Discursive epidemic: considerations from a discourse analysis perspective and communication studies

In this article, of an essayistic nature, we aim to present theoretical-conceptual foundations in the field of discourse and communication that allow us to reflect on epidemics as discursive realities (Maingueneau, 2020). For this, we revisit research developed by Bessa (1997;2002), Treichler (1987), Daniel and Parker (2018) and Santos Filho (2020) on the HIV/aids epidemic and tension the contemporary experience of the COVID-19 pandemic in a mediatization scenario. From our reflection, we propose, as a result, the expansion of the concept of discursive epidemic as a set of imaginaries created and shared discursively by different social spheres, in a context of mediatization and excess of statements on a certain theme, expressing certain dominant worldviews in a given society and at a given moment, but which, through proliferation and lasting reiteration without mutability, are consolidated in the collective memory in such a powerful way as to be frequently remembered.

Comparative Analysis of Different Systematic Odometry Error Correction Methods on a Differential Drive Indoor Service Robot

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge of interest in research work involving the development of robotic systems that reduce human-to-human interaction, as such a technology can greatly benefit healthcare industries in preventing the spread of highly infectious diseases. An indoor service robot is built and equipped with wheel odometry and a 2D LiDAR. However, the presence of the systematic odometry errors is evident during field testing. Hence, the possibility of minimizing systematic odometry errors is inspected using various methods of calculation, namely: UMBmark, Lee's and Jung's. The methods all use the Bidirectional Square Path test, performed together with ROS. It is found that Jung's method is the most appropriate method showing a 20.4% improvement compared to the uncalibrated dead reckoning accuracy. Moreover, it is found that the presence of slippage, a nonsystematic error, greatly affects the return position errors of the robot. Consequently, it is recommended to improve the design of the wheelbase to minimize the effects of nonsystematic errors. © 2022 IEEE.

Teleworking and the Importance of Information Systems in a Pandemic Context: A Study Applied to the Health Sector

The pandemic crisis compelled organizations to adopt telework to continue their activity. This study seeks to determine the perception of individuals regarding teleworking, and also the role of Information Systems in the paradigm shift along the pandemic period, in the Portuguese health sector. An online questionnaire was applied to health professionals working in Portugal, obtaining a sample of 264 professionals. The perceptions identified in relation to telework can be especially useful when considering the progressive incorporation of non-face-to-face activities in the health sector. Participants identify advantages in teleworking, namely in reducing travel costs, but also identify work overload as a disadvantage. Despite the difficulties, Information Systems are identified as facilitators in this process of change. Most participants express availability to work in a mixed regime, in the post-pandemic period. © 2022 Associacao Portuguesa de Sistemas de Informacao. All rights reserved.

COVID-19 and the Motorcycle Taxi Sector in Sub-Saharan African Cities: A Key Stakeholders' Perspective

This article assesses the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the urban motorcycle taxi (MCT) sector in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). MCToperators in SSA provide essential transport services and have shown ingenuity and an ability to adapt and innovate when responding to different challenges, including health challenges. However, policymakers and regulators often remain somewhat hostile toward the sector. The article discusses the measures and restrictions put in place to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and key stakeholders' perspectives on these and on the sector's level of compliance. Primary data were collected in six SSA countries during the last quarter of 2020. Between 10 and 15 qualitative interviews with key stakeholders relevant to the urban MCT sector were conducted in each country. These interviews were conducted with stakeholders based in the capital city and a secondary city, to ensure a geographically broader understanding of the measures, restrictions, and perspectives. The impact of COVID-19 measures on the MCT and motor-tricycle taxi sector was significant and overwhelmingly negative. Lockdowns, restrictions on the maximum number of passengers allowed to be carried at once, and more generally, a COVID-19-induced reduction in demand, resulted in a drop in income for operators, according to the key stakeholders. However, some key stakeholders indicated an increase in MCT activity and income because of the motorcycles' ability to bypass police and army controls. In most study countries measures were formulated in a non-consultative manner. This, we argue, is symptomatic of governments' unwillingness to seriously engage with the sector. © National Academy of Sciences: Transportation Research Board 2021.

Using Machine Learning to Reduce Burden on Infection Control Staff

Surveillance of health care–associated infection (HAI) is the foundation of infection control and one of the first steps in infection prevention. Traditionally, however, surveillance is performed by infection control professionals (ICPs) who manually review patients' records, searching for defined criteria. Such an approach leaves room for subjective interpretation, resulting in low interrater reliability. Moreover, depending on the surveillance method used — for instance, a search based on antimicrobial results — it may have low sensitivity. In Brazil, leaders at Tacchini Hospital and Qualis, a startup that offers infection control advisory and antimicrobial stewardship, have developed a machine-learning–algorithm robot that has been demonstrated to be a reliable tool for identifying patients with HAIs using a semiautomated method. The performance of this infection surveillance assistant (ISA) robot shows optimal sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and negative predictive values, and the precision (positive predictive value) is acceptable. The ISA robot identified more patients with HAIs than did the infection control manual surveillance reference. The time spent on patient review was also reduced compared with that spent on manual surveillance. The robot detected HAI in one of every two or three patients reviewed in the interface. The years of the Covid-19 pandemic have highlighted the problem of the shortage of health care professionals, including ICPs. Tacchini Hospital and Qualis aim to increase infection control efficiency, enabling these professionals to spend more time on inpatient wards, implementing care bundles, than handling office activities, such as manual surveillance. In this study, the authors describe the implementation of semiautomated surveillance in a single center, but expanding the model for different patient scenarios and multiple centers should be the future for external validation of machine-learning surveillance. Such models have the potential for generalization because they do not depend only on fixed rules for HAI classification, but they can also learn from data sets in different patient population settings. © 2022 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.

Challenges to agile software project management practices in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

The Agile approach is focused on individuals and customer satisfaction, based on the dynamic and streamlined work of a team that is capable of adapting, and adapting the project to changing scenarios and demands. However, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Agile teams accustomed to in-person communication have encountered the challenges of working from home. The main objective of this research is to analyze the challenges generated by the pandemic context, and the consequent social distance, for the development of software projects that use Agile approaches within a large state-owned company and identify the effect it had on the course and results of the projects. The research was qualitative in nature and had two exploratory diagnostic stages. The findings indicate that there were no negative impacts of relevance on project deliveries. On the one hand, results indicated losses in socialization, in spontaneous exchanges of knowledge, and in interaction among teams, as well as a demand for greater engagement of professionals. Additionally, limitations were revealed for more complex discussions and knowledge management. The study highlights solutions that were found and/or suggested for many challenges, contributing to the literature on best practices for the Agile approach, and is focused on the unprecedented context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings can contribute to other companies with a similar profile that work with Agile projects, besides contributing to building a dialogue between the academic and business environments. © 2023 Brazilian Institute for Information in Science and Technology. All rights reserved.

Factors associated with carrying out molecular tests for the diagnosis of COVID-19 in the State of Espírito Santo, Brazil

Backgroung: Brazil was slow to implement an expanded testing policy for COVID-19, which may have affected the most vulnerable population's access to testing services. Objective: to evaluate the factors associated with performing the molecular test for COVID-19. Methods: cross-sectional study of secondary data from the COVID-19 panel in the state of Espírito Santo. COVID-19 suspicion notification forms were included between September 11, 2020 and March 2, 2021. Hierarchical logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI95%). Results: 419,771 notification forms were analyzed. The prevalence of performing the molecular teste for COVID-19 was 81.1% (CI95% 81.0-81.2). Elderly (OR= 2.70 – CI95% 2.56-2.85), health professional (OR=1.43 – CI95% 1.36-1.50), chronic cardiovascular disease (OR=1.13 – CI95% 1.09-1.17), diabetes mellitus (OR=1.07 – CI95% 1.01-1.14) and hospitalization (OR=5.95 – CI95% 4.53;7.82) were more likely to have undergone the molecular test. Male sex (OR=0.96 – CI95% 0.94-0.98), black skin color (OR=0.75 – CI95% 0.73-0.78), yellow skin color (OR=0.74 – CI95% 0.71-0.77), residing in the northern health region (OR=0.37 – CI95% 0.36-0.39) and the homeless population (OR=0.76 – CI95% 0.67-0.85) had the lowest chance of having undergone the molecular test. Conclusion: Social, economic, contextual factors and the risk of aggravation of the disease were associated with carrying out the molecular test for COVID-19 in the state of Espírito Santo. Actions are needed to guarantee the access of the most vulnerable population to molecular testing. © The authors (2023), this article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4. 0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1. 0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

The role of hospital antimicrobial and infectious diseases pharmacists in the UK: a theoretically underpinned exploration.

Objectives: We sought to characterise the role of hospital infection pharmacists in the UK and to understand the core challenges being faced, future role development desires and the required support to address these. Methods: We developed a questionnaire underpinned by the theoretical domains framework exploring the barriers and enablers to pharmacists fulfilling their perceived roles and responsibilities. Any pharmacist whose role included 'specialist antimicrobial' or 'infectious diseases' was invited to complete a questionnaire sent via national infection and pharmacy groups/networks. Descriptive statistics were used to report responses to each item, and a content analysis was undertaken to summarize the key messages from an extended response option. Results: Of the 102 respondents, 91 (89.2%) were from English hospitals. Fifty-three (52%) were from district general hospitals and 45 (45.1%) from teaching hospitals. Most (97, 95%) respondents were of a senior grade. The need for a comprehensive educational programme, recognition of research as core to the role and integration with infection/microbiology departments were key requirements along with protected time to engage with the activities. Highlights of the role were opportunities to teach, making a significant contribution to patient care and scope to contribute to strategy and vision. The COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted on respondents' capacity to undertake their perceived roles and responsibilities. Conclusions: Our study delineates the need for UK infection and pharmacy policy makers to review hospital infection pharmacist developmental pathways and roles. Joint learning, and closer working, with infection/microbiology departments may be an efficient strategy to address the issues raised.

State capacities and municipal education policies during the COVID-19 pandemic Capacidades estatales y pol?ticas municipales de educaci?n durante la pandemia de Covid-19

The development of pedagogical activities through remote teaching became common during the pandemic. Based on a survey carried out by the National Confederation of Municipalities, a set of heterogeneities was identified regarding the actions adopted in the area of education in Brazil. This study finds support in the concept of state capacities and aims to deepen the understanding of the factors that contributed to the increase of municipalities' capacity to respond to the crisis. A regression was performed considering a set of variables linked to the characteristics of the local governments. It was concluded that variables related to technical-administrative and political-relational capacities related to the existence of participatory channels were fundamental in this process.

Hate Speech Dynamics Against African descent, Roma and LGBTQ plus Communities in Portugal

This paper introduces FIGHT, a dataset containing 63,450 tweets, posted before and after the official declaration of Covid-19 as a pandemic by online users in Portugal. This resource aims at contributing to the analysis of online hate speech targeting the most representative minorities in Portugal, namely the African descent and the Roma communities, and the LGBTQ+ community, the most commonly reported target of hate speech in social media at the European context. We present the methods for collecting the data, and provide insightful statistics on the distribution of tweets included in FIGHT, considering both the temporal and spatial dimensions. We also analyze the availability over time of tweets targeting the aforementioned communities, distinguishing public, private, and deleted tweets. We believe this study will contribute to better understand the dynamics of online hate speech in Portugal, particularly in adverse contexts, such as a pandemic outbreak, allowing the development of more informed and accurate hate speech resources for Portuguese.

Systems applied to active methodologies as a teaching-learning strategy for engineering students

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a "social distancing” in academic institutions of higher education and the need to implement contingency plans for the continuity of their activities, forcing teaching supported by tele-education;outlining new teaching strategies in engineering. The objective of the research was to make a bibliographic review analyzing the active methodologies in virtual teaching-learning environments used by teachers. Taking into account the importance in the training and perspectives of future engineers. The methodology was focused on a systematic review (SR), considering 105 articles published between the years 2015-2022 related to scientific literature articles with active methodologies in virtual environments identified in different databases. Concluding that it is necessary to adopt activities and strategies for the academic training of engineering students characterized in friendlier methodological proposals. © 2022, Associacao Iberica de Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informacao. All rights reserved.

Nocturnal hypoventilation and respiratory muscle/cough weakness in COVID-19 ICU survivors

Background: The impact of severe COVID-19 in nocturnal hypoventilation and respiratory muscles/cough strength is unknown. Aim(s): Characterize respiratory function in post-ICU COVID-19 patients and correlate these findings with COVID-19 associated outcomes. Method(s): Retrospective study with 55 post-ICU COVID-19 patients admitted to a rehabilitation center (RC). Clinical data were collected and patients performed arterial blood gas analysis, nocturnal oxy-capnography, maximum inspiratory pressure (MIP), maximum expiratory pressure (MEP) and peak cough flow (PCF) at admission. Result(s): Mean age was 64.4+/-10.2 years, 39 (70.9%) were male. Co-morbidities were present in 50 (90.9%): 39 (70.9%) hypertension;20 (36.4%) diabetes;3 (5.5%) OSA;1 (1.8%) COPD. None had neuromuscular disorders. Median of ICU length was 25.5 (min 5;max 190) days. Fifty-three (96.4%) needed mechanical and invasive ventilation, 6 (10.9%) ECMO and 22 (40%) tracheostomy (all decannulated before admission to our RC). Eighteen (32.7%) had criteria of nocturnal hypoventilation, 17 (30.9%) inspiratory, 16 (29.1%) expiratory and 17 (30.9%) cough weakness. Sepsis correlated with increased length of ICU stay (p=0.007) and with lower PCF values (p=0.048). Neurologic disfunction was associated with lower minimum SpO2 and more time of SpO2<88% (p=0.032;p=0.035). Renal disfunction was associated with higher values of mean and maximum TcCO2 (p=0.003;p=0.011). Patients with previously diagnosed OSA had higher values of MIP and PCF (p=0.006;p<0.001) at evaluation. Conclusion(s): In COVID-19 ICU survivors, nocturnal hypoventilation, inspiratory/expiratory muscle and cough weakness are common and may have an impact in rehabilitation outcomes.

New management models in primary health care and the difficulties at

The article discusses the reconfiguration of work in Primary Health Care (PHC) based on changes implemented by the Brazilian federal government since 2017, which have aggravated precarious work conditions. Methodologically it is inspired by Michael Burawoy's expanded case ethnography, dialoguing with studies on productive restructuring and New Public Management (NGP), linked to the concept of difficulty. Participant observation and semi-structured interviews with workers from a health team from a basic unit of the Unified Health System (SUS) in Rio de Janeiro were used. Difficulty has been characterized as: The constant demand for changes in the organization of daily work and overload due to the extensive workday, and the demand for reaching established goals despite the work conditions. This paper emphasized the need to continue analyzing the reconfiguration of health work, considering the impacts of the Constitutional Amendment 95 (2016);the labor reform (2017);and the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2022, EDUFBA - Editora Universttaria. All rights reserved.

Africa's lockdown dilemma: High poverty and low trust

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, sub-Saharan African countries faced the dilemma of how to minimize viral transmission without adversely affecting the poor. This study proposes an index of lockdown readiness, taking into account housing conditions and income security, and analyses how this predicts the pandemic responses of governments. Drawing on Afrobarometer data, we document that less than two in 10 urban households were fully ready for a lockdown and that neither institutional nor community trust levels offset this challenge. We find that the prior degree of lockdown readiness was predictive of the stringency of restrictions adopted but not of social unrest. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Combating social inequality in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic - the solidarity actions of the landless rural workers movement

The main objective of this article is to present a reflection on the importance of socio-territorial movements in the face of actions to combat social inequality in this pandemic period, 2020-2021. In this sense, the article deals with a debate on COVID-19 and the impacts resulting from this pandemic. It discusses the emergence of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), its solidarity actions and the debate on the Popular Agrarian Reform Plan. This study ends with a presentation of data, resulting from the result of a questionnaire applied online on society's vision of the MST. Finally, the article presents a reflection that highlights the peasantry, which, despite all the subordination that has been going through over the centuries and has been suffering from the impacts arising from the agribusiness development model, has much to contribute to the development of regions, when we see actions that guide new possibilities of producing, consuming and protecting nature, boosting the quality of life in the countryside and in the city.

RETHINKING TOURISTIFICATION AS A LONG-TERM PROCESS THE IMPACT OF TOURISM ON THE MADEIRAN CUISINE (19TH-21ST CENTURIES)

In the last decade, we have witnessed a growth of contestation movements against touristification on the global scale. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the intensive, disordered flux of travelers in some popular destinations was blamed for negatively affecting the everyday life of local inhabitants. One effect was the degradation of their intangible cultural heritage (ICH), including culinary legacies, and more research has focused on this issue from different disciplinary areas. However, the approaches usually adopted only consider the immediate consequences of the ongoing phenomenon that can be observed during a field enquiry. This paper explores a new path. Assuming that cultural heritage is a long-term social construction, an historian's outlook is needed to see the big picture. The case study of the Madeiran cuisine allows us to understand to what extent receiving guests has long-term effects on the ICH of host communities. Madeira is one of the oldest destinations of the world, with a hospitality industry in activity since the early 19th century. Additionally, numerous documents attest the evolution of dietary patterns of the insular society, not only at this period, but also before and after. From this point of view, it is an excellent place to monitor the socio-cultural impact of tourism. Historical sources from different periods are confronted to understand the dynamic of the culinary repertoire in the archipelago. The point of view of local stakeholders currently involved in this arena are also considered. The results obtained by this diachronic approach enable us to relativize the Manichean vision of holidaymakers as a threat to cultural heritage, demonstrating that touristification studies should take into account the longue durée. © 2022, Ponteditora. All rights reserved.