Learning Mathematics with Plickers as an Assessment Tool in Rural Secondary School

Most Indonesian schools have to close immediately because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and there will be a quick transition to distance learning, requiring the usage of digital interventions. But the country's digital education infrastructure, particularly in rural schools, is not sufficiently developed to maintain and enhance students' learning outcomes. To address these problems Plickers (students response system) offers students an opportunity for a high-quality education while potentially reducing the cost of technology resources. This study enhanced integrated Plickers for learning mathematics in rural secondary schools. A quantitative and qualitative approach was used to examine how students participated in the learning and their perception, preferences, and motivation for using Plickers. The study involved 50 seventh graders, and 15 of them volunteered to participate in interviews. A paired samples t-Test revealed a significant difference between learning engagement on paper-based tests and learning engagement on Plickers-based tests. The majority of students also had positive opinions of Plickers, noting its usability, capacity to make learning more enjoyable, increase engagement in problem-solving, promote comprehension of the subject, and help students maintain their interest during class. While some students struggled to focus and thought Plickers was just a quiz tool that couldn't motivate them to learn. © 2023 IEEE.

Effective Responses to Public Emergencies at the Urban Community Level: A Perspective of COVID-19 Prevention and Control

Community is directly responsible for implementing the policy measures against public emergencies such as extreme weather, earthquake, flash flood and pandemic diseases. Summarizing the experience at the urban community level can help promote the global emergency management. This paper, from the perspective of COVID-19 prevention and control, selects three communities with different features to explore an effective response system for public emergency management at the urban community level. It demonstrates that based on a centralized leadership, the multi-level governance (MLG) network combined with information technology has mobilized their participation in combating COVID-19 and ensured the effective and timely response to the public emergencies, which blocked the spread of epidemic to the greatest extent, proving worthy of being promoted as one of the Chinese approaches and Chinese wisdom.

Towards a sustainable integrated management approach to uncertainty surrounding COVID-19

Traditional approaches to system management are not suited to highly uncertain conditions. Hard system approaches with a top-down management approach are often used to manage well-defined systems that are not easily able to cope with uncertainty. Soft system approaches of the with bottom-up or participative style may cause a lack of conformance to industry standards. Few studies have investigated these approaches within the context of COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, this paper aims to use the philosophy of Total Systems Intervention to investigate the applicability of an integrated management approach to cope with the uncertainty of COVID-19. Three different countries from Europe, Oceania and Asia are selected as typical case studies to clarify the strengths and weaknesses of differing management approaches. The case studies demonstrate that using an integrated management approach can potentially assist decision-makers to deal with crises and conclusively reveal the superiority of the integrated approach, independent of cultural milieu. © 2023 The Authors. Systems Research and Behavioral Science published by International Federation for Systems Research and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Job loss and food insecurity during the Covid-19 pandemic

PurposeLiving a nutritious lifestyle requires that people get a sufficient amount of nutrients, vitamins and minerals every day. Healthy dietary practices are related to a stronger immune system, better prevention and easier recovery from illnesses, lower blood pressure, healthy weight, lower risk of diabetes, heart problems and other medical conditions and improved overall well-being (WHO, 2020). Therefore, to maintain a strong immune system able to prevent diseases and ease recovery, optimal nutrition and healthy habits are of increased importance during a pandemic such as Covid-19. However, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 22 million Americans have lost a job between February and October 2020, increasing the unemployment rate from 3.5% in February 2020 to 6.9% in October 2020, reaching a peak of 14.7% in April 2020. Job losses during the Covid-19 crisis are likely to put lots of families at risk of malnutrition and food insufficiency and to further deteriorate the already existing food insecurity (Gundersen et al., 2018). This research explores the effect of a recent job loss between August and October 2020 on food sufficiency.Design/methodology/approachThis research examines the impact of a job loss on nutrition and food safety. Specifically, this study explores the effect of a job loss during the Covid-19 pandemic on the level of family and child food sufficiency as perceived by the respondent, confidence about meeting family's dietary needs in the four weeks following the interview, and an indicator of whether the food sufficiency status of the family has deteriorated or not. This study also determines the differential effect of a job loss by individuals who are still employed despite the loss relative to workers who remained unemployed after a job loss during the Covid-19 crisis. Subsample analyses based on ethnicities, genders and educational attainment are also performed to identify the most vulnerable groups.FindingsThe results provide evidence that a job loss is associated with a highly statistically significant deterioration of food sufficiency for families and children and a reduction in the confidence in food security for the near future. This effect is observed for all job losers, but from them, it is larger for the ones who are currently unemployed compared to those who are working. The association between a job loss and family's nutrition insecurity is the greatest for Hispanic, males and people with some college. Children's nutrition suffers the most for children whose parents have not completed high school. These results provide an insight into the adverse effect of Covid-19 on food security.Practical implicationsFrom a policy perspective, the results indicate that federal nutrition programs whose goal is to ensure that the dietary needs of Americans, and especially children, are met, which are most likely to benefit the Hispanic population, individuals with low educational attainment and individuals who remained unemployed after losing a job.Originality/valueThis study makes several contributions to the growing literature on food security. First, this study is novel in that it examines the effect of an ongoing event, specifically a labor market disruption as a result of a health and economic crisis, on families' nutrition, and does so using the newest publicly available data designed to track the impact of Covid-19 on the American population. This is one of the first studies that investigates the forementioned impacts in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. This study further contributes to the literature by distinguishing between employed versus unemployed individuals despite a job loss and by studying distinct groups on the population. In addition, this study compares the effects of interest in the onset of the pandemic to a year later to examine the population's adjustment to the crisis. The importance and relevance of the results for policy decision-making are also discussed in the paper.

Effective Real Time Disaster Management Using Optimized Scheduling

In recent years we face many types of natural and man-created disasters such as tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, Covid-19 pandemic, terrorist attacks, floods, etc. which cause diverse and worse effects on our daily lives and economy. In order to mitigate the impact of such disasters and reduce the causality, economic loss during disaster response cycle, the different disaster management resources such as rescue teams, transportation, healthcare and related services must be schedule and allocated efficiently. In this research, we proposed the Cluster-Based Real–Time Disaster Resource Management Framework which used edge and computing-based real-time scheduling of various resources and emergency services in disaster management. The edge computing resources are grouped into the cluster and a set of tasks is assigned to the cluster and scheduled on the edge computing cluster to increase resource utilization and acceptance rate which is the problem of existing partitioned scheduling and reduces response time, and overhead due to communication and migration which is the issue in exiting scheduling. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Development of an emergency airway response system for COVID-19 at a tertiary care hospital in resource limited country.

The ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) infection causes severe respiratory dysfunction and has become an emergent issue for worldwide healthcare due to highly transmissible and contagious nature. Aerosol generating procedures such as tracheal intubation is of particularly high risk. This mandates some advice on processes and techniques required to protect staff and uniform approach during airway management. We hereby share our experience in development of an emergency response system to deal with COVID airway management at a frontline hospital which particularly consider the local demands and resources. This includes a change in working dynamics with 24/7 consultant coverage for emergent or urgent tracheal intubation of COVID patients at non-operating room locations. Other steps include prepackaging intubation baskets, availability of videolaryngoscope, standard personal protective equipment including powered air purifying respirator, and use of modified intubation checklist.

Effective Responses to Public Emergencies at the Urban Community Level: A Perspective of COVID-19 Prevention and Control

Community is directly responsible for implementing the policy measures against public emergencies such as extreme weather, earthquake, flash flood and pandemic diseases. Summarizing the experience at the urban community level can help promote the global emergency management. This paper, from the perspective of COVID-19 prevention and control, selects three communities with different features to explore an effective response system for public emergency management at the urban community level. It demonstrates that based on a centralized leadership, the multi-level governance (MLG) network combined with information technology has mobilized their participation in combating COVID-19 and ensured the effective and timely response to the public emergencies, which blocked the spread of epidemic to the greatest extent, proving worthy of being promoted as one of the Chinese approaches and Chinese wisdom. © Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies. All rights reserved.

Multilevel Governance and Control of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Learning from the Four First Waves.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to impose a heavy burden on people around the world. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has also been affected. The objective of this study was to explore national policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in the DRC and drivers of the response, and to generate lessons for strengthening health systems' resilience and public health capacity to respond to health security threats. This was a case study with data collected through a literature review and in-depth interviews with key informants. Data analysis was carried out manually using thematic content analysis translated into a logical and descriptive summary of the results. The management of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic reflected multilevel governance. It implied a centralized command and a decentralized implementation. The centralized command at the national level mostly involved state actors organized into ad hoc structures. The decentralized implementation involved state actors at the provincial and peripheral level including two other ad hoc structures. Non-state actors were involved at both levels. These ad hoc structures had problems coordinating the transmission of information to the public as they were operating outside the normative framework of the health system. Conclusions: Lessons that can be learned from this study include the strategic organisation of the response inspired by previous experiences with epidemics; the need to decentralize decision-making power to anticipate or respond quickly and adequately to a threat such as the COVID-19 pandemic; and measures decided, taken, or adapted according to the epidemiological evolution (cases and deaths) of the epidemic and its effects on the socio-economic situation of the population. Other countries can benefit from the DRC experience by adapting it to their own context.

Effective Responses to Public Emergencies at the Urban Community Level: A Perspective of COVID-19 Prevention and Control

Community is directly responsible for implementing the policy measures against public emergencies such as extreme weather, earthquake, flash flood and pandemic diseases. Summarizing the experience at the urban community level can help promote the global emergency management. This paper, from the perspective of COVID-19 prevention and control, selects three communities with different features to explore an effective response system for public emergency management at the urban community level. It demonstrates that based on a centralized leadership, the multi-level governance (MLG) network combined with information technology has mobilized their participation in combating COVID-19 and ensured the effective and timely response to the public emergencies, which blocked the spread of epidemic to the greatest extent, proving worthy of being promoted as one of the Chinese approaches and Chinese wisdom. [ FROM AUTHOR]

Engineering Students' Engagement in a Hybrid Learning Mode: Comparative Study

After almost two years since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, higher education institutions are adopting transitional strategies towards returning to normal campus life while respecting the health and safety regulations. An example of such strategies is the hybrid teaching model where only half of the students attend their classes physically on campus while the other half attend their classes simultaneously but online, and their attendance alternates every week. A major challenge imposed by this strategy is the complexity of students' engagement as instructors are exposed simultaneously to two different teaching styles. In this paper, the effectiveness of an Audience Response System in terms of boosting the students' engagement in a hybrid learning environment is investigated. The collected data is analyzed at various stages and comparative conclusions are drawn about the Audience Response System's effectiveness over the interaction of online and on-campus students. Furthermore, an anonymous detailed survey is conducted to verify the students' satisfaction level and to link its results with the conclusions obtained from analyzing the data of the Audience Response System. © CDIO 2022.All rights reserved.

COVID-19 Warning System

The current pandemic has compelled everyone, at all levels, to make a quick and difficult reversal. Our lives are significantly influenced and altered, particularly in terms of how we behave and connect in various facets of our professional and personal life. For example, whilst the peak of the pandemic’s first wave in Europe, people delayed seeking medical help out of fear of becoming infected, a fear that has yet to be completely dispelled. We are still in the midst of the pandemic, unsure when or how it will end. The paradigm is also horribly, extremely attention-grabbing when it comes to research projects within the framework of this scientific journal. The creation of research project processes can take a lengthy period in some cases. For example, it is usual for a project’s look to take two months (or more) to develop, then six months (or more) to review, and finally two or three years to complete once authorised. The direct benefit to society is not always apparent. Sometimes, the outcomes are “just” intermediate stages (little steps) that will be adopted or modified (complemented) into something directly beneficial to society in the future. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Applying the Student Response System in the Online Dermatologic Video Curriculum on Medical Students' Interaction and Learning Outcomes during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic impacted medical education worldwide. Online lecture is increasingly prevalent in higher education, but students' completion rate is quite low. Aims: This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of the student response system (SRS) in the online dermatologic video curriculum on medical students. Methods: A prospective study was conducted on 176 undergraduate fourth-year medical students. The online video lecture was integrated with SRS. Results: A total of 173 students completed the pre-test, and the attendance rate (pre-test/total) was 98.3%. A total of 142 students completed the post-test, and the completion rate (post-test/pre-test) was 82.8%. The post-test score (83.69 ± 4.34) was found to be significantly higher than that of the pre-test (62.69 ± 6.08, P =0.0002). A total of 138 students completed the questionnaire, and 92% of students opined that SRS was easy to operate. 86% of students agreed with the fact that the use of SRS could increase their learning performance by interacting with teachers. In the open-ended question, students stated that SRS offered opportunities for student-faculty interaction, allowed them to get immediate feedback, and promote active participation. Conclusions: These results highlight that the integration of SRS in the online video curriculum increases students' completion rates and learning outcomes. Moreover, the SRS is easy to operate for the students and enhances student-faculty interaction. The SRS may be adopted in online learning during this challenging time.

The Effectiveness of Technology-based Intervention for Positive Behavioural Change to Promote Health Seeking Behaviour among Rural and Tribal Communities

In the last decade, mobile phones have quickly evolved from being a tool of communication to a key agent of social development because of its widespread reach in urban as well as rural areas, especially in the under-served communities. The underserved communities refer to populations which are disadvantaged because of their lack of ability to access care, ability to pay, ability to access comprehensive healthcare, or other disparities for reasons of race, caste, religion, gender, language group or social or economic status. Mobile phone-based information and communication technologies (ICTs) have proven to be significantly beneficial for this section of society and communities - those living in remote and media-dark areas, people who have mostly remained deprived of critical health-related information - by spreading awareness, facilitating interaction and engagement, which in turn leads to adapting of healthy practices, and strengthening a health-seeking behaviour among the target communities. The secondary effect of this change is clearly reflected in economic and social development as well as health indicators of these families. This paper evaluates the efficacy of the mobile phone-based intervention in spreading awareness about maternal and child health, during the time of COVID-19 pandemic, at a time when physical outreach by health workers to contact pregnant women and lactating mothers was significantly hindered due to restrictions in movement and face to face meetings. The digital media outreach mechanisms aided by ICTs proved to be a strong alternative in this scenario, which can be demonstrated by the wide uptake of this service among the target communities. © 2022 IEEE.

Audience response systems as an interim measure of quality using Bloom's taxonomy of learning outcomes

Learning methods are transforming with the help of modern technology. The availability of versatile innovative technologies such as the audience response systems may assist in the transformation of learning and training methods in pharmacy education and consequently, increase student engagement and promote active learning. This review emphasises the audience response system as an assessment tool that can be emulated by pharmacy instructors. It can be implemented in the daily learning process to foster the wide engagement of students in the learning process. Furthermore, the shift in pharmacy education due to COVID-19 and the upsurge of online tools support the innovative role of audience response systems. The audience response system suits numerous interactive classroom purposes. A new generation of pharmacy students' transformational roles, future responsibilities, and emerging patient and societal needs dictate the need for interactive learning styles that encompasses the use of the current audience response system and other appropriate approved tools. The audience response system needs to be mapped with a revised version of Bloom's taxonomy to ensure the learning outcomes are achieved in appropriate levels.

GLOBAL RESEARCH: THE JOURNAL OF THE HEALTH VISITORS' ASSOCIATION

To identify those who may be at a higher risk of hospitalisation, researchers in the US investigated the associations between blood sugar levels, the impact of common medications - such as insulin, ACE inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers and corticosteroids - and Covid-19 severity. Corresponding author Deepak Vashishth said he hopes the insights will aid physicians in better treating and managing high-risk patients'. bit.ly/BMJODRC_blood_sugar_Covid UK HEARING DOGS SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVE PEOPLES LIVES, FIRST-EVER TRIAL SHOWS Research published in Trials shows that assistance dogs for those living with hearing loss have positive and far-reaching impacts. Senior author Dr Annie Curtis concluded: 'Anything which negatively impacts on our body clocks [...] can impact on the ability of our immune system to work effectively.' bit.ly/FI_body_clock_ inflammation KENYA STIs AND BACTERIAL INFECTION IN TEENAGE GIRLS ARE THE RESULT OF GENDER INEQUITIES A study assessing the impact of menstrual cups and the role of a vaginal microbiome in mitigating rates of bacterial vaginosis and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), found about 10% of secondary school girls had STIs and 11% bacterial vaginosis.

Construction and Application of an Intelligent Response System for COVID-19 Voice Consultation in China: A Retrospective Study.

Background: The outbreak of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has led to tremendous individuals visit medical institutions for healthcare services. Public gatherings and close contact in clinics and emergency departments may increase the exposure and cross-infection of COVID-19. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to develop and deploy an intelligent response system for COVID-19 voice consultation, to provide suggestions of response measures based on actual information of users, and screen COVID-19 suspected cases. Methods: Based on the requirements analysis of business, user, and function, the physical architecture, system architecture, and core algorithms are designed and implemented. The system operation process is designed according to guidance documents of the National Health Commission and the actual experience of prevention, diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19. Both qualitative (system construction) and quantitative (system application) data from the real-world healthcare service of the system were retrospectively collected and analyzed. Results: The system realizes the functions, such as remote deployment and operations, fast operation procedure adjustment, and multi-dimensional statistical report capability. The performance of the machine-learning model used to develop the system is better than others, with the lowest Character Error Rate (CER) 8.13%. As of September 24, 2020, the system has received 12,264 times incoming calls and provided a total of 11,788 COVID-19-related consultation services for the public. Approximately 85.2% of the users are from Henan Province and followed by Beijing (2.5%). Of all the incoming calls, China Mobile contributes the largest proportion (66%), while China Unicom and China Telecom are accounted for 23% and 11%. For the time that users access the system, there is a peak period in the morning (08:00-10:00) and afternoon (14:00-16:00), respectively. Conclusions: The intelligent response system has achieved appreciable practical implementation effects. Our findings reveal that the provision of inquiry services through an intelligent voice consultation system may play a role in optimizing the allocation of healthcare resources, improving the efficiency of medical services, saving medical expenses, and protecting vulnerable groups.

Technological resources for teaching and learning about human anatomy in the medical course: Systematic review of literature.

The consolidation of technology as an alternative strategy to cadaveric dissection for teaching anatomy in medical courses was accelerated by the recent Covid-19 pandemic, which caused the need for social distance policies and the closure of laboratories and classrooms. Consequently, new technologies were created, and those already been developed started to be better explored. However, information about many of these instruments and resources is not available to anatomy teachers. This systematic review presents the technological means for teaching and learning about human anatomy developed and applied in medical courses in the last ten years, besides the infrastructure necessary to use them. Studies in English, Portuguese, and Spanish were searched in MEDLINE, Scopus, ERIC, LILACS, and SciELO databases, initially resulting in a total of 875 identified articles, from which 102 were included in the analysis. They were classified according to the type of technology used: three-dimensional (3D) printing (n = 22), extended reality (n = 49), digital tools (n = 23), and other technological resources (n = 8). It was made a detailed description of technologies, including the stage of the medical curriculum in which it was applied, the infrastructure utilized, and which contents were covered. The analysis shows that between all technologies, those related to the internet and 3D printing are the most applicable, both in student learning and the financial cost necessary for its structural implementation.

iDMer: an integrative and mechanism-driven response system for identifying compound interventions for sudden virus outbreak.

Emerging viral infections seriously threaten human health globally. Several challenges exist in identifying effective compounds against viral infections: (1) at the initial stage of a new virus outbreak, little information, except for its genome information, may be available; (2) although the identified compounds may be effective, they may be toxic in vivo and (3) cytokine release syndrome (CRS) triggered by viral infections is the primary cause of mortality. Currently, an integrative tool that takes all those aspects into consideration for identifying effective compounds to prevent viral infections is absent. In this study, we developed iDMer, as an integrative and mechanism-driven response system for addressing these challenges during the sudden virus outbreaks. iDMer comprises three mechanism-driven compound identification modules, that is, a virus-host interaction-oriented module, an autophagy-oriented module and a CRS-oriented module. As a one-stop integrative platform, iDMer incorporates compound toxicity evaluation and compound combination identification for virus treatment with clear mechanisms. iDMer was successfully tested on five viruses, including the current severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Our results indicated that, for all five tested viruses, compounds that were reported in the literature or experimentally validated for virus treatment were enriched at the top, demonstrating the generalized effectiveness of iDMer. Finally, we demonstrated that combinations of the individual modules successfully identified combinations of compounds effective for virus intervention with clear mechanisms.

Advances in Synthetic Biology and Biosafety Governance.

Tremendous advances in the field of synthetic biology have been witnessed in multiple areas including life sciences, industrial development, and environmental bio-remediation. However, due to the limitations of human understanding in the code of life, any possible intended or unintended uses of synthetic biology, and other unknown reasons, the development and application of this technology has raised concerns over biosafety, biosecurity, and even cyberbiosecurity that they may expose public health and the environment to unknown hazards. Over the past decades, some countries in Europe, America, and Asia have enacted laws and regulations to control the application of synthetic biology techniques in basic and applied research and this has resulted in some benefits. The outbreak of the COVID-19 caused by novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and various speculations about the origin of this virus have attracted more attention on bio-risk concerns of synthetic biology because of its potential power and uncertainty in the synthesis and engineering of living organisms. Therefore, it is crucial to scrutinize the control measures put in place to ensure appropriate use, promote the development of synthetic biology, and strengthen the governance of pathogen-related research, although the true origin of coronavirus remains hotly debated and unresolved. This article reviews the recent progress made in the field of synthetic biology and combs laws and regulations in governing bio-risk issues. We emphasize the urgent need for legislative and regulatory constraints and oversight to address the biological risks of synthetic biology.

'Code-95' rapid response calls for patients under airborne precautions in the COVID-19-era: a cross-sectional survey of healthcare worker perceptions.

BACKGROUND: To allow better allocation of staff and resources, rapid response teams attending to acutely deteriorating or aggressive patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 infection were pre-warned with the announcement of 'Code-95' with calls. AIM: To assess healthcare worker (HCW) perspectives on pre-warning rapid response calls (RRC) with 'Code-95' in announcements when attending to deteriorating or aggressive patients with suspected/confirmed COVID-19 infection. METHODS: Design: prospective cross-sectional single-centre survey of HCW over a 3-week period. SETTING: tertiary public hospital. PARTICIPANTS: HCW caring for deteriorating or aggressive patients. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: the primary outcome was to assess HCW perspectives in attending Code-95 calls. Secondary outcomes were to identify any differences related to craft group, age, experience or presence of comorbidities. RESULTS: A total of 297 responses was analysed; 86.7% of HCW (n = 257) attending Code-95 calls reported anxiety. Medical staff reported greater anxiety in comparison to nursing staff (93.8% vs 78.5%; P = 0.002). Efferent team reported higher anxiety in contrast to afferent team (92.6% vs 58.8%; P = 0.021). There was no significant difference in perceived anxiety based on age (≤40 vs >40 years of age), years of experience (≤5 vs >5 years), comorbidities or mental illness; 54% reported concerns about adequacy of infection-control policies and personal protective equipment; 45% were worried about inadequate training for responding to Code-95 calls. CONCLUSIONS: Most surveyed HCW supported Code-95 announcements pre-warning them of potential COVID-19 exposure when attending a RRC. However, the majority of HCW reported anxiety when attending these calls. Medical and efferent team HCW perceived greater anxiety compared to nursing and afferent team HCW. The Code-95 system to pre-warn rapid response teams may be a useful addition to protecting HCW from infectious diseases, although broader implementation will require greater resourcing, training and support.