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Visualization is integral to investigating information hidden in data and providing users with intuitive feedback for decision-making. No matter the field a data set describes, inspecting the data visually will yield fruitful insights into the trends and statistics. Over the past calendar year, COVID-19 vaccines have become increasingly available for much of the population. However, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) fails to consider multiple sets of pandemic data in a side-by-side view and synchronize multiple key factors in one web page, limiting medical professionals and individuals to seeing, comparing, and interacting with complete data visualization. To analyze the coronavirus and vaccination data collected from multiple sources, effectively displaying them is critically important for interpreting the pandemic transmission pattern and vaccine efficiency. This paper presents new algorithms for innovative data visualizations that provide users with intuitive feedback and enable them to see a complete story of where the data is concerned. The information derived from our developed web-based data visualization will aid healthcare professionals and everyday citizens in moving forward as the pandemic progresses. © 2023 IEEE.
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This study pretends to contribute to a better understanding of the COVID-19 dynamics through the non-parametric technique of phase synchronization by comparing the fifteen most affected countries by the number of positive cases plus China, where the first outbreak took place in December 2019. It was possible to state the number of cycles and waves for each one of the studied countries and to determine periods of synchronization between them. The results also showed the average duration of the cycles and some coincidences regarding Nason (2020);Bontempi (2021);Coccia (2021);Rusinol, Zammit, Itarte, Fores, Martinez-Puchol, Girones, Borrego, Corominas, and Bofill-Mas (2021). This study is limited by the reliability of the number of positive cases reported by national governments and health authorities because of an insufficient number of tests and a great number of asymptomatic persons but presents a legit alternative to predict the evolution of the pandemic in a country due to the forward looking behavior of another one, therefore studies like this could be useful to implement contention measures and to prepare the health systems in advance.
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COVID-19 has made working from home (WFH) a widely prevalent mode of work, resulting in highly complex changes of energy and water consumption in buildings. To understand these changes, this study applies the concept of water-energy nexus (WEN) in the analysis of energy and water data in residential and non-residential buildings in Ontario, Canada, before and during the pandemic. The study found the overall energy and water consumption of buildings exhibited a decreasing trend, with the most significant change found in water consumption. Energy and water consumption increased in residential buildings but decreased in non-residential buildings;the changes in energy and water consumption were synchronized over the WFH period. This study also elucidated that changes were related to the demographic and job attributes. When dealing with the peak load of residential consumption with a high consumption benchmark, due consideration should be given to the stronger synchronization of the two types of resources to improve the resilience of residences to cope with the uncertainty of unexpected large-scale public health crisis. Applying WEN to building resource consumption during WFH for the first time, the findings shed light on the need to enhance integrated water and energy management. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
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Purpose: The need to innovate and apply alternative forms of school organization is evident as the COVID-19 pandemic has generated a need to establish new conceptualizations of schools and education management. The paradigm shift in learning inexorably necessitates a corresponding paradigm shift in educational organization, administration and management in order to build organizational resilience and capital. This study proposed framework seeks to address this issue by proposing a transformation of educational organization and management, shifting away from the unilateral, hierarchical school models and towards a unique, smart collaborative school ecosystem in which residents, industries, schools, universities and research centers can create new digital knowledge and inventive products, services and solutions by enlarging their capitals. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing upon Bourdieu's theory of social capital, our theoretical contribution is to present the influence of three forms of capital (social, economic and cultural) in cultivating educational capacity and resilience in the school ecosystem, with a particular focus on the role of digital capital in reinforcing the school ecosystem capitals. The authors also argue that ecosystem leaders and principals as boundary spanners play an important role in promoting capital exchange and enlargement as they balance the permeability of organizational boundaries at times of crisis by maneuvering across fields. Findings: Achieving educational improvement and building organizational capacity and resilience through the enlargement of system (and subsystem) capitals requires that key actors develop synchronized interpretations of educational aims and functions in various contexts. The authors delineate the importance of developing a synchronization strategy in the proposed conceptualization of smart and resilient school ecosystems. Originality/value: By integrating research from both non-educational and educational literature, the proposed framework provides a new perspective for educational administration, organization and management, shifting away from the unilateral, hierarchical school models toward a unique, smart collaborative school ecosystem in which members can create new knowledge by enlarging their capitals. Practical lessons for leaders and policymakers from our conceptual framework are proposed. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.
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The ancient practice of chanting typically takes place within a community as a part of a live ceremony or ritual. Research suggests that chanting leads to improved mood, reduced stress, and increased wellbeing. During the global pandemic, many chanting practices were moved online in order to adhere to social distancing recommendations. However, it is unclear whether the benefits of live chanting occur when practiced in an online format. The present study assessed the effects of a 10-min online chanting session on stress, mood, and connectedness, carried out either in a group or individually. The study employed a 2 (chanting vs. control) × 2 (group vs. individual) between-subjects design. Participants (N = 117) were pseudo-randomly allocated across the four conditions. Before and after participation, individuals completed the Spielberg's State Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, the Social Connectedness Scale and Aron's Inclusion of Self in Other Scale. Online chanting led to a significant reduction in stress and an increase in positive affect when compared to the online control task. Participants who took part in group chanting also felt more connected to members of their chanting group than participants in the control group. However, feelings of general connectedness to all people remained similar across conditions. The investigation provides evidence that online chanting may be a useful psychosocial intervention, whether practiced individually or in a group.
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As the European Central Bank implements a common monetary policy for all member states, the effectiveness of the policy hinges upon the synchronization and similarity of inflation and GDP growth between them. We examine the consequences of COVID-19 outbreak for GDP growth and inflation of the Eurozone countries. We find that business cycles have been diverging since the aftermath of the Financial Crisis;however, the outbreak of COVID-19 brought about synchronization on a record scale. However, this increase in comovement is accompanied by an increase in the dissimilarity in the rates of GDP growth. Ergo, synchronization without similarity.
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For many years, the mechanisms of transmitting audio streams have been gaining popularity. The SARS-COV-2 pandemic completely remodeled people's habits by completely preventing participation in concerts. The technical possibilities of the musicians' remote cooperation have not been fully used yet.The popularity of remote communication is unquestionable. However, so far this type of communication has been based on a one-to-many model. In the case of music events, or music production in general, a many-to-one or generally many-to-many model must be implemented. For this to be possible, it is necessary to solve the problem of synchornization of streams originating sequentially from many creators. In addition to the aspect of audio stream synchronization discussed in this article, one of the assumptions was also the ease of adapting the proposed solution as part of a web application. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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Globally, the growing number of elderly people, chronic disorders and the spread of COVID-19 have all contributed to a significant growth of Home Health Care (HHC) services. One of HHC's main goals is to provide a coordinated set of medical services to individuals in the comfort of their own homes. On the basis of the current demand for HHC services, this paper attempts to develop a novel and effective mathematical model and a suitable decision-making technique for reducing costs associated with HHC service delivery systems. The proposed system of decision making identifies the real needs of HHCs which incorporate dynamic, synchronized services and coordinates routes by a group of caregivers among a mixed fleet of services. Initially, this study models the optimization problem using Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP). The Revised Version of the Discrete Firefly Algorithm is designed to address the HHC planning decision-making problem due to its unique properties and its computational complexity. To evaluate the scalability of this proposed approach, random test instances are generated. The results of the experiments revealed that the algorithm performed well even with the different scenarios such as dynamic and synchronized visits. Furthermore, the improved version of nature-inspired solution methodology has proven to be effective and efficient. As a result, the proposed algorithm has significantly reduced costs and time efficiency. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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Using the measures proposed by Mink et al. (2012), we reexamine the coherence of business cycles in the euro area using a long sample period. We also analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on business cycle coherence and examine whether our measures for business cycle coherence indicate a core versus periphery within EMU. Our results suggest that business cycle coherence did not increase monotonically. The COVID-19 pandemic made that the signs of the output gaps of euro area countries became more similar, but we find large differences in the amplitude of the output gaps across countries.
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The post-pandemic rise in consumer prices across the world has renewed interest in inflation dynamics after decades of global disinflation. This paper provides a spatial investigation of inflation synchronicity at the city level in Lithuania using disaggregated monthly data during the period 2000-2021. The empirical analysis provides strong evidence that (i) the co-movement of city-level inflation rates-estimated using the instantaneous quasi-correlation approach-is significantly weaker than the extent of synchronization suggested by the simple correlation analysis; (ii) there is substantial heterogeneity in the instantaneous quasi-correlation of inflation subcomponents between city pairs; and (iii) there are significant changes in the degree of city-level synchronization over time, reflecting important economic developments in history such as the global financial crisis, the adoption of euro, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The paper discusses the development prospects of the transport and logistics corridor of Georgia in a new context. The demand for the transport corridor of our country has increased. In such conditions, Georgia has a chance to establish a favorable transit hub image among alternative destinations. Objectives: The purpose of the study is to study the perspective of the development of the transport-logistics corridor of Georgia in a new context, to reveal the existing transit potential in this area and to develop recommendations for its implementation. Methods/Approach: Methods of data collection and observation were used during the processing of the paper. The method of data collection is mainly used in the transit-logistics system of Georgia, on the basis of which the existing potential in the field of transit shipments of Georgia was identified and the possibilities of its implementation were analyzed. Results: In order to increase the competitiveness of the transit-logistics channels of Georgia, it is necessary to improve the connections between the individual links of the logistics chain. In order to increase the transit capacity of Georgia, it is necessary to properly manage its logistics systems. Significant and rapid changes in the global supply chain provoked by the Covid-19 pandemic can become an opportunity for Georgia to rationally use the country's geo-economic location. Due to the disruption of the global supply chain due to the pandemic, the so-called New Silk Road is becoming important for Georgia. The formation of the "Middle Corridor" will further strengthen the potential of Georgia's logistics hub. Conclusions: In order to increase the competitiveness of the transport and logistics chain of Georgia, it is necessary to: 1. Revealing the competitive advantages of Georgian transport and logistics companies and a complex study of their development;raising the professional knowledge of the staff employed in these companies, training their managers at all levels of management;2. Implementation of an information technology system in order to obtain the right information on time and develop the right strategy.
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This study seeks to identify the determinants of forced household savings in 16 European Union (EU) member states in 2020. We show that the higher the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic in the state, measured by the intensity of government restrictions or the number of COVID-19-related deaths, the higher the level of forced savings. Such savings also increased with gross domestic product per capita and the financial support provided for households and enterprises by the government. Additionally, savings cultures and personality traits that support compliance with pandemic-related restrictions and enhance coping with the hardship of the pandemic had a positive impact on forced savings. Our results show that while common pandemic shock may lead to discrepancies in forced savings in affected countries, their level depends largely on government response in the form of imposed restrictions as well as financial support for households and enterprises. Therefore, strong fiscal support during the pandemic can be likened to sowing the seeds for post-pandemic recovery, as savings accumulated during the pandemic shock may be used to finance the pent-up demand. This, in turn, suggests that fiscal responses during the pandemic may act as a significant driver of post-pandemic business cycle (de)synchronization and inflation differentials among EU member states and, more importantly, euro-area countries.
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Throughout the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, decision makers have relied on forecasting models to determine and implement non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI). In building the forecasting models, continuously updated datasets from various stakeholders including developers, analysts, and testers are required to provide precise predictions. Here we report the design of a scalable pipeline which serves as a data synchronization to support inter-country top-down spatiotemporal observations and forecasting models of COVID-19, named the where2test, for Germany, Czechia and Poland. We have built an operational data store (ODS) using PostgreSQL to continuously consolidate datasets from multiple data sources, perform collaborative work, facilitate high performance data analysis, and trace changes. The ODS has been built not only to store the COVID-19 data from Germany, Czechia, and Poland but also other areas. Employing the dimensional fact model, a schema of metadata is capable of synchronizing the various structures of data from those regions, and is scalable to the entire world. Next, the ODS is populated using batch Extract, Transfer, and Load (ETL) jobs. The SQL queries are subsequently created to reduce the need for pre-processing data for users. The data can then support not only forecasting using a version-controlled Arima-Holt model and other analyses to support decision making, but also risk calculator and optimisation apps [1, 2]. The data synchronization runs at a daily interval, which is displayed at https://www.where2test.de. © 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
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ObjectiveTo evaluate practice transformation team (PTT) members' perceptions of the Flip the Pharmacy (FtP) initiative as a strategy for implementing and improving community pharmacy-based patient care. MethodsFtP is a national 2-year practice transformation initiative for implementing enhanced patient care and medication optimization services at community pharmacies, launched in 2019 with 28 PTTs including over 500 pharmacy locations. Key informant interviews were conducted with team leads, coaches, and pharmacy champions from four PTTs that participated in the first FtP cohort. The interviews were conducted using semistructured interview guides based on the RE-AIM framework and focused on participants' experiences in the first year of FtP. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using a rapid content analysis approach. ResultsFour leads, 8 coaches, and 8 pharmacy champions were interviewed from 4 PTTs from May to October 2021 and resulted in 10 themes: (1) community pharmacy practice experience is important when selecting coaches;(2) team readiness supports successful pharmacy practice transformation;(3) measures of patient care quality are needed;(4) payment and practice transformation opportunities happen in parallel;(5) successful practice transformation requires strategic involvement of the entire pharmacy team;(6) FtP practice transformation domains are synergistic;(7) change packages, coaching, and performance monitoring are core practice transformation supports;(8) pharmacy teams value opportunities to share and learn from each other;(9) sustaining patient care services is continuous;and (10) COVID-19 accelerated practice transformation while creating new stress points. ConclusionParticipants in this study perceived the FtP initiative as a helpful strategy implementing and improving community pharmacy-based patient care. Future research should explore the sustainability of the FtP initiative and similar community pharmacy practice transformation efforts.
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Currently, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic makes physical contact, such as handshakes, difficult. However, physical contact is effective in strengthening the bonds between people. In this study, we aim to compensate for the physical contact lost during the COVID-19 pandemic by presenting a pseudo-heartbeat through a speaker to reproduce entrainment and the synchronized state of heartbeats induced by physiological synchronization. We evaluated the effects of the device in terms of speech rhythm and heart rate. The experimental results showed that a presentation of 80 BPM significantly reduced the difference in heart rate between the two participants, bringing them closer to a synchronized heart rate state. The heart rates of participants were significantly lower when 45 BPM and 80 BPM were presented than when no stimulus was given. Furthermore, when 45 BPM was presented, the silent periods between conversations were significantly more extended than when no stimulus was given. This result indicates that this device can intentionally create the entrainment phenomenon and a synchronized heart rate state, thereby producing the same effect of physical contact communication without contact. © 2022 Owner/Author.
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We have developed four real-time methods for calculating a cardiointervalogram from a photoplethysmogram signal to calculate the total percentage of phase synchronization for estimating the state of the cardiovascular system. The methods were compared with the classical method of calculating a cardiointervalogram from an electrocardiogram signal using signals recorded from healthy volunteers and patients with COVID-19. © 2022 IEEE.
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The work aims to study the dynamics of connections between the circuits of the autonomic regulation of blood circulation in patients with Covid-19. The tools for the study are methods of nonlinear analysis. The work shows dynamics of the degree of phase synchronization between 0.1-Hz components of the RR-interval signals and the photoplethysmogram, and no visible change in the direction of connections. © 2022 IEEE.
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The demography database system should be very useful for various purposes in resolving socio-economic problems, such as the distribution of charity, especially for people affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. But unfortunately, the demography database system in Indonesia still has many problems. Things to consider are that there is no integration between databases at the central and local governments, and there is no synchronization of data between institutions. The next problem is that our demographic database system is not based on spatial information. Therefore, we need a demography database system that is integrated with the spatial information system. This study aims to integrate a demographic database system into a spatial information system. The demographic database system in principle always refers to certain administrative units, such as villages, subdistricts, districts/cities, and the state. The administrative unit can contain information about a geographic perspective, such as elevation, position, topography, etc. As a result, in addition to demographic policies, geographic perspectives can be considered, and the identification of asynchronous data between central and local governments becomes easier. In addition, there are impacts, which need to be considered in transforming tabular to spatial data, such as;scale factor, generalization, and classification.
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Specific 5G Release 17 work items are dealing with critical medical applications. Moreover, the adoption of mobile health (m-health) and e-health has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper first examines the requirements of critical medical applications that 5G is expected to support. Then it illustrates possible data protection, management, and privacy issues. Finally, it shows a first implementation of an m-health framework supporting physical distance management. Experimental results show that, by exploiting 5G connectivity and the computing capacity provided by an accelerated edge cloud, the proposed framework can detect physical distance violations faster than a user equipment (UE)-based implementation, while saving UE energy.