Effects of Restorative Environment and Presence on Anxiety and Depression Based on Interactive Virtual Reality Scenarios.

Anxiety and depression have been growing global mental health problems. The following studies explored the effect of interactive VR scenarios to find a low-cost and high-efficiency solution. Study 1 designed a 2 (anxiety and depression state) × 4 (interactive VR scenarios) experiment, the results of 20 participants showed that the designed scenarios had good restoration and presence, assisting to improve depression mood for people with mild to moderate anxiety and depression. Study 2 further investigated the intervention effects of two environment types (urban and park) and four interactive activities (automatic viewing, free-roaming, fishing, and watering plants in the park environment), based on data from a 10-minute experiment conducted by 195 participants with mild to moderate anxiety and depression. The subjective scales, EEG and EMG, and scenario experience were analyzed and the results showed that: (1) the restorative and present VR scenarios were beneficial in alleviating state anxiety and depression; (2) the restorative environment and presence were significantly and positively related to the reduction of anxiety and depression respectively, moreover, presence mediated the restorative environment on the recovery from anxiety and depression; (3) the environmental settings, the complexity of interaction, human factors, and maturity of VR devices and technology were also key factors that influenced the effects of interactive VR scenario experience and intervention. These studies revealed VR psychological intervention scenarios could be designed with comprehensive factors. Moreover, they might help pave the way for future study in exploring the physiology and psychology mode in virtual and real spaces, enhancing intervention effectiveness.

Korean Domestic Tourists' Decision-Making Process under Threat of COVID-19.

The purpose of this study is to build a theoretical framework to explain Korean domestic tourists' decision-making process under COVID-19 by applying an extended model of goal-directed behavior. The role of positive expectation of COVID-19, the effect of mass media, and perception of government policy were considered as new variables in the process of tourism decision-making. The results of this present study show that positive and negative anticipated emotion, positive expectation, and the frequency of past behavior positively influence the desire for travel domestically within the next three months, while the effect of mass media negatively affected the desire for travel domestically within the next three months. Two anticipated emotions and positive expectations were positive antecedents of the desire for travel domestically within this year. The anticipated emotions and the effect of mass media affected the desire to travel domestically next year. The results of this tourist's decision-making research will offer government, the tourism sector, and policy decision-makers better insights for establishing tourism policy responses and create safe destinations to help an adequate recovery and development of the tourism industry.

The COVID-19 research landscape: Measuring topics and collaborations using scientific literature.

OBJECTIVES: The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused heavy burdens and brought tremendous challenges to global public health. This study aimed to investigate collaboration relationships, research topics, and research trends on COVID-19 using scientific literature. METHOD: COVID-19-related articles published from January 1 to July 1, 2020 were retrieved from PubMed database. A total of 27,370 articles were included. Excel 2010, Medical Text Indexer (MTI), VOSviewer, and D3.js were used to summarize bibliometric features. RESULTS: The number of the COVID-19 research publications has been continuously increasing after its break. United States was the most productive and active country for COVID-19 research, with the largest number of publications and collaboration relationships. Huazhong University of Science and Technology from China was the most productive institute on the number of publications, and University of Toronto from Canada ranked as Top 1 institute for global research collaboration. Four key research topics were identified, of which the topic of epidemiology and public health interventions has gathered highest attentions. Topic of virus infection and immunity has been more focused during the early stage of COVID-19 outbreak compared with later stage. The topic popularity of clinical symptoms and diagnosis has been steady. CONCLUSIONS: Our topic analysis results revealed that the study of drug treatment was insufficient. To achieve critical breakthroughs of this research area, more interdisciplinary, multi-institutional, and global research collaborations are needed.

The impact of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus on inbound tourism in South Korea toward sustainable tourism

Despite the declaration of the end of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS) outbreak in December 2015 in South Korea that the epidemic lasted for 2 months, the depressed domestic economy and tourism sector did not immediately restore. Thus, it is important to explore how much of an impact the disease had and how long the damage lasted. Using quantitative time-series models, the present study explored the influence of MERS on inbound tourism in South Korea and estimates the concrete impact of MERS on the market in 2015. Monthly international tourist arrival data were provided by the Korea Tourism Organization from January 2009 to December 2015. The results showed that the contagious disease was statistically and negatively significant for inbound tourists visiting South Korea. During the time of MERS, from June 2015 to September 2015, the total effect was estimated to be −1,968,765 tourists with a loss of 3.1 billion USD in receipts. This study can not only better estimate the impact on tourism number of inbound tourist arrivals, but also supports policy-makers in their attempts to establish proper policies to assure tourists of their safety in such crises.