ABSTRACT
In spite of the sudden onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many instructors who used team-based pedagogies shifted them online rather than suspending them entirely, but with limited time and resources. To examine the difference in team dynamics and outcomes for courses in Spring 2019 and Spring 2020 of over 1500 first-year engineering students per semester, Wilcoxon signed-rank tests and random forests method were used. Results show that students reported less improvement in team-member effectiveness, lower psychological safety, and less satisfaction in the semester with the emergency transition. However, students also reported lower conflict. The most important factor predicting project grades shifted from 'Interacting with teammates' to 'Having relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities' amid the emergency shift, accompanied by a reduction in team interdependence. In spite of the collection of data during an emergency transition, the foundation of face-to-face interaction before moving to virtual cooperation represents a useful contribution to research that has focused exclusively on virtual learning circumstances.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has plagued the world for over three years since discovering the causative virus, SARS-CoV-2, in China. The rampant spread of the virus led to the loss of livelihoods of millions across the globe. This public health emergency prompted the rapid development of vaccines and treatments to fight against viral infection. Vaccines against the viral infection started rolling out in late 2020, and the distribution of the vaccines worldwide managed to reduce the symptoms of COVID-19 and prevent outbreaks in local communities. However, COVID-19 infections are still prevalent, with patients suffering from severe symptoms which require oxygen support or mechanical ventilation. Thus, therapeutic agents for COVID-19 play a significant role in reducing the risk of disease progression into severe disease and improving hospitalized patients' clinical outcomes. Existing drugs such as remdesivir, molnupiravir, baricitinib, anakinra, and tocilizumab have been repurposed to treat COVID-19 earlier during the pandemic to meet the urgent demand for treatment. There are also novel antiviral and immunomodulating treatments (nirmatrelvir plus ritonavir, ensitrelvir, regdanvimab, sotrovimab, and vilobelimab) that were developed during the pandemic to fight against COVID-19 infections. These therapeutic agents have been reported to be effective and safe for use to treat COVID-19 infections of different severity. Nevertheless, continuous surveillance is imperative in ensuring that these treatment methods maintain efficacy and safety profiles in treating COVID-19 caused by different variants of the virus. © 2023, HH Publisher. All rights reserved.
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COVID-19 is currently a major global public health challenge. In the battle against the outbreak of COVID-19, how to manage and share the COVID-19 Electric Medical Records (CEMRs) safely and effectively in the world, prevent malicious users from tampering with CEMRs, and protect the privacy of patients are very worthy of attention. In particular, the semi-trusted medical cloud platform has become the primary means of hospital medical data management and information services. Security and privacy issues in the medical cloud platform are more prominent and should be addressed with priority. To address these issues, on the basis of ciphertext policy attribute-based encryption, we propose a blockchain-empowered security and privacy protection scheme with traceable and direct revocation for COVID-19 medical records. In this scheme, we perform the blockchain for uniform identity authentication and all public keys, revocation lists, etc are stored on a blockchain. The system manager server is responsible for generating the system parameters and publishes the private keys for the COVID-19 medical practitioners and users. The cloud service provider (CSP) stores the CEMRs and generates the intermediate decryption parameters using policy matching. The user can calculate the decryption key if the user has private keys and intermediate decrypt parameters. Only when attributes are satisfied access policy and the user's identity is out of the revocation list, the user can get the intermediate parameters by CSP. The malicious users may track according to the tracking list and can be directly revoked. The security analysis demonstrates that the proposed scheme is indicated to be safe under the Decision Bilinear Diffie-Hellman (DBDH) assumption and can resist many attacks. The simulation experiment demonstrates that the communication and storage overhead is less than other schemes in the public-private key generation, CEMRs encryption, and decryption stages. Besides, we also verify that the proposed scheme works well in the blockchain in terms of both throughput and delay.
ABSTRACT
Wearing masks can effectively inhibit the spread and damage of COVID-19. A device-edge-cloud collaborative recognition architecture is designed in this paper, and our proposed device-edge-cloud collaborative recognition acceleration method can make full use of the geographically widespread computing resources of devices, edge servers, and cloud clusters. First, we establish a hierarchical collaborative occluded face recognition model, including a lightweight occluded face detection module and a feature-enhanced elastic margin face recognition module, to achieve the accurate localization and precise recognition of occluded faces. Second, considering the responsiveness of occluded face detection services, a context-aware acceleration method is devised for collaborative occluded face recognition to minimize the service delay. Experimental results show that compared with state-of-the-art recognition models, the proposed acceleration method leveraging device-edge-cloud collaborations can effectively reduce the recognition delay by 16%while retaining the equivalent recognition accuracy. IEEE
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Antimicrobial biocompatible polymers have highly desirable materials in medical technology to prevent any healthcare-associated infections from the in-dwelling on medical device that could pose a risk to patients, and this is gaining attention particularly in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, ester free type of poly(trimethylene carbonate) (PTMC) derivatives containing cinnamyl group has been synthesized. Also, several of alcohol-based initiators;benzyl alcohol, 2,2-dimethyl-1-propanol, 4-(2-hydroxyethoxy) benzaldehyde and 2-(p-tolyloxy)ethan-1-ol and polymer structure has been designed and analyzed its molecular weight on thermal and physical properties effect. The homopolymers and copolymers of PTMC derivatives with cinnamyl group had achieved with molecular weight up to 7400 — 12,300 g/mol with the improved physical state and glass transition temperature, Tg at 8 ֩C respectively. Different types of essential oil, which is thymol and carvacrol, have been incorporated with cinnamyl PTMC had resulted the suppression of E.coli and S.aureus growth. The results showed a promising of introduction of cinnamyl derivatives into ester free-type of PTMC derivatives, as well as create more alcohol-initiators for polymerization of trimethylene carbonate, for more advanced development in the future. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.
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Initiatives for marine conservation are funded by revenue from marine sites. However, the emergence of COVID-19 has restricted travelling, thus leading to decreased revenue and weakening conservation efforts. Virtual reality technology to support marine conservation efforts is explored as it allows users to experience marine sites, without having to be there physically. This study examines factors influencing users' desire to adopt virtual reality technology in marine ecotourism. With the integration of Stimulus-Organism-Response framework and three behavioural theories (i.e. health belief model, attitude, and eTrust), a hypothetical model was constructed to investigate consumers' intention to adopt virtual reality technology in marine ecotourism amidst the pandemic. The data were analysed and interpreted using structural equation modelling after 451 survey responses were obtained via an online questionnaire. Outcome expectation, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, self-efficacy, and cues to action exhibit significant positive effects on attitude towards virtual reality technology in marine ecotourism. Consequently, attitude has a direct and indirect influence on use intention via eTrust. Post hoc analysis revealed that self-efficacy has a direct impact on eTrust and use intention. Total effect analysis further concluded that attitude has the greatest influence on use intention of virtual reality technology in marine ecotourism. This research contributes to the existing literature by utilizing health belief factors to explain use intention of technology towards marine conservation efforts. Recommendations including policy formulation and marketing initiatives were generated for marine ecotourism operators and policymakers. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd
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The Bohai Bay as a typical semi-enclosed bay in northern China with poor water exchange capacity and significant coastal urbanization, is greatly influenced by land-based inputs and human activities. As a class of pseudo-persistent organic pollutants, the spatial and temporal distribution of Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPs) is particularly important to the ecological environment, and it will be imperfect to assess the ecological risk of PPCPs for the lack of systematic investigation of their distribution in different season. 14 typical PPCPs were selected to analyze the spatial and temporal distribution in the Bohai Bay by combining online solid-phase extraction (SPE) and HPLC-MS/MS techniques in this study, and their ecological risks to aquatic organisms were assessed by risk quotients (RQs) and concentration addition (CA) model. It was found that PPCPs widely presented in the Bohai Bay with significant differences of spatial and seasonal distribution. The concentrations of ∑PPCPs were higher in autumn than in summer. The distribution of individual pollutants also showed significant seasonal differences. The high values were mainly distributed in estuaries and near-shore outfalls. Mariculture activities in the northern part of the Bohai Bay made a greater contribution to the input of PPCPs. Caffeine, florfenicol, enrofloxacin and norfloxacin were the main pollutants in the Bohai Bay, with detection frequencies exceeding 80 %. The ecological risk of PPCPs to algae was significantly higher than that to invertebrates and fish. CA model indicated that the potential mixture risk of total PPCPs was not negligible, with 34 % and 88 % of stations having mixture risk in summer and autumn, respectively. The temporary stagnation of productive life caused by Covid-19 weakened the input of PPCPs to the Bohai Bay, reducing the cumulative effects of the pollutants. This study was the first full-coverage investigation of PPCPs in the Bohai Bay for different seasons, providing an important basis for the ecological risk assessment and pollution prevention of PPCPs in the bay. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.
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Within ASEAN, Brunei is one of the low population density nations successfully combating the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. As of 4th January 2023, over 2.6 hundred thousand confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 225 deaths, had been reported in Brunei. This paper outlines the COVID-19 trends in Brunei and strategies taken by the health authorities to contain the pandemic. Three waves of COVID-19 have hit Brunei, with the first case of COVID-19 reported on 9th March 2020. The adoption of the "whole of nation approach” has proven to be effective in managing the outbreak. Early and decisive interventions taken by authorities and the public's cooperation have been a remarkable success story. The key success factors are effective pandemic containment measures, public communication strategy, and enhanced surveillance mechanisms supported by the mass testing program and contact tracing. A national vaccination strategy ensuring adequate vaccine distribution and effective administration has been rolled out to render lasting protection against the infection. National COVID-19 Recovery Plan Framework and a gradual COVID-19 de-escalation plan were implemented to ensure a smoother transition to the new normal. This review provides valuable insights into the development of a robust pandemic leadership model and highlights the lessons and strategies that other countries can adopt for any future uncertainties. © 2023, HH Publisher. All rights reserved.
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With the COVID-19 Outbreak leading to the public's the mental stress and psychological burden, many researchers pay attention to mental health problems. Interactive art combines a variety of art forms and has comprehensive advantages, which is conducive to providing new methods for art therapy. By examining related concepts and views, this paper proposes two orientations of interactive art therapy and summarizes specific forms of interactive art intervening in psychotherapy. Based on analyzing a range of cases, this study explores how interactive art can better generate healing effects in psychotherapy. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has quickly become the most significant public health phenomenon, effectively eclipsing the H1N1 and Ebola crises that came before it. It can spread rapidly and has caused the death and disability of many worldwide. Vaccines are our most effective line of defense against the rapidly spreading and mutating virion. Still, there is significant vaccine hesitancy among those with autoimmune conditions who fear the vaccine may cause them more harm than good. This scoping review explores the safety, outcomes, and effects of COVID-19 vaccines in autoimmune patients. Online databases;Pubmed, Ovid Medline, and Scopus were used to search published literature evaluating the effectiveness and side effects of COVID-19 vaccines in patients with autoimmune conditions. The search results were limited to 4 distinct autoimmune diseases (rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, psoriasis, and myasthenia gravis). Thirty-seven studies were retrieved and assessed on the safety, effects, and outcomes of COVID-19 vaccination in patients with the chosen autoimmune conditions. Overall, the risk of flares and the development of severe side effects after vaccination was low. Most autoimmune patients showed a good antibody response to vaccination, especially after the second dose. This review provides a favorable impact of vaccination in patients with autoimmune conditions. © 2022, HH Publisher. All rights reserved.
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Background and Aim: Poor bowel preparation for colonoscopy leads to aborted procedures and reduced polyp and cancer detection rates, leading to increased risk for patients, inconvenience to families, and additional resource use in a burgeoning health care system. The UK's Joint Advisory Group on GI Endoscopy suggests that units have a > 90% rate of adequate preparation for successful accreditation. To improve patient education and poor preparation rates at our institution, the Project GEO - GE Online video platform was introduced in 2019. This consists of five Vimeo-hosted short educational videos to help prepare patients and their carers for their endoscopy and colonoscopy procedures, including diet and bowel preparation. We aimed to examine key performance indicators in colonoscopy, including bowel preparation, before and after the introduction of GEO. Method(s): We performed a retrospective audit in a metropolitan teaching hospital in Queensland that performs more than 6000 colonoscopies per year. A link to GEO, a set of culturally sensitive, patient-centered videos, was sent in a letter, an email, and SMS to patients preparing for endoscopy and colonoscopy. Previously, patients were required to attend the hospital and were given printed handouts for information. This audit obtained Provation MD data for a 6-month period in 2019, before the initiation of GEO, and a 6-month period after, in 2021. Incomplete colonoscopies or those without preparation reporting were excluded from the analysis. Statistics were performed with chi2 analysis, and significance was set as a P value of < 0.05. Result(s): In the 6 months of 2019, before the GEO videos, a total of 2798 colonoscopies were performed. After colonoscopies with missing data and incomplete procedures were removed, there were 2031 colonoscopies for analysis. A total of 2277 colonoscopies were included in the post-GEO dataset. Results for bowel preparation and sessile serrated adenoma (SSA) detection rate before and after GEO are shown in Table 1. Conclusion(s): Project GEO has shown a significant reduction in poor preparation rates in a high-performing center and reduced repeat procedures, while not compromising SSA detection rate. Poor preparation often leads to abandonment of procedures, waste of health resources, and significant risk and inconvenience for patients, carers, and the system provider. Project GEO has had excellent patient feedback that it is improving patient and carer education and understanding, is improving compliance, and is convenient. This has led to a massive reduction in face-to-face outpatient visits (> 10 000). GEO is also COVID-19-friendly, culturally sensitive, and reaches our patients in distant regional and rural Queensland.
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There is an increase in mental health sequelae following COVID-19 infection, with some studies showing a higher prevalence rate of psychiatric sequelae in post-COVID-19 survivors than in the general population. This review discusses the possible causes, prevalence, and risk factors of COVID-19 associated psychological manifestations, namely anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although the exact cause is yet to be determined, it is likely multifactorial involving environmental, biological, and psychological factors due to the pandemic. Variation exists for risk factors and prevalence, but the female gender and psychiatric disorder history seem to be consistent risk factors across several studies. While conventional psychotropic medications are the common therapeutic intervention, probiotics could be a potential adjunct treatment to prevent and treat COVID-19 and its associated psychological manifestations. Their anti-inflammatory effects have been seen directly via reducing plasma concentration of proinflammatory cytokines or indirectly via the suppression within the kynurenine pathway and restoration of gut permeability. Additionally, short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) are crucial gut microbial metabolites with essential roles, including signaling along the microbiota-gut-brain (MGB) axis, maintaining blood-brain barrier’s (BBB) integrity, neuronal functions, neurotransmitters, and neurotrophic factors modulation. © 2022, HH Publisher. All rights reserved.
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[Purpose] This study analyzes the inequalities of ethnic minority children to adapt to online education. This is also a challenge to the whole education system in Vietnam before the 4th COVID-19 outbreak is considered to have a serious impact on the economy and society of Vietnam. [Methodology/Approach/Design] A case study is conducted in a cross-sectional form with 50 high school students and 10 teachers of the boarding ethnic minority school in Nam Pu district, Dien Bien province of Vietnam. Questions were conducted for students, teachers, and school administrators. [Findings] The lack of WiFi catchers such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones along with poor infrastructure are the main factors affecting the effectiveness of online learning. [Practical Implications] Equality in education is the sustainable development goal adopted by the United Nations in 2015. Geographical differences and economic conditions are factors that directly impact the effectiveness of students' online learning in the context of COVID-19 19. The Government of Vietnam should have an effective financial policy to provide connectivity for poor students, reducing the gap in access to general education services for online classes that are ethnic minorities. © 2022 Universidade de Brasilia. All rights reserved.
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South Africa is one of the countries heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As of 9 January 2022, over 3.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported, and 93 551 deaths have been recorded in the country. The South African healthcare system faced a lack of essential resources and financial burdens by outbreaks and its new variant of concern (VOC), the Omicron. The local government has done as much as possible to control the spread of the virus in the local communities by quickly implementing lockdowns and enforcing movement restrictions. An eight-stage program to combat COVID-19 and a national vaccination strategy was also developed soon to manage the Coronavirus spread in the country better. As the country struggles to secure and administer COVID-19 vaccines to its people, the Coronavirus has been rapidly mutating and causing new waves of infections within the nation. The COVID-19 experience in South Africa demonstrates the great importance of equitable access to medicine, medical equipment, and vaccines globally. Equitable access to these essential resources is critical to prevent the virus spread across borders and reduce mortality rates worldwide. © 2022, HH Publisher. All rights reserved.
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Because many viral respiratory diseases show seasonal cycles, weather conditions could affect the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Although many studies pursued this possible link early in the pandemic, their results were inconsistent. Here, we assembled 158 quantitative empirical studies examining the link between weather and COVID-19. A metaregression analysis was performed on their 4793 correlation coefficients to explain these inconsistent results. We found four principal findings. First, 80 of the 158 studies did not state the time lag between infection and reporting, rendering these studies ineffective in determining the weather-COVID-19 relationship. Second, the research outcomes depended on the statistical analysis methods employed in each study. Specifically, studies using correlation tests produced outcomes that were functions of the geographical locations of the data from the original studies, whereas studies using linear regression produced outcomes that were functions of the analyzed weather variables. Third, Asian countries had more positive associations for air temperature than other regions, possibly because the air temperature was undergoing its seasonal increase from winter to spring during the rapid outbreak of COVID-19 in these countries. Fourth, higher solar energy was associated with reduced COVID-19 spread, regardless of statistical analysis method and geographical location. These results help to interpret the inconsistent results and motivate recommendations for best practices in future research. These recommendations include calculating the effects of a time lag between the weather and COVID-19, using regression analysis models, considering nonlinear effects, increasing the time period considered in the analysis to encompass more variety of weather conditions and to increase sample size, and eliminating multicollinearity between weather variables.
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Vaccination is globally recognized as the most economical and effective tool in public health. Between December 2015 and May 2017, three vaccines against EV71 (including the EV71 human diploid cell vaccine developed by the Institute of Medical Biology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, the inactivated EV71 vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech Ltd. and the inactivated EV71 vaccine developed by Wuhan Institute of Biological Products Co. Ltd.) have been licensed by CFDA in China. As a preventive measure to control HFMD, how effective they are and what impact they have on the epidemic of HFMD are of great concern in the industry. The prevalence of HFMD in China has obvious seasonality, and the most common causative strains are EV71 and Coxsackievirus A16 (Cox A16). In order to provide a scientific basis for the prevention and control of HFMD, this paper summarizes the immune objects, immune procedures, immunogenicity, immune effect and cross immunization of the above three EV71 vaccines, and the etiological changes of mild, severe and death cases after the three vaccines have been released on the market. © 2022 The authors.
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Panic buying behaviour is inherently undesirable due to its detrimental impact on community's resources and disruptions to supply chain systems. The prevailing COVID-19 pandemic has seen a resurgence of this phenomenon across the world, leaving supermarkets in stockout situations. While panic buying is largely reasoned as a psychological reaction to an extreme event, it is also a socially relevant behaviour as our perception of a crisis can be shaped by our observations and interactions within the society. The social determinants of panic buying behaviour, particularly on how these factors heighten one's perception of scarcity, and trigger panic buying behaviour, are studied. A theoretical model is developed to explain panic buying behaviour in a social context by synthesizing various social and behavioural theories, and the inter-relationship among the latent constructs is analysed using the structural equation modelling approach. Accordingly, an online survey was administered and analysis of the data confirmed that non-coercive social influence, social norm and observational learning directly influence one's perception of scarcity. Additionally, perceived scarcity can motivate panic buying behaviour directly or indirectly through feelings of anticipated regret. This study has contributed to the limited literature on panic buying. Understanding the underlying mechanisms of panic buying will aid policymakers and businesses in developing intervention or support strategies to cope with such behaviour.
ABSTRACT
The dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 infection in COVID-19 patients are highly variable, with a subset of patients demonstrating prolonged virus shedding, which poses a significant challenge for disease management and transmission control. In this study, the long-term dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 infection were investigated using a human well-differentiated nasal epithelial cell (NEC) model of infection. NECs were observed to release SARS-CoV-2 virus onto the apical surface for up to 28 days post-infection (dpi), further corroborated by viral antigen staining. Single-cell transcriptome sequencing (sc-seq) was utilized to explore the host response from infected NECs after short-term (3-dpi) and long-term (28-dpi) infection. We identified a unique population of cells harboring high viral loads present at both 3 and 28 dpi, characterized by expression of cell stress-related genes DDIT3 and ATF3 and enriched for genes involved in tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) signaling and apoptosis. Remarkably, this sc-seq analysis revealed an antiviral gene signature within all NEC cell types even at 28 dpi. We demonstrate increased replication of basal cells, absence of widespread cell death within the epithelial monolayer, and the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to replicate despite a continuous interferon response as factors likely contributing to SARS-CoV-2 persistence. This study provides a model system for development of therapeutics aimed at improving viral clearance in immunocompromised patients and implies a crucial role for immune cells in mediating viral clearance from infected epithelia. IMPORTANCE Increasing medical attention has been drawn to the persistence of symptoms (long-COVID syndrome) or live virus shedding from subsets of COVID-19 patients weeks to months after the initial onset of symptoms. In vitro approaches to model viral or symptom persistence are needed to fully dissect the complex and likely varied mechanisms underlying these clinical observations. We show that in vitro differentiated human NECs are persistently infected with SARS-CoV-2 for up to 28 dpi. This viral replication occurred despite the presence of an antiviral gene signature across all NEC cell types even at 28 dpi. This indicates that epithelial cell intrinsic antiviral responses are insufficient for the clearance of SARS-CoV-Z implying an essential role for tissue-resident and infiltrating immune cells for eventual viral clearance from infected airway tissue in COVID-19 patients.
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Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred a concurrent outbreak of false information online. Debunking false information about a health crisis is critical as misinformation can trigger protests or panic, which necessitates a better understanding of it. This exploratory study examined the effects of debunking messages on a COVID-19-related public chat on WhatsApp in Singapore. Design/methodology/approach: To understand the effects of debunking messages about COVID-19 on WhatsApp conversations, the following was studied. The relationship between source credibility (i.e. characteristics of a communicator that affect the receiver's acceptance of the message) of different debunking message types and their effects on the length of the conversation, sentiments towards various aspects of a crisis, and the information distortions in a message thread were studied. Deep learning techniques, knowledge graphs (KG), and content analyses were used to perform aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA) of the messages and measure information distortion. Findings: Debunking messages with higher source credibility (e.g. providing evidence from authoritative sources like health authorities) help close a discussion thread earlier. Shifts in sentiments towards some aspects of the crisis highlight the value of ABSA in monitoring the effectiveness of debunking messages. Finally, debunking messages with lower source credibility (e.g. stating that the information is false without any substantiation) are likely to increase information distortion in conversation threads. Originality/value: The study supports the importance of source credibility in debunking and an ABSA approach in analysing the effect of debunking messages during a health crisis, which have practical value for public agencies during a health crisis. Studying differences in the source credibility of debunking messages on WhatsApp is a novel shift from the existing approaches. Additionally, a novel approach to measuring information distortion using KGs was used to shed insights on how debunking can reduce information distortions. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.