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Due to the chaos and confusion caused by the sudden transition from face-to-face teaching to online and remote teaching in early 2020, numerous language teachers had no choice but to rely on online communities on social networking sites. The current study therefore examined how some language teachers were utilising online communities on Facebook during the COVID-19 pandemic. Employing a mixed-methods approach, data were mainly collected through: (1) an eight-month observation of a technology-focused language teacher community on Facebook to identify different types of posts generated by its members before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (n = 340);(2) a questionnaire to understand the community members' backgrounds and experiences of being in the community (n = 51);(3) semi-structured interviews with some of the questionnaire participants (n = 13);and (4) a post-interview questionnaire (n = 12) to get a better understanding of their responses. A content analysis of online posts and community members' responses suggest that language teacher communities on Facebook were supporting teachers during the stressful periods of the pandemic professionally and emotionally. The main findings are discussed in terms of the benefits and drawbacks of using online language teacher communities for professional purposes. The overall goal of the study is to offer much-needed answers on how pre-existing communities can be used to assist language teachers in times of a crisis.
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Background: In CKD management, periodic visit of nephrologist and multiple professions are known to be important. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic from the end of 2019, due to the tightening of medical care resources and intermittent lockdowns, these patients seem to be could not receive the full of nephrology care. We assessed changes of CKD patients care during the COVID-19 Pandemic and evaluated its impact on clinical parameters. Method(s): Patients with CKD over stage 4 and who had regularly attended CKD out-patients clinic in St. Luke's International Hospital, Tokyo, Japan, were included. We definite the pre post pandemic periods as: pre-pandemic: Pre-C, from January 2018 to December 2019, and post-pandemic;Post-C, January 2020 to December 2021. The following data was compared between the 2 periods: 1. number of nephrology visits per patient;2. rate of using telemedicine;3. rate of receiving multidisciplinary educational support;4. rate of drop-out patients;5. Decline rate of GFR and 6. number of initiating renal replacement therapy, newly. Result(s): 289 individual patients were eligible for the analysis. The baseline data were as follows: mean age 67.9+/-14 years, 63.5% male, mean eGFR 22.2+/-5.9 ml/min and 40.2% comorbid DM. The number of nephrology visits and receiving multidisciplinary support was decreased in Post-C periods: Nephrology visits;Pre-C: 9.8+/-5.1 visits/year, Post-C 7.7+/-5.2 visits/year, P<0.01, Multidisciplinary support;Pre-C: 78%, Post-C 32%, P<0.01. Multiprofessional educational support was provided mainly for CKD stage 5 patients during the Post-C. More, the rate of using telemedicine and dropout increased in Post-C. Especially, the dropout rate of elderly patients over 70 years old was significant: 8% in Pre-C and 17% in Post-C, P<0.05. On the other hand, clinical indicators such as delta GFR and RRT initiation rate remained unchanged. Conclusion(s): Although the frequency of nephrology visits and multidisciplinary educational care has been decreased with COVID-19, there was no difference in the shortterm prognosis of CKD patients, from our study. This may be an effect of a kind of triage function, which focused on the more severely ill patients with CKD. On the other hand, the drop out rate in the elderly was increased, the prognosis of these patients needs to be followed up and verified.
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Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the virus that causes the new coronavirus infection (COVID-19). The molecular structural basis of SARS-CoV-2 infection has been investigated by various structural biological studies including three-dimensional (3D) structural analysis of virus Spike protein, which directly mediates infection to human cells through the interaction with Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), which locates on the cell surface of some of our tissues (e.g. lungs). Further, the 3D structures of main protease (3CLpro) and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) of SARS-CoV-2 provided useful information for understanding the mechanism of the amplification of viral genome RNA in our cells. In this paper, I would like to give an easy-to-understand overview of the current state of structural biology studies related to COVID-19, and also discuss the possibility of rational design of drugs. © 2021 The authors.
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Recently, research facilities in academia take on a crucial role in the innovation ecosystem where facilities are promoting research collaborations through shared use with other research organizations, academia, and firms. We focus on the remote operation of measurement methods and speed-up technologies as a countermeasure against COVID-19 setback, whereby face-to-face contact and interactions are restricted, thus making it impractical for users to visit and use research facilities. We discuss how these new technologies and methodologies promote and obstruct industry-academia research collaborations during the post-corona period. Specifically, the focus is on NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Device), a state-of-the-art research facility that promotes shared use to external users in Japanese academic research institutes. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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Background: An emergency framework was set to confront the first wave COVID-19 pandemic at the medical oncology division for breast cancer at the Cancer Institute Hospital of JFCR, Tokyo, in March 2020. Medical therapy was classified into two phases in our guideline. In the initial phase, workload or patients' visit was to be reduced without impairing disease control and survival. In the successive phase under restriction of medical resources, only therapies with higher priority and alternate therapies were to be practiced. Whereas no significant effect on medical practice was observed during first wave pandemic, actual impact was evaluated in this study. Methods: Among patients in our division from April to May 2020, cases of treatment change, postponement of treatment introduction, treatment interruption, long-term prescription, telephone consultation, postponement of visit, reference to other hospital, and COVID-19 diagnosis were retrospectively searched from medical records. Results: There were estimated 984 patients, 389 perioperative and 595 metastatic, of whom 119(12%) were affected by COVID-19. The breakdown is 7 cases of treatment changes, 7 cases of postponements of introduction, 20 cases of interruptions, 12 cases of long-term prescriptions of oral chemotherapy and molecular targeted therapy, 36 cases of prescriptions by telephone consultation, 94 cases of postponements of visit, 3 cases of reference to other hospital, and 4 cases of fever for which COVID-19 infection could not be denied. Conclusion: 12% of patients in the division of medical oncology at the breast center changed their treatment or schedule of visit. Treatment change that could affect breast cancer survival were 2 cases of cancellation of adjuvant chemotherapy. The effect might have been minimized by formulation of a COVID-19 guideline prior to the pandemic.