Water Management Priorities in a Post-COVID World

This paper maintains that the growing crisis of water scarcity cannot be addressed from within the paradigm that created the problem. The extractive paradigm which prevails views high economic growth as the main goal of development to be achieved through the increasing extraction of natural resources. Approaches to water management that are based on this paradigm view water as a resource primarily meant for human consumption. In contrast, the paper proposes an ecosystem paradigm in which water is viewed as being embedded within the ecosystem as an essential part of it to be conserved and preserved for future generations. The author identifies five areas of action for water management in the post-COVID context: move away from water-intensive agriculture through crop diversification;sustainable and community-based groundwater management;protection of river systems and wetlands;ensuring water quality and drinking water security and the creation of strong legal frameworks for water governance. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.

The effect of consumer lockdown on the relationship between environmental beliefs and pro-environmental behaviors

This study investigates the disruptive effect of the COVID-19 lockdown on the relationship between environmental beliefs and pro-environmental behaviors. We used a survey conducted in the four major cities of Colombia before COVID-19 arrived in December 2019 and then repeated it in October 2020, after most of the major restrictions on mobility and economic activity had been lifted. The survey captured ecocentric and anthropocentric beliefs using the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) and Pro Environmental Behaviors (PEBS) using 18 questions about energy and water savings, recycling, and sustainable purchasing. In the 2020 survey, we included a measure of the severity of the individual's experience of disruption, including economic, family, and health-related aspects. Controlling for demographic variables, we analyzed (1) descriptive changes in NEP and PEBS, (2) the moderating effect of the disruption on the effect of NEP on PEBS, (3) the direct effect of disruption severity on PEBS, and (4) the moderating effect of severity on the effect of NEP on PEBS in 2020. We found that disruption caused by the lockdown crisis decreased anthropocentric beliefs and slightly increased ecocentric beliefs. This disruption also modified the effects of NEP on PEBS, thereby ameliorating the capacity of NEP to activate PEBS. The severity of experience moderated most of these effects. We discuss the implications of our results for the theory of environmental beliefs and pro-environmental behaviors and offer recommendations to reverse the potential negative effect of the COVID-19 crisis on the promotion of sustainable consumption.

COVID-19 Pandemic, Climate Change, and Conflicts on Agriculture: A Trio of Challenges to Global Food Security

Global food security is a worldwide concern. Food insecurity is a significant threat to poverty and hunger eradication goals. Agriculture is one of the focal points in the global policy agenda. Increases in agricultural productivity through the incorporation of technological advances or expansion of cultivable land areas have been pushed forward. However, production growth has slowed in many parts of the world due to various endemic challenges, such as decreased investment in agricultural research, lack of infrastructure in rural areas, and increasing water scarcity. Climate change adversities in agriculture and food security are increasing. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected global food supply chains. Economic and social instability from the pandemic contribute to long-term disturbances. Additionally, conflicts such as war directly affect agriculture by environmental degradation, violence, and breaches of national and international trade agreements. A combination of food security and climate change challenges along with increased conflicts among nations and post-COVID-19 social and economic issues bring bigger and more serious threats to agriculture. This necessitates the strategic design of policies through multifaceted fields regarding food systems. In this comprehensive review, we explore how these three challenging factors, COVID-19, climate change, and conflicts, are interrelated, and how they affect food security. We discuss the impact of these issues on the agricultural sector, plus possible ways of preventing or overcoming such adverse effects.

Designing an Empathy Training for Depression Prevention Using Virtual Reality and a Preliminary Study

As virtual reality (VR) is labeled by many as 'an ultimate empathy machine,' immersive VR applications have the potential to assist in empathy training for mental healthcare such as depression [21]. In responding to the increasing numbers of diagnosed depression throughout COVID-19, a first-person VR adventure game called 'Schwer' was designed and prototyped by the authors' research team to provide a social support environment for depression treatment. To continue the study and assess the training effectiveness for an appropriate level of empathy, this current article includes a brief survey on data analytics models and features to accumulate evidence for the next phase of the study, an interactive game-level design for the 'Reconstruction' stage, and a preliminary study with data collection. The preliminary study was conducted with a post-game interview to evaluate the design of the levels and their effectiveness in empathy training. Results showed that the game was rated as immersive by all participants. Feedback on the avatar design indicated that two out of three of the non-player characters (NPCs) have made the intended effect. Participants showed mostly positive opinion towards their experienced empathy and provided feedback on innovative teleport mechanism and game interaction. The findings from the literature review and the results of the preliminary study will be used to further improve the existing system and add the data analytics model training. The long-term research goal is to contribute to the healthcare field by developing a dynamic AI-based biofeedback immersive VR system in assisting depression prevention. © 2023 IEEE.

Covid-19 and the decolonisation of education in Palestinian universities

Despite the severe social, health, political and economic impacts of the outbreak of Covid-19 on Palestinians, we contend that one positive aspect of this pandemic is that it has revealed the perils and shortcomings of the teacher-centered, traditional education which colonizes students' minds, compromises their analytical abilities and, paradoxically, places them in a system of oppression which audits their ideas, limits their freedoms, and curtails their creativity. While Israeli occupation has proven to be an obstacle in the face of the Palestinian government's attempt to combat and contain the Corona crisis, on-line education, the sole arena that escapes this colonial system, has forced many instructors to give up their domination over the process of education and to create a more collaborative atmosphere of education that is based on dialogue, research and flexibility of the curriculum content. This study is designed to gauge English literature students' responses to this mode of digital learning. We interviewed a hundred students from six English literature programs between March and August, 2020. Thus, through critically examining students' answers, and by drawing on Freire's concepts of banking education, consciousness and dialogue, we propose that online education is an important step towards the decolonization of education and a call for a paradigm shift on the account that the existing paradigm of traditional education is stifling students' creativity and critical thinking.

Multi-item unidimensional measurement scale construct: Perceived hygiene development (pHd)

The recent COVID-19 pandemic experience intensified the significance of hygiene in the service industry. It is crucial to measure how service practice adaptations and technology adoptions in servicescapes have been perceived by customers regarding hygiene in the post-COVID-19 era. However, the extant hygiene scales do not serve the purpose to measure hygiene contributions of technology-specific and service practice-specific changes. Thus, the purpose of this research was to develop a multi-item unidimensional perceived hygiene construct. Sequential mixed-methods research (Qual-Quan) was employed. Participants were sampled among restaurant patrons. A four-item perceived hygiene development (pHd) construct was successfully developed. Hospitality and service researchers and practitioners can utilize this scale to measure perceived hygiene improvements of particular technology adoptions and service practice adaptations in service settings.

Risk perception of the COVID-19 vaccines: revisiting the psychometric paradigm

Americans' concerns about the risks of vaccination are rising in recent years. In the original piece that explicated the psychometric paradigm, vaccinations were rated as less dreaded and less unknown. However, in 2016, vaccinations were more dreaded and more unknown in the public eye. A national survey (N = 1025) conducted in August 2021 reflects this trend in risk perception of the COVID-19 vaccines. Individuals who report different risk perceptions based on the unknown and dread characteristics associated with the COVID-19 vaccines also report different behavioral intent toward the vaccines. Overall, these findings show unknown risk to have a more salient impact on participants' risk perception that influence their vaccine-related decisions. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Teleworking and the Importance of Information Systems in a Pandemic Context: A Study Applied to the Health Sector

The pandemic crisis compelled organizations to adopt telework to continue their activity. This study seeks to determine the perception of individuals regarding teleworking, and also the role of Information Systems in the paradigm shift along the pandemic period, in the Portuguese health sector. An online questionnaire was applied to health professionals working in Portugal, obtaining a sample of 264 professionals. The perceptions identified in relation to telework can be especially useful when considering the progressive incorporation of non-face-to-face activities in the health sector. Participants identify advantages in teleworking, namely in reducing travel costs, but also identify work overload as a disadvantage. Despite the difficulties, Information Systems are identified as facilitators in this process of change. Most participants express availability to work in a mixed regime, in the post-pandemic period. © 2022 Associacao Portuguesa de Sistemas de Informacao. All rights reserved.

The reasons for the appeal letter from the directors of Community Mental Health Centers

The appeal signed in January 2023 by 91 directors of Community Mental Health Centers addressed to the highest political authorities of Italy is discussed. It begins with an analysis of the critical situation in which public psychiatric care finds itself, especially after the COVID19 pandemic and in the presence of a problematic social and economic situation. The validity of the biopsychosocial paradigm in community mental health is affirmed. The link between mental health and justice is addressed, and the need for a discussion table among all the actors involved is suggested. The paragraphs of this article are the following: "An appeal to raise awareness", "The objectives", "Mental health and justice", "The resources", "The mental health professionals", "Some conclusive perspectives".

Beyond the biomedical, towards the agentic: A paradigm shift for population health science.

Life expectancy in the United States is decreasing. Health disparities are widening. Growing evidence for and integration of social and structural determinants into theory and practice has not yet improved outcomes. The COVID-19 pandemic reinforced the fact. In this paper, we argue that the biomedical model and its underlying scientific paradigm of causal determinism, which currently dominate population health, cannot meet population health needs. While criticism of the biomedical model is not new, this paper advances the field by going beyond criticism to recognize the need for a paradigm shift. In the first half of the paper, we present a critical analysis of the biomedical model and the paradigm of causal determinism. In the second half, we outline the agentic paradigm and present a structural model of health based on generalizable, group-level processes. We use the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic to illustrate the practical applications of our model. It will be important for future work to investigate the empirical and pragmatic applications of our structural model of population health.

Economies of attention and the design of viable tourism futures

The present article focuses on three dominant forms of crisis in the twenty-first century (terrorism, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic) that challenge tourism as a viable activity and sector. Through epistemological/methodological blends of compatible arguments from the sociology of knowledge (Karl Mannheim's notion of world-vision or Weltanschauung, which emphasises planetary ways of knowing), the new mobilities paradigm (Sheller's suggestion that such ‘knowing' also produces often competing positionalities and communities in research) and scholarship on the worldmaking powers of tourism (Hollinshead's and Hollinshead and Suleman's suggestion that knowing about tourism comes to life when it is enunciated as a reality), it investigates ‘affective refrains': recurring scholarly discourses about crises in the sector, which are endowed with affective qualities (Felix Guattari's approach to preconscious formations of feelings). Such refrains, which are both prepersonal and structured like collective imaginaries, shed light on the core ethical and moral universes that are supported by their authors. Whereas the nature of the themes covered by these authors is the modus operandi of the scholarly community to which they claim membership. But more importantly, the styles they use to intensify the attention of audiences/readerships to these styles organises the powers of affective persuasion into a paradigm. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Analysing Shifts in Perceptions of Indians during COVID-19 Pandemic by Mining Tweets

Current pandemic situation has a significant impact affecting human life not only socially and economically, but emotionally and psychologically as well. This impact can be easily observed on social media platforms. Along with the knowledge exchange related to Covid-19 pandemic on social media, there is an emotional trauma wave that can be felt by carefully analyzing the activities of this social media. Keeping this view in thought, we analyze around 12000 tweets of Indian people to find out whether there is a trend shift of thinking pattern and mindset of Indian people as the pandemic progresses. The study is bifurcated into stages to clearly see the paradigm shift. We use tweets since twitter is a rich medium that can be leveraged to its optimum to have a good amount of understanding of the sentiments of the people. Analyzing the twitter dataset, we derive results and find out whether the amount of negative tweets v/s positive (or motivational) tweets have increased or not as the pandemic progresses. The study is supported by graphical visualizations of the polarity of the tweets month wise. Further, Wordmap approach is used to perform qualitative mining analysis in addition to the sentiment score based calculation. This work helps us to understand how the public opinions are changing with the changes in the spread dynamics of the virus. This kind of mood mining helps in identifying the Covid-19 situation from the psychological perspective that whether there is a sense of fear among people or they are quite optimistic of the situation. It can help in a great extend to the strategic and decision making bodies to plan out for future decisions. Further, such kind of studies can be used as reference to provide insights about mental health of people for any future incident or event of such nature. © 2023 IEEE.

A new tourism paradigm and changes in domestic tourism for married Koreans in their 30s and 40s

Due to the prolonged COVID-19 outbreak, more people are traveling domestically to relieve psychological fatigue. This study aimed to present a new tourism paradigm for the domestic tourism industry in Korea by identifying the changing tourism demand and patterns/preference of tourists due to COVID-19. Through comparative analysis of domestic travel before and after COVID-19, 632 samples were analysed using the 5W1H method. The results revealed the preferences of various tourism attributes such as travel companion, time, duration, distance, lodging facilities, and destination activity, which provided many practical implications for the tourism industry. The study results show that Korean families prefer shorter travel itineraries and destinations close to home after the COVID-19 pandemic. Preference for days of travel, accommodation, and major activities at destinations did not change, but were significantly affected. This study presents evidence that can provide a practical direction to the current situation thereby, enriching the extant tourism literature.

Effective environmental education for sustainable development beyond the Plastic Age in South Korea

The skyrocketing single-plastic demand during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic proved the limitation of top-down environmental policies in accomplishing sustainable consumption and waste management. Nevertheless, ‘smart consumers' can make smart choices for sustainable development. However, a review of the South Korean environmental education curriculum reveals that the current structure heavily leans towards the elementary level and does not enlighten the public on ‘what' and ‘how' to live sustainably. This study uses a quick survey to suggest that the effectiveness of environmental education may be enhanced if: (1) guidance on how to live with the natural environment in harmony for collective cooperation towards resilient and sustainable community building is incorporated with a clear purpose, (2) environment-friendly culture-building activities are enforced to institutionalise a new paradigm of sustainability to replace today's consumerism, and (3) contents are updated regularly to include Earth and environmental science knowledge in the state of art. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Paradigm model of online learning experience during COVID-19 crisis in higher education

The study presents qualitative research on university students' online learning experience process at the higher education level. It used a grounded theory through semi-structured in-depth interviews with 25 university students for framing and structuring the paradigm model of university students' online learning experiences. A paradigm model illustrating this developmental process is presented, which includes the casual and contextual conditions that caused and evolved the central phenomenon for their online learning, the strategies used by the students to overcome external/internal disturbances in continuing their learning process, the conditions that helped/hindered those strategies, and the consequences. Finally, the following meaning units were discovered through the preceding paradigm model. The students started learning with a negative impression of unfamiliar learning methods such as online learning, but over time, they improved their self-management abilities and gained a broader understanding of self-discipline. In the midst of this, competence in digital literacy according to generational differences was also discovered as one of the factors affecting learning, forming a virtual community, and increasing personal learning through online interaction. Finally, the implications of the overall learning ecology for the future role of online learning were also considered. Based on this analysis of students' online learning experiences, the direction for online learning was suggested. Copyright © 2023 Huang and Yoon.

Nanotechnology on Perspective Computer Science

Computer science has long been an established science, but changes continue to occur both in terms of technology and application. Of course, the change comes from challenges that come from different technologies and knowledge. The challenge is a phenomenon, nanotechnology, which affects many other scientific fields indirectly. A science remains on its scientific principles, framing data and based on appropriate methods. Although the basic principles of computer science are not affected by changes in nanotechnology, the challenges of changing different disciplines due to nanotechnology need to be expressed from the point of view of computer science, which fall into two categories as is the relationship between computer science and nanotechnology. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Leveraging the Power of Online Qualitative Inquiry in Mixed Methods Research: Novel Prospects and Challenges Amidst COVID-19

The rare circumstances of COVID-19 have transformed research toward increased dependence on online spaces. This article examines related challenges and opportunities, focusing on how philosophical and ethical implications are differentially manifest amid crisis. Anchored by a transformative perspective, our framework recognizes heightened vulnerabilities amid COVID-19;it seeks dexterous strategies for implementing qualitative strands that adapt well to a virtual context while remaining philosophically grounded and ethical. Our findings highlight issues of unequal access, disembodiment, safety and vulnerability, researcher positionality, anonymity, and the delineation between private and public spaces;we also showcase an array of virtual qualitative methods. We conclude that ethical practice in the use of online methods is likely to be broadly applicable and adaptable to the mixed methods research community.

Blended Learning Approach: Students' versus Lecturers' Views from a South African Rural University

There is a current paradigm shift within institutions of higher learning in terms of how teaching and learning take place. This radical transition has been forced globally as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw the higher education sector implementing drastic changes in terms of remote learning. It seems there is a misunderstanding of the term blended learning based on the students' and lecturers' views from a selected South African university. A mixed method approach was used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. An online questionnaire was distributed to learners to get quantitative data. On the other hand, lecturers were engaged through interviews within a workshop. An experimental approach using the university's learning management system known as WiseUp was used. Both traditional and online modes of deliverables are common within a case. Findings show different understanding of the term blended learning and the differences in preferred activities within the blended mode. The paper provides some examples of good applications of blended learning. As higher education institutions try to embrace blended learning techniques, there is a need to engage and improve awareness of the meaning of this approach. © 2022 IEEE.

Cybersecurity Concerns Under COVID-19: Representations on Increasing Digital Literacy in Higher Education

The COVID-19 brought several new challenges for the students and lecturers, particularly in higher education. The conventional physical classroom was almost instantly pushed into a new environment: a remote session class. And this lecturing paradigm shift occurred, necessarily, in a short period of time. The lecturing players suffered the pressure of using different learning tools and methodologies while exposing themselves to, in most part of cases, unexpected cybersecurity threats. The purpose of this article is to clarify all the new menaces that arose during this period. Also, to understand the level of exposure and impacts on the lecturer and student to this quick but necessary paradigm shift. Methodologically: two focus groups were undertook to capture representations of students about uses of computer technology;differences in exposure to threats before and during the pandemic and impacts on society;student's needs regarding the topic and suggestions about strategies for increasing overall knowledge about it. Answers were treated recurring to software webQDA®—Qualitative Data Analysis Software for analysis of qualitative data. Results depict the exposure to cybersecurity issues and some level of knowledge about them, inducing preventive practices when using informatics technology. Sense of increasing insecurity in society is associated with the statement of increasing activity regarding cybercrime, giving way to the assumption of the need of awareness and knowledge of general public regarding this issues, and rise suggestions on teaching approaches directed to the subject. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.