Adaption of distance learning to continue the academic year amid COVID-19 lockdown.

This work investigates the use of distance learning in saving students' academic year amid COVID-19 lockdown. It assesses the adoption of distance learning using various online application tools that have gained widespread attention during the coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Distance learning thrives as a legitimate alternative to classroom instructions, as major cities around the globe are locked down amid the COVID-19 pandemic. To save the academic year, educational institutions have reacted to the situation impulsively and adopted distance learning platforms using online resources. This study surveyed random undergraduate students to identify the impact of trust in formal and informal information sources, awareness and the readiness to adopt distance learning. In this study, we have hypothesized that adopting distance learning is an outcome of situational awareness and readiness, which is achieved by the trust in the information sources related to distance learning. The findings indicate that trust in information sources such as institute and media information or interpersonal communication related to distance learning programs is correlated with awareness (ß = 0.423, t = 12.296, p = 0.000) and contribute to readiness (ß = 0.593, t = 28.762, p = 0.001). The structural model path coefficient indicates that readiness strongly influences the adoption of distance learning (ß = 0.660, t = 12.798, p = 0.000) amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Our proposed model recorded a predictive relevance (Q2) of 0.377 for awareness, 0.559 for readiness, and 0.309 for the adoption of distance learning, which explains how well the model and its parameter estimates reconstruct the values. This study concludes with implications for further research in this area.

Conventional to online education during COVID-19 pandemic: Do develop and underdeveloped nations cope alike.

BACKGROUND: Educational institutes around the globe are facing challenges of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Online learning is being carried out to avoid face to face contact in emergency scenarios such as coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Students need to adapt to new roles of learning through information technology to succeed in academics amid COVID-19. OBJECTIVE: However, access and use of online learning resources and its link with satisfaction of students amid COVID-19 are critical to explore. Therefore, in this paper, we aimed to assess and compare the access & use of online learning of Bruneians and Pakistanis amid enforced lockdown using a five-items satisfaction scale underlying existing literature. METHOD: For this, a cross-sectional study was done in the first half of June 2020 after the pandemic situation among 320 students' across Pakistan and Brunei with a pre-defined questionnaire. Data were analyzed with statistical software package for social sciences (SPSS) 2.0. RESULTS: The finding showed that there is a relationship between students' satisfaction and access & use of online learning. Outcomes of the survey suggest that Bruneian are more satisfied (50%) with the use of online learning amid lockdown as compared to Pakistanis (35.9%). Living in the Urban area as compared to a rural area is also a major factor contributing to satisfaction with the access and use of online learning for both Bruneian and Pakistanis. Moreover, previous experience with the use of online learning is observed prevalent among Bruneians (P = .000), while among friends and family is using online learning (P = .000) were encouraging factors contributed to satisfaction with the use of online learning among Pakistanis amid COVID-19. Correlation results suggest that access and use factors of online learning amid COVID-19 were positively associated with satisfaction among both populations amid COVID-19 pandemic. However, Bruneian is more satisfied with internet access (r = 0.437, P < .000) and affordability of gadgets (r = 0.577, P < .000) as compare to Pakistanis (r = 0.176, P < .050) and (r = 0.152, P < .050). CONCLUSION: The study suggested that it is crucial for the government and other policymakers worldwide to address access and use of online learning resources of their populace amid pandemic.

Analyzing situational awareness through public opinion to predict adoption of social distancing amid pandemic COVID-19.

COVID-19 pandemic has affected over 100 countries in a matter of weeks. People's response toward social distancing in the emerging pandemic is uncertain. In this study, we evaluated the influence of information (formal and informal) sources on situational awareness of the public for adopting health-protective behaviors such as social distancing. For this purpose, a questionnaire-based survey was conducted. The hypothesis proposed suggests that adoption of social distancing practices is an outcome of situational awareness which is achieved by the information sources. Results suggest that information sources, formal (P = .001) and informal (P = 0.007) were found to be significantly related to perceived understanding. Findings also indicate that social distancing is significantly influenced by situational awareness, P = .000. It can, therefore, be concluded that an increase in situational awareness in times of public health crisis using formal information sources can significantly increase the adoption of protective health behavior and in turn contain the spread of infectious diseases.

Evaluation of freeze-dried human sera as a novel approach for ATR-FTIR spectroscopic analysis as compared to conventionally used thin dry film sera.

OBJECTIVE: Evaluation of the diagnostic potential of freeze dried sera in comparison to thin dry film analysis for recording ATR-FTIR spectra. RESULTS: For this purpose, we compared our novel sample preparation technique i.e. freeze dried with conventional technique i.e. thin dry film sera. Using both methods ATR-FTIR spectra were recorded from Salmonella Typhi infected and healthy control human sera samples. When PCA was applied PC1 scores showed more inter-class variation among infected and healthy controls when freeze dried sample was used (90 %) as compared to thin dry film method (46 %). CONCLUSIONS: Potential of ATR-FTIR for discrimination of bio-molecules between two classes of samples is enhanced when freeze dried sera instead of thin dry film method is used.

Identification of new spectral signatures from hepatitis C virus infected human sera.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Mortality linked with HCV infection can be lowered with effective and prompt diagnosis in early stages of infection. In this study potential of Raman spectroscopy to differentiate between healthy and HCV infected serum samples was investigated. Clear differences were observed in the Raman spectra of HCV infected and healthy sera samples. Using the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and t-test (p < 0.001) on Raman spectra of diseased and healthy samples, we observed eleven unique Raman bands at 676, 825, 853, 936, 1029, 1105, 1155, 1305, 1620, 1654 and 1757 cm-1 associated with only HCV infected sera and have not been reported in earlier studies. In addition, six Raman bands at 556, 585, 716, 815, 1273 and 1142 cm-1were observed in healthy sera only. Three Raman bands at 1330, 1526 and 1572 cm-1 were observed in both type of samples but their intensity was drastically reduced in diseased samples. Various multivariate analysis techniques were employed to demonstrate the robustness of the results. We employed multivariate and unsupervised principal component analysis (PCA) in conjunction with supervised classification linear discriminant analysis (LDA), using ten-fold jackknife cross-validation, in order to develop effective diagnostic algorithm technique (PCA-LDA). Our PCA-LDA model yielded sufficient sensitivity and specificity i.e. correctly identified all infected samples included in this study. Ours results indicate that these unique Raman bands have the potential to be used as biomarkers for optical diagnosis of HCV infection.

Raman spectroscopy based differentiation of typhoid and dengue fever in infected human sera.

This study investigated the potential of Raman spectroscopy, to differentiate between two different types of human pathological conditions with some symptom similarity; typhoid and dengue. Raman spectra were recorded from 20 Salmonella Typhi infected and 22 dengue virus (DENV) infected sera samples using laser wavelength 785 nm. When Raman spectrum (540 to 1830 cm-1) of serum samples was compared it showed significant variations. Twelve characteristic Raman bands at 562, 649, 716, 780, 838, 1099, 1144, 1156, 1260, 1386, 1556 and 1746 cm-1 were recorded specifically in case of the typhoid infected samples, whereas four Raman bands at 756, 1218, 1672 and 1686 cm-1 were found specifically in the DENV infected samples. For statistical differentiation principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) was applied which successfully separated two sets of data. These disease specific Raman signatures may be labeled as biomarkers for identification as well as differential diagnosis of typhoid and dengue infection. Hence we propose that Raman spectroscopy has the potential to not only identify but also to differentiate between different pathological conditions, having some similar symptoms like high grade fever in this case.