Professional Development in Collaborative Online Spaces: Supporting Rural Language Teachers in a Post-Pandemic Era

In 2020, COVID-19 disrupted schooling disproportionately affecting economically disadvantaged learners, students of color, and those living in rural spaces. Nearly three years following its initial onset, the world has entered a post-pandemic era. Consequently, all teachers need continued professional support and training related to online (and emergency remote) instruction. This mixed methods study explored the experiences of K-12 language teachers (English as a Second or Other Language [ESOL] and World Language [WL]) in rural Mississippi who engaged with one another through an online professional development (OPD) workshop designed to improve their knowledge and skills related to online language pedagogy. The 50 educators in this study reported significant improvements in their knowledge base, intentions to modify their praxis, and more positive perceptions of working with distance or remote learners. Additionally, the OPD led teachers to challenge their traditional professional identities thereby recognizing their new roles as rural teacher leaders, architects, and collaborators. The findings of this study can address gaps in rural teacher professional support during disrupted contexts including both the design of quality OPD experiences as well as the affordances of discussions related to post-pandemic language teaching. © 2023 ATE and CCNY.

Nickel-Ion Activating Discarded COVID-19 Medical Surgical Masks for Forming Carbon-Nickel Composite Nanowires and Using as a High-Performance Lithium Battery Anode

With the prevalence of COVID-19, wearing medical surgical masks has become a requisite measure to protect against the invasion of the virus. Therefore, a huge amount of discarded medical surgical masks will be produced, which will become a potential hazard to pollute the environment and endanger the health of organisms without our awareness. Herein, a green and cost-effective way for the reasonable disposal of waste masks becomes necessary. In this work, we realized the transformation from waste medical surgical masks into high-quality carbon-nickel composite nanowires, which not only benefit the protection of the environment and ecosystem but also contribute to the realization of economic value. The obtained composite carbon-based materials demonstrate 70 S m-1conductivity, 5.2 nm average pore diameters, 234 m2g-1surface areas, and proper graphitization degree. As an anode material for lithium-ion batteries, the prepared carbon composite materials demonstrate a specific capacity of 420 mA h g-1after 800 cycles at a current density of 0.2 A g-1. It also displays good rate performance and decent cycling stability. Therefore, this study provides an approach to converting the discarded medical surgical masks into high-quality carbon nanowire anode materials to turn waste into treasure. © 2023 American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.

Nickel-Ion Activating Discarded COVID-19 Medical Surgical Masks for Forming Carbon-Nickel Composite Nanowires and Using as a High-Performance Lithium Battery Anode

With the prevalence of COVID-19, wearing medical surgical masks has become a requisite measure to protect against the invasion of the virus. Therefore, a huge amount of discarded medical surgical masks will be produced, which will become a potential hazard to pollute the environment and endanger the health of organisms without our awareness. Herein, a green and cost-effective way for the reasonable disposal of waste masks becomes necessary. In this work, we realized the transformation from waste medical surgical masks into high-quality carbon-nickel composite nanowires, which not only benefit the protection of the environment and ecosystem but also contribute to the realization of economic value. The obtained composite carbon-based materials demonstrate 70 S m-1 conductivity, 5.2 nm average pore diameters, 234 m2 g-1 surface areas, and proper graphitization degree. As an anode material for lithium-ion batteries, the prepared carbon composite materials demonstrate a specific capacity of 420 mA h g-1 after 800 cycles at a current density of 0.2 A g-1. It also displays good rate performance and decent cycling stability. Therefore, this study provides an approach to converting the discarded medical surgical masks into high-quality carbon nanowire anode materials to turn waste into treasure.

The levels of Physical Activity, Mental Health, and Sedentary Behaviour of Health Science students in UTAR during COVID-19 pandemic

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic forcing the students to stay at home to curb the spread of the coronavirus, which inevitably affects their mental and physical health. Thus, the evaluation of mental health (MH), physical activity (PA) and Sedentary Behaviour (SB) of Health Science students during COVID-19 is a need. Objective: To evaluate the physical activity level, mental health and sedentary behaviour of Health Science students in UTAR during COVID-19 and find the correlation among them. Method: 258 health science students were participated in this study via social media, like Facebook and WhatsApp, The Depression, anxiety, stress scale-21 (DASS-21) was used to assess mental health and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) was used to assess physical activity levels and sedentary behaviour. Result: There were 34.89%, 55.04% and 25.58% of Health Science students were suffering moderate to extremely severe level of depression, anxiety and stress, respectively. Females had a higher prevalence in anxiety (F:55.49%, M: 53.95%) and stress (F:26.37%, M:23.69%), while depression more prevalent in males (M:42.81%, F: 31.87%). The Chinese Medicine students had the poorest mental health and this followed by Physiotherapy, M.B.B.S and Nursing students. Besides, the prevalence of physical inactivity was 48.99%, which a higher prevalence in females (51.43%) than males (43.10%). Besides, 39.53% of Chinese Medicine Students, 62% of M.B.B.S students, 55.56% of Nursing students and 44.83% of Physiotherapy students were categorized as physical inactivity. The prevalence of sedentary behaviour was 48.10% in Health Science students. Besides, no significant correlation found between physical activity and mental health, and sedentary behaviour and mental health. A weak negative correlation was found between physical activity and sedentary behaviour. Conclusion: The prevalence of Depression, Anxiety, Stress, Physical Inactivity and Sedentary Behaviour during the pandemic was very alarming. From government to institution, adequate and regular surveillance, policy monitoring and further research should be taken.

Service design touch point failure model and effect analysis based on the triangular fuzzy number evaluation method

How to improve employees' satisfaction in the remote office mode while working together has become a challenge for enterprises to deal with the new office management mode. The concept of service design touch point is introduced into the remote office management system to improve employees' office experience and help enterprises complete the remote office service design. From the perspective of virtuous circle, the cost of failure analysis and preventive measures for service design touch point in the process of service design is lower than that of dealing with failure after service failure. Therefore, this paper made a risk assessment on the failure mode of service design touch point loss analysis method based on the triangular fuzzy number evaluation method. In the failure risk assessment, the fuzzy failure mode and effect analysis theory and the failure mode of service design touch point are analyzed first, and the expert scoring method is used to evaluate and determine the fuzzy level of severity, occurrence and detection of each failure mode;Then, aiming at the ability difference of different experts in evaluating different objects, the expert importance matrix, which is based on attribute difference, is determined;On this basis, the risk priority value of each failure mode is analyzed and determined by fuzzy calculation method. The risk evaluation ranking results of touch point failure modes are obtained according to the risk priority value. Finally, taking the failure analysis of Y company's remote collaborative office service as an example, the feasibility of the method is verified by the case of protection during COVID-19.

Cross-sectional Study of Target Admission General Practitioners' Participation in Combating COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: Primary healthcare workers have played an important role in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. Beginning in 2010, China initiated a national policy of implementing the rural-oriented tuition-free medical education(RTME) program, aiming to train general practitioners(GPs) with a medical undergraduate degree to work in rural areas to address the shortage of rural physicians. Since 2015, many graduates with RTME returned to the contracted rural hospital to fulfill a 3-year obliged health services, and their performance in combating COVID-19 epidemic is worth to be concerned about. Objective: To compare the participation and role of target admission GPs and other graduates trained with a five-year undergraduate degree program for clinical medical students in combating COVID-19 pandemic, and to analyze the duties and challenges for target admission GPs during the anti-pandemic period, then based on this, to put forward policy recommendations for incentivizing target admission GPs. Methods The data were sourced from the Target Admission Medical Students Cohort Study Program. We conducted a follow-up survey among 1 631 target admission GPs and 1 009 other clinical medical graduates graduating from 4 medical colleges in central and western China using an online questionnaire in September 2020. Basic demographics, job information and work status during the COVID-19 pandemic were collected. Results Among those who were employed in the study period, target admission GPs had a higher rate of participating in combating COVID-19 pandemic than other clinical medical graduates〔70.18%(1 113/1 586)vs 51.58%(293/568), P<0.05〕. Among target admission GPs, men had a higher rate of being involved in combating COVID-19 pandemic than women(P<0.05);those admitted in 2015 and 2016 had a higher rate of being involved in combating COVID-19 pandemic than those admitted during 2017 to 2019(P<0.05);and those who were married had a higher rate of being involved in combating COVID-19 pandemic than those who were unmarried/divorced/other marital status(P<0.05). The top 3 types of work which most target admission GPs participated were "health promotion and education"〔88.59%(986/1 113)〕, "community epidemic prevention and management"〔85.62%(953/1 113)〕, and "SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid testing and screening"〔67.30%(749/1 113)〕. The top three challenges most target admission GPs faced in combating COVID-19 pandemic were "lack of personal protective equipment"〔77.72% (865/1 113)〕, "too much workload and/or pressure"〔41.87%(466/1 113)〕, and "worrying about themselves and their family being infected"〔37.56%(418/1 113)〕. The prevalence of target admission GPs who reported that there was an increase in daily clinical work was 57.50%(640/1 113). And that of target admission GPs who reported that there was an increase in daily public health services was 62.26%(693/1 113). Conclusion: Target admission GPs have implemented multiple key services regarding COVID-19 containment, indicating that they have played a role in the national COVID-19 containment that cannot be ignored. However, they faced difficulties such as insufficient personal protective equipment and excessive work pressure. Measures need to be taken to improve the infrastructures in rural areas, and to provide more protection and support for primary healthcare workers. Copyright © 2021 by the Chinese General Practice.

Progress in research on the detection of the novel coronavirus in human samples of different groups.

OBJECTIVE: Among the illnesses that may develop from COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), is pneumonia, a severe acute respiratory infectious disease. SARS-CoV-2 continues to spread worldwide and has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths thus far and has disrupted the world economy. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This review summarized the reported distributions of SARS-CoV-2 in 13 biological samples of the human body, including nose, feces, sperm, tears, breast milk, cerebrospinal fluid, urine, organs, sputum, cell lines, bronchial brush, blood, throat, and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. Moreover, this review briefly describes the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in human body samples of five other coronaviruses. CONCLUSIONS: This review offers several recommendations for controlling the spread of SARS-CoV-2 control, specifically, sample collection from suspected cases from foreign countries and risk assessment of imported special goods (biological materials).