Three Organizational Perspectives on the Adoption of Telework

Over the past 20-30 years, many public sector organizations have adopted organizational forms that include multi-located organizational units, in which leaders and part of their subordinates work in different geographical locations. The COVID-19 lockdowns have caused a similar trend with an increased use of home offices. Consequently, many leaders today have people working from different geographical locations, and virtual leadership (distant leadership) has become the possible normal practice. The situation before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic can be understood from multiple theoretical perspectives within organizational research: the technological, the performance gap and the institutional perspective. The purpose of this chapter is to present, illustrate and discuss these three organizational perspectives on the adoption of-and changes related to-telework and virtual leadership. The illustrations of these perspectives are conducted to the old normal and the lockdown period, while the discussion is in relation to possible "new normal practices.” The illustrations are drawn from Norwegian public organizations, and the perspectives build on classic and new contributions within organizational research. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.

COVID-19 Pandemic, Climate Change, and Conflicts on Agriculture: A Trio of Challenges to Global Food Security

Global food security is a worldwide concern. Food insecurity is a significant threat to poverty and hunger eradication goals. Agriculture is one of the focal points in the global policy agenda. Increases in agricultural productivity through the incorporation of technological advances or expansion of cultivable land areas have been pushed forward. However, production growth has slowed in many parts of the world due to various endemic challenges, such as decreased investment in agricultural research, lack of infrastructure in rural areas, and increasing water scarcity. Climate change adversities in agriculture and food security are increasing. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected global food supply chains. Economic and social instability from the pandemic contribute to long-term disturbances. Additionally, conflicts such as war directly affect agriculture by environmental degradation, violence, and breaches of national and international trade agreements. A combination of food security and climate change challenges along with increased conflicts among nations and post-COVID-19 social and economic issues bring bigger and more serious threats to agriculture. This necessitates the strategic design of policies through multifaceted fields regarding food systems. In this comprehensive review, we explore how these three challenging factors, COVID-19, climate change, and conflicts, are interrelated, and how they affect food security. We discuss the impact of these issues on the agricultural sector, plus possible ways of preventing or overcoming such adverse effects.

The philosophy of the human person curriculum in the Philippines: Basis for COVID-19 Model of Curriculum Revision

Identifying gaps and overlaps in the Introduction of Philosophy of the Human Person (IPHP) curriculum in the Philippines is a great concern that makes it relevant. This ascertains its scopes based on sufficiency in terms of themes, goals, and aims;principles and criteria used for content selection;and proposing a COVID-19 Model for future revision. Using content analysis, it utilized pre-determined codes on the themes, goals, and aims of social studies;and the principles and criteria for content selection. Four clusters of themes were sufficiently integrated with the IPHP curriculum in a spiral progression;three other clusters showed gaps with no integration. The 10 social studies goals were sufficiently integrated that remains consistent in a semester with a decrease in distribution due to is spiraling complexities of contents. Six aims were sufficiently integrated with no existing gap with a negligible overlap in personal development. The principles of the curriculum were sufficiently used as well. As the semester progresses, the utilization of these principles decreases toward the second quarter, which needs attention for a future revision, using a COVID-19 Model. These results have a practical impact on curriculum makers to see the nitty-gritty in crafting or revising a curriculum to ensure the balance of content integration, realignment of concepts and skills, and continuity. These results also promote social impact in understanding our humanity as juxtaposed in the IPHP taught in the senior high school curriculum in the Philippines.

Diabetes and tuberculosis syndemic in India: A narrative review of facts, gaps in care and challenges.

Both diabetes mellitus (DM) and tuberculosis (TB) are prevalent all across in India. TB-DM comorbidity has emerged as a syndemic and needs more attention in India considering gaps in screening, clinical care, and research. This paper is intended to review published literature on TB and DM in India to understand the burden of the dual epidemic and its trajectory and to obtain perspectives on the gaps, constraints, and challenges in care and treatment of this dual epidemic. A literature search was carried out on PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar, using the key words 'Tuberculosis' OR 'TB' AND 'Diabetes' OR 'Diabetes Mellitus' AND 'India', focusing on the research published between the year 2000 to 2022. The prevalence of DM is high in patients with TB. Quantitative data on the epidemiological situation of TB/DM in India such as incidence, prevalence, mortality, and management are lacking. During the last 2 years convergence of TB-DM syndemic with the COVID-19 pandemic has increased cases with uncontrolled DM but also made coordinated control of TB-DM operationally difficult and of low effectiveness. Research regarding TB-DM comorbidity is required in the context of epidemiology and management. Detection and bidirectional screening are aggressively warranted. Management of DM in those with TB-DM comorbidity needs more efforts, including training and supervision of frontline workers.

Research priorities for therapeutic plasma exchange in critically ill patients.

Therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) is a therapeutic intervention that separates plasma from blood cells to remove pathological factors or to replenish deficient factors. The use of TPE is increasing over the last decades. However, despite a good theoretical rationale and biological plausibility for TPE as a therapy for numerous diseases or syndromes associated with critical illness, TPE in the intensive care unit (ICU) setting has not been studied extensively. A group of eighteen experts around the globe from different clinical backgrounds used a modified Delphi method to phrase key research questions related to "TPE in the critically ill patient". These questions focused on: (1) the pathophysiological role of the removal and replacement process, (2) optimal timing of treatment, (3) dosing and treatment regimes, (4) risk-benefit assumptions and (5) novel indications in need of exploration. For all five topics, the current understanding as well as gaps in knowledge and future directions were assessed. The content should stimulate future research in the field and novel clinical applications.

Narrowing awarding gaps: the contributory role of policy and assessment type

Awarding gaps between various groups of students persist across the Higher Education sector, yet the responses designed to address the contributors remain localised. The sudden spread of COVID-19 led to various responses across the University sector creating an unprecedented natural experiment and offering the opportunity to compare outcomes from these measures with prior cohorts. This study seeks to investigate the effects of two COVID-19 interventions on students' performance in the Business and Management discipline at a UK university. The specific COVID-19 measures considered here are the move to online assessments and the new grade policy to ensure the pandemic did not affect students' outcomes adversely. We use a Kernel Propensity Score and a Quantile Difference in Differences models to estimate the treatment effect of the two COVID interventions on the treated group, namely term two students' performances of the academic year 2019/20. Our results indicate that the effects of both COVID interventions supported the outcomes of international students, thereby narrowing the awarding gap. Findings suggest firstly that institutional policies adopted in crises should seek to address potential adverse effects on student outcomes for the period of disruption, indicating that significant care should be taken in their drafting. The policy, in this case, was found to have achieved its aim. Secondly, the move to new modes of assessment combined with detailed briefings from faculty may have served to uncover aspects of the hidden curriculum for this group, contributing to a narrowing of awarding gaps between different groups of students.

The digital skills divide: evidence from the European tourism industry

PurposeThis paper aims to present the findings from a European study on the digital skills gaps in tourism and hospitality companies.Design/methodology/approachMixed methods research was adopted. The sample includes 1,668 respondents (1,404 survey respondents and 264 interviewees) in 5 tourism sectors (accommodation establishments, tour operators and travel agents, food and beverage, visitor attractions and destination management organisations) in 8 European countries (UK, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Hungary, Germany, the Netherlands and Bulgaria).FindingsThe most important future digital skills include online marketing and communication skills, social media skills, MS Office skills, operating systems use skills and skills to monitor online reviews. The largest gaps between the current and the future skill levels were identified for artificial intelligence and robotics skills and augmented reality and virtual reality skills, but these skills, together with computer programming skills, were considered also as the least important digital skills. Three clusters were identified on the basis of their reported gaps between the current level and the future needs of digital skills. The country of registration, sector and size shape respondents' answers regarding the current and future skills levels and the skills gap between them.Originality/valueThe paper discusses the digital skills gap of tourism and hospitality employees and identifies the most important digital skills they would need in the future.

Modelling output gaps in the Euro Area with structural breaks: The COVID-19 recession

This paper proposes a novel unobserved component model with a COVID-19 structural break in the trend growth rate to model output gaps. Using historical real GDP data for the Euro Area between 1995Q1 and 2022Q1, we test our framework against a battery of competing models, including a standard unobserved components model, a correlated model with a second-order Markov process, a Hodrick–Prescott filter and an augmented version of it. To examine the impact on the fitting performance, we test the inclusion and exclusion of pandemic quarters and we also extend the estimation to a country-level detail. We find that: (i) our suggested model outperforms the competing ones;(ii) when excluding pandemic quarters, the standard unobserved component model outperforms their counterparts;(iii) our model yields the best fitting performance for most of the Euro Area countries and (iv) the Hodrick–Prescott filter model has the poorest fitting performance.

COVID-19 Vaccination and Gaps in India.

INTRODUCTION: The important variables that influence how many people are vaccinated against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in India include vaccine skepticism, socioeconomic status, and multi-dimensional deprivation. Our preliminary research suggests that uncertainty about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine has a large and detrimental effect on immunization rates. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The Crucial Subsets Survey (CSS) is performed daily on Facebook to recruit participants for cross-section surveys by academic institutions, the Delphi Research Center, and the University of Maryland's Joint Program in Survey Methodology. Facebook will notify a portion of its daily users to take a vote. CSS adds behavior, attitude toward policy and preventive measures, economic consequences, and critical indicators to official reporting data. RESULTS: It has been estimated that a 30% drop in vaccination coverage may be attributed to a 1% rise in vaccine skepticism. Similarly, higher rates of multidimensional poverty are associated with lower rates of COVID-19 vaccine coverage. When the multidimensional poverty index (MPI), or the percentage of persons living in extreme poverty, rises by one unit, immunization rates fall by around half. It suggests that higher rates of socioeconomic hardship have unfavorable effects on health outcomes like vaccination rates. We also showed that gender is a major factor in influencing how internet availability affects vaccination rates and hesitation. We discovered that male vaccination rates went up in tandem with male internet use. This might be because of the digital divide and India's reliance on digital technologies like the COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network (COWIN), AAROGYA SETU, and Imphal, India, to assign and register for COVID-19 vaccinations, while males have greater digital excess than females. While male internet access is significantly and positively correlated with coverage, female internet access is significantly and negatively correlated with coverage. Women are less likely to seek medical care and have more vaccination reluctance than men, both of which contribute to this trend. CONCLUSION: The government's strategy for disseminating information about the COVID-19 vaccination should prioritize reaching out to women. In order to recruit more women to vaccination clinics, it is important to raise public awareness about the need for immunization among women via the media and community outreach.

Improving Practice for Urinary Continence Care on Adult Acute Medical and Rehabilitation Wards: A Multi-Site, Co-Created Implementation Study.

Many adult inpatients experience urinary continence issues; however, we lack evidence on effective interventions for inpatient continence care. We conducted a before and after implementation study. We implemented our guideline-based intervention using strategies targeting identified barriers and evaluated the impact on urinary continence care provided by inpatient clinicians. Fifteen wards (acute = 3, rehabilitation = 7, acute and rehabilitation = 5) at 12 hospitals (metropolitan = 4, regional = 8) participated. We screened 2298 consecutive adult medical records for evidence of urinary continence symptoms over three 3-month periods: before implementation (T0: n = 849), after the 6-month implementation period (T1: n = 740), and after a 6-month maintenance period (T2: n = 709). The records of symptomatic inpatients were audited for continence assessment, diagnosis, and management plans. All wards contributed data at T0, and 11/15 wards contributed at T1 and T2 (dropouts due to COVID-19). Approximately 26% of stroke, 33% acute medical, and 50% of rehabilitation inpatients were symptomatic. The proportions of symptomatic patients (T0: n = 283, T1: n = 241, T2: n = 256) receiving recommended care were: assessment T0 = 38%, T1 = 63%, T2 = 68%; diagnosis T0 = 30%, T1 = 70%, T2 = 71%; management plan T0 = 7%, T1 = 24%, T2 = 24%. Overall, there were 4-fold increased odds for receiving assessments and management plans and 6-fold greater odds for diagnosis. These improvements were sustained at T2. This intervention has improved inpatient continence care.

Between Isolation and Digital gaps: Systematization of an Experience of Socio-emotional support in Elderly People of Temuco, Chile, in Times of COVID-19

This article on systematization of experience shows the work carried out within the socio-emotional accompaniment project developed during 2020 in the context of COVID-19, in which elderly people were mainly affected. It shows how isolation and digital gaps play a fundamental role in people's physical and mental health.One of the main questions is: How did isolation and digital gaps affect the mental health of elderly people in times of pandemic? To answer this question, a quantitative research was carried out through techniques such as interviews, surveys, written records, workshops, article review and seminars.The results are reflected by means of telephone calls made by a group of students in practice to the elderly people who participated in the project, and which revealed the negative effects that isolation produced in their daily lives and the difficulties encountered by them because they do not know how to handle digital media to be able to communicate with family and friends.

Higher inequality in Latin America: a collateral effect of the pandemic

This study explores the evolution of inequality in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic by using primary data from household and employment surveys collected in 2020. First, we discuss the trends in inequality in the region from 1992 to 2020. Next, we estimate regression models to examine how the changes in demographics and education levels might be correlated with changes in income distribution. Finally, we use a panel regression model with fixed effects for 16 countries in the region to identify how the socioeconomic context might help explain the changes in income inequality. The empirical findings suggest that inequality increased by a statistically significant 2% between 2019 and 2020. We obtained significantly heterogeneous results when disaggregating by gender, urban/rural location, and sector of economic activity. Remittances had a modest effect, while government transfers helped to prevent more significant disparities in half the countries studied. Our estimations show that the decline in employment levels–due to the economic contraction caused by COVID-19— is associated with increases in income inequality that might gradually diminish with the recovery. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Hospital Resource Management -A Survey

Healthcare is a limited resource that is constantly in high demand because everyone requires it. When demand exceeds supply, resources become relatively scarce, making the overall resource allocation in healthcare even more difficult, as we have seen at the time of COVID-19. Effective resource allocation faces obstacles such as a lack of trained human resources, inefficient resource use, a lack of focus on improvement, and inefficient resource reallocation. This paper will outline a study of the numerous approaches to resource allocation in healthcare, outlining the methods employed, the outcomes, and benefits and drawbacks of each approach. In order to address any kind of emergency situation that may arise in the future, it was our goal to pinpoint the research gap between the work that had already been done and the solution to this problem through the survey analysis. In order to boost hospital resource management, the paper identifies a variety of potential solutions which can be categorized further into subcategories which can be seen through different perspectives and a range of approaches that can be implemented during COVID-19 or in any other emergency condition. © 2023 IEEE.

Understanding the present-Values for shifts in work modes

Epidemics and pandemics tend to jolt people out of their ordinary living to a special state of crisis and suffering. The COVID-19 pandemic has not proven different, and this chapter and indeed the whole volume is a call to reflect on an ongoing state of volatility, uncertainty, complexities and ambiguity (VUCA). Where it is difficult to project an end to a pandemic as occurs presently, VUCA is even more significant, and the outcomes of these reflections can only augur well for present and future confrontations of a crisis. In this chapter, we have described our premises for understanding work values in a normative sense. Understanding the principles behind the stability and sustainability of these values will serve as a guide for the responsible management of changing workforce dynamics. While respecting the personal choices involved in work values, we outline some social and organisational factors that influence said dynamics. Ethical principles play a key role in the attendant changes in the workforce ranging from rapid digitisation to remote working, to flexible work hours, and changing workspaces. New problems have arisen relating to the rising costs of working virtually, unequal opportunities in different economies, genders, and fields, and the rapid changes that are still ongoing. Some issues we have tackled include the challenge with employer-employee trust when supervision and workspaces are rapidly shifting, and the responsibility for well-ness and flourishing when the lines between work and the rest of life become blurred. We have recommended some attitudes that will promote integrity in all the stakeholders of a given workforce so that there is effective collaboration and individual growth. © 2022 Kemi Ogunyemi and Adaora I. Onaga. All rights reserved.

Assessing Trust in Online Collaboration in E-government during the COVID-19 pandemic: An Employee Perspective

Due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, firms and institutions have to shift to work from home to prevent the spreading of the pandemic. As a public sector, employees in government institutions also collaborate online during the lockdown. Collaboration online has been identified as a challenge for employees. While our understanding of how employees' perception and trust of the e-government is still limited. To address this research gap, this study intends to investigate the antecedents of employees' trust in e-government during their work process in the new normal. By conducting a qualitative study with 14 in-depth interviews with employees with e-government experience during the COVID-19 pandemic, we extracted several key antecedents of employees' trust in e-government. Based on the qualitative data analysis, a theoretical model of trust antecedents was proposed. Our study provides a deep understanding of the specific antecedents of employees' trust in the e-government context. © 2022 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.

Exploiting Seams and Gaps in the Central Asia and South Asia Region: A Framework for Analysis

This chapter analyzes the implications of the maritime strategic environment for the Central Asia and South Asia (CASA) region and considers the strategic vulnerabilities-seams and gaps-in the region. The six seams and gaps discussed are environmental, geographic, political, diplomatic, institutional, and cognitive. The argument in this chapter starts with a cognitive seam: focusing on the maritime rather than solely continental perspectives, changing maps to place India at the center of the strategic dialogue, and changing perspectives to consider the opportunities for the U.S. as a challenger to networks of trade and interests that Russia, China, and other states have already built in the region. By inverting the conventional analytical framework with the U.S. as the hegemon, and thus viewing the U.S. and its allies as part of a disruptive capability, the Seams and Gaps framework also provides new policy options for challenging Russian, Chinese, and other competing narratives in the region. Moreover, by linking the CASA to the Greater Indian Ocean region and considering China's opportunities and risks from its Belt and Road Initiative, the chapter also highlights opportunities for the U.S. and its allies to change narratives and build a robust multi-polar strategy to support U.S. interests in the region and beyond. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Clinical effectiveness of medical ozone therapy in COVID-19: the evidence and gaps map.

Ozone therapy (OT), a medical procedure, has been showing good results during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). We aimed to build an evidence and gaps map (EGM) of OT in the COVID-19 ranking the articles found according to levels of evidence and outcomes. The EGM brings bubbles of different sizes and different colors according to the articles. The OT intervention used was major or minor autohemotherapy, rectal insufflation and ozonized saline solution. EGM was based on 13 clinical studies using OT for COVID-19 involving a total of 271 patients. We found 30 outcomes related to OT in COVID-19. Our EGM divided the outcomes into six groups: 1-clinical improvement; 2-hospitalization; 3-inflammatory, thromboembolic, infectious, or metabolic markers; 4-radiological aspects, 5-viral infection and 6-adverse events. Major autohemotherapy was present in 19 outcomes, followed by rectal insufflation. Improvement in clinical symptoms of COVID-19, improvement of respiratory function, improvement of oxygen saturation, reduction in hospital internment, decrease in C-reactive protein, decrease in ferritin, decrease in lactate dehydrogenase, decrease in interleukin 6, decrease in D-dimer, radiological improvement of lung lesions and absence of reported adverse events were related in the papers. The most commonly used concentrations of OT in major autohemotherapy and in rectal insufflation were 40 µg/mL and 35 µg/mL, respectively. Here, we bring the first EGM showing the efficacy and safety of OT in the treatment of COVID-19. OT can be used as integrative medical therapy in COVID-19 at a low cost and improve the health conditions of the patients.

THE EXPERIENCES OF STUDENTS TRANSITIONING BACK TO IN-PERSON LEARNING POST-COVID-19

This paper reports on a preliminary study that was carried out to understand the experiences of engineering students transitioning to on-campus learning following the Covid-19 pandemic. Two cohorts were considered: year 1 students joining the university for the first time after having experienced considerable disruption for the final two years of their schooling and year 2 students who experienced their first year at university almost entirely online. Data was gathered from student surveys which found that the greatest areas of difficulty for students were the academic level of the programme and the workload. A limited comparison was drawn between this finding and some pre-pandemic data which suggests that the difficulty that students had in this area was higher than for students before the pandemic, indicating that two years of disrupted education may have had a negative impact on students' preparedness for higher education. Qualitative open-ended responses by students showed that there was a clear preference for face-to-face teaching, but that students see clear benefits to online resources and lecture recordings, and value having some flexibility in how they learn. Some reduction in student performance was noted. © 2022 SEFI 2022 - 50th Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education, Proceedings. All rights reserved.

Countering or Reinforcing (Gendered) Inequalities? Ramifications of the Covid‐19 Pandemic in and Through Media

The Covid‐19 pandemic reveals and exacerbates inequalities in various ways. Gender inequalities—intertwined with inter-sectional differences along class, ethnicity, or origin—are highly visible. Legacy and social media around the world cover and perform these issues as much as they conceal them. On the one hand, they have the ability to give those affected a voice and to intervene in public discourse. On the other hand, they reproduce stereotypes and imbalances and rely on gendered (infra)structures. This thematic issue explores the entanglement between empowering and restricting forms of media discourse and media practices. Ten contributions from different world regions, which analyze various media, and involve diverse methodological approaches, make visible reproductions of established power structures as well as new visibilities and counter‐practices of marginalized groups. In sum, they generate a complex body of knowledge about global and local inequalities and the ramifications of the pandemic in and through media. © 2023 by the author(s);licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal).

INCOMES, GAPS AND WELL-BEING: AN EXPLORATION OF DIRECT TAX INCOME STATEMENTS BEFORE AND DURING COVID-19 THROUGH THE COMPARABILITY INTERVAL

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to see if total direct taxes (TDT) affect the growth of the country's income and well-being or stagnation and gaps based on the variables raised: Corporate Income Tax (CIT), Personal Income Tax (TAP), Property Taxes (PT), Other Direct Taxes (ODT), as well as to explore which variables had a greater impact on income growth, welfare or gaps before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Theoretical framework: First, this research brought a new approach to explore the income statement through total direct taxes before and during the Covid-19 pandemic, then analyzed which variables there were increases in income, gaps, or welfare. Finally, an overview is given on how to promote and continuously increase state revenues and reduce gaps through TDTs. Design/methodology/approach: The data were collected at the local and central levels in the state of Kosovo based on the audited financial and economic reports for the period (2014-2021) as well as through interviews with officials and directors in the finance department and with the Minister of Finance during 2017-2018, analyzing in detail all financial items for direct tax variables and their impact on government revenues, on the country's well-being or economic-financial gaps through descriptive analysis, factorial analysis, reliability analysis, multiple regression analysis using SPSS version 23.0 for Windows. Findings: Based on analyzes such as PCA Matrix Loading Factors, PCA Model Summary- Multiple Linear Regression, Coefficients- TDT, the results showed that the variables [(CIT=98%, R=.980, Sig=.000, F=148,854), (PIT=99%, R=.987, Sig.=000, F=220,841), (PT=90%, R=.902, Sig.=.000, F=26,240)] are quite important and that they have influenced the increase in income and well-being of the country, while the variable (OTD=39%, R=.390, Sig.=000, F=1.079) has not influenced the well-being of the country during this period and that there are still some gaps that need to be improved before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, greater weight in the collection of (TDTs) and an increase in well-being have been shown (PIT=.975, Cons=.136, Acu=99%), while gaps have been shown (ODT: Cons=.209, Acu =39%). It is recommended that the state should be careful in collecting revenues from (TDT) and especially (OTDs). Research, Practical & Social implications: The limitations and implications of this research are that the study period is (8) years, the number of variables is limited to only (4) with their sub-variables (48), and it is only an analysis of one country. Therefore, for further analysis, a larger number of countries, periods, and variables can be taken into the research. Originality/value: It will help countries to see where there is an increase in income and well-being and where there are gaps and a decrease in income and based on this, they should be careful in creating policies to encourage and increase income through (TDTs) © 2022 AOS-Estratagia and Inovacao. All rights reserved.