The Effect of Psychological Well-Being on Students? Perception of Online Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The outbreak of COVID-19 has led to a global lockdown, and universities have shifted to online learning. Despite the various efforts made by universities for students' online learning during the pandemic, not much has been identified about how students perceived online learning and how it affected their psychological well-being (PWB). This study examines the differences between male and female students' perceptions of online learning during the pandemic. A quantitative research design was used to measure the effect of PWB among students on online learning during the pandemic. The population consisted of first-year students in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) from Bachelor of Technology programs;hence, 127 respondents were sampled. A validated researcher-developed questionnaire was used to test the reliability of the study. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Spearman Rho correlation and Mann-Whitney U were used to test the hypotheses at a pvalue less than 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed a PWB effect on students' perceptions of online learning. Meanwhile, there was no significant difference between genders affected by PWB in students' perceptions of online learning during the pandemic. Therefore, it is recommended to focus on one of the six elements of PWB regarding the perception of online learning among students.

Pharmacoinvasive Therapy in Treating Acute STEMI Patients in COVID-19 Era-Thrombolysis by Tenecteplase (TNK) / Streptokinase (STK) Followed by Rescue PCI of the Culprit Vessel

Background: Treating acute STEMI patients by primary PCI has dramatically fallen globally in covid era as there is chances of potential threat of spreading Covid among the non-Covid patient. Thereby, thrombolysis of acute STEMI patient either by Streptokinase (STK) or Tenecteplase (TNK) in grey zone till Covid RT PCR report to come, was the mode of treatment of acute myocardial infarction patient in our hospital. Post thrombolysis, Covid positive cases were managed conservatively in a Covid dedicated unit. Covid negative cases were treated by rescue PCI of the culprit lesion. Exact data on benefit of thrombolysis either by TNK or STK of STEMI patients in Covid era, is not well addressed in our patient population. Thereby, we have carried out this prospective observational study to see the outcomes of thrombolysis and subsequent intervention. Method(s): STEMI Patient who represented to our ER with chest pain and ECG and hs-TROP-I evidenced acute ST segment elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI), were enrolled in the study. Total 139 patients enrolled (Male:120, Female :19);average age for Male: 54yrs., female was: 56yrs. All patients were admitted in the grey zone of CCU where thrombolysis done either by TNK or STK. Positive for COVID-19, were patients excluded from intervention and managed conservatively in Covid-19 dedicated ward. Covid Negative patients were kept transferred to CCU green zone. Result(s): COVID-19 test was carried out on all studied patients. Among them, Covid-19 positive were 7.9% (11) patients and managed conservatively in dedicated Covid ward, Covid-19 negative were 92.1% (128). Primary PCI was performed in 5.03% (7). Rest was managed by Pharmacoinvasive therapy either by TNK or STK. Thrombolysis by Tenecteplase in 64% (89), Streptokinase in 17.9% (25) patient, 12.9% (18) patient did not receive any thrombolysis due to late presentation and primary PCI done in 5.4% (7). On average 2.1 days after Fibrinolysis, elective PCI carried out. Data analysis from 48 patients;chest pain duration (3.71 +/-2.8 hr., Chest pain to contact time 3.3+/-2.8hr., Chest pain to needle time 7.2 +/-12.7hr., thrombolysis to balloon time 117.5+/-314.8hr., as many of the patient develop LVF post thrombolysis. More than 50% stenosis resolution observed in 41.6% (20) patients, chest pain resolution with one hour of thrombolysis observed in 43.8% (21) patients and development of LVF in 20.8% (10) patients. Door to needle time was 30 min. At presentation of STEMI;Ant Wall MI 46.8% (65), Inferior Wall MI 52.5% (73) and high Lateral 0.7% (1). Average Serum hs Trop-I was 16656 for male and 12109 for female. LVEF were 41% for male and 48% for female. HbA1C were in Male 8.34%: Female 8.05%, SBP for Male 120mmHg: Female 128 mmHg. Total, 88 stents were deployed in 83 territories. CABG recommended for 5.03% (7) patients, PCI in 58.3% (81), remaining were kept on medical management. Stented territory was LAD 45.7% (37) and RCA 39.5% (32) and LCX 14.8% (12). Common stent used;Everolimus 61.4% (54), Sirolimus 25% (22), Progenitor cell with sirolimus 2.3%(2) and Zotarolimus 11.4% (10) Conclusion(s): In the era of COVID-19, in this prospective cohort study, on acute STEMI patient management, we found that Pharmaco therapy by Tenecteplase and Streptokinase, reduced patient symptom and ST resolution partially. Therefore, coronary angiogram and subsequent Rescue PCI by Drug Eluting Stents (DES) are key goals of complete revascularization.Copyright © 2023

Face Mask and Social Distance Monitoring via Computer Vision and Deployable System Architecture

The coronavirus (COVID-19) is a lethal virus causing a rapidly infec-tious disease throughout the globe. Spreading awareness, taking preventive mea-sures, imposing strict restrictions on public gatherings, wearing facial masks, and maintaining safe social distancing have become crucial factors in keeping the virus at bay. Even though the world has spent a whole year preventing and curing the disease caused by the COVID-19 virus, the statistics show that the virus can cause an outbreak at any time on a large scale if thorough preventive measures are not maintained accordingly. To fight the spread of this virus, technologically developed systems have become very useful. However, the implementation of an automatic, robust, continuous, and lightweight monitoring system that can be efficiently deployed on an embedded device still has not become prevalent in the mass community. This paper aims to develop an automatic system to simul-taneously detect social distance and face mask violation in real-time that has been deployed in an embedded system. A modified version of a convolutional neural network, the ResNet50 model, has been utilized to identify masked faces in peo-ple. You Only Look Once (YOLOv3) approach is applied for object detection and the DeepSORT technique is used to measure the social distance. The efficiency of the proposed model is tested on real-time video sequences taken from a video streaming source from an embedded system, Jetson Nano edge computing device, and smartphones, Android and iOS applications. Empirical results show that the implemented model can efficiently detect facial masks and social distance viola-tions with acceptable accuracy and precision scores. © 2023, Tech Science Press. All rights reserved.

Change, adaptation and culture Media communication in pandemic times

Global lockdowns and border closures during the COVID-19 pandemic have meant that international conferences have taken on a virtual existence for more than two years. Uncertainties surrounding the pandemic and the enormity of its impact became a focal point of academic scrutiny for communication sciences and media research. Themes from the Asian Congress for Media and Communication Conference 2021 (ACMC2021) centred around change, adaptation and culture in pandemic times with 12 streams including democracy and disinformation, media influence and impact, and climate change in the Asia-Pacific. This commentary presents an overview of the conference and introduces four of the presentations delivered at the ACMC2021;two keynotes and two paper presentations. The keynotes discussed information challenges such as media freedom, truth, hate rhetoric and climate change while the papers focused on practitioner perceptions and the role of a higher order in securing media freedom and fair representation.

Emergency and response planning for healthcare workers to manage COVID-19 pandemic situation

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first detected in December 2019 in Wuhan, China and despite drastic measures by the Chinese authority in enforcing a “lockdown” in Wuhan, the virus had since spread to a growing number of countries worldwide - including Malaysia. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a pandemic on 11 March 2020. The Malaysian Government announced the restricted activities order known as the Movement Control Order (MCO) nationwide under the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 (Amendment) Regulation 2020 from 18 March 2020 to 31 March 2020. With the pandemic still spreading at an alarming rate, hospitals and healthcare workers were overburdened to cope with the sudden influx of large numbers of COVID-19 patients. It was reported that the healthcare workers were ill-equipped with personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators to treat the COVIC-19 patients, thus exposing and putting them at risk of infection or losing their lives. The purpose of this study is to provide an insight into the current situation of the ERP for Healthcare Workers. Fortifying a framework for addressing the six stages of ERP will prepare and protect the healthcare workers in performing their duties systematically and address issues and concerns faced by the healthcare workers on the lack of PPE and medical support for COVID-19 treatment. As there is a lack of studies on the improvement of ERP for hospitals, this proposed framework can lead to further research on strengthening the existing ERP for healthcare workers in public hospitals to counter future influenza outbreaks. © 2021 American Institute of Physics Inc.. All rights reserved.