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Ten years after the Great East Japan Earthquake, reconstruction projects are progressing in the affected areas and new towns are being formed. However, the recent spread of COVID-19 infection is thought to have affected interactions among residents. In this study, we conducted a multiple-choice questionnaire survey in the Taro district of Miyako City, Iwate Prefecture, which was severely damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake, to investigate residents' social capital. Cross-tabulations, chi-square tests, and residual analysis revealed the following trends. First, most respondents indicated that the frequency of interaction with local residents and community activities decreased or remained the same after the earthquake. Second, Changes in residents' social capital compared to pre-disaster levels are significantly related to their social capital now, 10 years after the earthquake. Finally, respondents with no roommates and female respondents showed a higher rate of decline in social capital compared to pre-disaster levels. In the disaster-affected areas, the importance of social capital is becoming increasingly recognized for promoting future reconstruction community planning and inhibiting solitary death. It is necessary to respond to residents whose social capital is likely to decline more than before the disaster, such as women and those who live alone. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023. All rights reseverd.
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Construction courses are characterized by a combination of theoretical and practical knowledge;however, the teaching of practical knowledge is often absent due to safety and cost considerations. VR can improve the teaching of practical knowledge by facilitating interactions between teachers and students through virtual means, regardless of location, which is a weakness of current lecture-based teaching, especially in the COVID-19 era. Therefore, this paper aims to evaluate the effect and discuss the prospect of VR in construction teaching, with a comparative study of 50 students who were evenly divided into two groups and taught using traditional teaching and VR teaching, respectively. This experiment shows that VR teaching improves the students' learning enthusiasm and satisfaction, especially in terms of practical knowledge. Additionally, students believe the combination of traditional and VR teachings can be more helpful in construction teaching. The findings of this research strengthened the advantages of VR in delivering practical knowledge in construction teaching.
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BACKGROUND: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected the treatment system of medical institutions across the world. Studies of the populations and patients have reported mental health problems caused by the pandemic. However, there are few large-scale studies that have examined the effects of the COVID-19 on diseases from the perspective of psychosomatic medicine. The purpose of this study was to examine changes made to the psychosomatic treatment system of Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of the pandemic on patients with diseases treated in psychosomatic medicine. METHODS: We conducted a nationwide questionnaire survey of members of the Japanese Society of Psychosomatic Medicine and the Japanese Society of Psychosomatic Internal Medicine from December 24, 2021 to January 31, 2022. RESULTS: Of the 325 respondents, 23% reported restrictions in initial outpatient admissions, 66% implemented telemedicine, 46% reported a decrease in outpatient admissions, and 31% working in facilities with inpatient units reported decreased inpatient admissions. To reduce in-person visits, 56% of the respondents decreased the frequency of patient visits and 66% introduced telemedicine. Seventy-eight percent of the respondents reported that the COVID-19 pandemic affected the onset or exacerbation of diseases treated in psychosomatic medicine, including psychosomatic disorders, anxiety disorders, mood disorders, adjustment disorders, and eating disorders. CONCLUSIONS: This study revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic might have affected the practice of psychosomatic treatment in Japan and that various alternative measures were taken to prevent infection. In addition, although the items in this study were not compared to pre-pandemic data, the COVID-19 pandemic, it could have significant psychosocial effects on Japanese patients requiring psychosomatic care. Furthermore, respondents believed that numerous psychosocial factors were behind the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients with diseases treated in psychosomatic medicine.
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This paper provides empirical evidence on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on logistics and supply chain processes of five industrial sectors of Italy, namely food & beverage, machine manufacturing, metal mechanical industry, logistics & transport, and textile & fashion. A questionnaire survey, with 82 useful responses, was conducted to investigate various effects of Covid-19 on these businesses, such as the volumes handled and the service performance in the immediate-, short- and medium-term, the countermeasures implemented by companies and the future decision-making strategies. The period of analysis spans from January 2020 to June 2021. Results show that the impact of Covid-19 on volumes and service performance varied across the sectors: the food & beverage and logistics & transport were poorly affected by the pandemic and experienced a general increase in the demand and volumes, while mechanical or textile & fashion industries were mostly affected by a decrease in demand. The positive/negative impacts were particularly evident at the beginning of the pandemics, but, depending on the sector, the effects could cease quite quickly or last in the short-term. The countermeasures adopted against the Covid-19 emergency differ again across sectors; in general, industry fields that were particularly impacted by the pandemic emergency have applied more countermeasures. Typical strategies for risk management (e.g., the diversification in transport modes or the stock increase) turned out to be applied as immediate countermeasures or in plan for the future in few industries only. Differences across sectors were also observed about the sourcing strategies already in use, implemented to counteract the pandemics or expected to be maintained in time. Empirical outcomes offered are expected to help researchers gain a deep understanding of Covid-19 related phenomena, thus inspiring further research activities.
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Background: In the current knowledge age, the performance of logistics firms increasingly depends on knowledge and capabilities they can leverage in value-creation processes. The objective of this paper is to investigate the relationship between knowledge-based human resource management (HRM) practices and organizational performance mediated by logistics capability. Methods: Data from 93 small Finnish logistics service providers was collected by a questionnaire survey. Structural equation modeling and partial least squares analysis were used to test the hypothesized relationships between HRM practices and the organizational performance of logistics companies, as well as the mediating impact of logistics capability. Results: The results demonstrate that logistics capability fully mediates the relationship between HRM practices and the organizational performance of small logistics companies. Each of the three knowledge-based HRM practices-knowledge-based recruitment, training and development, and motivation-significantly influences logistics capability, which is, in turn, associated with the organizational performance of companies. Conclusions: This paper is one of the few among discussing knowledge-based HRM practices in logistics service research. The paper contributes to the literature on logistics by demonstrating the value of knowledge-based HRM practices in acquiring, developing, and leveraging knowledge to create organizational capabilities and ensure organizational performance. This study provides an improved understanding of the role of HRM and the resulting logistics capability in the performance of small logistics service companies.
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The COVID-19 pandemic is almost over but has already left its mark and is changing the world fast and drastically in all social, economic, and cultural aspects of humanity, including consumers' choices and motives for foods. Since cheese is a major dietary food consumed daily worldwide, motives for its purchase and consumption in the new era are an important parameter affecting current and future production and sustainable regional development. The aim of the study was to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on Greek consumers' motives for quality semi-hard and hard cheese, including the "Ladotyri” hard cheese. Consumers' motives were tested using variables of quality semi-hard and hard cheese, such as purchase and consumption, preference of choice, preference, and knowledge of the Ladotyri cheese. A self-response questionnaire survey was carried out in November and December 2022 on a sample of 860 participants, the majority being young people aged 18–25 (83.9%), through the Google platform. Basic statistical tools, combined with cross and chi-square tests, were used to analyze the collected data. The results indicate no significant changes in consumers' motives except a significant decline in consumption, reaching up to 8.4%. Consumers continue to purchase the semi-hard and hard cheese from the supermarket (90%), with preference for the most known kinds, such as kasseri and graviera, consuming it at home (90.9%), daily (31.8%), or two times per week (38.3%), primarily with bread and olives (57.6%), followed by meat (53%). Price remains the most important information for the selection of semi-hard and hard cheese (73.5%), taste (97%) among the organoleptic parameters, texture (70.9%) among the appearance parameters, origin of milk (63.9%) among the sustainable parameters, and value for money (85.8%) among the general characteristics of the cheese. The participants expressed similar motives for the "Ladotyri” Mytilinis hard cheese, appreciating the olive oil combined with the cheese (79.7%) and the possible production as a non-refrigerated cheese (65.2%), even though the majority of them would not buy it today (57.4%). Our findings indicate that the sustainability and growth of the quality semi-hard and hard cheese in the new era should stick to the good practices of production, promotion, and sales developed before the pandemic, exploring, however, new avenues and practices to increase consumption, which is currently declining. © 2023 by the authors.
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Educational institutions and students find it a challenging task to complete the syllabus prescribed in the given period of academic year in compliance with the academic calendar, as they remain closed for an indefinite period due to the outbreak of Covid. Efforts are being made by them to chalk out ways n means to achieve the goal of completing the portions of syllabus well in time in spite of the hostile situation. Assurance of quality of learning is also a matter of prime importance for which the content has to be designed well and delivered in a professional manner. Most of the students face constraints in learning through online platform and as such it deserves high attention as to how the content is organized and presented before them so as to address such constraints and to make the learning effective. As the pandemic and subsequent restrictions led to the sudden change from conventional class room to online mode, teachers and students have faced much challenges. Most of the institutions couldn't rise to the occasion so as to formulate quality contents to deliver through online platform. Online learning can be made easy, efficient and productive if the experiences of students and learning are incorporated in the study. The findings of this study indicated that majority of the students evinced a positive attitude towards online classes in the wake of corona. The online learning was found to be advantageous as it provided flexibility and convenience for the learners. Students preferred well-structured content with recorded videos uploaded in university web-sites. They also indicated the need for interactive sessions with quizzes and assignments at the end of each class to optimize the learning experience. © 2022 IEEE.
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With the increasing number of foreigners residing in Korea, there is a need for further research on medical service satisfaction for this demographic. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the impact of medical service quality on customer satisfaction and revisit intention of foreigners in Korea during the COVID-19 pandemic. An online survey was conducted from 15 March to 15 May 2022 to gather data from foreign residents in Korea. A total of 201 questionnaires were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 26.0 and Smart PLS3.0 for empirical analysis. The results of the study demonstrate that reliability, empathy, and COVID-19 regulations (excluding responsiveness, assurance, and tangibles) positively impact customer satisfaction with medical services. Additionally, customer satisfaction with medical services positively affects revisit intention. Furthermore, variables, such as nationality and medical department, show average differences. These findings suggest that hospitals should focus on COVID-19 prevention and the quality of medical services, while also taking into account unique characteristics, such as nationality and medical department. This study provides essential reference data for medical institutions exposed to infinite competition, informing management strategies to increase customer satisfaction and revisit intention during COVID-19. © 2023 by the authors.
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COVID-19, Brexit, war, and some other similar cases will leave/have left us with a lesson that has had an impact on the supply chains of almost all product types. Countries have now recognized that some products cannot be sustained in a situation of uncertainty. This research covers the gap in understanding and identifying the successful factors affecting the criticality level of supply required of intermediate and final products (IFP) at the national level. It investigates the relationship between two factors: the casual factor supply risk (independent factor);and the impacted (dependent factors) political, economic, sociocultural, and technological (PEST) factors in terms of identifying critical products using the principle of Resource Dependency Theory (RDT). A literature review was conducted, followed by a mixed-method approach. Semi-structured interviews with 23 Saudi experts were carried out initially;then, a questionnaire was shared with 152 Saudi experts in different sectors. The qualitative study identified 30 key measurement variables for both factors, in which 19 variables were confirmed using the factor analysis (FA) technique. © 2023 by the authors.
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Many studies conducted previously have reported that due to lockdowns or stay-at-home orders associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020 residential power consumption has increased in countries, particularly in cities worldwide. This study compared the power consumption of 1,339 detached houses in Japan over the past three years as well as a year after the pandemic and analyzed living behavioral changes in the 12 months after the pandemic using a questionnaire survey of occupants. As of March 2021, which is after 12 months of the beginning of the pandemic, it was confirmed that the way of life had returned to almost normal, and as a factor in increasing consumption, working from home would remain the only behavioral change that may take root in Japanese society.
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Background: Hand hygiene is the simplest and most effective method to prevent hospital acquired infections (HAI). Compliance with hand hygiene among health providers is, however, widely variable due to significant knowledge gaps and behavioral issues. The knowledge and practices of hand hygiene among medical undergraduate students, the future health workforce in the current COVID-19 pandemic will enable a reality check and ensure course correction at an early stage of their learning. Methods: An online questionnaire-based survey based on a standard, validated WHO 25-point (multiple-choice question and Yes/No answers) hand hygiene survey was undertaken among medical undergraduate students in an urban city from April to June 2020. Each correct response was awarded 1 point, and an incorrect response was awarded 0 points. The maximum achievable score was 25, and the minimum score was 0. Results: A total of 457 students with a mean age 20.24 ± 1.27 years completed the survey. A total of 415 (90.8%) students received hand hygiene training in the past three years. Overall 27.6% (n = 126) students had good knowledge, 65.4% (n = 299) had moderate and 7% (n = 32) had poor knowledge of hand hygiene practices. Conclusions: There were significant knowledge gaps regarding hand hygiene among medical undergraduate students in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a need to strengthen existing teaching methods to positively impact behavioral change and potentially translate into better hand hygiene compliance among the future health workforce of the country.
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By 11 March 2020, the phrase "COVID-19” had officially entered everyday life across most of the word. Each level of education suddenly faced new changes and new challenges. Emergency remote teaching became widespread, and new methodologies to deliver classes and courses were adopted by educational institutions. In this paper, we focus on the impact of the remote learning experience of engineering students enrolled at the Politecnico di Milano. The subjects were recruited from all engineering courses from the first to the fifth year and were asked to complete a multidimensional survey. The survey featured 66 items regarding the participants' perceptions of the challenges of emergency remote teaching compared with pre-COVID-19 in-person teaching. The questionnaire addressed six dimensions: the organization of emergency remote teaching, subjective well-being, metacognition, self-efficacy, identity, and socio-demographic information. In this paper, we describe the entire survey and discuss a preliminary analysis. Using Cronbach's alpha test, a confirmatory factor analysis, and the t-test, we performed a more in-depth analysis concerning the outcomes of metacognition and self-efficacy. The data analysis suggested a small, unexpected change in the metacognition strategies. The students, in some regards, improved their learning strategies. Some other answers underlined their appreciation of the courses' organization and the lack of relationships with their peers and teachers. © 2023 by the authors.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected the tourism and services sector. Using the example of Airbnb's recent layoff of 25% of its workforce, we focused on the role of organizational justice in mitigating the negative psychological impacts of layoffs. Based on a unique survey of Airbnb employees who survived the layoffs, as well as those who left, we employed an ordinary least squares regression to show that employees' perceptions of organizational justice were positively related to their job satisfaction and trust in management, while being negatively related to their emotional exhaustion and cynicism. We discovered the crucial importance of interactional justice (i.e., interpersonal and informational justice). The respect, dignity, and politeness shown by management (i.e., interpersonal justice), as well as truthful and adequate communication about the procedure (i.e., informational justice) were pivotal to successfully conducting layoffs, especially during unprecedented economic uncertainty. © 2023 by the authors.
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The tourism industry is struggling to recover and overcome the shortfalls due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The research identified the determinants to consider in the future from a South African supply-side perspective. An online questionnaire was employed in 2020. Exploratory factor analyses identified the dependent (the perceived future of the industry after COVID-19) and independent variables: ways to reach suppliers' target market(s) during the pandemic, the predicted adopted strategies after COVID-19 and the perceived sector risk. Linear regression analyses revealed the significant variables that provide guidelines for managing the industry's future. © 2022 Editura Universitatii din Oradea. All rights reserved.
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Peri-urban forests are complex systems capable of providing amenity and scenic values as well as recreational opportunities for citizens. From early 2020, national governments have promulgated restrictions, requiring citizens to adopt a new lifestyle to counter the COVID-19 outbreak. This study aimed to understand if citizens' behaviors and attitudes in the use of peri-urban forests are changing due to COVID-19 restrictions. Methodologically, a questionnaire survey was carried out, adopting a systematic sampling method. Two peri-urban forests were chosen as study areas: the first one was close to the town of Trento in the Alps (Monte Marzola), and the second one was in the proximity of the city of Florence (Monte Morello). At the end of data collection, 281 questionnaires were collected and processed. The results showed an increase in visits to peri-urban forests during the COVID-19 pandemic (36.4% of visitors in Monte Marzola and 17.1% in Monte Morello, respectively) with the aim of satisfying the need for relaxation and contact with nature. However, the use of peri-urban forests in times of crisis has been quite different in the two contexts: the visitors of Monte Marzola evidenced the role of a forest as a place where they can satisfy their need to play sports (mean value 4.53 in a five-point Likert scale), while Monte Morello forest was considered by visitors to be a place where the demand for companionship was fulfilled (mean value 4.27). © 2023 by the authors.
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Until the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual tourism was not as popular as during its duration in 2021, when traveling in the real world was not possible due to social isolation and forced quarantine. In response to the lockdown and the lack of freedom of movement around the world, tourists decided to travel in cyberspace during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this way only, and without leaving home, could they visit tourist attractions, watch museum exhibitions, participate in various media events and take virtual walks. After the "unfreezing” of tourism, the time has now come to adapt tourism to the post-pandemic normality. The aim of the paper is to discover whether the new trend of online tourism that developed during the pandemic will stay with us forever and how it will evolve, especially for Generation Z, who are just entering the labor market but who, at the same time, will determine the future of tourism soon. The research results show that as the pandemic restrictions disappear, the need to experience various forms of tourism in places previously viewed in cyberspace (virtually), occurs among the representatives of Generation Z. Thus, virtual tourism is a form that precedes and complements a real journey. The qualitative method was chosen for the research conducted in Poland. The research was carried out in 2022. A total of 40 focus groups of 7 people each (N = 280) participated in the research. They consisted of Generation Z representatives born after 1995;the oldest of them will be 27 in 2022. In parallel, the method of in-depth individual interviews was used in the research. In order to reach the participants, a non-random sample was chosen using the "snowball” method. In total, 100 people took part in the in-depth individual interview. The two-track research allowed to obtain a total sample of N = 380. © 2023 by the authors.
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The purpose of this study is to statistically analyze the changes in the usage of domestic water in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and other relavant factors. In this analysis, the results of a questionnaire survey on water use and the basic unit water volume of each household were used. Specifically, focusing on the ratio of the basic unit water volume in FY2020 (during COVID-19) to FY2019 (before COVID-19), households larger than the standard are referred to as "high group" and households smaller than the standard are referred to as "low group". The binary variables were set as outcomes, and statistical tests of differences and logistic regression analysis were performed. As a result of the analysis, it was clarified that the "change in the number of washings" and "change in the number of cooking for dinner" contributed largely to the group with a high water volume ratio. It was also determined that higher changes in the water volume ratio tended to occur in households that did not include the elderly (65 years old or older) as family members.Alternate :抄録 本研究の目的は，水使用に関するアンケート調査結果と当該世帯の原単位水量データを用い，コロナ禍における生活用水の利用状況に関する変化とその要因を統計的に分析することである．具体的には，2019年度（コロナ禍前）に対する2020年度（コロナ禍）の原単位水量の比（前年比）に着目し，基準より大きい世帯を「高値群」，小さい世帯を「低値群」とした2値変数をアウトカムに設定し，差の検定及びロジスティック回帰分析を実施した．分析の結果，水量前年比の高値群に「洗濯回数変化」及び「夕食調理回数変化」が寄与する要因となることが明らかとなった．また，家族構成員に高齢者（65歳以上）を含む世帯に比べ，それを含まない世帯での水量前年比の増加変化が多く確認された点も特徴的である．
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One of the main methods of shopping for many consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic was through online community group-buying. This shopping method caters to the consumer demand of reducing contact and centralized procurement. However, some online community group-buying platforms could not attract many consumers, and consumer participation was low. Therefore, determining which factors affect consumers' willingness to use online community group buying is important. Based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and perceived risk theory, this research explores the effects of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, and perceived risk on consumers' willingness to use online community group buying. In this research, a questionnaire survey was used, and the sample randomly collected from online consumers who had experience in online community group buying. A total of 280 respondents were collected. The collected data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, reliability, validity, correlation, and regression analysis. The results show that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence have a significant positive effect on the purchase intention of community group-buying consumers, while facilitating conditions and perceived risk have no significant positive effect. This research further enriched and improved the research on the use intention of an online community group-buying platform by integrating the UTAUT model and perceived risk theory. In practice, this research provides a new perspective and practical reference for how the online community group-buying platform can better attract consumers and maintain sustainable long-term customer relations. © 2023 by the authors.
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The analysis of the relevant literature, especially earlier empirical research of serious pandemics (not including the forces of nature and the processes they create), refers to the assumption that man is (directly or indirectly) guilty of them. Given that the media transmits information related to the intensity of the spread of the pandemic, the death rate of the sick, etc., a survey of citizens' trust in the local media and the information they convey was conducted in order to find out how much the media contribute to the intensity of the spread of the negative effects of the Covid 19 pandemic. Four assumptions were defined as questions to which respondents' answers were requested: frequency of information through different types of media;assessment of the extent to which different types of media offer the possibility of objective information;the existence of free, independent and impartial media in Serbia, and finding the truth in the media. The research is of a quantitative type, conducted on a sample of 600 respondents in the city of Belgrade. For the collection and processing of data used the desk method, using interviews and via electronic questionnaires, in which the questions in the first part related to the socio-demographic variables of the respondents, while in the second part the group of dependent variables was operationalized through the statements, which were evaluated on a Likert scale. More sub-questions are offered within the four main questions. Descriptive statistical analysis (percentages, arithmetic mean), T-test, One-factor analysis of variance, Standard deviation, Multiple regression analysis and Pearson's correlation coefficient were used for data analysis. The level of statistical significance was set at p<0.05, and all obtained data were processed in the SPSS program, version 23. © 2022 University of Craiova, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Geography. All rights reserved.
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The outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic has greatly hindered the development of the tourism industry. It is urgent for the city to improve the quality of public service in scenic spots, so as to attract more tourists and achieve sustainable development. With a literature review and reference to some guidance, the evaluation indicator system of public service satisfaction of scenic spots was constructed based on the analytic hierarchy process. Then, we distributed two questionnaires to complete the study. The first is the expert questionnaire for the evaluation indicator system. We used YAAHP software to process the questionnaire data and calculated the weight of each indicator, which provided a basis for the following analysis. The second is the questionnaire distributed to tourists of Xiamen. Then, we used the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method to analyze the satisfaction of public services in scenic spots. The outcomes show that tourists are overall satisfied with the public services of scenic spots in Xiamen. However, there are still some problems, such as lagging information service, inadequate security, and supervision in the scenic spot. Therefore, the city and scenic spots should improve the level of smart tourism service, strengthen the construction of hardware and software facilities, and focus on the protection of tourists' rights and interests. © 2023 by the authors.