State-level data on TANF policy changes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

OBJECTIVE: COVID-19 mitigation measures prompted many states to revise the administration of their welfare programs. States adopted policies that varied across the U.S. to respond to the difficulties in fulfilling program requirements, as well as increased financial need. This dataset captures the changes made to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs during the COVID-19 pandemic, from March 2020 through December 2020. The authors created this dataset as part of a larger study that examined the health effects of TANF policy changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. DATA DESCRIPTION: TANF is the main cash assistance program for low-income families in the U.S., but benefits are often conditional on work requirements and can be revoked if an individual is deemed noncompliant. Structural factors during the COVID-19 pandemic made meeting these criteria more difficult, so some states relaxed their rules and increased their benefits. This dataset captures 24 types of policies that state TANF programs enacted, which of the states enacted each of them, when the policies went into effect, and when applicable, when the policies ended. These data can be used to study the effects of TANF policy changes on various health and programmatic outcomes.

A framework for sustainable adaptive reuse: understanding vacancy and underuse in existing urban buildings

Cities have been built on the benefits of density, proximity, and connectivity. However, the recent COVID-19 pandemic, along with continuously evolving communication technologies, has seen an increase in vacancies and underuse of urban buildings, challenging the agglomeration benefits of cities and our understanding of business-as-usual. By reflecting on these continuous changes in our urban environment, we can better understand the dynamics in play, the various user needs, the temporary or permanent nature of these changes, and possible adaptive strategies to navigate our future toward a more sustainable and resilient state. This article, therefore, presents a systematic literature review, using PRISMA, to examine and map how vacancy intersects with adaptive reuse literature. This review examined 43 academic articles and revealed research predominately focusing on whole-building adaptive reuse of completely vacant buildings. This review highlighted that vacancy is mainly assumed in research, and both vacancy and adaptive reuse are insufficiently unpacked. A new adaptive reuse framework is proposed to address the misalignment between the realities of how a vacancy is distributed in building stocks and the focus on whole-building adaptive reuse. The framework is set to inform urban policy development supporting sustainable reuse. This article presents a point of departure to understand how adaptive planning approaches could be applied to enhance broader sustainability and resilience initiatives.

Biodegradable Bio-based Material for Wearable Air Filtering Skin

COVID-19, imagine having a temporary lip sticker that offers the protection of an n95 mask without the uncomfortable bulk. Using green electrospun nanofibers the lip sticker filters the virus and can communicate geospatial data to your phone using embedded NFC technology. Available in different designs and skins, some fiber formations can display temperature changes on your face. This paper investigates several prototypes of the described product. © 2022 Owner/Author.

Of COVID-19 and Chickens: The Ethics of One Workplace Safety Policy Early in the Pandemic

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic created considerable challenges for the food supply chain. One of the industries hardest hit was the agricultural and agri-foods industry. This industry has long faced worker shortages and regularly relied on temporary foreign workers. In this case, Roosters, a chicken processing and production company in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, had just come off a very costly 12-day closure following a COVID-19 exposure risk in two of its processing plants. With the company back in operation a new safety policy has been implemented to limit future virus exposure and shutdown risks. The policy, however, targets a small group of temporary foreign workers, one of whom is challenging the lengths the company can go in the name of protecting employees from the virus and the company from losses due to closure. © 2022 Neilson Journals Publishing.

District-Level Variation in Covid-19 Vaccination Rates and Availability of Vaccination Services in Bulgaria

Purpose: Since early 2022, the COVID-19 vaccination rate in Bulgaria has remained low, with large regional differences. This study examines the association between the availability of vaccination sites and the number of administered doses, and the extent to which district-level variation is attributable to differences in vaccination services provision. Material(s) and Method(s): Data on COVID-19 vaccine doses administered by districts were used. This data set was combined with district-level information on available vaccination sites, such as general practitioners and temporary vaccination points. The district-level differences in vaccination coverage and service provision were illustrated through country heat maps, and the association between the variables was explored using two linear regression models. Result(s): According to the first regression model, the number of general practitioners and temporary vaccination points accounted for only 3.8% of the district-level variation in administrated doses. As covariates in the second model, sociodemographic and economic data were included. The combined influence of these factors explained 42.2% of the variance across districts. According to the findings, the average annual gross wage is a significant determinant of the district-level differences in the number of administrated doses. Conclusion(s): There is no statistically significant association between administered doses and vaccination sites by districts, which does not correspond to the findings of other international studies. District-level variation in vaccination rates is associated with some sociodemographic and economic differences. The paucity of district-level data impedes further analyses of the vaccine coverage differences and their underlying determinants.Copyright © 2023, Peytchinski, Gospodin Iliev ET. All rights reserved.

The Negative Impact of the Succession of Crises and the Ineffectiveness of the E-learning System on Tertiary Education in Sudan from (2018) to Present

This study attempts to determine the social, economic, and psychological impacts of the 2018 temporary closure of educational institutions in Sudan amid several internal incidents and the ongoing closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic on students, teachers, and families. Most educational systems worldwide were temporarily closed and negatively affected. Nevertheless, it seemed as if the crises in Sudan extremely damaged the process of the overall educational system simply because the closure of the institutions initially began as a result of several internal incidents by the end of the academic year 2017-2018. The closure lasted until August 2019, when schools were reopened, and within almost six months;again, a decision was made in February 2020 for the entire closure of educational institutions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and continued for more than one and a half years. The impact of total closures of universities and colleges in Sudan affected students' academic achievement in different ways because the situations in Sudan were primarily different before the spread of COVID-19. Therefore, the negative implications of the long–term closure were greater not only on the students' academic achievement but also on the teachers' sources of income, which resulted in economic issues for many families. To undertake this study, both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies were used. The researchers designed and distributed a questionnaire to a sample of 39 Sudanese university teachers to examine their attitudes towards the impact of the several internal incidents behind the closure of the entire educational institutions on overall academic achievement and online education as an alternative to face-to-face or traditional teaching. Although very few universities launched e-learning units during the last two decades, it seemed as if their purposes were very limited and mainly designed to serve a few students under certain conditions. Additionally, the researchers observed the efficient application of the e-learning educational system during the COVID-19 pandemic, represented by the Blackboard platform at both Qassim University and Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University. The data analysis resulted in some significant findings, among which are the following: First, students were regularly paying the price of the poor infrastructure that contributed to preventing the application of an effective e-learning system in Sudan. Second, the long–term closure throughout 2018 has resulted in the accumulation of several student batches and generally complicated the scene. Third, the long–term closure influenced university students in different ways: academically, socially, economically, and psychologically. © The Author(s) 2023.

How temporary organisations manage flexibility in times of crises? Experiences of a Chinese control command in response to COVID‐19

Coordination of the response to the COVID‐19 crisis may be understood as the multimonth management of a temporary organisation instead of classical crisis management. A key question is how to maintain operational flexibility, that is, an organisation's ability to adapt its day‐to‐day functions to accommodate a changing environment. This contribution describes how a control command established by a Chinese municipality in response to COVID‐19 tried to cope with the problems at hand. Based partially upon participatory observation the following aspects are considered: shifting political attention, adapting interaction frequency, changing organisational structures, improvising routines, and altering priorities. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Contingencies & Crisis Management is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Temporary layoffs, short-time work and COVID-19: the case of a dual labour market

PurposeThis paper aims to study the type of short-time work (STW) schemes implemented in Spain to preserve jobs and workers' incomes during the COVID-19 crisis and the corresponding labour market outcomes. Design/methodology/approachA dynamic macroeconomic model of job creation and destruction of the search and matching type in a dual labour market. FindingsThe model shows that the availability of STW schemes does not necessarily prevent a large increase in unemployment and job destruction. The quantitative effects depend on the degree of subsidization of payroll taxes and on the design of the policy. A scenario with a moderate degree of subsidization and where the subsidy is independent of the reduction in hours worked is the least harmful for both welfare and fiscal deficit. The cost of such a strategy is a higher unemployment rate. Concerning heterogeneous effects, the unemployed are the ones who experience the strongest distributional changes. Originality/valueThe effectiveness of STW schemes in dual labour markets using a search and matching model in the context of the COVID-19 crisis has not been analysed elsewhere. The literature has emphasized the importance of dynamics, labour market institutions and workers' heterogeneity to understand workforce adjustment decisions in the face of temporary shocks to de- mand especially when firms' human capital is relevant. These elements are present in the model. In addition, this paper computes welfare and distributional effects and the cost of these policies.

Pandemic Makers: How Citizen Groups Mobilized Resources to Meet Local Needs in a Global Health Crisis: ET&P

The enormous scale of suffering, breadth of societal impact, and ongoing uncertainty wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic introduced dynamics seldom examined in the crisis entrepreneurship literature. Previous research indicates that when a crisis causes a failure of public goods, spontaneous citizen ventures often emerge to leverage unique local knowledge to rapidly customize abundant external resources to meet immediate needs. However, as outsiders, emergent citizen groups responding to the dire shortage of personal protective equipment at the onset of COVID-19 lacked local knowledge and legitimacy. In this study, we examine how entrepreneurial citizens mobilized collective resources in attempts to gain acceptance and meet local needs amid the urgency of the pandemic. Through longitudinal case studies of citizen groups connected to makerspaces in four U.S. cities, we study how they adapted to address the resource and legitimacy limitations they encountered. We identify three mechanisms—augmenting, circumventing, and attenuating—that helped transient citizen groups calibrate their resource mobilization based on what they learned over time. We highlight how extreme temporality imposes limits on resourcefulness and legitimation, making it critical for collective entrepreneurs to learn when to work within their limitations rather than try to overcome them.

Effects of Spatial Characteristics on Non-Standard Employment for Canada's Immigrant Population

Using microdata from Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey (LFS) and Population Census, this paper explores how spatial characteristics are correlated with temporary employment outcomes for Canada's immigrant population. Results from ordinary least square regression models suggest that census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations (CMAs/CAs) characterized by a high share of racialized immigrants, immigrants in low-income, young, aged immigrants, unemployed immigrants, and immigrants employed in health and service occupations were positively associated with an increase in temporary employment for immigrants. Furthermore, findings from principal component regression models revealed that a combination of spatial characteristics, namely CMAs/CAs characterized by both a high share of unemployed immigrants and immigrants in poverty, had a greater likelihood of immigrants being employed temporarily. The significance of this study lies in the spatial conceptualization of temporary employment for immigrants that could better inform spatially targeted employment policies, especially in the wake of the structural shift in the nature of work brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Beyond the 'Triple Win': Pacific Islander farmworkers' use of social media to navigate labour mobility costs and possibilities through the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the global horticultural sector's reliance on migrant workers. Within Australia, public attention was focused particularly on Pacific Islanders employed through the Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP) guestworker scheme. With national border closures resulting in significant labour shortages for the horticultural industry, special-purpose exemptions allowing limited groups of SWP workers to enter the country were celebrated as a source of reprieve for struggling farmers. For Pacific Islander workers and communities, however, the prospect of leaving Pacific countries (many of whom had at the time no, or very few, recorded cases of COVID-19) to labour for unspecified periods in a country experiencing much higher rates of infection, was fraught. In this paper, we examine the use of social media by Pacific Islanders to negotiate the costs and benefits of temporary labour migration amid the pandemic. For ni-Vanuatu workers, we argue, Facebook groups facilitated depictions and negotiations of guestwork that were significantly more complex and nuanced than the reductive and bifurcated terms of mainstream media discourse about the SWP scheme. We conclude by highlighting the necessity of foregrounding migrant workers' voices in evaluating guestworker schemes, and the value of social media as a dynamic space within which this might be done. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Discipline and resistance in southwestern Ontario: Securitization of migrant workers and their acts of defiance

COVID‐19 has had deep impacts on a wide range of vulnerable communities in Canada. Migrant agricultural workers in the southwestern region of Ontario were particularly impacted. Fearing the threat of the ‘racialized foreign other', the Canadian state produced myriad securitization responses with heightened surveillance. This paper will examine both state and non‐state forms of securitization and the response from both workers and activists such as the advocacy group Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW). While there has been ample discussion of how vulnerable migrant agricultural workers were affected during the pandemic, there has been less attention paid to how state policies have heightened and targeted specific groups such as migrant agricultural workers through modes of securitization. Central to this was to ensure that labour needs would be met to ensure the viability of Canada's multi‐billion agricultural industry. This paper shows how securitization and control were vital to ensure no disruptions to production levels and Canada's role as a leading agricultural export producer. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Agrarian Change is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Evaluation of Temporary COVID-19 Testing Sites at Brussels Airport, Belgium: Users' Comfort and Privacy

This paper explored the temporary facilities created during the pandemic for use as COVID-19 test centers at Zaventem Airport, the main airport for the city of Brussels, Belgium. The possibilities of modular construction technology and the impact of the building envelope on users' perception of indoor space comfort and privacy were closely observed. The three main problem statements were as follows: (1) the COVID-19 crisis indirectly influenced the creation of temporary modular buildings with glass envelopes;(2) the modular envelope is adaptable to the existing context;and (3) the envelope meets the needs of the users. This study's objectives were to identify the critical factors for users' well-being in temporary modular buildings, and to conduct factor comparisons among different users and between different building-enclosure systems. The study data were collected through a subjective assessment using a SWOT analysis and a survey questionnaire. The glass facade affected the users' acceptance levels of comfort and privacy. The main results show that the users were satisfied with the level of comfort and dissatisfied with the level of privacy. This information can be used to identify areas for improvement and provide useful feedback to designers and engineers about specific design features and operating strategies for temporary modular emergency healthcare buildings.

Realizing supply chain agility under time pressure: Ad hoc supply chains during the COVID‐19 pandemic

When the COVID‐19 pandemic began in 2020, the medical product industry faced an unusual demand shock for personal protective equipment (PPE), including face masks, face shields, disinfectants, and gowns. Companies from various industries responded to the urgent need for these potentially life‐saving products by adopting ad hoc supply chains in an exceptionally short time: They found new suppliers, developed the products, ramped‐up production, and distributed to new customers within weeks or even days. We define these supply chains as ad hoc supply chains that are built for a specific need, an immediate need, and a time‐limited need. By leveraging a unique sampling, we examined how companies realize supply chain agility when building ad hoc supply chains. We develop an emergent theoretical model that proposes dynamic capabilities to enable companies building ad hoc supply chains in response to a specific need, moderated by an entrepreneurial orientation allowing firms to leverage dynamic capabilities at short notice and a temporary orientation that increases a company's focus on exploiting the short‐term opportunity of ad hoc supply chains.

Against the grain: public interests, the parklet, and the university

Temporary/tactical or T/T urbanism is a global movement in urban design and planning encompassing small experimental interventions typically involving diverse actors in the conversion of under-utilised city spaces. Its outcomes include enhancing innovation, urban intensification, community engagement, place identity, and resilience. Yet questions remain about the extent to which large organisations engaging in T/T urbanism may be part of an increasingly legitimised, even sanitised approach to what has been a disruptive element of urban design and planning. In Tasmania, studies of T/T urbanism are limited. The qualitative research reported here addresses that gap and analyses street interviews and participants' opinions about a temporary parklet proposed by the University of Tasmania in the Hobart central business district. Analysed thematically, those views and additional insights from the literature suggest it is possible for a large organisation to engage local communities and serve public interests using T/T urbanism initiatives but that the outcomes are not guaranteed. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

European State Aid during COVID-19

Summary During the COVID-19 unexpected pandemic crisis, to minimalize socio-economic damages within the Member States, the European Commission has taken several steps to increase the flexibility of the support framework and include more diversified forms of aid and extended time-frames for granting them. Implementing urgent measures, in particular for the sectors that are mostly affected by the economic shock and unpredicted limitations pushed them to increase their resilience to be more stable for emergencies. In order to ensure the EU internal market is not fragmented and the level of playing field stays intact, as well as to avoid harmful subsidy races to the detriment of cohesion within the Union, the use of State Aid proved its necessity in various diversified forms of aid. The article discusses State Aid in the context of the global pandemic and tries to find out raised questions. © 2022 Turan Jafarli, published by Sciendo.

Mental health symptoms among homeless shelter residents during COVID-19 lockdown in Tshwane, South Africa.

BACKGROUND: In order to contain the spread of COVID-19 in South Africa during the national state of emergency, the Gauteng Department of Social Development established temporary shelters and activated existing facilities to provide basic needs to street-homeless people in Tshwane, which facilitated primary health care service-delivery to this community. AIM: This study aimed to determine and analyse the prevalence of mental health symptoms and demographic characteristics among street-homeless people living in Tshwane's shelters during lockdown. SETTING: Homeless shelters set up in Tshwane during level 5 of the COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa. METHODS: A cross-sectional, analytical study was conducted using a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)-based questionnaire that looked at 13 mental health symptom domains. RESULTS: Presence of moderate-to-severe symptoms were reported among the 295 participants as follows: substance use 202 (68%), anxiety 156 (53%), personality functioning 132 (44%), depression 85 (29%), sleep problems 77 (26%), somatic symptoms 69 (23%), anger 62 (21%), repetitive thoughts and behaviours 60 (20%), dissociation 55 (19%), mania 54 (18%), suicidal ideation 36 (12%), memory 33 (11%) and psychosis 23 (8%). CONCLUSION: A high burden of mental health symptoms was identified. Community-oriented and person-centred health services with clear care-coordination pathways are required to understand and overcome the barriers street-homeless people face in accessing health and social services.Contribution: This study determined the prevalence of mental health symptoms within the street-based population in Tshwane, which has not previously been studied.

The Role of the Temporary Contracting and Visiting Doctor Program in Supporting the Health System during and after COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia.

Background: Adequate supply of health workforce with proper skills is essential to deliver appropriate health services in normal times and during disasters. Objective: To describe the role of the Saudi Temporary Contracting and Visiting Doctors Program in the provision of critical care during COVID-19 pandemic, and in the clearance of the surgical backlog thereafter. Methods: We reviewed reports of General Directorate of Health Services and Saudi Ministry of Health annual statistical books to obtain the following data: number of temporary healthcare professionals contracted from 2019 to 2022; number of intensive care unit beds before and during COVID-19 pandemic; volume of elective surgeries before, during and after COVID-19 pandemic. Results: In 2020, intensive care unit beds increased from 6341 to 9306 in governmental hospitals in response to COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 3539 temporary healthcare professionals were recruited from April to August 2020 to contribute towards staffing the added beds. During the recovery period from COVID-19 pandemic, 4322 and 4917 temporary health care professionals were recruited in 2021and 2022 respectively. Elective surgeries volume increased from 5074 in September 2020 to 17533 in September 2021 to 26242 in September 2022, surpassing the volume of surgeries in pre-COVID-19 period. Conclusions: In response to COVID-19 pandemic, and through the existing temporary contracting program, the Saudi Ministry of Health was able to recruit temporary staff of verified credentials in a timely manner, to supplement the existing staff, for activation of the newly added intensive care unit beds, and for clearing the resulting surgical backlog.

Design and psychometrics of risk assessment tool for makeshift hospitals: Focusing on pandemics.

Pandemics caused a change in the health service delivery system. In disasters with massive injuries or epidemic, the capacity to admit the injured and infected patients to provide health services faces the challenges. Covid-19 virus is a respiratory disease that from its emergence until January 18, 2023, the Covid-19 virus has infected more than 672 million people worldwide. In most countries, makeshift hospital has been set up as intermediate medical centers to keep people who are likely to be carriers of the disease to control communicable diseases. Most makeshift hospitals already have alternative uses and, have changed into temporary or intermediate care centers. Based on the search of research team, any standard tools were found to assess the makeshift hospitals safety. All the safety assessment tools were related to the hospital, but since makeshift hospitals are mostly non-hospital structures, the research team has designed and validate a makeshift hospital safety assessment tool for the first time in this study. The present study is a mixed method that was conducted in 3 phases including; a document review, explaining the components affecting non-structural and functional safety of the makeshift hospital, designing makeshift hospital safety assessment tools and analyzing the results and validating it in 2022. Content validity and reliability were measured by CVR and CVI, ICC and Cronbach's alpha. In the fourth phase, with the participation of 15 specialists, managers, experts, qualitative and quantitative validity of content was done. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 21 software. The final tool contains 186 items and a 5-point Likert designed for very low safety (1), low safety (2), moderate safety (3), good safety (4), and very good safety (5). The scores of each makeshift hospital were calculated based on the items and the degree of safety. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for tool was 0.98. Retesting the questionnaire after two weeks confirmed the stability of tool (ICC = 0.98). The validity and reliability of this tool were confirmed with 186 items in 2 factors and 26 subcategories including risk of disaster, non-structural safety, safety of windows and shutters, hospital access, information and communication management, patient safety and hygiene and etc. All centers providing health services, whether temporarily or permanently, must have safety to continue their activities in disaster and maintain the safety and health of staff and inpatients. The makeshift hospital safety tool can be a suitable tool for assessing the risk and eliminating their vulnerabilities, and it can also provide important indicators for the design and set up of the makeshift hospital to policymakers and executives in the field of health.

The Effect of Silver Nanoparticle Addition on Micropropagation of Apricot Cultivars (Prunus armeniaca L.) in Semisolid and Liquid Media.

Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are novel compounds used as antimicrobial and antiviral agents. In addition, AgNPs have been used to improve the growth of different plants, as well as the in vitro multiplication of plant material. In this work the effect of AgNPs on in vitro growth of 'Canino' and 'Mirlo Rojo' cultivars, as well as the leaf ion composition, are studied. Different concentrations of AgNPs (0, 25, 50, 75 and 100 mg L-1) were added to two culture systems: semisolid medium with agar (SSM) in jars and liquid medium in temporary immersion system (TIS). Proliferation (number of shoots), shoot length, productivity (number of shoot × average length), leaf surface, fresh and dry weight were measured. Additionally, the silver and other ion accumulation in the leaves were evaluated by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) analysis. The productivity of 'Canino' and 'Mirlo Rojo' decreased when increasing the concentration of AgNPs in the semisolid medium. However, the use of AgNPs in the TIS improved the proliferation and productivity of 'Canino' and Mirlo Rojo', increasing biomass production, and the concentration of nutrients in the plants, although these effects are genotype-dependent. TISs are the best system for introducing silver into shoots, the optimum concentration being 50 mg L-1 for 'Canino' and 75 mg L-1 for 'Mirlo Rojo'. Principal component analysis, considering all the analyzed ions along the treatments, separates samples in two clear groups related to the culture system used. The use of bioreactors with a liquid medium has improved the productivity of 'Canino' and 'Mirlo Rojo' in the proliferation stage, avoiding hyperhydration and other disorders. The amount of metallic silver that penetrates apricot plant tissues depends on the culture system, cultivar and concentration of AgNPs added to the culture medium. Silver ion accumulation measured in the shoots grown in the TIS was higher than in shoots micropropagated in a semisolid medium, where it is barely detectable. Furthermore, AgNPs had a beneficial effect on plants grown in TIS. However, AgNPs had a detrimental effect when added to a semisolid medium.