Control System for Indoor Safety Measures Using a Faster R-CNN Architecture

This paper presents a control system for indoor safety measures using a Faster R-CNN (Region-based Convolutional Neural Network) architecture. The proposed system aims to ensure the safety of occupants in indoor environments by detecting and recognizing potential safety hazards in real time, such as capacity control, social distancing, or mask use. Using deep learning techniques, the system detects these situations to be controlled, notifying the person in charge of the company if any of these are violated. The proposed system was tested in a real teaching environment at Rey Juan Carlos University, using Raspberry Pi 4 as a hardware platform together with an Intel Neural Stick board and a pair of PiCamera RGB (Red Green Blue) cameras to capture images of the environment and a Faster R-CNN architecture to detect and classify objects within the images. To evaluate the performance of the system, a dataset of indoor images was collected and annotated for object detection and classification. The system was trained using this dataset, and its performance was evaluated based on precision, recall, and F1 score. The results show that the proposed system achieved a high level of accuracy in detecting and classifying potential safety hazards in indoor environments. The proposed system includes an efficiently implemented software infrastructure to be launched on a low-cost hardware platform, which is affordable for any company, regardless of size or revenue, and it has the potential to be integrated into existing safety systems in indoor environments such as hospitals, warehouses, and factories, to provide real-time monitoring and alerts for safety hazards. Future work will focus on enhancing the system's robustness and scalability to larger indoor environments with more complex safety hazards.

Lead the African way!

PurposeCountries in Africa have undergone an unprecedented transformation that has shaped the continent as they move ahead from the clutches of colonialism. The evolution of leadership and how organisations function optimally has given rise to the review of leadership approaches and practices, revolutionising its position in the global markets. With the recent spate of global suffering from the pandemic, the formal and traditional work structures are becoming transient. At the same time, the economic consequences of the Russo-Ukrainian crisis have catastrophic effects globally.Design/methodology/approachThe research was conducted via a systematic review of scientific sources from various academic websites. Eligibility criteria were defined with the agreement of pertinent themes and concepts.FindingsBy evaluating and analysing characteristics and success indicators from the blend of leadership competencies ascertained from Afrocentric principles in response to African associated problems, Africa can cement its leadership concepts without following the global north principles. These philosophies are resilient enough to contend with a range of VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) complexities, including the impact of the recent global pandemic of immeasurable proportions and the prospect of war as the Russo-Ukrainian conflict intensifies.Originality/valueWithin the African environment, there is a greater focus on the human element in shared values, holistic well-being, cooperation and experience. The global community band together to deal with these complexities. This is a typical example of global connectedness with positive and negative connotations.

Online learning during COVID-19

This chapter focuses on the challenges unique to online learning environments, how students responded to the abrupt shift to remote learning, and how this impacted their ability to thrive in the midst of a global pandemic. It illustrates how instructors' ability (or inability) to smoothly transition from in-person to online environments impacted students' learning. The chapter examines some of the challenges students faced with online learning, including changes in learning environments, communication with instructors, and classroom dialogues. It explores instances of students thriving in online learning environments. The inherent unpredictability of the COVID-19 pandemic and some institutional inconsistencies created challenges to building an environment in which students could thrive. Although the University attempted to create an online environment that allowed students to continue their education during the pandemic, significant issues arose that forced students to teach themselves, often with little support from faculty. The challenges of learning online were compounded with the loss of on-campus resources such as access to quiet study spaces and the University library. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

The impact job satisfaction and employee engagement are having on remote work teams during a global pandemic: A qualitative descriptive study in a telecommunications organization

Information and communication are sectors of technology made up of telecommunications companies, telephone companies, and internet service providers. The present study examined the impacts of working remotely from home (WFH) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Adopting a case study perspective, this study employed twenty participants in the telecommunication industry. Participants took part in online questionnaires, interviews, and a focus group that captured employee engagement and job satisfaction as significant factors in an organization's remote work team experiences. This qualitative descriptive study attempts to describe the unknown impact of job satisfaction and employee engagement strategies while working in remote teams during COVID-19. This study also provided evidence to improve, understand, and enable the development of leadership strategies from the perspective of management and non-management employees in the telecommunication industry. Using Braun & Clarke's framework of the six-phase thematic analysis was crucial to the study by examining how engagement and satisfaction were affected by five job characteristics when working from home: Challenges from working from home are problems and situations affecting an organization's flow of communication by compromising with outside interruptions that is transparent in work assignments or tasks. The advantages and Motivations of Working from home include balancing work-life, improving work efficiency, and providing greater control. Strategies of Employee Engagement to Enhance Satisfaction inspire employees to feel a tremendous societal purpose for the company that employs them. Measuring Employee Engagement and Satisfaction is when employee satisfaction measures how content/happy employees are with their role and what comes with it. Strategies Used by Management to Influence Motivation at Work, when achieved, result in productivity and success of an organization. The findings revealed that employee engagement and job satisfaction are necessary conditions for remote work teams. Most managers preferred easy access to information, regular meetings, and monitoring productivity. Most employees prefer better pay, compensation, and an excellent work relationship. Other factors that can improve job satisfaction in telecommunication companies include time to work split shifts that would benefit the employer, employee, and the organization. These findings have clear implications for theory and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Review: machine and deep learning methods in Malaysia for COVID-19

The global pandemic of the coronavirus disease COVID-19 has impacted a variety of operations. This dilemma is also attributable to the lockdown measures taken by the afflicted nations. The entire or partial shutdown enacted by nations across the globe affected the majority of hospitals and clinics until the pandemic was contained. The judgements made by the authorities of each impacted nation vary based on a number of variables, including the nation's severity of reported cases, the availability of vaccines, beds in intensive care unit (ICU), staff number, patient number, and medicines. Consequently, this work offers a thorough analysis of the most recent machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) approaches for COVID-19 that can assist the medical field in offering quick and exact COVID-19 diagnosis in Malaysia. This research aims to review the machine learning and deep learning methods that were used to help diagnose COVID-19 in Malaysia. © 2023 Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science. All rights reserved.

Teaching and Learning Amidst Double Disaster: A Case of Post-Traumatic Events among Students

This study aims to investigate the challenges faced by these affected individuals, factors that motivate the students' return to school following the disaster and their ways of dealing with the challenges regarding teaching and learning. The year 2020 and 2021 witnessed how the world had to deal with the unprecedented educational circumstance prompted by a global pandemic. The swift change to online learning was stressful and taxing in many ways, for both students and teachers, affecting their physical and mental health. With the combination of pandemic and natural disasters, the distress caused by these successive events may have become a hindrance to students' deep involvement in learning and the whole teaching and learning process. The study adopted a qualitative approach using an online survey, and 409 participants were selected from stratified random sampling. A questionnaire was administered to obtain quantitative data which were analysed using descriptive statistics. Results showed that the double disaster heightened the level of stress, causing academic, behavioural, and financial pressure to increase among these students. However, financial constraint also turns out to be one of the prominent factors that restored their motivation to return to school or college. Among the dominant coping strategies employed by the students were prioritizing human interactions, positive reframing, and religious coping © 2023, Asian Journal of University Education.All Rights Reserved.

Artificial Intelligence: Poverty Alleviation, Healthcare, Education, and Reduced Inequalities in a Post-COVID World

On October 25, 2015, the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) set forth an agenda which included 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets to transform the world by 2030. The agenda set forth a plan of action that recognized a myriad of challenges which, if surmounted, could empower people, benefit the planet, and create an impetus for worldwide prosperity. Due to the coronavirus pandemic and its economic and social fallout, the world today is not on track to attain the SDGs by the year 2030. However, the disruptive impact of the pandemic on many areas of life among other things was in a sense a "game changer” with respect to our (human) approaches to artificial intelligence (AI) and to AI itself. The global pandemic caused a major shift with regard to AI. It revealed that in this day and time AI is a necessity for the flourishing of humanity worldwide. It is no longer a luxury. Developed and developing countries alike were caught unaware by the COVID disruption. All experienced gaps in healthcare and education delivery and increased poverty in one form or another. In this situation, AI turned out to be not merely useful, it quickly proved itself to be indispensable. In a world that is still struggling to recover from the pandemic, AI has and will continue to play a major role in transforming the work of poverty alleviation, hence affecting the advancement of the poverty-related SDGs. The chapter will present examples of AI implementation in areas of the world where poverty is significant: China, India, and two countries in Africa. It will look at rural poverty specifically, although urban poverty is growing at expediential rates, and examine how AI has affected the work of alleviating poverty through improving healthcare delivery and strengthening access to education. The analysis will delve into the advancement of specific SDGs with the use of AI, such as SDG #1 no poverty, SDG #3 good health and well-being, SDG #4 quality education, and SDG #10 reduced inequalities. Finally, this chapter will draw policy implications for the work of fighting extreme poverty in a post-COVID and increasingly AI-enabled world. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Rethinking the Work of Theologians in the Pandemic's Wake

This article focuses on what the pandemic reveals about theological work in the academy and imagines a way forward. Too often, theologians are ground down, isolated workers, overworked, and strapped for time. They constantly must choose between progress in the guild and their familial and communal relationships. This false choice starves theologians of meaning and purpose, and, in such scarcity, inflames pursuit of status. However, a communal conception of theological academic work could mitigate some of these frictions. To imagine this possibility, we draw upon our collective experiences of working in Benedictine institutions that also argue for communal approaches to living, learning, and experiencing God. We draw ideas from the Rule of Benedict as a model for life-giving community that we think can be resituated in academic life.

Developmental Agenda and the Global Pandemic

With the perspective of global pandemic, the chapter looks at the developmental issues through a systematic review of current literature on seven mainstream human security indicators: health, economy, food, education, environment, personal, community, and political security. After conceptualising the pandemic's contribution towards sustainability and human security, the chapter presents illustrative questions in the discussion section to understand the application of the human security concepts in practice. The pandemic has affected the key basic SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) related to health, income, food, education, environment, and others, and affected the community as a whole as well, through aggravated physical and psychological stress at the community level. Evidently, the SDGs and other global developmental agenda have faced a setback since 2019 due to the deep and systematic negative consequences of the current pandemic. How can nations, in these circumstances, remove systemic inequality and prioritise growth? In the chapter, we raise some questions for discussion on how to alleviate the impacts and put the world on track towards development. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer 2022.

Introduction: Global Pandemic, Human Security, Technology and Development

Human security concept has evolved over the last 20 years and covers the broader aspects of development, environment, and disaster risk reduction perspectives. In general, human security concerns itself with safeguarding and expanding people's vital freedom, with the ambition "freedom from want,” "freedom from fear,” and "freedom to live with dignity.” COVID-19, the global pandemic, has affected the lives and livelihoods of people globally, including the human security issues from losing livelihoods to losing choices for education, access to health, and safe water. Different technologies (both existing and emerging) are being used globally to address these issues, albeit differentially, creating a significant digital/technology divide. The divide would have a much larger impact on human security in the near future. On the contrary, social innovation plays an important positive role to address the challenges of human security. With this context, the chapter provides some historical perspective on the evolution of the concept of human security, its relation to different development, environment, and disaster-related frameworks, and role of technology in achieving human security. The chapter provides an overview of the book with a short introduction of each chapter and provides a few ways forward at the end. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer 2022.

Perception of Frontline Social Workers' Role in Healthcare Sector Combating COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu: A Phenomenological Study.

COVID-19 emerged as a global pandemic of the twenty-first century. It has created a huge burden on society. More specifically, it has turned into one of the health risks that threaten to undermine societal order in general. The global effort to save humanity from this public health crisis is heavily reliant on professional social workers. According to the study's qualitative findings and perspectives on social workers' experiences in the health sector, the COVID-19 response is addressed. This study explores the function and difficulties faced by frontline social workers through an empirical phenomenological approach. Primary data for this study was gathered from 20 social workers from the leading healthcare institutions in Tamil Nadu using purposive and snowball sampling. The study focuses on three key conclusions, including the requirement for interdisciplinary expertise to address the multifaceted effects of pandemics, perceived difficulties in pandemic practice, and obstacles in service provision. The report offers recommendations for advancing social work initiatives as a conclusion. It also explains how modern social work may benefit healthcare facilities better in the fight against the pandemic.

The Rapid Evolution of Crisis Mental Health Services in Utah: Opportunities and Challenges as a Result of the Global Pandemic.

Our country is facing a resurgence of behavioral health crises from over the past 30 years, further illuminated and exacerbated by the global COVID-19 pandemic. Increasing suicide crises among youths over recent decades, untreated anxiety and depression, and serious mental illness are signs of the need for improvements in accessible, affordable, timely, and comprehensive behavioral health services. Against the backdrop of high suicide rates and low behavioral health services in Utah, statewide collaborators aligned with a common goal: deliver crisis services to anyone, anytime, and anywhere. After its initiation in 2011, the integrated behavioral health crisis response system continued to expand and excel, ultimately improving access and referral to services, flattening suicide rates, and reducing stigma. The global pandemic further motivated the expansion of Utah's crisis response system. This review focuses on the unique experiences of the Huntsman Mental Health Institute as a catalyst and partner in these changes. Our goals are to: inform about unique Utah partnerships and actions in the crisis mental health space, describe initial steps and outcomes, highlight continuing challenges, discuss pandemic-specific barriers and opportunities, and explore the long-term vision to improve quality and access to mental health resources.

Being and becoming: Centering the morality of social responsibility through children's right to participate in society

Given the inconsistent support from adults and children for children's right to participate in society, this chapter focuses on issues relating to children's moral development by considering the morality of social responsibility in relation to participation. The civic behavior details how children's moral perceptions align with the concept of the common good by illustrating young people's awareness of the efficacy behind community action and moral consciousness for the common good-the ultimate exemplar of social responsibility. Given the global pandemic brought on by COVID-19, it is useful to highlight how children have responded to injustices related to this crisis, which by the conclusion of 2020 was led by the U.S. as the country with the most cases and deaths from COVID-19. The chapter conceptualizes social responsibility as a facet of moral development that functions as a link between the right to participate in society and moral development, which ultimately contributes to children's well-being and broader societal wellbeing. It provides an overview of children's active participation in society as illustrated by contemporary examples of children's involvement in social justice movements (e.g., environmental justice, racial justice). The chapter considers future research directions that intersect children's moral development with their agentic participation in society. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Consumer-to-consumer conflicts and brand moderation strategies during COVID-19 service failures: a framework for international marketers

Purpose: Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, one dark social-media phenomenon in particular has experienced a significant rise: consumer-to-consumer (C2C) conflicts, i.e. consumers who verbally attack each other in response to COVID-19 service failures. The aim of this paper is to uncover the sources of such conflicts and to gain an insight into the corresponding conflict moderation strategies that international brands adopt. Design/methodology/approach: The methodology consists of non-participatory netnographic observations of 13 national, international, and global online brand communities (OBCs) on Facebook. The authors use purposeful sampling to collect relevant data on conflict sources and brand moderation strategies during COVID-19 service failures and a hybrid approach to thematic analysis to derive distinct themes from these data. Findings: The paper identifies five C2C conflict sources: brand attack, brand dissatisfaction, brand skepticism, brand contention and brand defense;these are then classified as having either an individualistic (self-oriented) or collectivistic (other-oriented) orientation. The authors also uncover several moderation strategies: non-engaging, automated, bolstering, asserting (direct, indirect) and informing (factual, empathetic, apologetic), which are broadly categorized into two levels based on their passive vs active approach and authoritative vs cooperative orientation. The paper further highlights that brands adapt their moderation strategies to specific sources of C2C conflicts, thereby producing a range of OBC outcomes. Practical implications: The study's empirically informed framework comprising sources of undesirable conflicts and brand moderation strategies offers a practical tool that can aid marketing managers in nurturing civil C2C engagement and interactive behaviors in their OBCs. By adopting our framework, brand and marketing practitioners can tailor their communication strategies toward different sources of C2C conflict and minimize their adverse consequences, thus, fostering an overall constructive OBC engagement. Originality/value: The authors offer a novel framework to international marketing research, consisting of C2C conflict sources and corresponding moderation strategies that take place in response to service failures during the COVID-19 pandemic. These insights, in turn, inform international marketers about new ways of transforming the dark side of OBCs into a source of competitive advantage based on real-world brand practice. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Human service professionals' perceived ability to support title I schools during the COVID-19 pandemic

Human service professional practitioners (HSPPs) who work in Title I schools help students overcome challenges including absenteeism and behavioral problems and serve as liaisons between the school, family, and student. The pivot to online education during the COVID-19 school shutdowns meant that HSPP services also pivoted. The purpose of this generic qualitative study was to understand how HSPPs perceived their ability to serve Title I students during the pandemic through the lens of Bandura's self-efficacy theory. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 15 HSPPs who delivered services to Title I students before and during the pandemic. Participants reported their service delivery was effective prior to the pandemic despite a lack of resources. Themes from coding analysis included (a) an ability to effectively deliver services before the COVID-19 pandemic despite a lack of resources;(b) not feeling that their job was undoable;(c) significant disruptions in pandemic service delivery (increasing student needs, changes in job responsibilities, communication/trust issues);(d) there was no way to be prepared;and (e) they gained helpful insights into professional priorities, the use of new organizational tools, and new resources for disruptions. Results could be used by HSPPs, education administrators, and stakeholders in the development of comprehensive virtual plans in schools, which could help parents, HSPPs, and school administrators pivot more smoothly and mitigate potential issues during these types of events. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

COVID and Crime Against Women

The global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus has tested our society in several ways. Its effects on every section of the society cannot be easily understood since most of the countries were in a state of complete lockdown from March 2020. The sudden imposition of lockdown has affected every sphere of human life, from an individual's sources of income to his/her mental health. But the predominant issue of the crime against women is the one that remains primary. At first thought, it might seem that the crime rate against the fair sex might have taken a dip during the pandemic, but a second and succinct thought makes it clear that the violators could be ones who are living with them in their homes or private spaces also. With the disruption of most public facilities, it became difficult to provide support for the victims of domestic violence. This paper studies the effects of the pandemic on the crime against women with statistics from different regions and sheds light on measures taken to help the distressed. In the end, there are suggestions on how our society can help the victims with the use of technology, which might prove to be effective.

Do dividend announcements override the pandemic impacts? Evidence from the BSE 500 constituent firms

With a sample of 332 dividend announcements from January 2019 to December 2020, using the event study methodology with the market model, we provide evidence that the dividend announcements failed to influence the stock prices under the pandemic stress. Although the pre-pandemic period announcements significantly impacted the stock returns, the pandemic period dividend announcements failed to generate significant abnormal returns even for an increase in dividend over the previous year. The pre-pandemic period results are consistent with previous literature with significant returns for constant, increase, and decrease in dividends. During the pre-pandemic period, we also find the possibility of information leakage in the Indian stock market as the pre-announcement period is marked with positive significant abnormal returns while the post-announcement period seems to be profit booking. The industry-wise analysis reveals the presence of positive returns in the Information Technology, Media and Telecommunication sector. However, the rest of the results are in line with the previous analysis. The findings suggest that before making such announcements, the companies should wait for the market to recover;else, the positively impacting dividend announcement will fail to influence the stock prices when the market is already under pandemic stress. We conduct the first-ever study to examine the impacts of dividend announcements during a pandemic stress period with also comparing the impacts during the pre-pandemic period. (c) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of College of Management, National Cheng Kung University.

Pandemic, protest, and unrest: Lessons learned from a new chief's first 100 days

The police leader's first 100 days present a mix of unique challenges even at the best of times. What kind of challenges do new chiefs face when, during their first 100 days, a global pandemic is declared and nationwide protests and riots against police are sparked in a country under social distancing restrictions? This article discusses the first 100 days' experience of a newly appointed police chief attempting to navigate through this, already overwhelming, transition into his new role. The article identifies five "first 100-day" domains that confronted police leaders with unprecedented challenges and required unprecedented actions. A re-evaluation of these five key areas would help police chiefs improve their capabilities and ability to effectively respond to current challenges as well as to unforeseen future events. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Data Science with Knowledge Engineering

Prospective research in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in various domains has changed engineering around the world. It is difficult to build clinical decision models due to lack of large datasets. Knowledge engineering with AI techniques provides a solution to health services by improvising the safety and quality at low cost. Combining the power of machine learning and deep learning offers a strong base for clinical decision support system. With increasing number of patients worldwide, there is a severe setback in healthcare system to fight against control of COVID-19, a pandemic and a threat to lives of human beings. The whole world is looking for a novel technology to fight against this pandemic. This research focuses on use of various AI technologies to analyze and predict COVID-19 patients by collecting real-time data from various age groups, gender, and health conditions. Hence, in this chapter, in application of AI concepts to predict the future health predictions of COVID- 19-recovered patients, use of data science to obtain statistics of COVID-19, and to provide a personalized care for each and every COVID-19 patient, knowledge engineering concepts are applied. Also, this chapter focuses on possible health issues met by COVID-19-improved patients. By collecting real-time data through social media, in person and surveys, data is analyzed and implemented to predict future health issues that may be confronted by the COVID-19-recovered patients. Existing machine learning and statistical analysis methods are applied to predict future health problems that a COVID-19 patient. Results obtained are promising with real-time statistics of COVID-19-recovered patients. © 2022 Scrivener Publishing LLC.