Fear the fear: the historical analogies of COVID-19 in US–China relations

The impacts of the novel coronavirus (hereafter COVID-19) pose one of the greatest crises of our generation. The policy decisions that the US and Chinese governments take will shape the current order of international relations, the global supply chain of medical supplies, and US–China relations. The COVID-19 crisis leads to the empirical puzzles: how do the two great world powers construct their narratives on the global pandemic and toward each other? What are the meanings, if any, of fear in US–China relations? This study explores the narrative of fear that is constituted in the US and China discourse. The historical analogies, such as the Boxer Indemnity, sick man of Asia, and Pearl Harbor attack, offer great examples to the political construction of the "fearful” other through specific representations amid the outbreak of COVID-19. Specifically, they have become the "cultural scripts” that define how they interact and who they are. The article proceeds as follows. First, this study examines the current literature of realism, constructivism, and discourse analysis. Second, it proposes a comparative framework for understanding the expressions of fear and threat perceptions for both countries. Specifically, the "Pearl Harbor Moment” from the US, and "the Boxer Indemnity” from the Chinese government substantially shape the landscape of US–China relations. Third, it highlights how the political elites appropriate these historical analogies in constructing their political identities and offers insights into the future of US–China relations. Finally, this article concludes with thoughts on the studies on the struggle of great powers and implications for pandemic politics.

Generation of JMeter scripts for performance testing of Moodle server

Moodle is an open-source virtual learning platform used by universities, institutions, and colleges to take quizzes, assignments, video lectures, etc., online. Many institutions worldwide and in India have used Moodle extensively during the covid-19 pandemic. Moodle is facing the issue of slow response time as the number of concurrent users increases. So, to cater to the need of students and teachers at the institutes, the performance testing of Moodle is done using JMeter, a freely available tool to find out the limitations of the number of simultaneous users of Moodle server. Different scenarios are considered, such as concurrent login, concurrent page accesses such as dashboard and registered course page, concurrent file uploads and downloads, concurrent users taking a quiz, etc. The simulation of simultaneous users is done using the JMeter scripts. The scripts are run by steadily increasing the number of threads up to a certain Error percentage of the requests. © 2022 IEEE.

Telephone and Videoconferencing Collection of Personal Narratives on Intimate Subjects. Methodological Issues in Remote Interviewing to Collect Life Histories

The COVID-19 pandemic and the health and social crisis it caused led researchers to conduct semi-directive interviews either by telephone or videoconferencing. On the basis of three surveys on intimate personal matters conducted by young women and requiring life history interviews, this methodological assessment examines the ways in which remote interviewing of these kinds changes the nature of the material collected and in so doing rearranges the sociological knowledge production mode. It shows how remote interviewing renews accessible social profiles by opening a path to previously unknown configurations. It also shows the advantages of this arrangement for accessing the subject's inner thoughts, feelings, and processes, and highlights its potential for cases where asymmetrical interviewer/respondent power positions (particularly gender positions) are likely to hinder interviewer-respondent rapport, risking an impoverishment of the knowledge produced. © 2022 Editions Ophrys. All rights reserved.

The Pursuit of Innovative Theory in the Digital Age

Grover & Lyytinen (2015) urged to reassess the Information System (IS) field's exclusive dependence on reference theories and to engage more in blue-ocean theorizing. From its inception, such need has been latent in the field, because it deals with novel, fast changing, complex, and systemic phenomena that is hard to account with received theory. We note in this essay that the need for innovative theorizing is heightened given the unprecedented, pervasive digitalization of contemporary society, accelerated by ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In this essay, we scrutinize further the idea of blue-ocean theorizing and review the characteristics, impediments, and merits of developing innovative theory. We define endeavors toward such theory as collectively endorsed cognitive processes which increase variance and novelty of theoretical accounts of IS phenomena. These push to deviate from the field's established theoretical (canonical) core by relaxing six assumptions that guide dominant, legitimate forms of the field's theorizing. We identify and review institutional barriers that curb the development of innovative theory. In conclusion, we offer guidelines for how the field and its stakeholders can productively engage in developing and evaluating innovative theory.

Relational turbulence and social network engagement during the summer of COVID-19: A repeated measures, dyadic analysis

Background/Purpose: Relational turbulence theory suggests that changes in and around relationships create the potential for relational turbulence when everyday routines and scripts are upended and communication becomes polarized. In turn, perceptions of a romantic relationship as chaotic or tumultuous can influence a person's engagement with their social network. Alternately, previous research also suggests that engagement with friends and family has the potential to influence married partner's relationship quality. Research Design: This study examined these propositions among a sample of married couples (N = 64, 128 individuals) whose daily experiences and relationship dynamics changed during the COVID-19 lockdown period. Results/Conclusions: Based on a 10-week, weekly diary repeated measures design, results suggest that relational turbulence and the valence of social network engagement may be mutually influential, such that (a) relational turbulence may influence the way in which married partners interpret communication with social network members and (b) the valence of communication with social network members may influence experiences of relational turbulence.

Global warming in the minds of Mexican higher education students: an exploratory study

Purpose>The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 is at the core of many sustainability initiatives on Mexican higher education institutions (HEIs). Yet, progress to SDG 13 and the entire 2030 Agenda might today appear unlikely to meet. To change this situation, it is necessary to form professionals aware of the impacts of climate change and competent to respond efficiently to its adaptation and mitigation. In this context, the purpose of this study is to reveal the beliefs and concerns about global warming of Mexican students enrolled in engineering bachelor's degrees at higher education institutes that promote sustainability.Design/methodology/approach>In an exploratory study, engineering university students at six large public universities in Mexico answered questions regarding their beliefs and concerns regarding climate change. The study was carried out by using the Global Warming's Six Americas survey questionnaire. The questionnaire was developed by a research team from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication at Yale University to identify different audiences within the American public regarding climate change. Participants were recruited via convenience/snowball techniques which provided access to a diverse sample. Those who agreed to partake in the study were directed to an online platform via Google forms. Data were collected from January to April 2021. Coding and data treatment was conducted according to the developers' codebook and SPSS scripts. After running the statistical program scripts to determine the respondents' segment, a univariate descriptive analysis was performed for each item in the questionnaire to describe general properties in each variable. Subsequently, a series of correspondence analyses was conducted to examine the existence of clusters or patterns that could indicate relationships among selected questions.Findings>The findings of this study revealed that the majority of the Mexican engineering higher education students participating in the survey fell in the segment of alarmed, 47.3%, or the segment of concerned, 46.%. Furthermore, 78.6% of higher education students in the alarmed segment were extremely sure that global warming is happening. In addition, 98% believed that it is caused mostly by human activities. Furthermore, 89% stated that global warming would harm them personally significantly and 96% thought that future generations would be harmed considerably. About 78% believed that people in Mexico and the USA are currently being harmed by global warming. On the other hand, about 45% of students in the concerned group noted they were extremely sure. In addition, 96% of them thought that global warming is being produced mostly by anthropogenic activities. Furthermore, 39% said global warming will harm them personally to a great deal. However, nearly 80% noted that global warming would also hurt future generations. Although those students in the alarmed and concerned group show similar beliefs and concerns about global warming, the magnitude of concern was more significant for those in the alarmed segment.Research limitations/implications>There are several limitations to the study. First, the online questionnaire did not allow for clarification or follow-up on behalf of the respondents. Therefore, it could be possible that respondents misunderstood some items. However, the research team took the following measures to limit confusion: (1) The questionnaire had been previously used in several studies. None of these studies reported problems related to confusion, so the research team took this fact as evidence of the acceptable reliability of the questionnaire. (2) A face-to-face pilot test was carried out with 30 university students where no problems of comprehension were reported. (3) The target population had adequate prior knowledge of climate change, so the possibility of misunderstandings was likely low. A second limitation relates to the nature of the study. Fighting to mitigate the global climate crisis is a positive social norm. Respondents may have provided answ rs in line with this social norm and presented themselves as more pro-environmental than they actually are. Second, because of our selection criteria, our data may overestimate the general public's "worldviews” on climate change. Finally, this study was carried on during the COVID-19 pandemic, which could have impacted items' responses. These limitations constitute future opportunities for future research. Specifically, future research might ideally use a large-scale comprehensive study evaluating the broader Mexican public's beliefs and views about climate change. Furthermore, because our data showed that our respondents were very concerned about climate change, but did little in terms of behavioral mitigation, future research should continue to examine and explore differences in various measures of climate friendly behaviors among different segments of the population.Practical implications>This study's findings have at least twofold implications for university authorities and sustainability practitioners in their pursuit of meeting SDG 13. The first implication is related to academic life. Undoubtedly, having a high percentage of students believing in global warming and mainly that this phenomenon is by anthropogenic activities is a strong indication of their knowledge. But, indirectly, these results validate the sustainability teaching and research efforts in their HEIs, implying the commitment to sustaining and improving the quality of their sustainability-educational initiatives in all institutional areas. The second implication of our findings is related to HEIs' future commitments to address the target of SDG 13 during the present Decade of Actions. Results also lead us to reflect on the role of Mexican HEIs as agents of change, beyond offering good instruction on climate science as an agent of socialization to encourage positive mitigation and adaptation behaviors among the general population.Social implications>The social implication behind the environmental values of younger people found in this study is that a deeper understanding of these millennials' beliefs and concerns toward global warming will help Mexican policymakers implement policies in this regard and hopefully will be endorsed by a significant proportion of the Mexican population.Originality/value>The originality of this study is the application of the Global Warming's Six Americas survey questionnaire in higher education settings. Therefore, the knowledge generated determines the quality of the article. As findings in this study revealed, there is apparently little disagreement among the Mexican engineering higher education students about the belief of the existence of global warming and this phenomenon is being caused mainly by human-related activities. Nevertheless, a minority of students still believe that global warming is caused naturally or not occurring. However, it is not possible to claim victory, as these achievements should not be considered, in any way, a guarantee that students will carry out behaviors in their daily lives that impact a reduction in global warming. Nevertheless, the study provides insights to allow university authorities to ensure that the current beliefs and concerns will not fade in the post-pandemic times. Thus, the COVID-19 pandemic should be taken a pivotal era toward the goal of increasing the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

NEO-MYTHS: ISSUE-ATTENTION CYCLES AS MEDIATIZED SOCIAL DRAMAS

. This article suggests that in times of digital mass media, mediatized political issues create a self-perpetuating phenomenon that is here titled a neo-myth. Through combining interdisciplinary theories of Issue-Attention Cycles and Social Dramas, the article argues that the standardized ways that political issues are framed, mass-mediated and consumed in a contemporary society, paradoxically create a cyclical and self-perpetuating pattern. Instead of being linear, rational and cause-to-solution oriented, they become stereotypical, cyclical and performative, thus resembling mythological patterns both content and form-wise. The article discusses how and why these neo-myths form, as well as how political, public and media actors interact within the process. It discusses them in terms of their emergence, structure, causality, processual logics and formal variety, and suggests that the phenomenon falls in line with the findings of recent research on the shifting knowledge patterns in times of digital culture.

LABOUR, SELF-CARE AND RESPITE: NEOLIBERAL RATIONALITIES IN SLEEP CRISIS RHETORIC

This article tracks the emergence of sleep discourse in the past ten years in the USA, illustrating a democratisation of this rhetoric insofar as it has begun to interpellate populations beyond midlife women. Despite the sociological and demographic inequities associated with sleep deficits in marginalised populations, the much vaunted 'sleep crisis' is more widely appreciated as a distinct self-care frontier. Such behavioural scripts resonate with exaltations of the self as resilient entrepreneurial problem-solver and are linked to the broader positioning of self-care as salve for the injuries of neoliberalism. Beginning with sleep's ties to women's wellness and consumerist culture writ large, we apprehend sleep as an economy, one with staggering new commercial dimensions. Sleep remedies tend to be focused narrowly on the acquisition of products and technologies (sleep sprays, essential oils and melatonin gummies, blackout curtains, premium bedding, sleep apps, sound machines, adult sleep coaches), all of which come under consideration here. The investigation then turns to the heightened attention paid to the experience of sleep during COVID-19, discusses how sleep discourse articulates to and with a sense of ambivalent dispossession from work regimes and, finally, argues that the sleep crisis has been leveraged to intensify neoliberal brutalities.

Communicating During COVID-19 and Other Acute-Event Scenarios: A Practical Approach: JBTC

Successfully adapting to organizational changes during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis necessitated the effective deployment of technical communication texts delineating the expectations and structures for guiding behavior and interactions. A dearth of system-wide familiarity with changes in modalities has disrupted expectations and impacted engagement. During acute events, business and technical communicators will probably not be the initial source of transition messaging. Instead, this task will fall on managers, faculty, and other front-line communicators. The authors present pragmatic recommendations for adapting familiar discourses, semiotics, and mental scripts so that communicators can more effectively intervene during crises to ease organizational transitions and decrease uncertainty.

" I wish there was a guide": Navigating changes to intimate relationship scripts during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic drastically affected how people interact socially. Stay-at-home orders, travel restrictions, and closures of non-essential businesses caused disruptions to the development of intimate relationships. Individuals develop expectations about how relationships should progress based on romantic scripts (i.e., relationship guidelines based on social norms), and typically report feeling more satisfied when their relationships follow these scripts. The current study was designed to assess how individuals involved in, or pursuing, intimate relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic adapted to these significant shifts to the progression of intimate relationships. Data were collected from user-generated posts on a popular online forum site. Analysis of spontaneous online communications during the first calendar year of the pandemic (2020) revealed notable impacts on the romantic scripts of individuals in all relationship stages (i.e., single, dating, new relationship, non-cohabiting, cohabiting, long distance, and relationship dissolution). Content analysis yielded themes related to the dominant discourse, as well as similarities across and differences between relationship stages. Overall, people described notable changes to their intimate relationship scripts that they attributed to the pandemic and restrictions. The results contribute to the current understanding of the pandemic's impact on our closest, intimate relationships and provide insights for use in policy and research around social change.

Efficient Detection and Recovery of Malicious PowerShell Scripts Embedded into Digital Images

Due to steady improvements in defensive systems, malware developers are turning their attention to mechanisms for cloaking attacks as long as possible. A recent trend exploits techniques like Invoke-PSImage, which allows embedding a malicious script within an innocent-looking image, for example, to smuggle data into compromised devices. To address such a class of emerging threats, new mechanisms are needed, since standard tools fail in their detection or offer poor performance. To this aim, this work introduces Mavis, an efficient and highly accurate method for detecting hidden payloads, retrieving the embedded information, and estimating its size. Experimental results collected by considering real-world malicious PowerShell scripts showcase that Mavis can detect attacks with a high accuracy (100%) while keeping the rate of false positives and false negatives very low (0.01% and 0%, respectively). The proposed approach outperforms other solutions available in the literature or commercially through “as a service” model.

Guest editorial: Digital transformation and consumer experience

[...]recent advances in digital transformation, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data, have fueled the proliferation of digital marketing practices. [...]Oh and Yi (2022) focus on measuring consumer sentiments at the feature level and show their asymmetric impacts on overall product ratings. Specifically, they find that the positive and negative contributions of product attribute performance can change over time. [...]for the same amount of change, the positive and negative reviews of specific attributes will have different degrees of influence on the overall product evaluation.

Detecting Cryptojacking Web Threats: An Approach with Autoencoders and Deep Dense Neural Networks

With the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies, which are an important part of day-to-day transactions over the Internet, the interest in being part of the so-called cryptomining service has attracted the attention of investors who wish to quickly earn profits by computing powerful transactional records towards the blockchain network. Since most users cannot afford the cost of specialized or standardized hardware for mining purposes, new techniques have been developed to make the latter easier, minimizing the computational cost required. Developers of large cryptocurrency houses have made available executable binaries and mainly browser-side scripts in order to authoritatively tap into users’ collective resources and effectively complete the calculation of puzzles to complete a proof of work. However, malicious actors have taken advantage of this capability to insert malicious scripts and illegally mine data without the user’s knowledge. This cyber-attack, also known as cryptojacking, is stealthy and difficult to analyze, whereby, solutions based on anti-malware extensions, blocklists, JavaScript disabling, among others, are not sufficient for accurate detection, creating a gap in multi-layer security mechanisms. Although in the state-of-the-art there are alternative solutions, mainly using machine learning techniques, one of the important issues to be solved is still the correct characterization of network and host samples, in the face of the increasing escalation of new tampering or obfuscation techniques. This paper develops a method that performs a fingerprinting technique to detect possible malicious sites, which are then characterized by an autoencoding algorithm that preserves the best information of the infection traces, thus, maximizing the classification power by means of a deep dense neural network.

Applying Web-Based Technology in Developing Student Worksheets on Writing Local Culture Content Drama Script

The purposes of this study were to identify the students' and teacher's needs for student worksheets for teaching local culture content drama scripts writing based on the verses of Sultan Abdul Muluk (SAM), to design a prototype of the worksheets, to obtain expert validation of the prototype, to determine the worksheets' practicality, and to examine the effectiveness of the developed worksheets. The research procedures were based on Plomp's model and Tessmer's modified model of Research & Development. Data were collected employing multiple techniques. To obtain information on the student and teacher needs, questionnaires were administered and an interview was conducted. To ascertain the validity of the worksheets, an expert validation was carried out. To determine practicality of the worksheets, a small group evaluation was conducted, and questionnaires were administered. To examine the effectiveness of the worksheets, field tests of script writing were carried out. Results of the need analysis revealed that all students and teachers needed elearning-based student worksheets on drama scripts writing based on SAM verses. Based on expert validation, the developed worksheet was categorized as valid. Based on the small group evaluation, the worksheet was considered practical. Results of the field tests indicated that the worksheet was effective. The implication is that the worksheet is of great importance and, therefore, will likely become a major instructional material for teaching drama script writing based on SAM verses.

Impacts of Online Education in the Development of Indian Students' during Covid-19 Lockdown Phase: An Experience

Lockdown due to Covid-19 pandemic situation had started in India since 24th March 20201 and after that almost two years is going to be passed but it is very difficult to access digital education by the students of India properly though 'Digital India'1 was launched by Prime Minister of India on 1st July 2015.2 Actually Indian education system is not habituated with online education rather world knows Indian education for Ashram education/Tapoban education (Tagorian model of education) 3 and Gurukula education(ancient Indian education system where shisha living near to guru)4 where environment and students are connected with each other. Lockdown has braked this spiritual connection. Lockdown has insisted the students, teachers, and education system of India access education through digital mode where the morality, ethics, values, creativity, quality, practical knowledge, and field-based project work are affected adversely to some extent. Every corner of India may get the education through digital mode but whether the internet is present in every corner of India, whether all the Indian students have the capacity to buy the android phone and laptop, whether the uninterrupted internet high speed (5G or 10 gigabits per second) 5 is available everywhere, whether the teachers of India are habituated in the online education system, whether the Indian students and teachers access online teaching-learning education ethically, whether the controller of examinations to educational institutions is experienced in conducting digital examinations. So, there is a huge number of confusions are present in our contemporary education system to run digital education completely. Again, based on the last two years' teaching and evaluation system during a lockdown of the examination, it is experienced that almost all the students give the answers of the questions during online examination based on the pen-book method and they put the questions in google and take the answers from that. Even there are some students who do not write the answer scripts in their own handwriting rather they engage 2nd party to write it. In some cases, teachers do not check answer scripts properly and give marks just based on the roll numbers or names. In some cases, it is again observed that teacher has mistakenly provided the marks though the candidate has sent the answer-scripts in the relevant emails provided by the institution/department. Later when students saw the mark sheet without the marks on a particular paper, he/they fill up the scrutiny form with proper institutional fees, after that they pass the same paper with relevant marks. Now the question is why students will bear extra scrutiny charges due to the fault of the teacher's careless job during the checking of the answer scripts? Sometimes students join the online examination link to present their assignments but just after starting the presentation candidate leave the link and show the excuse for internet problem. Actually, the candidate has not done the assignment properly, and to hide this truth he/she does this type of malpractice. Thus, the blended learning or hybrid teaching method should be applied to the contemporary Indian education system. Moreover, the concept of 'Sustainable Thinking'6 must be incorporated in the development of moral education of the students and teachers.

"It Strengthened My Core Relationships, and Filtered Out the Rest:" Intimacy Communication During COVID-19.

Informed by scripting theories and Relational Dialectics Theory, this qualitative study used interviews, focus groups, and friendship pods conducted during the summer of 2020 in the COVID-19 pandemic to explore how 29 cisgender women and gender minorities made sense of, communicated about, and maintained their intimate relationships during COVID-19. Findings reveal a discourse of scripted intimacy reflecting normative relational patterns such as the heterosexual life script and the discourse of co-created intimacy, both of which legitimized and challenged the existing relational scripts by generating new ideas of what intimacy could look like in a relationship. Sub-themes included tensions of stability v. growth, comfort v. discomfort, and physical risk v. relational risk. Implications and avenues for future research are discussed.

Conjuring Kuwait Onstage: An Interview with Mohammed Al-Hemely

The play, set in unnamed slums of Kuwait, centers on Om Sror (mother of Sror), a leader of a hidden community that authorities have at best forgotten and at worst demonized (fig. 1). Closure of theatres around the world due to COVID-19 did not abet Al-Hemely’s drive, as he produced one of the first Zoom plays in the Arabic region. First step, everybody comes here. Because you can’t come inside my [points to head], I see too many things, I visit too many stages, I go backstage in many theatres, in Kuwait and outside.

Asynchronous Delivery of a 400 Level, Partially Peer-Graded, Oral Presentation and Discussion Course in Systems Neuroscience for 60 Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

A 400-level undergraduate oral presentation and discussion course in Systems Neuroscience was delivered asynchronously online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Enrolled students banked their narrated oral presentations in video format online then engaged in peer evaluation in virtual classrooms through the course website. Student delivered their oral presentation and responded to peer questions at their leisure and convenience, without the stress and anxiety associated with a "live" performance delivery in front of their peers. A remote and asynchronously delivered course facilitated much more peer contact than "live" versions of the course, which included a total of 62 uploaded presentations, 301 video responses uploaded to 1985 questions posed by peers, a total of 1159 feedback questionnaires submitted, 1066 rankings submitted of viewed oral presentations, and 1091 scores submitted evaluating the quality of questions posed by reviewers of oral presentations. A major drawback in the remote, asynchronous deliver was the enormity of peer engagement through the course website portal, which was mostly blind to the instructor because of the inability to effectively cross-index data linked between the student entries in the LEARN course website and the uploaded videos stored within BONGO Video Assignment tool. Nonetheless, a consistent engagement of students, and the positive feedback from enrolled students, indicate that a future version of this oral/written discussion course will be delivered, in part, remotely and asynchronously, even without a mandated delivery of the course by a remote and asynchronous method due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in 2020-2021.

On symbols and scripts: The politics of the American COVID-19 response.

The COVID-19 crisis emerged during a divisive time in American politics. We argue that to unravel the American COVID-19 crisis-and to craft effective responses-we need a more sophisticated understanding of the political culture of public health crises. We use data from interviews and online media to examine symbolic representation of public health phenomena (masks; public health institutions) within the first months of the US epidemic. We show how political scripts about pandemic responses are shaped by, and align with, deeply-rooted social values and political cultures. Social processes of meaning-making help explain the evolution of increasingly partisan public health discourse regarding topics like masking and institutional trust. We highlight the lack of memorialization of deaths in America-that has not acquired the same polarized political meaning as other issues-to consider how and why certain issues gain political valence, and what opportunities certain acts of politicization provide in shifting public discourse. The coronavirus pandemic challenged the science of public health strategy, and the legitimacy of its institutions, with devastating consequences. Anticipating and understanding the central role of political cultures, cultural scripts, and meanings in positioning public health measures is essential for more effective responses to COVID-19 and future pandemics.