The Fruits of Labor: Home Food Procurement and Mental Health in the Time of COVID-19

We examine the relationship of home food procurement (HFP) during COVID-19 to emotional eating and stress using a statewide representative survey (n = 600) in Vermont. Women and people with a job change since COVID-19 were more likely to experience higher stress and emotional eating. Engaging in HFP, especially gardening, is associated with less emotional eating. However, people who fished, hunted, or canned more since the pandemic began were more likely to eat for emotional reasons and experience higher stress. These results suggest that gardening, even during a pandemic, may contribute to stress reduction, more so than other nature-based food production activities.Copyright © 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Myanmar's path to democracy from 2016-2021: Progress, limitations and disruptions

While the NLD's landslide election victory in November 2020 had strengthened the hopes of the people of Myanmar and the international community that the process of democratization would continue, yet another majority bagged by the NLD was a threat to the military institution and its affiliates. On February 1, 2021, the Myanmar military staged a coup: the promising chapter of Myanmar's democratic and economic transition, albeit limited in duration and reach, has come to an end, as has the Union's ongoing reintegration into the international order after roughly sixty years of isolation. Despite the coup, this chapter argues that the democratic transition much lauded in 2015 had yet to fully occur;the future of it happening remains distant, although not impossible. This chapter also highlights reflections from the periphery and the challenges faced in 2020, namely, the general election and the Covid-19 pandemic. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022.

Urban Farming: The Reluctant Utopia

The old conceptual dichotomy between the city and the countryside has often been a historical stumbling block for architects and urban planners. Whilst there have been many attempts to bring the city closer to the natural environment, some on grand scales, more modest experiments have often gleaned better results. Daniele Belleri is a partner at design and innovation office CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, where he is in charge of all editorial and curatorial projects. He and the practice's founder, architect and engineer Carlo Ratti – who is director of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – together explore our contemporary options. Copyright © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Victory in the Time of c ovi n Defying a Pandemic at an Indian Megachurch

The global COvID-19 pandemic of 2020-2021 required significant ritual adjustment in churches worldwide, particularly the larger ones. It has also provoked theological reflection on the origins on the virus, as well as on what God's Word had to say in response. This article investigates the adjustments and reflections at one Indian megachurch, Bangalore's Full Gospel Assembly of God (FGAG), with special reference to its utilization of a victory-oriented and defiant gospel of divine care, protection, and health. The question that animates this investigation is: Can a gospel of victory and health survive a global pandemic? The answer, somewhat counterintuitively (but in another sense - for those familiar with prosperity theology - not at all) is that it not only survives, but thrives. The article attempts to account for this thriving with reference to two distinctive characteristics of the soft version of the prosperity gospel that are manifest in FGAG's victory gospel, both of which are inculcated through ritual repetition and performance: 1) Its paradoxically simultaneous insistence that the faithful are, by God, already victorious, and that miraculous reversals await those who aren't, and 2) its boldly defiant response to evidence that all is not well..

A Unified Citywide Dashboard for Allocation and Scheduling Dialysis for COVID-19 Patients on Maintenance Hemodialysis.

Introduction: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused significant global disruption, especially for chronic care like hemodialysis treatments. Approximately 10,000 end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) patients are receiving maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) at 174 dialysis centers in Greater Mumbai. Because of the fear of transmission of infection and inability to isolate patients in dialysis centers, chronic hemodialysis care was disrupted for COVID-19-infected patients. Hence, we embarked on a citywide initiative to ensure uninterrupted dialysis for these patients. Materials and Methods: The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) designated 23 hemodialysis facilities as COVID-positive centers, two as COVID-suspect centers, and the rest continued as COVID-negative centers to avoid transmission of infection and continuation of chronic hemodialysis treatment. Nephrologists and engineers of the city developed a web-based-portal so that information about the availability of dialysis slots for COVID-infected patients was easily available in real time to all those providing care to chronic hemodialysis patients. Results: The portal became operational on May 20, 2020, and as of December 31, 2020, has enrolled 1,418 COVID-positive ESKD patients. This initiative has helped 97% of enrolled COVID-infected ESKD patients to secure a dialysis slot within 48 hours. The portal also tracked outcomes and as of December 31, 2020, 370 (27%) patients died, 960 patients recovered, and 88 patients still had an active infection. Conclusions: The portal aided the timely and smooth transfer of COVID-19-positive ESKD patients to designated facilities, thus averting mortality arising from delayed or denied dialysis. Additionally, the portal also documented the natural history of the COVID-19 pandemic in the city and provided information on the overall incidence and outcomes. This aided the city administration in the projected resource needs to handle the pandemic.

A Machine Learning Approach to Analyze Home Advantage during COVID-19 Pandemic Period with Regards to Margin of Victory and to Different Tournaments in Professional Rugby Union Competitions.

Home advantage (HA) is the tendency for sporting teams to perform better at their home ground than away from home, it is also influenced by the crowd support, and its existence has been well established in a wide range of team sports including rugby union. Among all the HA determinants, the positive contribute of the crowd support on the game outcome can be analyzed in the unique pandemic situation of COVID-19. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to analyze the HA of professional high-level rugby club competition from a complex dynamical system perspective before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. HA was analyzed in northern and southern hemisphere rugby tournaments with (2013-2019) and without (2020/21) crowd support by the means of the exhaustive chi-square automatic interaction detection (CHAID) decision trees (DT). HA was mitigated by the crowd absence especially in closed games, although differences between tournaments emerged. Both for northern and southern hemisphere, the effect of playing without the crowd support had a negative impact on the home team advantage. These findings evidenced that in ghost games, where differences in the final score were less than a converted try (7 points), HA has disappeared.

The Past in the Present: What our Ancestors Taught us about Surviving Pandemics.

Amidst the recent threat of COVID-19, home gardens have surged in popularity as seed companies and nurseries find it challenging to keep their supplies fully stocked. The victory garden movement that emerged during WWII has today re-emerged as COVID victory gardens. Yet, the global changes and cognitive shifts associated with COVID-19 have differential impacts. The narrative of COVID victory gardens depoliticizes urban agriculture. It is blind to its long history in marginalized, oppressed, and displaced communities where home gardens have always been part of a struggle for identity, autonomy, and self- and communal-determination. I argue the blindness embedded in the narrative of COVID victory gardens violates our "food-related obligations," which are our responsibilities to ourselves, our food, and each other. Silencing how communities of color have historically grown food in pursuit of dignity disregards how home gardens in communities of color are not merely a reactionary response to crisis but part of a historical legacy whereby people of color have grown food for generations to create and recreate sustainable ways of living that validate their cultures, knowledges, and ways of being.