Birth, death and isolation: Motherhood during a pandemic

This chapter draws out the existential themes that have emerged for mothers during the Covid-19 pandemic and how they have had an impact on their lives. Birth, death and motherhood are all corporeal events which ground people in the physical dimension. Whereas the physical dimension of maternity in the pandemic was dominated by the safety and risk pole of existence for mothers, in the social dimension the focus was on isolation and belonging;and these two dimensions became interconnected. The way in which the issues of mortality and natality, of life and death, were manifested in women during the pandemic was through a preoccupation with the safety and risk pole of existence, which in turn led to worry, anxiety and fear. For women, those wanting to conceive during the pandemic it became a mission of trying to plan for the unknown. For the majority of women, the thought of giving birth is often felt with trepidation and anxiety about what will happen and how the birth will proceed but at the same time excitement and anticipation of finally meeting their baby. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Human-centered design as a tool to improve employee experience: The case of a US plant-based food manufacturer

U.S. organizations are facing a self-resignation problem. Employees are leaving their jobs in rates never seen before mainly due to human dissatisfactions. The high staff turnover rates put organizations in jeopardy compromising their entire operation. Organizations that are not able to retain and attract local talent can incur in ergonomics, quality, productivity problems and additional business risks. We propose an empirical study conducted in a plant-based food company located in the Northwest of the United States, facing a turnover problem, to bring new knowledge in the field of employee experience. Based on the Human-Centered Design (HCD) and case study methodologies, we conducted 152 in-depth interviews with the operational workforce from the company of the case study to discover the employee needs. Later, we evaluated data obtained from the interviewees applying HCD principles (convergent and divergent techniques). After grouping our data, we identified ten themes "communication", "training", "accountability", "management", "trust", 'safety", "equipment functionality", "favoritism", "food safety", "recognition", "culture", and "work environment". We propose the themes can help decision makers to ideate organizational strategies to improve the employee experience perspective by aiming the satisfaction of human needs and human's role in the manufacturing setting.

Webinars applauded by the chicken meat industry during the pandemic

The AgriFutures Chicken Meat RD&E program funded Training and extension for the chicken meat industry project quickly pivoted to delivering online webinars in response to the global human health pandemic in 2020 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19). The change to an online format was met with enthusiasm by all sectors of the industry. Between July 2020 and April 2022, 14 webinars have attracted 927 participants from 1622 registrationsan average attendance rate of 57%. Key topics such as litter management, environmental sustainability, nutrition, health, biosecurity and bird behaviour have been discussed with 27 researchers, encompassing 34 individual research projects. The positive feedback from industry participants in an independent mid-term project review, where 99% are interested in attending more webinars, coupled with high attendance and registration rates, indicate that this delivery format has an important role to play alongside face-to-face activities into the future.

Jude Niedziel, Dr. Mengele, covid hitlers – linguistic means of discrediting the opponent in the vaccine skepticism discourse

The subject of this article is the description of selected invectives used to discredit the opponent (mainly the government and the Minister of Health) by vaccination sceptics on the social networking site Facebook. In the discourse in question, we observe diverse linguistic means of depreciation, among which a special place is occupied by those referring to anti-Semitic and war themes. The analytical material is a corpus of texts containing Facebook users' comments. The research focuses on analyzing ways of negative valuing (depreciating) the opponent and shows the linguistic means used for this purpose. Among them are the following terms: jude Niedziel, criminals, Dr. Mengele a.k.a. Niedzielski, covid hitlers, genocide. © 2023 Polish Rhetoric Society. All rights reserved.

A Game with or without Rules: 15th Congress of Société Internationale d'Ethnologie et de Folklore (SIEF)

The review of the 15th Congress of Société Internationale d'Ethnologie et de Folklore (SIEF) distinguishes major trends in the development of anthropology, ethnology, and folklore which are characterized primarily by a bigger extent of interdisciplinarity, involvement of adjacent disciplines, politization, and socialization of the traditional spheres of scholarly interests. The SIEF Congress was meant to take place offline in Helsinki, Finland, June 19–24, 2021, but due to COVID-19 restrictions was transformed into an online event. Familiar SIEF Congress themes were grouped into 18 streams (Archives and Sources, Narratives, Food, Material Culture and Museums, etc.), and supplemented by emerging themes (Posthumanism, Intersectionality), with over 1000 papers in total. The panel organized by the SIEF working group Frankophone and the stream Mobility and Migration are discussed in detail. Many presentations covered COVID-19 Internet-memes—as well as folklore and the transformation of rituals over the course of the pandemic. The authors discuss positive and negative consequences of holding a big academic event online. Overall, a broadening of the geography of the participants is observed, which enlarges the scope of the traditions studied and correspondingly invites new problems for discussion. © 2023, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

What Do Opinion Leaders Share from the New Normal on Twitter?: A Qualitative Content Analysis

The question of what kind of content people share on social media is brought up by the COVID-19 pandemic and new normal policy. The government's well-coordinated campaign and the opposition's harsh comments are two of the reasons Indonesians actively utilize Twitter in relation to the new normal. This study intends to characterize and evaluate the presentation of new normal messages by opinion leaders on Twitter between May 16 and 29, 2020, since opinion leaders have historically been the network's active pioneers on a topic. The theories used for this study are self-presentation, opinion leaders, and the social media approach. The accounts of opinion leaders are determined through Drone Emprit's release of Top 100 New Normal Influencers, which then, generated six profiles: @haikal_hassan, @haris_azhar, @msaid_didu, @ridwankamil, @ismailfahmi, and @kurawa. The qualitative content analysis method was employed in this study with inductive reasoning. The findings revealed seven categories of new normal statements by opinion leaders, which corresponded to three key speech themes: 1) economic issues, 2) the implementation order of new normal life, and 3) negative sentiments. Additionally, we discovered that when opinion leaders create online personas, they do not aim to transcend the most fundamental parts of their backstage selves. Instead, they establish personas and personalities that are based on the same characters from the offline world. Meanwhile, this study suggests how the data might be useful for the Government, to consider the capacity of text-based platforms to help them learn about behaviors and needs during or even post-pandemic. © 2022 The Author(s).

Brushing up on time-honored sales skills to excel in tomorrow's environment

PurposeDetermining the skills required for salespersons to maximize their effectiveness was the main driver for conducting the present study. In order to identify those necessary skills, this study aims to review various research techniques drawn from multiple disciplines and applied that knowledge to salespersons.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a mixed-method methodology. This study began by conducting a literature review and then interviewed experienced salespersons with varied backgrounds to develop a comprehensive list of sales skills and themes and categorize them into competency categories. This study then conducted a quantitative analysis to determine the respective importance of the skills and themes by surveying a sample of internal stakeholders of a multinational company. Finally, this study calculated the reliability and validity of the themes.FindingsA total of 206 relevant skills (later reduced to 110) and 28 themes were identified and grouped into three competency categories: conceptual, human/interpersonal and technical. Survey respondents rated the skills and themes higher than the "somewhat important” score of 3 out of 5, with the overall mean importance for skills being in the "important” range (score of 4.27 out of 5). All identified skills were believed to be important to a salesperson's success.Originality/valueThis study's expanded list of sales skills will improve employability, reduce turnover among employees and build better groundwork for fostering learning through work, resulting in better performance. These skills represent a 2020 updated list that could be used for future academic research and training and research in the business world.

Tracking Population-Level Anxiety Using Search Engine Data: Ecological Study.

BACKGROUND: Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent mental disorders globally, with a substantial impact on quality of life. The prevalence of anxiety disorders has increased substantially following the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is likely to be further affected by a global economic recession. Understanding anxiety themes and how they change over time and across countries is crucial for preventive and treatment strategies. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to track the trends in anxiety themes between 2004 and 2020 in the 50 most populous countries with high volumes of internet search data. This study extends previous research by using a novel search-based methodology and including a longer time span and more countries at different income levels. METHODS: We used a crowdsourced questionnaire, alongside Bing search query data and Google Trends search volume data, to identify themes associated with anxiety disorders across 50 countries from 2004 to 2020. We analyzed themes and their mutual interactions and investigated the associations between countries' socioeconomic attributes and anxiety themes using time-series linear models. This study was approved by the Microsoft Research Institutional Review Board. RESULTS: Query volume for anxiety themes was highly stable in countries from 2004 to 2019 (Spearman r=0.89) and moderately correlated with geography (r=0.49 in 2019). Anxiety themes were predominantly long-term and personal, with "having kids," "pregnancy," and "job" the most voluminous themes in most countries and years. In 2020, "COVID-19" became a dominant theme in 27 countries. Countries with a constant volume of anxiety themes over time had lower fragile state indexes (P=.007) and higher individualism (P=.003). An increase in the volume of the most searched anxiety themes was associated with a reduction in the volume of the remaining themes in 13 countries and an increase in 17 countries, and these 30 countries had a lower prevalence of mental disorders (P<.001) than the countries where no correlations were found. CONCLUSIONS: Internet search data could be a potential source for predicting the country-level prevalence of anxiety disorders, especially in understudied populations or when an in-person survey is not viable.

The creative design strategy of Guangzhou Spring Festival products based on multi-expert cooperation

In the context of the global covid19 virus, people must stay at home and stop working, and the economy is in dire straits. When the epidemic is under control, people have a strong desire to travel and let themselves relax. The government also hopes to promote economic recovery and increase employment opportunities by implementing tourism projects. Tourist souvenirs are characteristic products of tourist attractions. It can bring more cultural memory to tourist destinations and drive consumption growth. In this study, the project will design flower-themed tourist souvenirs for Guangzhou. The project organizes Chinese painters, graphic designers, and product designers to work together. The study hopes to meet people's psychological needs through improved tourist souvenirs after the epidemic. Taking Bird of Paradise as an example, the study analyzes how to link the properties of plants to tourist destinations and collaborates with experts in different fields to design new tourist souvenirs based on tourists' psychological needs. In the future, souvenirs from tourism festivals will be used as an essential design strategy to improve the psychological needs of tourists after the epidemic. © 2022, Association Res Militaris. All rights reserved.

Blockchain implementation in pharmaceutical supply chains: A review and conceptual framework

Research on Blockchain implementation in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chains (PSC) is lacking despite its strong potential to overcome conventional supply chain challenges. Thus, this study aims to provide critical insight into the nexus between Blockchain and PSC and further build a conceptual framework for implementation within the pharmaceutical industry. Following a systematic literature review and text mining approach, 65 interdisciplinary articles published between 2010 and 2021 were studied to capture the decade long developments. Descriptive and thematic analysis showcases nascent developments of Blockchain in PSC. The drivers and barriers to adoption, implementation stages, and applications identified through the thematic analysis guide in setting the agenda for future research, primarily focussing on the use of Blockchain for drug counterfeiting, recall issues, along with other sector-specific challenges such as patient privacy, regulations and clinical trials. Research on Blockchain for PSC has been slow compared to other sectors, but has accelerated since the Covid-19 pandemic. Identified influential factors, implementation process and apparent applications are expected to influence researchers and practitioners in developing a roadmap for adopting Blockchain in the pharmaceutical industry. The proposed conceptual framework is novel and provides valuable directions to producers, regulators and governments to implement Blockchain in the pharmaceutical industry.

The Use of Five Public Health Themes in Understanding the Roles of Misinformation and Education Toward Disparities in Racial and Ethnic Distribution of COVID-19.

The distribution of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection across the historically marginalized populations in the United States (US) has consistently been inequitable. In addition, systemic racism and prejudice, which have existed for decades, have caused a lack of faith in public health and medical experts and have resulted in the epidemic of misinformation. To counteract the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread misinformation, the political establishment and public health experts must work collaboratively. And because they are closely associated, there had been a significant increase in the prevalence of the disease as well as a spike in the number of hospitalizations and fatalities. Public health professionals have investigated a number of epidemiological strategies to stop the spread of the virus and mitigate its effects, but false information released via various media sources has caused serious harm to a number of people. To create the framework and guidelines for protecting audiences from lies and deceit, and eradicating false information before taking root in society, it is essential to understand the types of misinformation that are being spread since the disadvantaged and uneducated communities suffer disproportionately as a result. According to studies, spreading false information could have a negative impact on a country's health outcomes, as well as its economic and social well-being, if not immediately refuted. Public health themes, such as evidence-based programs, health communication, and health policy, among others need to be evaluated and put into action in order to prevent the dissemination of incorrect information. This review examines a number of public health themes, such as policy and evidence-based strategies that might help in the fight against misinformation that has wreaked havoc on families and communities, particularly the underserved and uninformed populations.

The Information Sharing Behaviors of Dietitians and Twitter Users in the Nutrition and COVID-19 Infodemic: Content Analysis Study of Tweets.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has generated an infodemic, an overabundance of online and offline information. In this context, accurate information as well as misinformation and disinformation about the links between nutrition and COVID-19 have circulated on Twitter since the onset of the pandemic. Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare tweets on nutrition in times of COVID-19 published by 2 groups, namely, a preidentified group of dietitians and a group of general users of Twitter, in terms of themes, content accuracy, use of behavior change factors, and user engagement, in order to contrast their information sharing behaviors during the pandemic. Methods: Public English-language tweets published between December 31, 2019, and December 31, 2020, by 625 dietitians from Canada and the United States, and Twitter users were collected using hashtags and keywords related to nutrition and COVID-19. After filtration, tweets were coded against an original codebook of themes and the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) for identifying behavior change factors, and were compared to reliable nutritional recommendations pertaining to COVID-19. The numbers of likes, replies, and retweets per tweet were also collected to determine user engagement. Results: In total, 2886 tweets (dietitians, n=1417; public, n=1469) were included in the analyses. Differences in frequency between groups were found in 11 out of 15 themes. Grocery (271/1417, 19.1%), and diets and dietary patterns (n=507, 34.5%) were the most frequently addressed themes by dietitians and the public, respectively. For 9 out of 14 TDF domains, there were differences in the frequency of usage between groups. "Skills" was the most used domain by both groups, although they used it in different proportions (dietitians: 612/1417, 43.2% vs public: 529/1469, 36.0%; P<.001). A higher proportion of dietitians' tweets were accurate compared with the public's tweets (532/575, 92.5% vs 250/382, 65.5%; P<.001). The results for user engagement were mixed. While engagement by likes varied between groups according to the theme, engagement by replies and retweets was similar across themes but varied according to the group. Conclusions: Differences in tweets between groups, notably ones related to content accuracy, themes, and engagement in the form of likes, shed light on potentially useful and relevant elements to include in timely social media interventions aiming at fighting the COVID-19-related infodemic or future infodemics.

Analysis of the development of themes associated with studies concerning education and covid-19

Education during the pandemic presents itself as a great theme for research between 2020 and 2021. Covid-19 has impacted many people and educational systems have been put to test all over the world. In this regard, several studies, mostly in pre-print, discuss these impacts in relation to a variety of research topics. Therefore, as the pandemic has been a problem affecting education in global proportions, how do the research topics converge in addressing the relationship between education and covid-19 in the major world studies? Getting to know such thematic relations, arising from the scientific research that links education and covid-19, may provide some insights to deal with the educational problems faced in this period. The objective of this study is to describe the themes of high-impact research which associate education with covid-19. For this purpose, data were retrieved from Web of a Science, a centralized database, by means of articles linking education and covid-19 in the field of educational research. These articles have been analyzed by using scientometrics, which created science maps and a thematic network in order to categorize the 607 studies found. Results show the emergence of four categories of topics appearing the articles reviewed: those with consolidated themes, which bring the major topics of the research field;with emerging themes, which present studies raising new topics;of medium dispersion, which seek to specialize the field of knowledge;and the fragmented articles, which show a high dispersion of themes, presenting a myriad of reseach possibilities. © 2022. Educacao e Pesquisa. All Rights Reserved.

Communication during a global pandemic: The utility of a professional society listserv and journal.

The Association of Pathology Chairs listserv was studied in order to determine its utility in facilitating communication among pathology departments during the COVID-19 global pandemic. Between March 2020 and March 2022, there were 116 pandemic-related entries generated by 49 members that stimulated 395 responses from 109 members. Due to overlap between individuals providing listserv entries and those responding, there were 123 unique participants. The majority of entries (64%) as well as responses (64%) occurred during March and April 2020. The most common categorical theme (32% of entries and 39% of responses) related to COVID-19 testing protocols and procedures with the second most common theme being the proactive sharing of individual institutional experiences in coping with the pandemic (16% of entries and 11% of responses). Additional themes included remote pathologist sign-outs, use of alternative specimens for testing, supply chain issues, in-house preparation of viral transport media and swabs, autopsies on COVID-19 decedents, safety of the blood supply, disinfecting masks, Medicare payment for testing, and creation of a biorepository for specimens. Fifty-two (42%) of the 123 unique participants published 277 COVID-related papers during this time, and one third of COVID-19-related articles published during 2020 and 2021 in Academic Pathology, the official journal of the Association of Pathology Chairs, involved individuals who had contributed to the listserv either by generating entries or responding to them. These data suggest that professional society listservs and journals are effective vehicles for communication during crises by identifying issues, proposing solutions, and exporting this information into the literature.

Impact of COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation on Social Media Virality: Content Analysis of Message Themes and Writing Strategies.

BACKGROUND: Vaccines serve an integral role in containing pandemics, yet vaccine hesitancy is prevalent globally. One key reason for this hesitancy is the pervasiveness of misinformation on social media. Although considerable research attention has been drawn to how exposure to misinformation is closely associated with vaccine hesitancy, little scholarly attention has been given to the investigation or robust theorizing of the various content themes pertaining to antivaccine misinformation about COVID-19 and the writing strategies in which these content themes are manifested. Virality of such content on social media exhibited in the form of comments, shares, and reactions has practical implications for COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. OBJECTIVE: We investigated whether there were differences in the content themes and writing strategies used to disseminate antivaccine misinformation about COVID-19 and their impact on virality on social media. METHODS: We constructed an antivaccine misinformation database from major social media platforms during September 2019-August 2021 to examine how misinformation exhibited in the form of content themes and how these themes manifested in writing were associated with virality in terms of likes, comments, and shares. Antivaccine misinformation was retrieved from two globally leading and widely cited fake news databases, COVID Global Misinformation Dashboard and International Fact-Checking Network Corona Virus Facts Alliance Database, which aim to track and debunk COVID-19 misinformation. We primarily focused on 140 Facebook posts, since most antivaccine misinformation posts on COVID-19 were found on Facebook. We then employed quantitative content analysis to examine the content themes (ie, safety concerns, conspiracy theories, efficacy concerns) and manifestation strategies of misinformation (ie, mimicking of news and scientific reports in terms of the format and language features, use of a conversational style, use of amplification) in these posts and their association with virality of misinformation in the form of likes, comments, and shares. RESULTS: Our study revealed that safety concern was the most prominent content theme and a negative predictor of likes and shares. Regarding the writing strategies manifested in content themes, a conversational style and mimicking of news and scientific reports via the format and language features were frequently employed in COVID-19 antivaccine misinformation, with the latter being a positive predictor of likes. CONCLUSIONS: This study contributes to a richer research-informed understanding of which concerns about content theme and manifestation strategy need to be countered on antivaccine misinformation circulating on social media so that accurate information on COVID-19 vaccines can be disseminated to the public, ultimately reducing vaccine hesitancy. The liking of COVID-19 antivaccine posts that employ language features to mimic news or scientific reports is perturbing since a large audience can be reached on social media, potentially exacerbating the spread of misinformation and hampering global efforts to combat the virus.

An agile educational framework: A response for the covid-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an emergent move in all countries across the world. All education institutions were forced to shut down until further notice and were forced to come up with creative solutions to continue with the learning process. Based on existing literature, students and faculty feedback, and interview responses obtained from top management of higher education institutions in several countries, this paper proposes an agile educational framework for higher education institutions to be better prepared for teaching/learning in the digital age for the long term, and for the upcoming academic years in the short term. The proposed framework encompasses the major components that contribute to the effectiveness and efficiency of online, hybrid or traditional face-to-face instruction mode.

A comprehensive analysis of evolution and underlying connections of water research themes in the 21st century.

This work aimed to reflect the advancements in water-related science, technology, and policy and shed light on future research opportunities related to water through a systematic overview of Water Research articles published in the first 21.5 years of the 21st century. Specific bibliometric analyses were performed to i) reveal the temporal and spatial trends of water-related research themes and ii) identify the underlying connections between research topics. The results showed that while top topics including wastewater (treatment), drinking water, adsorption, model, biofilm, and bioremediation remained constantly researched, there were clear shifts in topics over the years, leading to the identification of trending-up and emerging research topics. Compared to the first decade of the 21st century, the second decade not only experienced significant uptrends of disinfection by-products, anaerobic digestion, membrane bioreactor, advanced oxidation processes, and pharmaceuticals but also witnessed the emerging popularity of PFAS, anammox, micropollutants, emerging contaminants, desalination, waste activated sludge, microbial community, forward osmosis, antibiotic resistance genes, resource recovery, and transformation products. On top of the temporal evolution, distinct spatial evolution existed in water-related research topics. Microplastics and Covid-19 causing global concerns were hot topics detected, while metagenomics and machine learning were two technical approaches emerging in recent years. These consistently popular, trending-up and emerging research topics would most likely attract continuous/increasing research input and therefore constitute a major part of the prospective water-related research publications.

Expressive writing during the COVID-19 pandemic: themes of mixed expressive writing

In order to curb the depression levels among youth during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, we examined the recurrent themes of mixed expressive writing among undergraduates during the pandemic. Previous quantitative studies had emphasized on the effectiveness of expressive writing in reducing depressive symptoms, however, less qualitative studies were conducted in evaluating the content within people’s writings. As the pandemic had caused major disruptions among people, we implemented mixed expressive writing in capturing both positive and negative experiences during the pandemic. Ten participants were recruited to perform mixed expressive writing twice per week, for four consecutive weeks. Thematic analysis was used in analyzing their writings and forming the emerged themes. Five themes were formed, which included ‘school’, ‘relationships’, ‘reflection’, ‘work’, and “random incidents’. Future research should examine the effectiveness of expressive writing in writing specific themes on improving its respective psychological constructs. © 2022, Intelektual Pustaka Media Utama. All rights reserved.