The mediating effect of IT governance between corporate governance mechanisms, business continuity, and transparency & disclosure: An empirical study of Covid-19 Pandemic in Jordan

The present study aims to assess the mediating role of IT governance between corporate governance mechanisms and business continuity, and transparency & disclosure during the pandemic of Covid-19 in Jordan. The study uses a sample of 232 questionnaires retrieved from different firms of different sectors. The sample includes a survey response from board members, senior executives, auditors, IT experts, and other practitioners. Factor analysis and structural equation modeling were conducted to estimate the results. The results indicate that IT governance exhibits a statistically significant positive effect on business continuity and transparency & disclosure. Further, the results reveal that corporate governance mechanisms are less efficient in their influence on business continuity and transparency & disclosure in the absence of the mediating effect of IT governance during the pandemic. The current study's findings provide insight and empirical evidence to the importance of IT governance and its role in business continuity and transparency & disclosure in constraining the negative effects during any crisis. The current study provides a novel contribution as it links corporate governance, transparency, and IT governance in the context of Covid-19 in an emerging country. © 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Ways of engaging students through ZoomTM and avoiding ZoomTM fatigue

Medical and dental education during the COVID-19 pandemic has transitioned from face-to-face classroom learning into an online environment. While this transition has many learning opportunities, it has its fair share of drawbacks. Most universities worldwide have adopted ZoomTM, a video conferencing platform for teaching students in an online environment. The silver lining of online learning is that most of what was taught physically could be taught effectively online. However, a frequent complaint by faculty and teachers using zoom is a lack of interaction with students. Twenty practical tips have been proposed that will make teaching and learning through Zoom a conducive learning environment. Most of the course content in medical and dental education can be effectively delivered through the zoom platform. The key to success is interaction through breakout rooms and the use of pre-test, post-test, and polling that will not only engage students but will result in worthwhile learning.

Remdesivir for Severe Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Versus a Cohort Receiving Standard of Care.

BACKGROUND: We compared the efficacy of the antiviral agent, remdesivir, versus standard-of-care treatment in adults with severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) using data from a phase 3 remdesivir trial and a retrospective cohort of patients with severe COVID-19 treated with standard of care. METHODS: GS-US-540-5773 is an ongoing phase 3, randomized, open-label trial comparing two courses of remdesivir (remdesivir-cohort). GS-US-540-5807 is an ongoing real-world, retrospective cohort study of clinical outcomes in patients receiving standard-of-care treatment (non-remdesivir-cohort). Inclusion criteria were similar between studies: patients had confirmed severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, were hospitalized, had oxygen saturation ≤94% on room air or required supplemental oxygen, and had pulmonary infiltrates. Stabilized inverse probability of treatment weighted multivariable logistic regression was used to estimate the treatment effect of remdesivir versus standard of care. The primary endpoint was the proportion of patients with recovery on day 14, dichotomized from a 7-point clinical status ordinal scale. A key secondary endpoint was mortality. RESULTS: After the inverse probability of treatment weighting procedure, 312 and 818 patients were counted in the remdesivir- and non-remdesivir-cohorts, respectively. At day 14, 74.4% of patients in the remdesivir-cohort had recovered versus 59.0% in the non-remdesivir-cohort (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 2.03: 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.34-3.08, P < .001). At day 14, 7.6% of patients in the remdesivir-cohort had died versus 12.5% in the non-remdesivir-cohort (aOR 0.38, 95% CI: .22-.68, P = .001). CONCLUSIONS: In this comparative analysis, by day 14, remdesivir was associated with significantly greater recovery and 62% reduced odds of death versus standard-of-care treatment in patients with severe COVID-19. CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRATION: NCT04292899 and EUPAS34303.

Valorization of By-Products from Food Processing Through Sustainable Green Approaches

The food processing sector is a very prominent section of the international market and increased up to approximately $4.5 trillion by 2024 (Businesswire in Global food processing market report, 2019: trends, forecasts, and competitive analysis (2013–2024), 2019 [1]). The increasing demand for healthy fruits and vegetables, organic processed foods, nutraceuticals and functional foods, seafood with packaged food products like ready-to-eat, and frozen processed foods is expected to drive the market growth after pandemic COVID-19 incidence. During processing and handling of horticultural crops, generate large volumes of wastes annually and become a major concern to the whole world. Fruits and vegetables have many bioactive compounds (polyphenols, flavonoids, organic acids, aroma, and flavoring agents, etc.) which have a positive impact on human health because of anti-inflammation, anti-allergic, anti-cancer, anti-atherogenic, and antioxidants properties, depending upon extraction their methods from wastes, efficacy, and bioavailability to the body. Applications of conventional (soxhlet, maceration, percolation, hydro-distillation) and green techniques (solid-phase, supercritical, accelerated solvent, microwave, and ultrasound extractions) for the valorization of horticultural wastes’ conversion in many bioactive components are followed by the potentiality, scalability, and sustainability of the extraction process and highlight the concept of the circular economy as “Waste to Wealth.” © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.