Care and domestic work through crises. Juggling with space and time in athens

The paper discusses changing conditions of care and domestic work in Greece in the context of the ongoing health crisis, which follows a long period of successive and simultaneous crises (financial, social, pandemic, refugee, war) and extreme neoliberal policies implemented to control them. The focus is on the burden that women (have to) assume in conjunctures which reinstate care (and domestic work) as "women's work”, with particular emphasis in the periods of "lockdown” adopted by the government in order to control the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. The general overview is supported by research in Athens and material from interviews with women who juggle with space and time as they struggle to care for the self and for others while adhering to personal goals and aspirations, as well as to the "social benefits” of previous decades of relative prosperity. © 2023, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. All rights reserved.

Motivations Based on Self-determination for Learning in university students at the Instituto Politecnico Nacional

The objective of this article was to analyze the appreciations that female and male students at one of the higher-level schools of the Instituto Politecnico Nacional in Mexico have regarding the factors related to self-determination in order to identify the perceptions about the motivations and attitudes of students towards online learning in the second year of the COVID-19 lockdown. It is a quantitative study in which online questionnaires were applied to 3,275 students;a convenience sample was used. Data were analyzed with SPSS software and exploratory factor analysis, the U Mann Whitney non-parametric test, and generalized linear models with the Omnibus contrast test were used for the analysis of the explanatory variables of the models (which were divided between women and men). It was found that men obtained higher scores in the factors of intrinsic motivation, introjected regulation, and extrinsic material;while women averaged higher in those feelings and perceptions generated by demotivation. It is concluded that it is important to work with women's self-esteem and female empowerment, in addition to influencing young people about the knowledge they have about the careers they are studying. It is essential to raise their expectations about their future profession, and in this way, reduce the apathy, discouragement, and sadness of young people, as well as increase hope for the future.

The association between food insecurity and social capital under the lockdowns in COVID-hit Shanghai

As an emergency, food insecurity threatens people's well-being, while social capital is expected to enhance their resilience in this situation. This study examined the relationship between food insecurity and social capital during the COVID-19 lockdowns in Shanghai. We collected a dataset of 1064 participants by random sampling. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the dynamics of social capital before and after lockdowns. The results show that the level of post-lockdown social capital was higher than that of pre-lockdown social capital. Pre-lockdown social capital predicted the extent to which people suffered from food insecurity and their approaches to obtaining food. Participation in group purchases and food exchange with other residents predicted the levels of post-lockdown social capital. The results shed light on the interaction between emergencies and social capital. Our study theoretically contributes to understanding social capital through a dynamic perspective. (English) [ FROM AUTHOR] 粮食不安全的紧急发生威胁着人们的健康，而社会资本则有望在这种情况下增强人们的复原力。本研究考察了上海新冠疫情封城期间，食物不安全和社会资本之间的关系。我们通过随机抽样，收集了1064名参与者的数据。我们利用结构方程模型来分析封城前后社会资本的动态变化。结果显示，封城后的社会资本水平高于封城前的社会资本。封城前的社会资本决定了人们的食物安全受威胁的程度，以及他们获得食物的方式。参与团购和与其他居民的食物交换决定了封城后社会资本的水平。研究结果可以让人们对紧急情况和社会资本之间的互动有进一步的了解。在理论上，我们的研究有助于通过动态视角加深对社会资本的理解。 (Chinese) [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

The future is already here: Covid-19, criminology, and crime

Even though the world looks to have irreversibly changed since 2020, many social scientists are still looking at social life through a pre-Covid-19 lens. The evidence for this is present in the slow generation of empirical research during and in the aftermath, which could possibly generate new theoretical means to understand what this may mean for the generations to come. Major social change is underway. Almost every facet of social life is being rewritten right before our very eyes. The lockdowns, social distancing, and other measures implemented to 'control' the spread of Covid-19 have revolutionised the functioning of political and social institutions and have altered the platforms of social interactions and human relations. Yet the sublime ideological alignment of governments, the media, and law enforcement agencies in favour of these measures has radically polarised society as well as intensified present inequalities while simultaneously creating new ones in the process. All the while, all manner of historical, political, and social, as well as, importantly, medical context has been absent in the face of all this. Unless it moves quickly, criminology could well miss an opportunity to show its true multidisciplinary colours. This chapter seeks to give a general overview of this change in the context of social life, crime, and criminology. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023. All rights reserved.

Different approaches to explore the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on carbonaceous aerosols at a European rural background site.

To prevent the fast spread of COVID-19, worldwide restrictions have been put in place, leading to a reduction in emissions from most anthropogenic sources. In this study, the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on elemental (EC) and organic (OC) carbon was explored at a European rural background site combining different approaches: - "Horizontal approach (HA)" consists of comparing concentrations of pollutants measured at 4 m a.g.l. during pre-COVID period (2017-2019) to those measured during COVID period (2020-2021); - "Vertical approach (VA)" consists of inspecting the relationship between OC and EC measured at 4 m and those on top (230 m) of a 250 m-tall tower in Czech Republic. The HA showed that the lockdowns did not systematically result in lower concentrations of both carbonaceous fractions unlike NO2 (25 to 36 % lower) and SO2 (10 to 45 % lower). EC was generally lower during the lockdowns (up to 35 %), likely attributed to the traffic restrictions whereas increased OC (up to 50 %) could be attributed to enhanced emissions from the domestic heating and biomass burning during this stay-home period, but also to the enhanced concentration of SOC (up to 98 %). EC and OC were generally higher at 4 m suggesting a greater influence of local sources near the surface. Interestingly, the VA revealed a significantly enhanced correlation between EC and OC measured at 4 m and those at 230 m (R values up to 0.88 and 0.70 during lockdown 1 and 2, respectively), suggesting a stronger influence of aged and long distance transported aerosols during the lockdowns. This study reveals that lockdowns did not necessarily affect aerosol absolute concentrations but it certainly influenced their vertical distribution. Therefore, analyzing the vertical distribution can allow a better characterization of aerosol properties and sources at rural background sites, especially during a period of significantly reduced human activities.

COVID-19 Policy in Uzbekistan: Slipping Back Toward Authoritarianism?

Since the death of Islom Karimov in September 2016, the government of Uzbekistan has witnessed almost 4 years of slow but steady political reform. President Shavkat Mirzayoyev initiated restructuring in the law enforcement agencies, intelligence service and military, all that moved the country away from the police state that Karimov constructed in his 25-year reign. In particular, Mirzayoyev restricted the power of the criminal police and the traffic police, the latter a particularly despised organization because of their corruption and abuse of power. Beginning in March 2020, the Uzbek government began extending the powers of law enforcement, including reopening the interregional traffic police checkpoints which had been closed in 2017. The country implemented a strict quarantine, confining people to their homes except for trips for food, medical treatment and a handful of other "essential” activities. Other authoritarian measures, with little if any connection to controlling the spread of infection, have also been imposed in the political, religious and media spheres. This chapter explores the political changes COVID-19 has wrought in Uzbekistan, especially in the context of ongoing reforms directed toward fighting corruption and increasing political freedom. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on a Small Island: The Isle of Man Case Study

The Isle of Man is a semi-autonomous small island in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Ireland. It has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and over the past year, the government has undergone reactive and proactive strategies with the aim of curtailing territorial disease spread. Using government tracking data gathered since March 2020, data analysis shows that island had a slow but steady spread of COVID-19 beginning with an island resident who returned from a trip abroad. Over twelve months, the island has had three infection peaks which saw quick policy reactions with Circuit Breaker lockdowns including strict guidelines of isolation combined with economic support for individuals and business. The island is small and has to receive daily supplies of food, fuel and other goods via ferry from England. Close monitoring of the infection rate has enabled quick reflexive policy actions. The disease has not been eradicated, but each lockdown has resulted in a slowdown of disease progression. A relatively small percentage of individuals have been infected and even smaller percentage have lost their lives. The smallness of the island, circuit breaker lockdowns and the island residents' stoic culture have helped with the control of disease progression. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

A bibliometric analysis of the impact of COVID-19 social lockdowns on air quality: research trends and future directions.

Social lockdowns improved air quality during the COVID-19 pandemic. Governments had previously spent a lot of money addressing air pollution without success. This bibliometric study measured the influence of COVID-19 social lockdowns on air pollution, identified emerging issues, and discussed future perspectives. The researchers examined the contributions of countries, authors, and most productive journals to COVID-19 and air pollution research from January 1, 2020, to September 12, 2022, from the Web of Sciences Core Collection (WoS). The results showed that (a) publications on the COVID-19 pandemic and air pollution were 504 (research articles) with 7495 citations, (b) China ranked first in the number of publications (n = 151; 29.96% of the global output) and was the main country in international cooperation network, followed by India (n = 101; 20.04% of the total articles) and the USA (n = 41; 8.13% of the global output). Air pollution plagues China, India, and the USA, calling for many studies. After a high spike in 2020, research published in 2021 declined in 2022. The author's keywords have focused on "COVID-19," "air pollution," "lockdown," and "PM25." These keywords suggest that research in this area is focused on understanding the health impacts of air pollution, developing policies to address air pollution, and improving air quality monitoring. The COVID-19 social lockdown served as a specified procedure to reduce air pollution in these countries. However, this paper provides practical recommendations for future research and a model for environmental and health scientists to examine the likely impact of COVID-19 social lockdowns on urban air pollution.

Anthropause environmentalisms: Noticing natures with the Self‐Isolating Bird Club

This paper offers a detailed empirical account of how human–environment relations were reconfigured in the UK and Ireland during the 2020–2021 COVID‐19 lockdowns, a period which natural scientists defined as the COVID‐19 Anthropause. Bringing this scientific concept into conversation with geographical work, we consider anthropause as both a lived condition and an historical moment of space–time decompression. Our expanded conceptualisation of anthropause, centred on lived experience and everyday life, develops a more hopeful politics than those offered by the 'Great Acceleration' narrative, which suggests digital media and urbanisation separate humans from nature. In contrast, we identify affirmative and inclusive modes of 'anthropause environmentalism' and explore their potential for fostering convivial human–nature relations in a world that is increasingly urban, digital, and powered by vernacular expertise. To make this argument, we turn to the Self‐Isolating Bird Club, an online birdwatching community operating across several social media platforms which, at the pandemic's height, reached over 50,000 members. We trace three key changes to human–nature relations illustrated by this group which we use to structure our paper: connection, community and cultivation. The COVID‐19 Anthropause recalibrated the fabric and rhythms of everyday life, changing what counts as a meaningful human–nature relationship. This paper will be of interest to geographers exploring environmental change at the interface of more‐than‐human and digital geographies, as well as environmentalists and conservationists. To conclude, we offer suggestions as to how scholars and practitioners might harness the lessons of anthropause to respond to the 'anthropulse'. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

An explicit formula for minimizing the infected peak in an SIR epidemic model when using a fixed number of complete lockdowns

Careful timing of nonpharmaceutical interventions such as social distancing may avoid high "second waves" of infections of COVID‐19. This article asks what should be the timing of a set of K complete‐lockdowns of prespecified lengths (such as two weeks) so as to minimize the peak of the infective compartment. Perhaps surprisingly, it is possible to give an explicit and easily computable rule for when each lockdown should commence. Simulations are used to show that the rule remains fairly accurate even if lockdowns are not perfect. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of International Journal of Robust & Nonlinear Control is the property of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

The Economics of Pandemics: Exploring Globally Shared Experiences

This book offers a lively account of the humanitarian, economic, societal, and planetwide impacts of the pandemics, the COVID-19 pandemic included, which are traced back to as early as the 14th century plague pandemic. Placing the pandemics along with other globally shared resources, such as global warming, AI singularity, and high-risk physics experiments, each of the nine chapters of the book discusses the global health crises from a variety of unique standpoints, including infectious diseases, economics, governance, and public health. Based on the historical records of past pandemics and the rich data from the COVID-19 pandemic, a conceptual framework is presented for the economics of pandemics as a globally shared experience. This book aims to critically examine salient features in the global responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, including global governance, lockdowns, radical movements, and mRNA vaccines. The book will be a valuable resource to students, researchers, and policymakers who are working in the fields of environmental economics, global-scale public goods, and health economics. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Students' mental health issues in Europe and other countries

This chapter describes and analyzes how different countries dealt with children and youth with mental health issues before and during the COVID-19 pandemic beginning in March 2020. The pandemic and measures worldwide to control the spread of the virus COVID-19, such as lockdowns, closures of schools and preschools, social distancing rules, restrictions of movement, contact limits, and quarantine, changed the daily life of millions of people, especially children and youth. The countries include: Germany, Greece, Portugal, Tanzania/Vietnam, and the Netherlands. The chapter also analyzes how fear of infection and death, high uncertainty, and the containment measures that were implemented on affected children and youth with mental health issues. Students with disabilities and students from disadvantaged backgrounds were particularly affected by school closures. Mental health systems in the various countries coped in different ways, also depending on how they operated before the pandemic. Developing prevention programs, building resiliency, peer support, online support measures, and raising awareness of mental health all seem to be useful strategies to address mental health problems in children and youth. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Video Calls as a Replacement for Family Visits During Lockdowns in Aged Care: Interview Study With Family Members.

BACKGROUND: Lockdowns have been used to prevent the spread of transmissible illnesses such as influenza, norovirus, and COVID-19 in care homes. However, lockdowns deny care home residents supplemental care and the socioemotional enrichment that comes from seeing family members. Video calling has the potential to enable ongoing contact between residents and family members during lockdowns. However, video calls can be considered by some as a poor substitute for in-person visits. It is important to understand family members' experiences with video calling during lockdowns to ensure the effective use of this technology in the future. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to understand how family members use video calls to communicate with relatives living in aged care during lockdowns. We focused on experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, which involved extensive lockdowns in aged care homes. METHODS: We conducted semistructured interviews with 18 adults who had been using video calls with relatives living in aged care during pandemic lockdowns. The interviews focused on how participants had been using video calls, what benefits they gained from video-based interactions, and what challenges they encountered when using the technology. We analyzed the data using the 6-phase reflexive approach to thematic analysis by Braun and Clarke. RESULTS: We developed 4 themes through our analysis. Theme 1 interprets video calling as a medium for the continuation of care during lockdowns. Using video calls, family members were able to provide social enrichment for residents and engaged in health monitoring to uphold residents' welfare. Theme 2 highlights how video calling extended care by supporting frequent contact, transmitting nonverbal cues that were essential for communication, and negating the need for face masks. Theme 3 interprets organizational issues such as the lack of technology and staff time as impediments to the continuation of familial care through video. Finally, theme 4 highlights the need for 2-way communication, interpreting residents' unfamiliarity with video calling and their health conditions as further barriers to the continuation of care. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that, during restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, video calls became a medium for enabling family members to continue participating in the care of their relatives. The use of video calls to continue care illustrates their value for families during times of mandatory lockdown and supports the use of video to complement face-to-face visits at other times. However, better support is needed for video calling in aged care homes. This study also revealed a need for video calling systems that are designed for the aged care context.

Synergy between stock prices and investor sentiment in social media

The underlying assumption of using investor sentiment to predict stock prices, stock market returns, and liquidity is that of synergy between stock prices and investor sentiment. However, this synergistic relationship has received little attention in the literature. This paper investigates the synergistic pattern between stock prices and investor sentiment using social media messages from stock market investors and natural language processing techniques. At the macro level, we reveal extremely significant positive synergy between investor sentiment and stock prices. That is, when a stock price rises, investor sentiment rises, and when a stock price falls, investor sentiment falls. However, this synergy may be reversed or even disappear over a specific time period. Through a segmented measurement of the synergy between stock prices and investor sentiment over the course of a day, we also find that investor sentiment on social media is forward looking. This provides theoretical support for using investor sentiment in stock price prediction. We also examine the effect of lockdowns, the most draconian response to COVID-19, on synergy between stock prices and investor sentiment through causal inference machine learning. Our analysis shows that external anxiety can significantly affect synergy between stock prices and investor sentiment, but this effect can promote either positive or negative synergy. This paper offers a new perspective on stock price forecasting, investor sentiment, behavioral finance, and the impact of COVID-19 on the stock markets. Copyright (c) 2022 Borsa Istanbul Anonim S, irketi. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Erratum: Effect of COVID-19 vaccination on the menstrual cycle.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fmed.2022.1065421.].

PM2.5 carbonaceous components and mineral dust at a COALESCE network site - Bhopal, India: Assessing the impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns on site-specific optical properties.

Thermal elemental carbon (EC), optical black carbon (BC), organic carbon (OC), mineral dust (MD), and 7-wavelength optical attenuation of 24-hour ambient PM2.5 samples were measured/estimated at a regionally representative site (Bhopal, central India) during a business-as-usual year (2019) and the COVID-19 lockdowns year (2020). This dataset was used to estimate the influence of emissions source reductions on the optical properties of light-absorbing aerosols. During the lockdown period, the concentration of EC, OC, BC880 nm, and PM2.5 increased by 70 % ± 25 %, 74 % ± 20 %, 91 % ± 6 %, and 34 % ± 24 %, respectively, while MD concentration decreased by 32 % ± 30 %, compared to the same time period in 2019. Also, during the lockdown period, the estimated absorption coefficient (babs) and mass absorption cross-section (MAC) values of Brown Carbon (BrC) at 405 nm were higher (42 % ± 20 % and 16 % ± 7 %, respectively), while these quantities for MD, i.e., babs-MD and MACMD values were lower (19 % ± 9 % and 16 % ± 10 %), compared to the corresponding period during 2019. Also, babs-BC-808 (115 % ± 6 %) and MACBC-808 (69 % ± 45 %) values increased during the lockdown period compared with the corresponding period during 2019. It is hypothesized that although anthropogenic emissions (chiefly industrial and vehicular) reduced drastically during the lockdown period compared to the business-as-usual period, an increase in the values of optical properties (babs and MAC) and concentrations of BC and BrC, were likely due to the increased local and regional biomass burning emissions during this period. This hypothesis is supported by the CBPF (Conditional Bivariate Probability Function) and PSCF (Potential Source Contribution Function) analyses for BC and BrC.

Non-pharmaceutical interventions and the emergence of pathogen variants.

Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), such as social distancing and contact tracing, are important public health measures that can reduce pathogen transmission. In addition to playing a crucial role in suppressing transmission, NPIs influence pathogen evolution by mediating mutation supply, restricting the availability of susceptible hosts, and altering the strength of selection for novel variants. Yet it is unclear how NPIs might affect the emergence of novel variants that are able to escape pre-existing immunity (partially or fully), are more transmissible or cause greater mortality. We analyse a stochastic two-strain epidemiological model to determine how the strength and timing of NPIs affect the emergence of variants with similar or contrasting life-history characteristics to the wild type. We show that, while stronger and timelier NPIs generally reduce the likelihood of variant emergence, it is possible for more transmissible variants with high cross-immunity to have a greater probability of emerging at intermediate levels of NPIs. This is because intermediate levels of NPIs allow an epidemic of the wild type that is neither too small (facilitating high mutation supply), nor too large (leaving a large pool of susceptible hosts), to prevent a novel variant from becoming established in the host population. However, since one cannot predict the characteristics of a variant, the best strategy to prevent emergence is likely to be an implementation of strong, timely NPIs.

Firms and Households during the Pandemic: What Do We Learn from Their Electricity Consumption?

We analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on electricity consumption patterns. We highlight the importance of decomposing total electricity consumption into consumption by firms and by households to better understand the economic and social impacts of the crisis. While electricity demand by firms has fallen substantially, the demand by households has gone up. In particular, our focus is on Spain where, during the total lockdown, these effects reached –29% and +10% respectively, controlling for temperature and seasonality. While the electricity demand reductions during the second wave were milder, the demand by firms remained 5% below its normal levels. We also document a change in people's daily routines in response to the stringency of the lockdown measures, as reflected in their hourly electricity consumption patterns. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Energy Journal is the property of International Association for Energy Economics, Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Post-covid Tourist Satisfaction in the Hospitality industry: Reflections from Jordan

This study sets out to investigate the effects of COVID-19 on the tourism industry in Jordan by studying the satisfaction of tourists after the lockdown. This study focuses on three main areas that may influence tourists' satisfaction. The tourist satisfaction study was conducted using a questionnaire designed and distributed among tourists who used the services. Other than that, all the tourist guides from the six travel agencies involved in this study were interviewed for cross-checking purposes. There was a shift in the satisfaction level after the pandemic's peak. The three main areas that determine satisfaction are services provided by travel agencies, facilities for tourists at their destinations, and accommodations. The findings suggested the tourists demanded proper COVID-19 standard operating procedures in addition to the basic requirements of the services provided. Data will inform stakeholders on the preparation of services provided for the post-COVID-19 tourism industry. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Technium Social Sciences Journal is the property of Technium Press Constanta and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Susceptible exposed infectious recovered-machine learning for COVID-19 prediction in Saudi Arabia

Susceptible exposed infectious recovered (SEIR) is among the epidemiological models used in forecasting the spread of disease in large populations. SEIR is a fitting model for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spread prediction. Somehow, in its original form, SEIR could not measure the impact of lockdowns. So, in the SEIR equations system utilized in this study, a variable was included to evaluate the impact of varying levels of social distance on the transmission of COVID-19. Additionally, we applied artificial intelligence utilizing the deep neural network machine learning (ML) technique. On the initial spread data for Saudi Arabia that were available up to June 25th, 2021, this improved SEIR model was used. The study shows possible infection to around 3.1 million persons without lockdown in Saudi Arabia at the peak of spread, which lasts for about 3 months beginning from the lockdown date (March 21st). On the other hand, the Kingdom's current partial lockdown policy was estimated to cut the estimated number of infections to 0.5 million over nine months. The data shows that stricter lockdowns may successfully flatten the COVID-19 graph curve in Saudi Arabia. We successfully predicted the COVID-19 epidemic's peaks and sizes using our modified deep neural network (DNN) and SEIR model. © 2023 Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science. All rights reserved.