Low back pain, lower physical activity, and loneliness associated with decreased frequency of going out during COVID-19 in Japanese older adults

Background: This study investigated the association of frequency of going out with physical activity, low back pain, and loneliness among urban Japanese community-dwelling older adults affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Methods: This cross-sectional study recruited older adults aged 65 and over residing in apartment buildings in an urban area of Japan as participants. The questionnaire comprised items on participants' frequency of going out, musculoskeletal pain, physical activity, mobility, loneliness, and sociodemographic characteristics. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to explore the associations of decreased frequency of going out (less than once a week) during the pandemic with musculoskeletal pain, physical activity, and loneliness after controlling for age, sex, living alone, comorbidity, and social activity as confounding factors. Results: This study analyzed 236 older adults (mean age: 75.5 years;females 54.2%) whowent out more than two to three days a week before the pandemic. Participants who went out less than once a week during the pandemic (14%) had more arthritis than those who went out more. They also had a higher prevalence of reduced physical activity, low back pain, gait disability, and loneliness. Additionally, decreased frequency of going out was associated with lower physical activity [adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 3.91, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.78-8.61], low back pain (OR = 2.79, 95% CI: 1.08-7.24), and loneliness (OR = 1.50, 95% CI: 1.14-1.98). Conclusions: This study indicated that reduced physical activity, loneliness, and low back pain are associated with a decreased frequency of going out during the pandemic among older adults.

Features of Corporate Social Responsibility in Russia Within the Framework of Sustainable Development

Transforming business for sustainable development is the most important challenge facing companies around the world today. The study and dissemination of best practices allow all economic agents from different industries to implement a strategic approach to the management of corporate social activities, as well as to integrate the principles of responsible business management into the system of basic management functions. The technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are rapidly changing the structure of markets and the strategies of companies, but they cannot be considered outside the context of the interaction of business, society, and nature. To implement more sustainable business models and address the main issues of the current decade related to social and environmental risks, an open dialogue between the state, science, and business is necessary. The article shows the features of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Russia at the present stage, identifies the problems, and prospects for its development. The analysis of trends in the adaptation of Russian realities to the UN concept of sustainable development is carried out. The methodology used in the study contained a set of methods and approaches. In addition to general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, system, situational, process, and dynamic approaches were used. As a result of the research, several conclusions were drawn and practical recommendations were proposed to the state and the private sector for organizing and improving the effectiveness of the CSR system following current global trends. Also, the reaction of Russian companies to the Covid-19 pandemic is shown. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

‘We are developing our bubble': role of the built environment in supporting physical and social activities in independent-living older adults during COVID-19

This study explores how the built environment can support and challenge a bubble strategy designed to protect older adults from virus transmission while at the same time allowing them maintain their physical and social activities during COVID-19. We conducted a case study of older adults in an independent-living building and the surrounding neighborhood in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Data were collected through building and neighborhood observations, and 11 semi-structured in-depth interviews with 6 building residents and 6 stakeholders. Data were analyzed through mapping and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Complex and nuanced relationships between human and nonhuman factors that supported and challenged the bubble are elaborated in three built environment categories. (1) ‘Building interiors', where residents conduct routine activities and attend physical and social activities with neighbors, were central to the bubble. (2) ‘Neighborhood environments' were extensions of the bubble that affected residents' outdoor activities. (3) ‘Building edges' were important for balancing residents' needs for connecting to the world outside and protecting themselves from the virus. Communities should consider the bubble strategy combined with built environment supports to assist older adults in protecting themselves against virus transmission, and maintaining physical and social activities during the ongoing pandemic and future epidemics. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

A Review of Top Corporate Sustainability Initiatives and Their Resilience during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The main goal of this research is to determine the advantages of implementing corporate so-cial responsibility (CSR) principles and the contribution they make to achieving the sustainable goals of business structures. To achieve this goal, the economic activity of small, medium-sized and large companies from different countries was studied. The article focuses on the economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has affected the entire world economy. It is proven that it is easier for companies that have implemented the principles of environmental, social, and managerial sustainability to adapt to change, and they are more resilient. A number of factors that hinder the development of CSR enterprises have been identified: the lack of do-mestic legislation, including the National Strategy for Corporate Social Responsibility in Ukraine, the lack of state support for CSR development and incentives, a sufficient level of perception of the importance of CSR by enterprise management, and, of course, limited financial resources. The paper proposes that the organization of CSR in enterprises should be organically integrat-ed into their governance and managerial strategies. An important condition is the development and adoption of Corporate Codes and the implementation of non-financial reporting. Also, it is important to identify those responsible for its implementation.

Study on standardization for Interoperable Metaverse

The rapid development of artificial intelligence, blockchain, and networks, and the sudden appearance of the metaverse, triggered by COVID-19, are both expected and concerned. Along with criticism that it is somewhat exaggerated, it is receiving a lot of attention in that it can provide a foundation for social and economic activities in the virtual world. In this paper, we present the new driving force that re-emerged the metaverse, and analysis on the related standardization status. By the analysis on that, we propose the interface and interworking model required to make the metaverse interoperable with each other. © 2023 Global IT Research Institute (GiRI).

Healthcare Science for Lifelong Health-Visualizing Biological Rhythms and Regulating Them on One's Own

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought dramatic changes to our daily lives and social activities. Anxiety over one and one's family becoming infected, stress caused by limitations imposed on personal behavior, changes in lifestyle, etc. have greatly affected everyone's mental and physical condition. This article introduces health science that aims for a society of lifelong health by visualizing one's daily data covering basic lifestyle habits (eating, exercising, and sleeping) and self-regulating one's biological rhythms. © 2022 Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp.. All rights reserved.

Sacred Spaces Enduring Pro-environmental Behavior: A Case Study from Kerala Temple

In this Anthropocene era, it is relevant to understand how culture influences humans' ecological behavior. This research aims to understand the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on temple-led eco-conservation strategies from the Sasthamcotta Shri Dharma Sastha temple, known for its natural landscapes and pro-environmental activities. A qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews was conducted virtually among the people who regularly interact with the temple. The data was collected directly from the field and is analyzed systematically based on grounded theory. The findings indicate that temples can generate eco-conservation approaches that are socio-psychologically relevant to humans, such as (a) connectedness to nature, (b) sense of place, (c) values, beliefs, and norms, and (d) general awareness. The temple also serves as a management hub for (e) pro-social activities and (f) environmental decision-making. Managerial factors such as pro-social activities and environmental decision-making were curtailed during the COVID-19 lockdown, and the strategies based on socio-psychological factors remain unchanged. According to our findings, new environmental conservation strategies should be based on socio-psychological aspects that are more in line with the mental model of the community. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Metaverse Virtual Social Center for the Elderly Communication During the Social Distancing

The lack of social activities in the elderly for physical reasons can make them feel lonely and prone to depression. With the spread of COVID-19, it is difficult for the elderly to conduct the few social activities stably, causing the elderly to be more lonely. The metaverse is a virtual world that mirrors reality. It allows the elderly to get rid of the constraints of reality and perform social activities stably and continuously, providing new ideas for alleviating the loneliness of the elderly. Through the analysis of the needs of the elderly, a virtual social center framework for the elderly was proposed in this study. Besides, a prototype system was designed according to the framework. The elderly can socialize in virtual reality with metaverse-related technologies and human-computer interaction tools. Additionally, a test was jointly conducted with the chief physician of the geriatric rehabilitation department of a tertiary hospital. The results demonstrated that the mental state of the elderly who had used the virtual social center was significantly better than that of the elderly who had not used it. Thus, virtual social centers alleviated loneliness and depression in older adults. Virtual social centers can help the elderly relieve loneliness and depression when the global epidemic is normalizing and the population is aging. Hence, they have promotion value © 2022 Beijing Zhongke Journal Publishing Co. Ltd

The Digital Divide in the Post-corona Era: Focused on Social Participation

With the worldwide spread of COVID-19, existing face-to-face activities, especially social activities, have been incorporated as part of online services in the pandemic era. Therefore, the digital divide that continues to change with the development of technology has also become a serious social problem in the aftermath of COVID-19. This study aims to illuminate how the divide in a more digitized society and changes in Internet use caused by COVID-19 affect satisfaction with social participation activities. The analysis revealed that the motivation to use digital devices has a static effect on satisfaction with social participation activities. The variance in Internet social participation due to COVID-19 showed a significant mediating effect between digital motivation and social participation satisfaction. Furthermore, mobile usage skills were found to have static moderating effects between digital motivation and variance in Internet social participation, digital motivation, and satisfaction with social participation. These results suggest that there is a clear gap in social participation according to individual digital capabilities in the spread of information and communication technology services after COVID-19. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Data Science Adoption and Operationalization in the O&G Industry: Challenges and Solutions

The Oil and Gas (O&G) industry is used to cycles of lows and highs due to different challenging economic and political situations. Yet the challenges caused by the sanitary crisis due to the covid-19 pandemic are certainly like no others. The shutdown of a large number of social activities had a direct impact on energy consumption. Many studies [1], [2] and [3] have been published at the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic to predict impacts of the restrictions imposed on a global scale: decline in global oil demand, saturation of storage capacities and delay of exploration and production projects. Companies facing this unprecedented crisis had no option but to adopt innovative ways of driving costs lower and maximizing operational efficiency. As a consequence, the pace at which Data Science (DS) is finding its way to O&G applications has been noticeably accelerated although the O&G industry is one of the latecomers to digitalization [4]. The adoption of DS and data-driven solutions has moved from gaining acceptance in the industry to becoming a necessity to many companies. According to a Gartner survey [5], the O&G industry commitment to investment in digital transformation in general had become the first priority in 2021 while it was third-highest priority in 2019 and not even funded in 2014. This involves investments in data acquisition techniques through innovative sensing technologies but also investments in advanced data aggregation and analytics platforms. AI/ML/analytics are listed in the same survey [5] as "top game-changing technologies in 2021". The 2021 survey also states that 50% of the O&G companies have plans to increase their investments in AI/ML and related fields such as cloud-computing. But adoption and operationalization of DS does not come with no challenges. Acceptance and reliance on data-driven models need a favorable cultural and technical environment that is not necessarily compatible with the conventional corporate-like outlook of O&G companies: Data privacy and ownership regulations can diminish DS efforts. Security restrictions can prevent deployment of ML models to end users. All of these challenges are accentuated by the absence of a clear process model to implement and manage DS projects. In this paper, we survey the actual challenges the O&G industry is facing and present a number of corresponding solutions. The paper is structured as follows. The first section explores the state of the art of data-driven models in the O&G industry. The second section lists the challenges DS is facing within the O&G industry and proposes a classification of these challenges into three main classes, namely: human, data and infrastructure related challenges. The paper also proposes an O&G specific framework for DS projects to overcome these identified challenges. Copyright © 2022, International Petroleum Technology Conference.

Environmentally persistent free radicals in PM2.5 from a typical Chinese industrial city during COVID-19 lockdown: The unexpected contamination level variation

The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused concerns globally. To reduce the rapid transmission of the virus, strict city lockdown measures were conducted in different regions. China is the country that takes the earliest home-based quarantine for people. Although normal industrial and social activities were suspended, the spread of virus was efficiently controlled. Simultaneously, another merit of the city lockdown measure was noticed, which is the improvement of the air quality. Contamination levels of multiple atmospheric pollutants were decreased. However, in this work, 24 and 14 air fine particulate matter (PM2.5) samples were continuously collected before and during COVID-19 city lockdown in Linfen (a typical heavy industrial city in China), and intriguingly, the unreduced concentration was found for environmentally persistent free radicals (EPFRs) in PM2.5 after normal life suspension. The primary non-stopped coal combustion source and secondary Cu-related atmospheric reaction may have impacts on this phenomenon. The cigarette-based assessment model also indicated possible exposure risks of PM2.5-bound EPFRs during lockdown of Linfen. This study revealed not all the contaminants in the atmosphere had an apparent concentration decrease during city lockdown, suggesting the pollutants with complicated sources and formation mechanisms, like EPFRs in PM2.5, still should not be ignored. © 2022

Resilience of Environmental and Social Stocks under Stress: Lessons from the COVID‐19 Pandemic

This paper examines whether environmental and social (ES) activities affect the resiliency of firms during the COVID‐19 crisis. We study a sample of 330 firms operating in five developed countries: Canada, France, Japan, the UK and the US. Our analysis shows that US firms with a high ES ranking experienced a significantly lower stock price range volatility during the Covid stock market rundown of February‐March 2020. Such findings also hold for Japanese firms but only later on after the introduction of government support. In terms of returns, compared to their peers with a low ES ranking, Japanese and UK stock prices with a high ES ranking suffered more during and after the market rundown. For other countries, we do not find significant differences in stock price behavior based on ES ratings. Our findings suggest that engaging with ES activities is not associated with a better or worse performance during crisis times, which has important implications for investors and managers.

Feature-Modified SEIR Model for Pandemic Simulation and Evaluation of Intervention Approaches

SEIR (susceptible-exposed-infected-recovered) model has been widely used to study infectious disease dynamics. For instance, there have been many applications of SEIR analyzing the spread of COVID to provide suggestions on pandemic/epidemic interventions. Nonetheless, existing models simplify the population, regardless of different demographic features and activities related to the spread of the disease. This paper provides a comprehensive SEIR model to enhance the prediction quality and effectiveness of intervention strategies. The new SEIR model estimates the exposed population via a new approach involving health conditions (sensitivity to disease) and social activity level (contact rate). To validate our model, we compare the estimated infection cases via our model with actual confirmed cases from CDC and the classic SEIR model. We also consider various protocols and strategies to utilize our modified SEIR model on many simulations and evaluate their effectiveness. © 2022 IEEE.

Cybernetic Avatar Platform for Supporting Social Activities of All People

Some people have difficulty participating in social activities due to COVID-19 or other factors such as age, physical or cognitive state, appearance, and gender hindrance. We propose a concept of active social participation with cybernetic avatars (CAs) that are tele-operated robots and CG agents. We also propose the CA platform, which is a software platform that connects CAs and tele-operators, to make it easier for people in various locations to participate in society using CAs. In this paper, we propose three types of CAs and connection methods for CAs and environment sensors to the CA platform for assisting tele-operators to achieve active social participation in Avatar Symbiotic Society. © 2023 IEEE.

How do economic activities spur the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia? A dynamic panel data analysis

Russia is one of the few countries in the world that has opted for almost no policy measures involving the strong suppression of economic activity in the face of the epidemic disaster brought about by the new coronavirus (COVID-19). This makes Russia a valuable subject of social experiments through which the association between economic activity and the spread of the virus can be explored. This paper presents a dynamic panel data analysis to examine the extent to which different types of economic activity contribute to the spread of COVID-19 infection using monthly and quarterly panel data of Russian regions between March 2020 and April 2021. The results strongly supported our expectation that economic activities have a greater impact on the levels of COVID-19 transmission when they involve a larger number of inhabitants or stimulate greater consumption or social activities among citizens. It was also revealed that Russian regions vary greatly in terms of the routes that link economic activity to the spread of COVID-19. These results have important policy implications for current and future epidemic control.

Understanding Older Adults' Participation in Online Social Activities

Restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic have limited opportunities for older people to participate in face-to-face organised social activities. Many organisations moved these activities online, but little is known about older adults' experiences of participating in those activities. This paper reports an investigation of older adults' experiences of participating in social activities that they used to attend in-person, but which were moved online because of strict lockdown restrictions. We conducted in-depth interviews with 40 older adults living independently (alone or with others). Findings from a reflexive thematic analysis show that online social activities were important during the pandemic for not only staying connected to other people but also helping older adults stay engaged in meaningful activities, including arts, sports, cultural, and civic events. Online activities provided older adults with opportunities to connect with like-minded people;share care, encouragement, and support;participate in civic agendas;learn knowledge and develop new skills;and experience entertainment, distraction, and mental stimulation. Our participants had diverse perceptions of the transition from in-person to online social activities. Based on the findings, we present a taxonomy of multi-layered meaningful activities for older adults' digital social participation and highlight implications for future technology design. © 2022 ACM.

"Hide Your Video, Show Your Action!" Investigating a New Video Conferencing Interface for Virtual Studying

With the advent of COVID-19, new virtual social activities arose. These activities include virtual studying, which is studying while joining a video conference. Virtual studying is different from most virtual activities in that users try to minimize unnecessary interactions while sharing their presence through video streaming. Here, video streaming that runs in the background can cause problems such as invasion of privacy and excessive self-awareness. In this paper, we aim to investigate whether a new video conferencing interface that reduces video explicitness but detects important actions can mitigate the problems of video streaming and still deliver users' presence in virtual studying. To this end, we designed a research prototype in three versions: blurred video version, small video version, and no video version. All versions were provided with an activity recognizer that detects absence, leaning, and using a smartphone. To evaluate the feasibility of the design, we conducted a user study where four virtual studying teams used all three versions of the prototype and participated in an interview. Our study explored the effects of new design strategies for virtual studying, which is a new virtual activity that focuses on sharing presence. © 2022 Owner/Author.

ESG scores during the pandemic

In recent years, firms have increased their investments in environmental, social, and governance activities. Using a large sample of large US firms, this paper investigates the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on firms' SG activities. First, we investigate whether the pandemic induced firms to increase their environmental, social, and governmental investment. Our initial results reveal that firms increase their environmental, social, and governance activities despite the financial challenges during the pandemic. However, further investigation demonstrates that a general increase in social investments drives our initial results. Also, our findings indicate that, with respect to environmental, social, and governance activities, the pandemic affected industries in different ways. Limitations and directions for future studies are also provided. © 2022 IEEE.

All Aboard: One Year of Accessible and Inclusive Remote School Trips

The rapid spread of the CoViD-19 pandemic in early 2020 and the adoption of social distancing and "stay-at-home"orders gave rise to the sudden need for schools to be able to provide effective remote teaching. In Italy and elsewhere, the introduction of distance learning technologies has significantly impacted the education of students and limited their social interaction and activities, among which are school trips and other scholastic experiences. To support the constrained educational possibilities of Italian schools, we developed "ActiveViewer", a technological platform that enables massive and interactive remote events, and performed a year-long large-scale experiment, providing a series of massive remote school trips to several Italian cities. We designed a new school trip format, named "CodyTrip"that merges coding and computational thinking with elements of traditional school outings, and provides an engaging experience for participants. In this paper, we present the format and five online trips performed during the school year 2020/2021. The results based on user feedback support the adoption of the tool not only as a stopgap measure for school outings throughout the pandemic but as an accessible and inclusive tool to widen the possibilities of cultural tourism. © 2022 IEEE.

Using Google data for assessing the relation between Covid-19 spread and social distancing

The paper examines the relation between the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic and the respective measures adopted by various countries collectively labeled as 'social distancing'. The progress of the disease is publicly available from the data published by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (JHU CSSE) that contain the new cases of Covid-19 and deaths from Covid-19 per country on a daily basis. Moreover, Google reports the situation regarding social distancing in a number of social activity categories in several countries based on data gathered by users of mobile phones using Google mobile applications. The paper analyzes these two sets of data for 22 countries (20 in Europe plus the USA and Canada) and shows a significant correlation between the decrease in the levels of social distancing and the daily rate of increase of new Covid-19 cases. Consequently, the discussion is concerned with the effect of social distancing measures per category of social activity, the level of conformance displayed by citizens in each country as well as the number of days required between the imposition of the measures and their effect on the spread of the pandemic. This discussion provides additional insight that can assist policy makers in imposing the most effective set of measures as well as the proper sequence of measures withdrawing in in similar situations. © 2022 IEEE.