ABSTRACT
Job creation is paramount when considering global transitions to low-carbon, clean-energy solutions. The building sector, critical to reducing greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale, has technologies available that rely on electricity rather than fossil fuels for energy and indoor heating and cooling. Solar photovoltaic, energy storage in the form of prosumer batteries, and heat pumps represent three readily deployable solutions to reduce carbon emissions in both new and retrofitted buildings. This study investigates the creation of jobs for each solution and then for all three combined across key countries in North America, Europe, and Asia. While other studies have explored aggregated job creation within nations, regions or globally, this first-of-a-kind study employs a micro-level approach examining six individual building archetypes: residential, hospital, hotel, office, retail, and education. Using the best available data as of 2022, the first-order assessment finds that more than 2 million new jobs and more than 141 million job years can be generated in Europe and the United States alone during the transition to net zero living.
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Although various internet memes (IMs) were disseminated and popularized during the COVID-19 pandemic, the degree to which people appreciate them is unclear. In this study, people's appreciation of three kinds of typical IMs, which respectively conveyed the humorous (H-IM), encouraging (E-IM), and aggressive (A-IM) feelings towards the pandemic and the consequences it brought about, along with one objective description (OD) serving as the control condition, were compared. The results showed that the E-IMs and H-IMs were significantly more appreciated and loved than the A-IMs, thus supporting the prediction of positive psychology and humor regulation of negative emotion but failing to support the theory of psychology catharsis that emphasizes the need of making aggression to release tense and angry feelings caused by the pandemic. The results also showed that creativity played a mediating role for the positivity component in E-IMs and the humor component in H-IMs when predicting their fondness ratings. For the H-IMs, creativity could even fully mediate the impact of humor for exerting regulation effects on negative emotions evoked by the pandemic-related affairs such as home quarantine. This result revealed the creative nature of the IMs and showed that IMs are a kind of insightful cognitive restructuring that people make as a creative adaption to unfavorably changed situations caused by the pandemic.
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Background: This web-based survey is done to collect and assess data from people tested for COVID-19 with PCR in Pakistan. Methods: This 3-month study is a cross-sectional online survey, conducted by Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA), Health Research Advisory Board (HealthRAB) and National Institute of Health (NIH). Data collection was done using Google Forms. People who were tested for COVID-19 using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) were included in the study. The sample size of the study was 1,537. SPSS version 22 was used for data analysis. Results: Majority of the respondents belonged to the age group 20 - 39 years. The most common symptoms found were fever 633 (41%), cough 534 (34%), generalized body aches 432 (28%) and sore throat 392 (25%). The mean COVID-19 mental health score was 3.59 (SD: 5.808, range: 0-18). Treatment with antibiotics and painkillers had a strong correlation (p-value < 0.05) with the disease outcomes. The disease outcomes had moderate correlation (p-value < 0.05) with anti-allergy, steroids, plasma and oxygen therapy, and weak correlation (p-value < 0.05) with Antiviral and Antimalarial therapy. Out of the total respondents, 561 (36.1%) were cured from COVID-19, 14 (0.9%) were expired during/after hospitalization, 15 (1%) were still infected and 962 (62%) were not infected. Conclusion: Pakistani population has a better cure rate than some of its neighboring countries. However, further research in this area is required to draw a definite conclusion.
ABSTRACT
Yo-Yo Machines are playful communication devices designed to help people feel socially connected while physically separated. We designed them to reach as many people as possible, both to make a positive impact during the COVID-19 pandemic and to assess a self-build approach to circulating research products and the appeal of peripheral and expressive communication devices. A portfolio of four distinct designs, based on over 30 years of research, were made available for people to make by following simple online instructions (yoyomachines.io). Each involves connecting a pair of identical devices over the internet to allow simple communication at a distance. This paper describes our motivation for the project, previous work in the area, the design of the devices, supporting website and publicity, and how users have made and used Yo-Yo Machines. Finally, we reflect on what we learned about peripheral and expressive communication devices and implications for the self-build approach.
ABSTRACT
Covid-19, one of the most critical and widespread global pandemics, has resulted in extraordinary risk corollaries engulfing millions of people's lives and has caused an unprecedented economic downturn while amplifying food insecurity. A systematic review of 132 scientific communications was performed over a 15-year period, using articles from the ScienceDirect and Web of Science databases (2006-2021). In addition, 24 policy briefs, country papers, and publications from the UN, WHO, FAO, and OECD were cited. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of existing literature on the adverse effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on agricultural food systems, as well as potential strategies for building robust, resilient, and sustainable food systems to ensure global food security, safety, and endeavors regarding future global emergencies, as well as new research policies while achieving SDG targets. This would fill a research gap while also having long-term implications for health, agricultural, and food resilience policy development in a rapidly changing world. Covid-19 demonstrates how human, animal, and environmental health are all interconnected, emphasizing the need for one health legislation and a paradigm shift in planetary health. Furthermore, it identifies potential mechanisms for rebuilding better systems by shifting priorities toward policy coherence, innovative food system governance, re-engineering market access, and nexus thinking in the food system approach. According to our findings, the COVID-19 posed unavoidable impediments to achieving SDG targets for food security and household poverty.
ABSTRACT
Since its outbreak, Covid-19 has led to upsurge in economic inactivity, leaving many households and firms without access to and use of basic services including financial services. Specifically, with the lockdown and curfew, most traditional bank branches remained closed, leaving households without access to quality, affordable, convenient, and safe financial services. This study aims to establish whether contactless digital financial innovation like mobile money can promote access to and use of financial services in the presence of pandemic positive emotions in low-income countries. SmartPLS 3.0 was used to construct the structural equation mediation model with bootstrap based on 2,737 valid responses. It was found that contactless digital financial innovation such as mobile money significantly promotes access to and use of financial services in low-income countries under pandemic situation. Additionally, the findings showed that the use of contactless digital financial innovation promotes Covid-19 standard operating procedures in low-income countries. Cognizant to the role of human behaviour in technology adoption and usage, the structural equation model with bootstrapping revealed a 4 percentage points improvement in Covid-19 standard operating procedures due to the use of contactless mobile money channel. Accordingly, the findings could be useful in the following ways: governments in low-income countries may use it to promote public health concern under pandemic situations. Mobile money can allow individuals to store, send, and receive money during situation of limited or no movements caused by pandemic health restrictions. Besides, the use of contactless digital financial innovation may promote digital commerce in low-income countries under the pandemic situation. Similarly, mobile money can be used to promote government-to-person, person-to-person, person-to-business, and business-to-person payments under emergency situations. The findings may also help governments in low-income countries to rethink about taxes levied on mobile money. © 2023 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.
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The risk of indoor respiratory disease transmission can be significantly reduced through interventions that target the built environment. Several studies have successfully developed theoretical models to calculate the effects of built environment parameters on infection rates. However, current studies have mainly focused on calculating infection rate values and comparing pre- and post-optimization values, lacking a discussion of safe baseline values for infection rates with risk class classification. The purpose of this paper is to explore the design of interventions in the built environment to improve the ability of buildings to prevent virus transmission, with a university campus as an example. The study integrates the Wells-Riley model and basic reproduction number to identify teaching spaces with high infection risk on campus and proposes targeted intervention countermeasures based on the analysis of critical parameters. The results showed that teaching buildings with a grid layout pattern had a higher potential risk of infection under natural ventilation. By a diversity of building environment interventions designed, the internal airflow field of classrooms can be effectively organized, and the indoor virus concentration can be reduced. We can find that after optimizing the building mentioned above and environment intervention countermeasures, the maximum indoor virus infection probability can be reduced by 22.88%, and the basic reproduction number can be reduced by 25.98%, finally reaching a safe level of less than 1.0. In this paper, we support university campuses' respiratory disease prevention and control programs by constructing theoretical models and developing parametric platforms. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd
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Extended Kit-Build is an extension concept mapping tool that has been proven to improve student understanding. It provides an approach to broadening knowledge and enhancing meaningful learning. Several early studies have proven the positive effects of implementing the Extended Kit-Build. However, previous studies have focused on the impact of Extended Kit-Build on student achievement. There is no information regarding the suitability of the Extended Kit-Build to facilitate teaching and learning, particularly in the post-COVID-19 era. Therefore, the present study is intended to reveal the extent to which the extended kitbuild supports learning activities after the COVID-19 pandemic. Questionnaires of teachers and university students were involved in measuring their level of agreement. The results highlighted that the extended-kit-build could be applied to support post-covid-19 learning and teaching activities. © 2022 IEEE.
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Introduction: The coronavirus outbreak has been publicly and formally defined a global pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11th 2020. Some extreme but effective safety measures have been applied in order to limit the spread of the infection among the population. The price of COVID-19 restrictive measures and lockdowns has been especially heavy for individual's mental health. There is previous evidence that the COVID-19-related lockdown has impacted on mental health worsening among individuals with Feeding and Eating Disorders (EDs) and clinical obesity. Potential affecting aspects might have been restriction to daily activities and movements, excessive exposure to harmful eating patterns on social media, emotional distress, fear of contagion, and low access to treatment and care. Nevertheless, especially on the basis of the proven-detrimental impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on in- dividuals with clinical eating disorders, home confinement might analogously have had a negative impact also on the eating behaviors of individuals from the general population. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the prevalence of EDs symptoms and dysfunctional eating behaviours (i.e. emotional overeating, night eating, snacking, binge eating, undereating, food avoidance) among the general population. Method(s): We searched eligible articles in Medline, Embase, PsycInfo, Scopus, and Web of Science. Prevalence rates were pooled with meta-analysis using a random-effects model. Heterogeneity was tested using I-squared (I2) statistics. A total of 221 studies met the inclusion criteria. Result(s): The pooled prevalence of increased body weight was 33% (95% CI 30-35) among individuals in 84 studies. Forty-five percent (95% CI 31-59) of participants in 10 studies experienced body shape concern, body dissatisfaction and body misperception. Other EDs symptoms increased in the general population during the pandemic, such as overeating (41%;95% CI 33-48), food cravings (36%;95% CI 12- 59), binge eating (35%;95% CI 20-51), emotional eating (28%;95% CI 23-33) and snacking (27%;95% CI 23-32). Food restriction, excessive physical activity, weight loss and night eating were also common. Pooled data of longitudinal studies showed a significant difference in BMI and dysfunctional eating behaviours before and during the pandemic. Conclusion(s): This meta-analysis evidenced a negative impact of the pandemic on eating behaviors among the general population. Overall, these results highlight the need for further high-quality longitudinal studies that examine which specific populations experienced higher distress than others, and what are the long-term negative consequences of COVID-19.
ABSTRACT
Some diseases today have a rapid and dangerous rate of transmission. This causes doctors or medical personnel have a high risk of transmission. It caused the need for a system that can monitor the patient's condition in order to minimize the risk of contacting medical personnel. The research aims to design and build an integrated IoT-based patient monitoring system that provided information about the patient's temperature, infusion fluid level, and heart rate. This system is equipped with a database of patient conditions and can be accessed by web-based users. This system is integrated between hardware, software, and IoT system, which allows users to access data (based on their respective roles) from various places, because they can access it via the internet. The research stages are hardware and software design, design implementation, software embedded system development, IoT design, system integration, and web development that is integrated with IoT. The system has been running well and patient's information can be accessed by the user. This system is also equipped with indicators of normal and abnormal conditions, so that medical personnel can anticipate early if there are conditions that are dangerous for patients. Even though Covid cases have decreased, technology is still needed, especially to be used to monitor the condition of patients who require intensive monitoring. © 2022 IEEE.
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As Covid-19 restrictions promise to loosen and international borders begin to open, transnational students are again preparing for language education abroad. However, due to students' low reading rates (RRs), target institutions' courses' large reading demands pose potential challenges to students' success. To address this, this study explored the potential of employing an unassisted repeated reading procedure (rate build-up, RBU) to increase prospective transnational students' RRs. The study investigated the RBU procedure's potential with this population by comparing the procedure's effects on traditional degree-seeking learners' RRs in a Taiwanese university setting and those of potential transnationals targeted for studies in a similar setting. Assessing each group's pre and post-reading gains using inferential statistics, significant reading gains and large Cohen d effect sizes were found for both groups, indicating the generalizability of this procedure. It was further found that students with higher starting RRs demonstrated greater gains. Limitations and suggestions for further research are also addressed. © 2022 Aesthetics Media Services. All rights reserved.
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Massive social restrictions due to the spread of COVID-19 have increased the amount of data traffic also the number of devices connected to the network. The pandemic requires mobile operators to deploy superior communications networks to support work-from-home (WFH) activities. Tenant implementation strategies should support infrastructure development, including the deployment of telecommunications towers. In this case, P.T. XYZ offers rental services for new towers (built-to-suit) as well as rentals for existing company-owned towers (colocation). Ownership of numerous towers is balanced by a strong capital structure. Uptime factors affect the cost efficiency of a company. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the investment feasibility of built-to-suit and colocation services. The analysis will determine which BTS tower acquisitions can offer the best benefits and costs for PT.XYZ. This research case study uses cost-benefit analysis to calculate the financial (direct and indirect costs) and benefits (tangible and intangible benefits) attained by comparing built-to-suit and colocation services data collected through interviews and document reviews. The colocation service business strategy for renting customized towers is more promising. It seen from the financial cost-benefit calculation. That is a positive NPV of IDR 590,754,896 and an investment efficiency level (IRR) of 13.18%. The ROI of the period lasts 5 years and 2 months, reaching a projected ROI of 18.77%. The cost-benefit ratio of colocation is also higher at 8.4:6.3 than built-to-suit. This is because the benefits obtained are proportional to the capital costs incurred by the existing tower to implement colocation. Besides the results of financial calculations, this analysis is influenced by the results of intangible benefits where colocation services provide greater intangible benefits including customer segments, fewer resources, affordable investment prices, and accelerated potential additional income from tenants. In addition, the change in key variables needs to be controlled so that it does not decline in the future because it greatly affects the company's business to provide both investment services. Thus, this investment feasibility analysis is expected to provide a better understanding of the provision of telecommunications infrastructure. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Despite the media are often described as critical for the success of the well-being agenda, there is wide dissatisfaction with their current level of interest. However, the media coverage of well-being metrics has been unresearched and, even when studies have been conducted, these employed unrobust methodologies, were limited to newspapers and to restricted samples of metrics. This paper fills such gap, providing also for the first time an analysis of radio and TV coverage of well-being metrics. The research was undertaken using Factiva (for newspapers) and TVEyes (for radio and TV) for the years of 2017-2021 and 2018-2021, respectively. The countries analysed are Scotland and Italy, both pioneers in the measurement of well-being. Findings reveal that media coverage of well-being metrics has been extremely low overall and that this was impacted negatively by the COVID-19 pandemic, which instead impacted positively on the reporting of GDP and related queries, showing that the main concern during the pandemic was the impact that this was going to have in terms of output, rather than in terms of well-being. Most composite indices, whose creation is often thought to help obtain greater media coverage, were almost if not even fully ignored by journalists, whereas metrics that lack an overall composite index but that are overseen by independent institutions and have been institutionalised were among the ones that were reported the most.
ABSTRACT
Living environment, and especially dwellings, affect health in several ways end represent a key social determinant of health. The current COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted its relevance. Factors linked to housing and neighborhood conditions that influence health, can be grouped into broad categories: the health impacts of residential instability;those related to housing internal conditions;the health impacts of context in which dwelling is located;the housing affordability. Many answers to these requirements can be offered by co-housing and social housing and Authors describe same examples from international experiences. These problems nowadays need to be assessed with a multidisciplinary approach, because of the complexity and wideness of its components. To guarantee good health standards it is also necessary to direct political and administrative choices to improve the overall conditions of the neighborhood and of the buildings, and, to dispose of a clear and updated regulatory system, since key factor to ensure health and social justice. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
PurposeThis study aims to unlock a ritual chain mechanism that promotes socio-mental (or socio-psychological) resilience. This study draws on interaction ritual chains theory and the concept of transformative service to answer the question of how people could be inspired toward an elevated level of group solidarity, emotional energy, morality and, thus, socio-mental resilience. Design/methodology/approachThis study took a qualitative approach resting upon online reviews and observations from an augmented food festival about hot pot delicacies dedicated to medical workers fighting hard amid the early coronavirus outbreak. FindingsThe results of this study point to four primary ritual outcomes (e.g. emotional energy, group solidarity, symbols of relationships and standards of morality) along with a two-tier micro-macro socio-mental resilience sustainability paradigm. Research limitations/implicationsEmpirical findings from this study could help operators to justify their transformative initiatives as means for customers to replenish their depleted physical and mental resources. Originality/valueThis inquiry presents new nuances to interaction ritual chains. This study also extends the transformative role of hospitality services to accentuate a linkage among individuals, communities and the society.
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Many projects in Indonesia have implemented new strategies in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Many projects suffered unexpected losses during the COVID-19 pandemic, and conditions were unpredictable. This situation must be considered by all stakeholders participating in a project. Another problem in the implementation of construction is the fragmentation between project participants. Therefore, a strategy is needed in each phase of the project life cycle. In the absence of proper planning, the contractor is the party responsible for bearing the risk associated with this occurrence. Improved project performance is a shared responsibility among owners, contractors, designers, and subcontractors, all of whom need to tap into their own sources of creativity and innovation. The potential of partnering as a tool for achieving lean construction performance, it is still in its infancy as a means of enhancing project outcomes. In this study, we used qualitative methods and in-depth interviews enhanced by focus group discussions of 14 experts (owners, designers, contractors, and academics) using the Delphi method. The results illustrate the maturity of partnering in integrated project delivery (IPD);therefore, its guiding philosophy can be developed and implemented to improve the outcomes of construction projects in terms of cost, quality, schedule, health and safety, and environmental performance. The most important part of this research is related to the implementation of the 17th goal of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), i.e., partnerships to achieve the goals. This research contributes to a deepening of partnering practices that can drive performance in project implementation.
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CONTEXT This paper is concerned with the delivery of a large scale, highly practical, design-and-build engineering course through the transition to online learning during 2020 and blended learning in 2021. While the nature of face-to-face project-based learning can be very engaging, delivery faced enormous challenges with lockdowns and online requirements during 2020. The unprecedented nature of this situation, and compressed timeframes in which to adapt provided an opportunity to try a range of novel delivery methods. Some of these methods created for 'emergency teaching' can provide value even as the situation returns to normal - while we believe others should be noted as lessons learnt. PURPOSE OR GOAL In this paper, we analyse the efficacy of strategies used in transferring a large project-based course to an online environment in the short timeframe dictated by COVID19. We aim to: • Determine, where possible, the key parameters that dictated success/failure in this case. • Discuss application of these learnings to a second, semi-online delivery and evaluate their effectiveness for the future. We are particularly interested in;informal platforms for content delivery (Discord and YouTube livestreams), involving students in course design delivery and assessment, and facilitating design and build by students in an online environment. APPROACH OR METHODOLOGY/METHODS This is a case study of the Course ENGG1500 running over 2020 and 2021 as compared to pre COVID offerings. The Student Feedback on Courses is the main source of both qualitative and quantitative data. Interviews with teaching staff on their experience have also been used to best capture the relevant data. The course ran several parallel discipline specific projects - each with different levels of difficulty and utilising a range of strategies. ACTUAL OR ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES Creating less formal engagement platforms for students has been widely successful. Discord was shown to be a superior platform over Blackboard Collaborate and YouTube over Zoom. Students and staff were found to remain highly engaged and supportive when brought into the change process and this involvement of students is believed to be a major success factor. CONCLUSIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS/SUMMARY While the workload was significantly higher than in face-to-face environment, practical, design and build, project-based learning can be successfully conducted in an online environment. However, consideration must be given to the varying levels of student success. Copyright © D. Cuskelly, 2021.
ABSTRACT
Mobile learning (ML) is extremely relevant to distance teaching. Although much is known about ML usage in teacher education, less is known about crucial points in teachers' ML adoption process under constraints such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this exploratory case study was to gain insight into the ML adoption process, including its critical points, by examining teachers' emotion-related language. This study investigated the emotional response of 32 inservice teachers to Mobile Learning (ML) adoption while attending ML training during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews (10), focus groups (3), and participants' reflections (96) at five time points. The data underwent multilevel analysis (content and linguistic analyses), revealing two critical stages during the ML adoption process and indicating several factors that may affect the quality of emotional response, thereby promoting or impeding this process. The study highlights the critical sages and their related features that must be addressed to promote optimal ML adoption in teacher education in both routine and emergency conditions.
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The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic has had sharp effects in urban settings, both in terms of exposing existing inequalities but also in presenting possibilities for reconfiguring the social and spatial organisation of urban life around new ethical foundations. This has led to political exhortations to 'Build Back Better' (BBB) as a way of avoiding a return to the old 'normal' of deep and enduring structural inequalities. However, scepticism remains about the transformational potential of existing visions of BBB as an urban policy response (Rickett, 2020). It is a notion often riddled with ambiguity that has led to partial, ameliorative responses inadequate to the scale and nature of a pandemic best understood as a totalising crisis that has affected work, family life, production and reproduction (Tooze, 2021). Our provocation is to contend that combining the ethics of justice and care could provide a potentially powerful and far-reaching framework to address the weaknesses of BBB strategies to date.
ABSTRACT
Living environment, and especially dwellings, affect health in several ways end represent a key social determinant of health. The current COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted its relevance. Factors linked to housing and neighborhood conditions that influence health, can be grouped into broad categories: the health impacts of residential instability;those related to housing internal conditions;the health impacts of context in which dwelling is located;the housing affordability. Many answers to these requirements can be offered by co-housing and social housing and Authors describe same examples from international experiences. These problems nowadays need to be assessed with a multidisciplinary approach, because of the complexity and wideness of its components. To guarantee good health standards it is also necessary to direct political and administrative choices to improve the overall conditions of the neighborhood and of the buildings, and, to dispose of a clear and updated regulatory system, since key factor to ensure health and social justice. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.