Virtual Reality in Contemporary Theatre

This study examines how virtual reality images are used in contemporary theatre. Modern technologies get into various areas of life including the theatrical environment. Therefore, the study of the role of virtual reality in contemporary theatre is crucial for the qualitative understanding of the tendencies in development of the contemporary theatre scene in the context of the development of contemporary art. This determines the relevance of this study and subsequent academic research in this field as well. The purpose of this study is to assess the degree of influence of modern technologies on creating virtual reality in the development of theatrical art. The leading approach for this study is a combination of a systematic study of the main trends in the creation of virtual reality within the framework of the development of modern technologies and the logical construction of conclusions retrieved from the results of this study. The main results obtained in this study are supposed to be the identification of the main areas for creating virtual reality in the activities of contemporary theatres and changes in the work of theatre groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prospects for subsequent academic research in this field are determined by the increasing usage of modern technologies for creating virtual reality within the framework of the modern development of theatrical culture and the need for a deep study of this factor as the one that defines the prospects for the technological development of the contemporary theatre scene. The practical significance of this study lies in the possibility of using its results obtained to assess the role and place of modern technologies for creating virtual reality in contemporary theatre. © 2022 Association for Computing Machinery.

Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in the construction industry: a literature review of academic research

Over the past 3 years, the global construction sector has been severely affected by the noxious coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Visionary construction stakeholders, including governments, practitioners, and academia, all have been actively devising strategies to deal with the crisis caused by the pandemic. Despite the rich contributions by academia, an in-depth review of their research works to understand how the pandemic has been handled to position the construction industry for post-pandemic actions and future pandemics is hitherto lacking. Hence, an up-to-date literature review is conducted in this study to better understand this terra incognita. It does so by adopting a six-step thematic analysis of 159 empirical peer-reviewed research articles in relation to COVID-19 on construction. The review discovered a growing research interest from different countries from 2020 to 2022. The existing studies can be put under four major topics, namely the COVID-19 impacts, challenges and opportunities, responding strategies, and post-COVID-19 interventions. A framework consisting of four categories of responding strategies, namely vaccination, personal responsibility of workers, government-instructional practices, and organisation-based approaches, is proposed through the lens of the socio-technical system theory to handle the pandemic crisis in construction. Limitations of the existing studies were further identified. Four pertinent research directions were finally proposed: building upon and testing the proposed COVID-19 response framework, adoption of more advanced innovative strategies to increase productivity amid pandemics and survive the risk of future pandemics, beyond the technological response to COVID-19 in construction, and post-pandemic view of the construction industry. This study contributes to the knowledge body by providing a candid evaluation of the knowledge contributed by academia to deal with the risks of future pandemics in the global construction industry. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

e-Justice: Relating Practical Guidelines in Videoconferencing with the Concerns of Academic Literature

Videoconferencing was widely used in court proceedings during the covid 19 pandemic, and, probably, its use will not return to the point before the pandemic. The academic literature indicates many different concerns with videoconferencing in court proceedings that may ultimately impact the legitimacy of the judicial process. This study aims to appreciate if academic research has been incorporated into the practical recommendations which guide daily work in courts. First, we conducted a literature review to identify and organise the concerns about using videoconferencing in court proceedings. Then we selected two guidelines and evaluated whether their recommendations addressed solutions to concerns raised in the academic literature. We conclude that most of the concerns are present in the guidelines. Although, the concern regarding the difficulty of replicating the environment of the physical courtroom in videoconferencing, which is the most cited concern, is not addressed in the practical guidance. © 2022 Associacao Portuguesa de Sistemas de Informacao. All rights reserved.

Factors Determining the Acceptance of E-Wallet among Gen Z from the Lens of the Extended Technology Acceptance Model

E-wallets are one of the breakthroughs brought forth by the evolution of FinTech, which has been accentuated by the global outbreak of COVID-19. Therefore, it is critical to comprehend the factor of e-wallet acceptance. As this technology advances, substantial knowledge and research gaps become apparent. Previous studies on e-wallet acceptance have overlooked the importance of motivation and self-efficacy. There is a dearth of focus on certain age groups, such as Gen Z, which is currently the trendsetter of new technologies. This study aims to close the gaps regarding the lack of focus toward Gen Z, motivation, and self-efficacy in understanding e-wallet acceptance by combining the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) with Self-Determination Theory (SDT), Self-Efficacy (SE), and Digital Media Self-Efficacy (DMSE) to fully understand the factors influencing e-wallet acceptance among Gen Z, using 233 samples to test 16 hypotheses derived from the identified research and knowledge gaps. External Regulation (ER), SE, and DMSE are the determinants of acceptance, according to Structural Equation Model analysis conducted. Mediation analysis reveals that Attitude toward Use (AT) is the full mediator of Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Perceived Ease of Use (PEU). The quintessential outcome of this research is the Model of E-Wallet Acceptance among Gen Z, which is significant for FinTech industries looking to strategically roll out e-wallet initiatives as well as a point of exploration for numerous future academic research and development. © 2023 by the authors.

Portuguese Sports Fans Reaction to Professional Athlete's Activism on Social Media: A Systematic Literature Review

Although athlete activism has gained tremendous popularity in all levels of competition over the years. With the Covid 19 pandemic, we started to witness numerous acts of activism such as protests and rallies that counted with the presence and support of some of sport's biggest names. Moreover, this topic, in specific the fan reaction to athlete activism remains vastly understudied. To better understand the manners in which Portuguese sports fans react to athlete activism on social media there is a need to deepen our understanding on this topic. Much of the academic research and studies performed on the area of athlete activism and fan reaction to said activism has been mostly conducted in the USA. To better comprehend the state of activism by professional athletes today as well as to have a better historic comprehension around athlete activism, a systematic literature review process was used to collect relevant literature. Consequently, this provides a solid theoretical framework that can back up an empirical investigation with a quantitative approach about Portuguese sports fans reaction to professional athlete's activism on social media. This process served the fundamental purpose of identifying relevant and valid literature in a systematic and organized manner while observing that the majority of the studies around this thematic used a qualitative approach. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

COVID-19-Related Publications by Hospitalists in the United States.

Objective To determine the degree to which hospitalists published academic manuscripts related to COVID-19 during the first year of the pandemic. Patients and methods The study was a cross-sectional analysis of the author's specialty, defined by byline or professional online biography, from articles related to COVID-19 published between March 1, 2020, and February 28, 2021. It included the top four internal medicine journals by impact factor: New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine, and Annals of Internal Medicine. Participants were all United States (US)-based physician authors contributing to COVID-19 publications. Our primary outcome was the percentage of US-based physician authors of COVID-19 articles who were hospitalists. Subgroup analyses characterized author specialty by authorship position (first, middle, last) and article type (research vs. non-research). Results Between March 1, 2020, and February 28, 2021, the top four US-based medical journals published 870 articles related to COVID-19 of which 712 articles with 1940 US-based physician authors were included. Hospitalists accounted for 4.2% (82) of authorship positions including 4.7% (49/1038) of authorship positions in research articles and 3.7% (33/902) of authorship positions in non-research articles. First, middle, and last authorship positions were held by hospitalists at 3.7% (18/485), 4.4% (45/1034), and 4.5% (19/421) of the time, respectively. Conclusions Despite caring for a large number of patients with COVID-19, hospitalists were rarely involved in disseminating COVID-19 knowledge. Limited authorship by hospitalists could constrain the dissemination of inpatient medicine knowledge, impact patient outcomes, and affect the academic promotion of early-career hospitalists.

Academic research: Data collection, technologization and pandemic

Since Covid-19 was declared a pandemic, academic researchers have tried to maintain the continuity of scientific processes and overcome the difficulties of field work;this motivated the exploration of new forms of data collection adapted to the changes imposed by the pandemic. The methodology used was exploratory-documentary, focused on the new media used by academic research and the way in which the instruments have had to adapt to the social limitations imposed on nations. The results show that thanks to teleworking and information and communication technologies, it has been possible to continue collecting data from virtual environments, which has involved reconsidering criteria and tools. It is concluded that the existence of renewed forms of data collection is marked mainly by the media, highlighting that the use of social and academic networks has expanded its borders, which has been used by researchers to have an approach to reality in the contemporaneity. © 2023, Universidad del Zulia. All rights reserved.

A Scientometric Review of Residential Segregation Research: A CiteSpace-Based Visualization

Residential segregation (RS) is a global phenomenon that has become an enduring and important topic in international academic research. In this review, using RS as the search term, 2520 articles from the period 1928–2022 were retrieved from the Scopus database and were visually analyzed using CiteSpace software. The results revealed the following: (1) The United States and its institutions have made outstanding contributions to RS research, while various scholars (e.g., Johnston, Massey, Forrest, Poulsen, and Iceland) have laid the foundation for RS research. (2) Mainstream RS research originates from three fields—psychology, education, and social sciences—while the trend of multidisciplinary integration is constantly increasing. (3) The research hotspots of RS include racial difference, sociospatial behavior, income inequality, mixed income communities, guest worker minorities, typical district segregation, occupational segregation, health inequalities, metropolitan ghetto, and migrant–native differential mobility. Furthermore, (4) gentrification, spatial analysis, school segregation, health disparity, immigrant, and COVID-19 have become new themes and directions of RS research. Future research should pay more attention to the impact of multi-spatial scale changes on RS as well as propose theoretical explanations rooted in local contexts by integrating multidisciplinary theoretical knowledge. © 2022 by the authors.

Customers' purchasing intentions for enhanced cleaning services in hotels during COVID-19: establishing price strategies

Purpose: This paper aims to contribute to the literature investigating hotel customers' preventive behavior during the COVID-19. Because there is no timely research discussing cleaning and disinfection services as a premium service in China, the authors conducted research to examine customers' perceptions based on the information–motivation–behavioral skills (IMB) model and to explore potential marketing exits. Moreover, based on the price-sensitive measurement, this study reveals the price range and optimal price of the service, which could assess the feasibility of the service and balance the operation cost. Design/methodology/approach: An internet-based, self-reported survey was designed to collect the data during the outbreak of COVID-19 in April 2020. The yield was 874 usable and valid responses, which were purposefully analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Findings: The results indicate a significant influence of dimensions (information, motivation, health behavior skills) on hotel customers' preventive behavior regarding purchase intention of cleaning and disinfection service. The optimal price of this service is 20% of the average room rate, and the range of acceptable prices is 15% of the average room rate. Originality/value: The present study represents academic attempts to contribute to the literature by applying the IMB model to consumer behavior in a hotel industry context, emphasizing the importance of each dimension in behavioral intention during the current ongoing global issue. Additionally, the results indicate that the hotel industry could consider satisfying the needs of this market based on the suggested price. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Adaptation of a Research-based Teaching-Learning Format with Approaches of Online Learning in the STEM Field

Research-based learning (RBL) familiarizes students with the academic research process at an early stage and at the same time offers them the opportunity to actively shape their own learning process. Working on their own research problems allows students to go through the entire research cycle, which promotes not only subject and methodological competencies but also the students' self-competencies. The handling of subject-specific and didactic challenges of this form of teaching-learning has been discussed many times in the past. New challenges for research-based learning now arise from the shift of teaching and learning to virtual space associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper focuses on the adaptation of a research-based teaching-learning format to the demands of e-learning in the course Interaction Science with Artificial Intelligence. We evaluated the adapted teaching-learning format with 18 students in a master's program in STEM. The students stated an increase in professional competence in the areas of programming, data preparation and data visualization. Our results suggest that peer group and direct interaction via synchronous communication channels are important structural frameworks for research-based learning in an online learning context. From our results, we can derive initial implications for online-based RBL in the field of computational education. © 2022 IEEE.

Academic research: Data collection, technologization and pandemic

Since Covid-19 was declared a pandemic, academic researchers have tried to maintain the continuity of scientific processes and overcome the difficulties of field work;this motivated the exploration of new forms of data collection adapted to the changes imposed by the pandemic. The methodology used was exploratory-documentary, focused on the new media used by academic research and the way in which the instruments have had to adapt to the social limitations imposed on nations. The results show that thanks to teleworking and information and communication technologies, it has been possible to continue collecting data from virtual environments, which has involved reconsidering criteria and tools. It is concluded that the existence of renewed forms of data collection is marked mainly by the media, highlighting that the use of social and academic networks has expanded its borders, which has been used by researchers to have an approach to reality in the contemporaneity. © 2023, Universidad del Zulia. All rights reserved.

A new Critical risk on the Block: Cyber Risks as an Example of Technical Knowledge Risks in Organizations

The breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the appearance of many additional technical knowledge risks in organizations. Cyber risks in particular are becoming a great challenge for organizations. At the same time, academic research on cyber risks, their costs, consequences and ability of overcoming them is still scarce and fragmented. In order to fill this gap, the paper is aimed to identify different types of cyber risks that organizations face and to examine the organizations' ability to handle those risks. The paper presents research results from a sample of 60 organizations, addressing questions such as: (i) What are the costs of cyber risks the organization has faced? (ii) What is the company ability to address these risks?, and (iii) What is the organization doing to minimize the impact of such risks? Data was collected by means of a questionnaire. This research study has allowed to identify the state of the art concerning cyber risks, which can bear severe consequences for organizations. The findings clearly show that not all organizations suffer from the same level of cyber risks but it is much related to their field of operations. Consequently, also the ability to manage these cyber risks is quite diversified among the examined companies. Research results are limited to a sample of 60 organizations and thus the findings should be taken with caution. The study provides useful insights for managers and owners of organizations in need of dealing with the cyber threats/attacks and other technical knowledge risks threatening their organizations. The paper is enriched with a number of sample solutions that they may apply to mitigate those risks.The paper lays the ground for a better understanding of technical knowledge risks, primarily cyber risks, to which organizations are increasingly exposed today. As such, the paper offers food for thought for researchers dealing with the topic of technical knowledge risks and organizational risk management in general. © 2022, Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited. All rights reserved.

Where are nurse-scientists? Academic nursing research at critical crossroads.

BACKGROUND: Academic nursing research is at a critical impasse after the great retirement and resignation during COVID-19. Sustaining and replenishing senior nurse-scientist faculty that are clinical experts with real-world clinical practice is critical. Leveraging the mission of nursing scholarship within the business of building and sustaining externally funded research enterprises in schools of nursing presents conundrums, especially with persistent nursing faculty vacancies. PURPOSE AND METHODS: Through a lens of intersectionality within the context of academic bias and nursing education regulation, we address challenges in NIH funding for nurse-scientist faculty. Publicly available data reveal equity, inclusion, and advancement issues that make it an unequal playing field for nurse-scientist faculty if expected to achieve similar NIH funding as faculty in schools of public health and medicine. DISCUSSION: Understanding research enterprises requires appreciation of the complex interplay between academic nursing units, university infrastructures, and academic budgetary models. Creative support for both nursing deans and their faculty is needed.

The pandemic and the politics of Australian research governance

Following the 1989 unified higher education reforms, the Australian academic research system was built upon the notion of depoliticisation (i.e., keeping the political character of decision at one remove from governance) to govern the contradiction between research credibility and governmental economic priorities. The article argues that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the tension between independent research and governmental economic priorities. The pandemic, also, weakened university autonomy via the closure of the national border, reducing overseas student fees, a significant source of research funding. The article maintains that the conservative Morrison government used the opportunity to politicise research around commercialisation and national sovereignty. The argument being that the pandemic exposed Australia's research and development (R&D) dependence and with it the question of industrial sovereignty, prompting the government to couple academic research to industry policy. Secondly, the pandemic reinforced the conservative government's aim to concentrate research in selected commercial areas and to exert this priority on to the research funding agency, the Australian Research Council (ARC). Lastly, the article contends that the COVID pandemic, originating in Wuhan, intensified the Morrison government's geopolitical concerns over China, and this disquiet flowed into research policy, which problematised research collaboration with Chinese researchers.

How does academia respond to the burden of infectious and parasitic disease?

BACKGROUND: Academic research is one of the main avenues through which humans can fight the threat of infectious diseases. However, there have been concerns regarding whether the academic system has provided sufficient efforts to fight infectious diseases we potentially face. Answering these questions could contribute to evidence-based recommendations for setting research priorities and third-mission policies. METHODS: With a focus on one of the most common categories of communicable diseases, infectious and parasitic diseases (IPDs), we searched Web of Science for articles and reviews relevant to IPDs published during the period 2000-2019 and retrieved WHO data on disease burden in corresponding years. The academic response patterns were explored by IPD subcategory and by human development level (an index established by the United Nations). We conduct the analysis in particular to gain insight into the dynamic relationship between disease burden and research effort on IPDs, scientific efforts contributed by countries with different development levels, and the variation trends in international joint efforts. RESULTS: The greatest burden of IPDs is clustered in the developing regions of Africa, but has received academic response from both developed and developing countries. Highly developed countries dominate the ranks of academic research in this area, yet there is also a clear increase in research efforts from the countries most affected, despite their low human development scale. In fact, the overall analysis reveals an improved capability for addressing local problems from African regions. In terms of international collaboration, highly developed countries such as the United States and United Kingdom have commonly collaborated with needy regions, whereas prolific but developing nations, like China, have not. CONCLUSIONS: From a global perspective, academia has positively responded to health needs caused by IPDs. Although the relevant research output contribution is primarily from the highly developed countries, concentrated and specialized efforts from the undeveloped regions to ease their local burden can be clearly observed. Our findings also indicate a tendency to focus more on local health needs for both developed and undeveloped regions. The insights revealed in this study should benefit a more informed and systemic plan of research priorities.

Qualitative research on financial accounting – an emerging field

Purpose>The purpose of this Editorial is to reflect on the potentials and challenges of qualitative research in financial accounting and introduce the four papers included in this Special Issue.Design/methodology/approach>The authors draw on and discuss extant literature and the papers included in the Special Issue to develop our assessment of the current state of the field of qualitative financial accounting research and possible future paths ahead.Findings>The authors observe that qualitative research on financial accounting is still an emerging field with substantial further research potential.Research limitations/implications>The authors outline future potentials for qualitative accounting research.Originality/value>This Editorial contributes to studies on the state of academic research in (financial) accounting.

Upside Down: Exploring the Ecosystem of Dark Web Data Markets

Large-scale dark web marketplaces have been around for more than a decade. So far, academic research has mainly focused on drug and hacking-related offers. However, data markets remain understudied, especially given their volatile nature and distinct characteristics based on shifting iterations. In this paper, we perform a large-scale study on dark web data markets. We first characterize data markets by using an innovative theoretical legal taxonomy based on the Council of Europe’s Cybercrime Convention and its implementation in Dutch law. The recent Covid-19 pandemic showed that cybercrime has become more prevalent with the increase of digitalization in society. In this context, important questions arise regarding how cybercrime harms are determined, measured, and prioritized. We propose a determination of harm based on criminal law qualifications and sanctions. We also address the empirical question of what the economic activity on data markets looks like nowadays by performing a comprehensive measurement of digital goods based on an original dataset scraped from twelve marketplaces consisting of approximately 28,000 offers from 642 vendors. The resulting analysis combines insights from the theoretical legal framework and the results of the measurement study. To our knowledge, this is the first study to combine these two elements systematically. © 2022, IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.

The measurement and discriminant analysis of enterprise resilience

The current environment is complex and uncertain. COVID-19 not only brings challenges to the government’s public health governance, but also disrupts the industrial supply chain and poses a crisis to the survival and transformation development of enterprises, which has raised severe tests to the resilience of enterprises and has also become an important issue for scholars to study. The existing academic research and practical experience show that resilience is the key ability to support enterprises to survive the crisis, and stability and adaptability are the main characteristics of resilient enterprises. Stable performance improves enterprise operation efficiency, and adaptability improves strategic flexibility. This paper focuses on the quantitative study of enterprise resilience, analyzes the relationship between stability and adaptability from the perspective of paradox, and selects efficiency and flexibility as discriminant variables from the outcomes of resilience. Based on the financial data of the resilient enterprises and the control group, the variables affecting the resilience of enterprises were determined by discriminant analysis and the measurement indexes were constructed to establish the calculation method of enterprise resilience. By calculating the scores of resilient enterprises and the control group, it is found that the scores of resilient enterprises are significantly higher than the control group in terms of stability and adaptability, which verifies the paradoxical relationship between them. This shows that the resilient firm is not an either-or choice between stability and adaptability, and there is a continuously distributed behavior space between them. Therefore, resilient enterprises adapt to the changing and highly uncertain business environment through constant change and innovation while maintaining the bottom line of survival in the crisis. © 2022, Editorial Board of Journal of Systems Engineering Society of China. All right reserved.

Deep Journalism and DeepJournal V1.0: A Data-Driven Deep Learning Approach to Discover Parameters for Transportation

We live in a complex world characterised by complex people, complex times, and complex social, technological, economic, and ecological environments. The broad aim of our work is to investigate the use of ICT technologies for solving pressing problems in smart cities and societies. Specifically, in this paper, we introduce the concept of deep journalism, a data-driven deep learning-based approach, to discover and analyse cross-sectional multi-perspective information to enable better decision making and develop better instruments for academic, corporate, national, and international governance. We build three datasets (a newspaper, a technology magazine, and a Web of Science dataset) and discover the academic, industrial, public, governance, and political parameters for the transportation sector as a case study to introduce deep journalism and our tool, DeepJournal (Version 1.0), that implements our proposed approach. We elaborate on 89 transportation parameters and hundreds of dimensions, reviewing 400 technical, academic, and news articles. The findings related to the multi-perspective view of transportation reported in this paper show that there are many important problems that industry and academia seem to ignore. In contrast, academia produces much broader and deeper knowledge on subjects such as pollution that are not sufficiently explored in industry. Our deep journalism approach could find the gaps in information and highlight them to the public and other stakeholders.