LEISURE INVOLVEMENT AND PLACE ATTACHMENT ON SHOPPING MALL REVISIT INTENTION: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF QUALITY OF LIFE

This study investigates the impact of leisure involvement, and place attachment on revisit intention with the mediating role of quality of life. This survey was composed of 300 individuals in a shopping mall in Lahore, Pakistan. The data was analyzed through Partial Least Square – Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings indicated that leisure involvement and quality of life predict the place attachment and customers revisit intention. The results show the positive and significant relationship between leisure involvement (LI) and quality of life (QOL);leisure involvement (LI) with place attachment (PA);revisit intention (RI) and QOL with place attachment and revisit intention. The study advances in theory explaining the mediating role of quality of life in consumption in Shopping Malls and presents managerial recommendations that can be applied during and after Covid-19.

Factors associated with quality of life during COVID-19 pandemic

Introduction: The worldwide lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been reported to have an impact on many people's quality of life. This study aims to measure the quality of life for Malaysians during this time and its associated factors. Method(s): This national online survey from August to December 2021 via placement of QR codes in public places such as shopping malls, vaccination centres, and hospital outpatient clinics. The QR code is linked to a google form in Malay, which consists of four sections, including: socio-demographic;validated Fear of COVID-19 Scale;validated Brief COPE scale to assess coping strategies as well as regulating cognition in response to stressors coping mechanisms, and quality of life, measured using a validated WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire. The data collected were analysed via linear regression to obtain the final model. Result(s): There were 4904 Malaysian adults who participated in this survey with a mean of age 32(SD=9.2), and the majority being female (83.7%). Based on the finding, 59.1% claim to have had a low overall quality of life during the pandemic. Age, education status, and income as well as psychological related predictors (fear of COVID-19, coping strategies, and psychological distress) are the predictors that explain 69% of the total variance in quality of life among Malaysians. Conclusion(s): Targeting modifiable factors such as psychoeducation on fear of COVID-19, and coping strategies can potentially improve the quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic among Malaysians.

Effects of COVID-19 pandemic on spatial preferences and usage habits of users in shopping malls and its relation with circulation layout

The COVID-19 pandemic, with its global impact on every scale of life, has caused a change in all the habits of people regarding daily life, and this change has also been directly reflected in the human-space interaction. The bidirectional relationship between human and space has evolved by being influenced by each other during the pandemic process. Within the scope of this study, which aims to determine the predicted change in the spatial preferences and usage habits of the users in the shopping malls due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which causes changes in the space and the usage habits of the users from micro scale to macro scale, analyzes were made with the research methodology consisting of three stages (i. space syntax, ii. survey, iii. comparison) and the results were evaluated. According to the results obtained from the case study, it was determined that the COVID-19 pandemic deeply changed people's spatial perception, preferences and usage habits in shopping malls and circulation layout also plays a role on it. To summarize, while personal preferences were at the forefront in places to be preferred for shopping before the pandemic, the characteristics of the place gained importance after the pandemic. CO 2022 THE AUTHOR. Published by Elsevier BV on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ncnd/4.0/).

Evaluating the influence of service quality, hedonic, and utilitarian value on shopper's behavioral intentions in urban shopping malls during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Shopping malls are subjected to a lot of changes during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the Philippines. The objective of the study was to evaluate the influence of service quality, hedonic, and utilitarian value of malls on shopping mall goers' behavioral intentions during the COVID-19 pandemic. SERVQUAL five dimensions were utilized to represent the service quality aspect, while utilitarian and hedonic values are used to embody the shopping mall values among Filipino citizens. Additionally, we included convenience and social experience as part of our model, to which relationships were assessed toward the utilitarian and hedonic shopping mall values, respectively. An online survey was distributed and collected 519 valid responses among Filipino shopping mall goers. Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), results showed that for service quality aspect, tangibles, empathy, and assurance had significant effects on shopper's shopping mall satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, both shopping mall values present positive effects on shopper's satisfaction on which utilitarian value gave the strongest influence in the overall model, followed by the hedonic value. Convenience and social experience also showed positive effects on utilitarian and hedonic values, respectively. The utilized extended framework from SERVQUAL dimensions and hedonic and utilitarian values to measure satisfaction and behavioral intentions was seen to be applicable to measure human behavior and lifestyle studies. Overall, the satisfaction from both service quality and shopping mall values aspect strongly influences shoppers' behavioral intention in going to the mall.

Indoor Navigation Application in Shopping Mall Based on Augmented Reality (AR)

The amount and frequency of shopping in department stores reduce due to COVID-19 outbreak all over the world. Thus, consumers have to give precedence to planning to go shopping in department stores in order to reduce social interaction time so as to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection. This research introduced the development of an application prototype for product location search based on augmented reality (AR) for facilitating customers to search for desirable products with no need to ask salespersons and no need to go for product search on their own. Besides, the introduced application could also present statistical data related to behavior and interest in shopping. Organizations can use the data to make plans for decision making on selling, and to use it as a supportive tool to increase their competitiveness. © 2022, Aekarat Saeliw, Watcharasuda Hualkasin & Supattra Puttinaovarat;published by UIKTEN. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License.

Enhancing Mall Security Based on Augmented Reality in the Post-pandemic World

COVID-19 has shocked the retail industry, customers’ concerns for their health and safety are taking business away from shopping malls. Mall owners are thinking of finding new ways to bring their business back in this post-pandemic world. How to protect customers from COVID-19 in shopping malls has been a problem. This study presents an enhanced mall security system to help enforce wearing masks and proper social distancing in shopping malls using augmented reality (AR). We created a novel visualization way: Radar vision to display detected people in the perspective of mall guards, to help guards react quickly to violations, and better enforce the mandatory rules. When the mall guards wearing hololens activate the radar vision function, they can see all people violating wearing masks or social distance mandates through the wall. Mall guards can use gaze to select the target person and then use the voice command to activate the navigation arrow to help them quickly go to the scene. In addition to helping mall guards to enforce mandates, the system also provides assisted functions to protect customers. When the violation situation appears around a customer, the system will alert them to avoid and show an avoidance arrow until the user goes in the correct direction. We demonstrated a preliminary system with four surveillance cameras in our school building area. The pilot study shows that our system can effectively detect and display radar images, increasing the efficiency of mall guards and reducing customer safety concerns. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Sisonke phase 3B open-label study: Lessons learnt for national and global vaccination scale-up during epidemics

Sisonke is a multicentre, open-label, single-arm phase 3B vaccine implementation study of healthcare workers (HCWs) in South Africa, with prospective surveillance for 2 years. The primary endpoint is the rate of severe COVID-19, including hospitalisations and deaths. The Sisonke study enrolled and vaccinated participants nationally at potential vaccination roll-out sites between 17 February and 26 May 2021. After May 2021, additional HCWs were vaccinated as part of a sub-study at selected clinical research sites. We discuss 10 lessons learnt to strengthen national and global vaccination strategies: (i) consistently advocate for vaccination to reduce public hesitancy;(ii) an electronic vaccination data system (EVDS) is critical;(iii) facilitate access to a choice of vaccination sites, such as religious and community centres, schools, shopping malls and drive-through centres;(iv) let digitally literate people help elderly and marginalised people to register for vaccination;(v) develop clear 'how to' guides for vaccine storage, pharmacy staff and vaccinators;(vi) leverage instant messaging platforms, such as WhatsApp, for quick communication among staff at vaccination centres;(vii) safety is paramount - rapid health assessments are needed at vaccination centres to identify people at high risk of serious adverse events, including anaphylaxis or thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome. Be transparent about adverse events and contextualise vaccination benefits, while acknowledging the small risks;(viii) provide real-time, responsive support to vaccinees post vaccination and implement an accessible national vaccine adverse events surveillance system;(ix) develop efficient systems to monitor and investigate COVID-19 breakthrough infections;and (x) flexibility and teamwork are essential in vaccination centres across national, provincial and district levels and between public and private sectors.

Risk analysis of Covid-19 in the workplace: practical approaches by activity sector in Italy

Introduction: Italy was the first among western countries to face the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. The progressive adoption of several containing measures by the Government during the first lockdown period from March 2020, encompassed the temporary suspension of non-essential business activities, resulting in a reduction of about 75% of workers present in their workplaces (including remote workers). Materials and Methods: INAIL developed a methodology for assessing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the workplace to support the Government for a safe reactivation of businesses evaluating the impact of the modular reopening of work activities after the first lockdown period. The average risk classes have been associated to the number of employees by sector to take into account the potential impact on the mobility due to the commuting. Results: Specific protocols for reopening activities have been developed for many sectors;these included administrative, preventive and protective measures to manage the risk in the workplace and mitigate the impacts for the community at large. Practical recommendations were allowed for public transport, manufacturing, meat processing and cutting plants, construction, schools, shopping malls and retail shops, catering services, seaside facilities and personal care services. Conclusions: The proposed methodological framework has been adopted by the Italian Government to guide the prevention strategies and address the prioritization of the vaccination campaign in workplaces, with the final aim to contribute to the fastest achievement of the whole population immunity from Covid-19.

Queueing model analysis of shopping malls in COVID-19 pandemic era: a case study

Queueing forms a daily routine of our lives wherever there are limitations in resources with competition. The ongoing Coronavirus Disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic undeniably has its impacts on people’s daily life. That in turn affected the number of customers who used to go outside for different outdoor activities. In this paper, a shopping mall is considered as a case study to propose an appropriate queueing model within these current pandemic circumstances. The proposed model consists of an open network with 10 nodes represent different real-existing serving stations. The queueing model is first analysed to check its stability that is evident analytically on the long run. The performance of the proposed network model is investigated using different measures. Based on recorded arrival and service rates, the mathematical derivations show that the traffic intensity of the system is still below 1, hence ensures stability. Also, the average number of customers in the network is 16.76 customers with only 2.66 customers awaiting in queues. Furthermore, the mean time a customer spends in the queue is only 0.16 min from a total spend on the network about 1.006 min. This indicates that the majority of time customers spend is in service with a very short waiting time due to current COVID-19 pandemic consequences, and the waiting time and queue lengths will undoubtedly increase once normal social life resumes. © 2021 Aymen M. Al-Kadhimi et al.

Bioluminescence-based hygiene evaluation of public washroom environment: Repeated measurement of posthandwashing facilities on baseline and before and after cleaning schedule.

BACKGROUND: The risk of hand recontamination is often neglected after using hand washing facilities, which can increase the spread of pathogens. The study aimed to evaluate the hygienic condition of posthandwashing facilities in public washrooms at different timeslots, particularly those near food courts and restaurants located in shopping malls. METHODS: This observational study was conducted in 12 public washrooms that ranged from low-end, middle-end, to high-end category on 3 different timeslots including baseline, T1 (immediate postcleaning) and T2 (1-hour postcleaning, with counting the footfall). Hand-touch surfaces with a high risk of recontamination after handwashing, which included paper tower dispensers, air drying outlets, and exit door handles, were evaluated by the surface adenosine triphosphate (ATP) bioluminescence method (ATP-value). ATP-values <500 relative light units (RLUs) were considered a good hygiene. Cleaning schedules and footfalls of each sampled washroom were obtained by direct observations. RESULTS: The overall mean ATP value of washroom was 785 RLU (N = 108); the ATP values of female and male washrooms at T2 were 203 and 3,718 RLUs, respectively. The highest ATP value was found on the exit door handles of male washrooms (range = 13-26,695 RLUs, mean = 3,229 RLU). Regarding passed/failed hygiene conditions, there were significant differences in the proportion of exit door handles between genders (P = .018) and timeslots (P = .007) as well as that of paper towel button/screw between timeslots (P= .025). CONCLUSION: Attention should be paid at the exit door handles of male washrooms, where are high risks of cross and re-contamination.