, especially in the field of e-commerce and social media need to be made more accessible to micro SMEs. Undeniably, skills in the digital economy and social media are added values and offer great convenience for entrepreneurs to market their products more widely today. In essence, the findings of this study support policymakers in their efforts to improve current policies and at the same time, formulate new strategies related to the use of e-commerce for micro SMEs. Finally, the study also suggests that future researches incorporate more contextual variables into this study model and investigate those variables in more diverse geographical or cultural environments, thus revealing other relationships necessary to maintain the sustainability of micro SMEs. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
Ulama as epicenters of religious leader in spreading religious teachings in Muslim societies have experienced deauthorization. This study aims to reflect the Muslim societies' perceptions and responses on the Ulama policies in countering Covid-19 in Indonesia. This study uses observation, interviews, and literature review as data sources. This study presents a theoretical perspective on the deauthorization of the Ulama role in Indonesia in handling Covid-19. This study found three socioreligious aspects. Firstly, less public's knowledge and understanding of Covid-19 socialization confirms multiple interpretations at the grass road level. Secondly, the socialization of the Ulama policies has not been carried out effectively, as seen in several cases, such as the rejection of the mosque closure and the prohibition of other religious activities, due to the lack of public knowledge about this epidemic. Thirdly, government policies on Large-Scale Social Restrictions (PSBB) which are totally supported by the MUI (Indonesian Ulama Council) as the representation of Indonesian Muslim scholar have not been able to suppress the Muslim societies' enthusiasm in the practice of religious activities. It indeed demonstrates Ulama's deauthorization in countering Covid-19 pandemic for Muslim societies in Indonesia. © 2020 Pabbajah et al.