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The COVID-19 pandemic and consequent health regulations compelled office-based knowledge workers to work from home (WFH) en masse. Government and employer directives to WFH disrupted common norms of commuting to city office spaces and reshaped the geographies of office-based knowledge work, with potentially lasting implications. Pandemic-induced cohabitation of work-space and home-space saw more workers navigating the performance of paid labour in the home to produce new relational geographies of home, work, and worker. This paper provides a window on the lived experiences of the sizeable cohort of office-based knowledge workers displaced from Sydney's CBD to undertake WFH in the Illawarra region during the pandemic. We explore the unfolding pandemic geographies of work and home by drawing together feminist economic geography and geographies of home literatures. Our analysis reveals the emergent and variegated time-spaces of WFH that emerged as the rhythms and routines of WFH shaped the home and vice versa. The analysis also reveals the differentiated agency of embodied workers to orchestrate emergent configurations of WFH, shaped by gender and by the socio-materialities of home shaped by size, tenure, and life-cycle stage. We conclude by drawing out important lines of analysis for further research as "hybrid work" evidently becomes entrenched post-COVID.
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PurposeThe aim of the study is to test the integrated model involving work stress, office clutter and employee performance with the moderating roles of training and self-discipline (SD) after the re-opening of the banks after the COVID-19 wave.Design/methodology/approach The study used 333 respondents from banking industry, whose responses were recorded using a closed ended questionnaire. The authors used partial least square path anaysis to analyze the data.Findings Work stress significantly increases office clutter, which harms the employees' performance. Moreover, SD and training significantly improve employees' performance by reducing work stress and thereby office clutter. There are various mechanisms through which both these factors reduced stress and office clutter.Practical implications The employee's performance can be enhanced with lower levels of office clutter. The office clutter can be managed through having lower levels of stress and providing people with training and inculcating SD among them. A greater understanding of the factors that count toward office clutter might help bank managers and employees to address the issues related to their performance.Originality/value The authors have proposed a new framework involving conservation of resources theory for the employees' performance. They posit employees' performance is an organizational resource, which can be conserved as well as enriched both by employers and employees through their own contribution.
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The COVID-19-Pandemic has led to considerably more remote work, a trend that is likely to continue in the future. Based on 23 narration-oriented interviews with university employees, the article examines how the communication of office workers has changed due to an increasing share of collaboration in spatial distance. The article outlines the functionality of (partially) virtualized communication as well as the changes brought about for work-related and informal exchange between employees. The findings point to significant changes in collaborative work practice: both work process related and informal communication are thinned out, resulting in a more individualized practice of working as well as increasing interpersonal distance in virtual work settings.Alternate :Seit Beginn der Corona-Pandemie wird immer mehr Arbeit (zumindest anteilig) ortsungebunden außerhalb des Betriebs verrichtet, eine Tendenz, die aller Voraussicht nach auch in Zukunft bestehen bleiben wird. Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht auf der Grundlage narrationsorientierter Interviews mit Universitätsangehörigen, wie sich die Kommunikation von Bürobeschäftigten durch eine zunehmende räumliche Distanz zwischen diesen gewandelt hat. Der Beitrag skizziert die Funktionalität von (teil)virtualisierter Kommunikation sowie die Veränderungen, die sich für arbeitsbezogenen sowie informellen Austausch zwischen Beschäftigten ergeben. Die Befunde verweisen auf wesentliche Veränderungen der kollaborativen Arbeitspraxis: Sowohl arbeitsprozessbezogene als auch informelle Kommunikation werden ausgedünnt, was im Ergebnis zu einer stärker individualisierten Praxis des Arbeitens sowie einer zunehmenden zwischenmenschlichen Distanz in virtuellen Arbeitssettings führt.
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Population in developed countries spend most of their time indoors, whether in their homes, workplaces, stores or leisure areas. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this situation worsened and now, more than ever, the importance of a high Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) is highlighted. The IEQ is very important in building performance since it is directly related to its occupants' comfort, health, wellbeing, and productivity and the Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) concept. Therefore, it is essential to develop tools to support designers' decision-making in the materialization of indoor environments with higher quality. From the state-of-art analysis, it is possible to conclude that the methods to assess the overall building performance already consider the IEQ. Still, most use an approach that does not cover all relevant indicators. In this context, this paper presents the first milestone of a research work that aims to develop a new method to rate the overall IEQ of office buildings in Portugal. The main objective of the present study is to propose a list of IEQ indicators for office buildings, adapted to the Portuguese context, based on the analysis of existing rating methods for buildings and the recommendations of national and international standards. © 2022 The Author(s). Licensed under a CC-BY 4.0 licence.
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A 40-year-old male patient, an office worker, is a hospital staff. He applied with the complaint of sudden onset of blurred vision in the right eye. He stated that he had the first dose of inactivated covid vaccine (sinovac) 4 days ago in his story. In his examination, his vision was 0.5 in the right eye, 1.0 in the left eye, and his intraocular pressure was in both eyes. It was at the level of 15 mmHg. Biomicroscopically, the anterior segment looked natural. CSC was diagnosed in the FFA and OCT examinations.Treatment with oral acetazolamide (2x250 mg), topical nepafanac (4x1) was started. On the 13th day of the treatment, there was insufficient improvement in clinical findings, and oral acetazolamide was used. The dose was reduced (2x125 mg), oral epleronone (50 mg) was added. On the 70th day of the treatment, the vision in the right eye increased to full level in the control examination and it was observed that the retina returned to its normal appearance in the OCT examination.Copyright © 2023 Gazi Eye Foundation. All rights reserved.
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Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a massive migration from working in the office to working from home (WFH) and the software development teams had to adapt to the new reality. This paper focused on how the agile teams dealt with the challenges of WFH and how this affected the software development process. To capture the perceptions of the agile teams, we carried out a survey that investigated the following aspects of WFH: work routine, collaboration, communication, productivity, transparency, challenges, and the software development process itself. The survey received 127 valid responses from agile team members and the results revealed that i) most of the members of agile teams considered the work continued as usual regardless of the place (office or remote);ii) 80% of members of agile teams mentioned an increase in productivity during WFH;iii) 85% of participants are using Scrum as management strategy;iv) communication between teams members during the remote working model was perceived as more effective;v) Microsoft Teams and Google Meets were the most used interactions tools by members of agile teams. Copyright © 2023 by SCITEPRESS - Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
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This article uses data from several publicly available databases to show that the distribution of intellectual property for frontier technologies, including those useful for sustainable development, is very highly skewed in favor of a handful of developed countries. The intellectual property rights (IPR) regime as it exists does not optimize the global flow of technology and know-how for the attainment of the sustainable development goals and is in need of updating. Some features of the Fourth Industrial Revolution imply that the current system of patents is even more in need of reform than before. COVID-19 vaccines and therapies and the vast inequality in access to these has highlighted the costs of inaction. We recommend several policy changes for the international IPR regime. Broadly, these fall into three categories: allowing greater flexibility for developing countries, reassessing the appropriateness of patents for technologies that may be considered public goods, and closing loopholes that allow for unreasonable intellectual property protections.
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Background: During national lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, previously office-based workers who transitioned to home-based teleworking faced additional demands (e.g., childcare, inadequate homeworking spaces) likely resulting in poor work privacy fit. Previous office research suggests poor work privacy fit is associated with lower wellbeing and higher work fatigue. Emerging evidence suggests a relationship between childcare duties during pandemic teleworking and work fatigue. In addition to psychosocial working conditions (job demand, job control, and job change management), which are acknowledged predictors of work fatigue, this poses a significant threat to occupational health during pandemic teleworking. However, the relative effects of aspects of the psychosocial environment (job demands and resources), the home office environment (including privacy fit), and the social environment (childcare) on work fatigue as well as their interactions are under-explored. Objective: This study examined the relationships between the psychosocial, environmental, and social working conditions of teleworking during the first COVID-19 lockdown and work fatigue. Specifically, the study examined teleworkers' physical work environment (e.g., if and how home office space is shared, crowding, and noise perceptions) as predictors of privacy fit and the relationship between privacy fit, childcare, psychosocial working conditions (job demand, job control, and job change management), and work fatigue. Work privacy fit was hypothesized to mediate the relationship between childcare and work fatigue. Methods: An online cross-sectional survey was conducted with teleworkers (n = 300) during the first COVID-19 lockdown in April and May 2020; most participants were in Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Results: Path analysis was used to examine the hypothesized relationships. Privacy fit was lower for those reporting greater levels of noise in home-working spaces and those feeling crowded at home. Work fatigue was lower amongst those with greater privacy fit and higher amongst those with high levels of job demand. An indirect relationship was observed between childcare and work fatigue with privacy fit mediating this relationship. Conclusion: The influence of privacy fit has so far been largely neglected in research on teleworking, especially during the pandemic. However, its contribution to workers' wellbeing should be acknowledged in occupational health strategies.
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This study was performed to present a single operator's experience of in-office (outside of a hospital setting) outpatient orthognathic surgery over a period of 12 years. A total of 254 surgeries were performed during this period. Average procedure times were comparable with published results from studies of similar material. The mean operating time for bimaxillary surgery (n = 21) was 3 hours and 11 minutes. Regarding single-jaw procedures, the mean operating time for Le Fort I osteotomy (n = 115) was 2 hours and 14 minutes and for bilateral sagittal split osteotomy (n = 118) was 2 hours and 1 minute. All patients were discharged from the office the same day, except one patient who was transported to the hospital after surgery due to an anaesthetic complication. This patient was discharged from the hospital later the same day. In this setting, outpatient orthognathic surgery is both safe and practical when careful attention is given to patient preparation and selection. Emergency phone contact with the surgeon in case of complications is important to avoid unnecessary hospitalization.
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Teleworking, also known as remote working, has become the new norm for many workers since the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Studies show that during this time, the incidence of musculoskeletal pain is increasing among these workers. Despite this, few studies have addressed the possible correlates of musculoskeletal pasin in teleworkers, with several potential predictors receiving little or no attention in published studies. With this in mind, an online survey was conducted among organizations in the IT and communications sectors in Malta. Information was collected from 459 teleworkers on the frequency of telework, frequency of work during nonworking hours, exercise frequency, burnout, and ergonomic arrangements. Demographic data were also collected. Results revealed that 55.8% reported one or more musculoskeletal pain. Back pain was the most common, followed by neck and shoulder pain. The presence of pain, the number of painful body areas, and the presence of back, neck, and shoulder pain were each individually associated with work during nonworking hours, lower levels of exercise, and higher levels of burnout. It is argued that musculoskeletal pain appears to be common among teleworkers and may negatively impact the quality of life and organizational performance. Companies and occupational health practitioners should strive to identify the prevalence of these problems among their teleworkers, develop appropriate preventive measures, and support workers to obtain multidisciplinary care when needed.
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Airborne exposure has been highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic as a probable infection route. This experimental study investigates different protection methods at an office workstation, where the concentration characteristics are studied under the mixing ventilation conditions. The protection methods were the room air purifier, personal air purifier, face mask, and workstation partition panels. In experiments, the breathing machine, nebulizer, and syringe pump was used to generate an aerosol distribution of paraffin oil into the room. The breathing thermal manikin and the thermal dummy simulated the exposed and infected person, respectively. The concentration characteristics were measured from the manikin breathing zone. The temporal concentration characteristics were measured from zero concentration to steady-state conditions. The study provides insights into the effects of different protection methods for occupational health and safety decision-making for office indoor environments. © 2022 17th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate, INDOOR AIR 2022. All rights reserved.
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The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of deaths worldwide along with detrimental socioeconomic consequences. Existing evidence suggests that the rate of indoor transmission is directly linked with the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) conditions. Most of the existing methodologies for virus transmissibility risk estimation are based on the well-known Wells-Riley equation and assume well-mixed, uniform conditions;so spatiotemporal variations within the indoor space are not captured. In this work, a novel fine-grained methodology for real-time virus transmission risk estimation is developed using a 3D model of a real office room with 31 occupants. CONTAM-CFD0 software is used to compute the airflow vectors and the resulting 3D CO2 concentration map (attributed to the exhalations from the occupants). Simulation results are also provided that demonstrate the efficacy of using CO2 sensors for estimating the infection risk in real-time in the 3D office environment. © 2022 17th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate, INDOOR AIR 2022. All rights reserved.
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Increased usage of chemical disinfectants during the COVID-19 pandemic may impact the chemical composition of indoor air in residential and commercial buildings. This study characterized gas-phase concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) during multi-surface disinfection activities in a tiny house research facility. This unique facility provided a controlled, yet realistic environment for simulating whole-building disinfection events. VOCs were measured in real-time (1 Hz) in the bulk air of the tiny house with a proton transfer reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometer (PTR-TOF-MS). In addition, particle number (PN) size distributions were measured with a high-resolution electrical low-pressure impactor (HR-ELPI+). PTR-TOF-MS measurements demonstrate that chemical disinfectant spray products applied to multiple surfaces can substantially increase indoor VOC concentrations. © 2022 17th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate, INDOOR AIR 2022. All rights reserved.
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In recent work, a Hierarchical Bayesian model was developed to predict occupants' thermal comfort as a function of thermal indoor environmental conditions and indoor CO2 concentrations. The model was trained on two large IEQ field datasets consisting of physical and subjective measurements of IEQ collected from over 900 workstations in 14 buildings across Canada and the US. Posterior results revealed that including measurements of CO2 in thermal comfort modelling credibly increases the prediction accuracy of thermal comfort and in a manner that can support future thermal comfort prediction. In this paper, the predictive model of thermal comfort is integrated into a building energy model (BEM) that simulates an open-concept mechanically-ventilated office space located in Vancouver. The model predicts occupants' thermal satisfaction and heating energy consumption as a function of setpoint thermal conditions and indoor CO2 concentrations such that, for the same thermal comfort level, higher air changes per hour can be achieved by pumping a higher amount of less-conditioned fresh air. The results show that it is possible to reduce the energy demand of increasing fresh air ventilation rates in winter by decreasing indoor air temperature setpoints in a way that does not affect perceived thermal satisfaction. This paper presents a solution for building managers that have been under pressure to increase current ventilation rates during the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2022 17th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate, INDOOR AIR 2022. All rights reserved.
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This investigation presents results of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling of aerosol behaviour within an arbitrary 'realistic' 100m2 office environment, with dynamic and variable respiratory droplet release profile applied based on published findings (Morawska et al., 2009). A multitude of ventilation strategies and configurations have been applied to the base model to compare the effectiveness of reducing the concentration of suspended aerosols over time. A key finding of the investigation indicates a relatively low sensitivity to increasing outside air percentage, and that the benefit from this strategy is heavily dependent on the in-duct droplet decay factor. The application of local recirculating air filtration systems with MERV-13 filters mounted on occupant desks proved significantly more effectiveness than increasing outside air concentration from 25% to 100% in reducing the quantity of suspended aerosols. This highlights that the ventilation industry should perhaps focus on opportunities to integrate filtration systems into furniture, partitions, cabinetry etc., and that an appliance-based solution may be more beneficial for reducing COVID-19 transmission in buildings (and likely more straightforward) than modifications to central ventilation systems, particularly in the application of refurbishments and retrofits. © 2022 17th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate, INDOOR AIR 2022. All rights reserved.
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The current COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of health safety assessment in various indoor scenarios. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) combined with a modified Wells-Riley equation provides a powerful tool to analyse local infection probability in an indoor space. Compared to a single infection probability characterising the space in the traditional Wells-Riley model, the coupled approach provides a distribution of infection probability within the space. Furthermore, this approach avoids assuming a well-mixed state, usually related to Wells-Riley equation. This study compares displacement and mixing ventilation strategies with four different ventilation rates to assess the local quanta concentrations modelled using passive scalar transport approach. The simulation results are processed to also account for the effect of wearing masks and vaccinations. The result show that a well-designed displacement ventilation system can significantly reduce infection probability compared to mixing ventilation system at similar airflow rate. Additionally, the results emphasised the importance of wearing mask and getting vaccinated as a means of reducing infection probability. © 2022 17th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate, INDOOR AIR 2022. All rights reserved.
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Coworking spaces in Malta have grown in their presence and use only within the last decade, yet the COVID-19 pandemic may have altered the cultural working office norms of Maltese society. Indeed, this chapter, using in-depth interviews with different groups of people, that is, co-worker owners, employees, traditional employers and members of an employment association, aims to explore how the pandemic may be impacting the coworking industry in complex ways. From the narratives, it emerged that the soft lockdown measures related to the pandemic had caused immediate negative effects due to the fear of contagion on the use of coworking spaces in Malta and the limitations related to social distances in workspaces. However, the pandemic itself may have created a shift within the Maltese context where the idea of remote working is perceived as beneficial and may become more popular. The pandemic may have contributed to the revision of the Maltese employers' priorities, such as the importance of owning or renting a permanent office space or giving permission to employees to work from home or renting a coworking space for socialisation at work. Therefore, the pandemic may have caused damaging short-term effects to the coworking industry in Malta yet possibly beneficial long-term effects. © 2023, The Author(s).
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The Covid-19 pandemic reminded us the importance of maintaining adequate indoor air quality to reduce the risk of propagation of viral particles. The aim of this study is to use air handling unit (AHU) filters to develop a methodology to identify microbial contaminants present in office indoor air. The methodology involves discs of filter media collected periodically from the extraction filters and analysed by cultural and molecular methods. Results obtained from the 10 months study indicate in particular that the concentration of cultivable microorganisms on the filters display small variations of 37% from average value for the 5-culture media tested (e.g., 3.9×102 CFU/cm2 for LB medium). The genera Aspergillus, Cladosporium and Penicillium are the most represented among the cultivable microorganisms collected on the extraction filter. © 2022 17th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate, INDOOR AIR 2022. All rights reserved.
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Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have introduced working from home to avoid the risk of infection. In this study, we conducted questionnaire surveys and analysed the building energy management system (BEMS) in an office building where the number of employees working from home increased after the onset of the pandemic. The influence of working from home on the indoor environment satisfaction and the variability in energy consumption at home and office was determined. The indoor environment satisfaction was significantly higher when working from home than when working at the office. In 2020, the total energy consumption at home and office decreased by 30% in April and increased by 22% in August compared to the previous year. To work from home while saving energy regardless of the season, it is necessary to reduce office energy consumption by decreasing the number of workers present at the office. © 2022 17th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate, INDOOR AIR 2022. All rights reserved.