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Current nursing professional development programs include online education related to caring for COVID-19-positive patients. However, these resources failed to attract significant uptake of knowledge acquisition mainly because of poorly structured web pages. This discussion paper presents a unique perspective to designing professional development programs for frontline nurses working during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond through the use of interactive digital content (IDC). An overview of IDC is provided, followed by strategies for transforming existing nursing professional development education into IDC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing awareness of the importance of bacterial-resistant surfaces has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic global problem. Therefore, the need for antibacterial surfaces has become urgent. The by-product bagasse papers (BPs) were modified with antimicrobial natural rosin, followed by the synthesised graphene oxide and silver nanoparticles (GO-Ag-NPs) through a spin coating approach. The modified samples exhibited a remarkable antibacterial activity towards E. coli (G−ve bacteria) and S. aureus (G+ve bacteria). The microstructure, as well as phase composition of the prepared composites, was identified using various techniques such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscope (SEM) and hydrophilicity which was metered by water contact angle (WCA). The obtained results demonstrated that the halos of inhibition were noticed for decorated TBP samples by GO-Ag-NPs with various diameters ranging from 20 to 25 mm. Consequently, packaging applications could be extra developed with these renewable nanomaterials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The openness and resilience of the global research placed new terms in the post-pandemic academic world. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, a wide variety of scientific articles and research literature have been published in a short period. COVID-19 related research papers in the social sciences focused on the impact of the new disease on social, behavioral or economic outcomes. This paper aimed to explore and understand what the impact and which topics are covered in the papers about COVID-19 in Romanian social sciences ISI journals. As such, the approach highlights that performing the query by the term "covid" in seven Romanian journals indexed in the social sciences ISI database, Amfiteatru Economic registered the highest impact in terms of the number of citations per article. Moreover, most of the papers covering topics on COVID-19 were published in 2021, compared to the previous and current year. The findings also show that journals with a higher AIS and IF have a higher share of cited articles. Results presented in this study, identify as well, the word cloud diagrams for the covered topics in the title of the papers. In such regard, the most frequent words in the corpus made of titles of cited papers are teleworking, workaholism. For the uncited papers, the results suggest that more general terms are frequent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on 7th WCWS organizing during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic taking place online from the 20th to 22nd May 2021. Topics include comprehending the role of gender, race, class, sexuality, and the state in critiquing and resisting patriarchal structures and capitalist powers; and fundamentalist religious ideologies, increasingly authoritarian political systems, population growth, pollution, and the existential threat of climate crisis.

The contribution is devoted to the development of international student mobility in the framework of the Erasmus+ and Non-European Mobility programmes, while the focus is also on the interest and experience of students from the Faculty of Economics and Management of the Czech University of Live Sciences Prague. At work, the development of the number of students arriving and leaving in 2008-2019 and the interest in destination countries and universities are assessed using statistical methods. Based on time series models, the expected development of indicators in the coming years was predicted. The work is also based on the results of a questionnaire survey carried out on the population of students of the Faculty of Economics and Management and focused on the perception and evaluation of the programme. The survey showed that students take foreign mobility as a unique asset that will make it easier for them to find adequate employment in the future in terms of their education. For international mobility, improvements in language skills, knowledge of new cultures and the creation of foreign social connections are highly regarded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public libraries are established to promote literacy, cultural heritage, and the dissemination of information. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, public libraries across the globe had to close their physical spaces and change their service models. This qualitative study investigated information provision by a public library in the Limpopo Province, South Africa, during the national public health restrictions to determine what means were applied to sustain service provision. The paper reports on ways used by the library to provide information to users at the time. Data were collected from the chief librarian and four librarians using face-to-face interviews and one focus group. The data were thematically analysed. Findings indicated that no services were offered to users during the time of the Covid-19 restrictions. The paper recommends the digital literacy training of users, the use of free databases, and the introduction of online library services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the product of an ongoing research's preliminary results with app drivers and aims to discuss how the game of forces has occurred in the relationships established between companies, workers, regulatory bodies, and society. This exploratory qualitative study employed document analysis, a questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews with drivers linked to associations in Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Brazil. The analysis was conducted from a tripolar perspective based on the theoretical-methodological framework of Ergology and social life's micro and macroscopic spaces, encompassing the poles referring to human activity, the market, and politics. The results show a background of norms built on this work about the relationship with companies, passengers, and the drivers themselves, besides issues raised from the COVID-19 pandemic. We can conclude that it is necessary not to counteract technological evolution to achieve workers' rights and health. We should recall that no action aimed at ensuring the reconciliation of health, work, and rights will advance without relying on a fruitful and balanced trend between the three poles mentioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze and understand the impact of the corona virus disease (COVID-19) on aviation and also the role aviation played in the spread of COVID-19, by reviewing the recent scientific literature. We have collected 110 papers on the subject published in the year 2020 and grouped them according to their major application domain, leading to the following categories: Analysis of the global air transportation system during COVID-19, the impacts on the passenger-centric flight experience, and the long-term impacts on broad aviation. Based on the aggregated reported findings in the literature, this paper concludes with a set of recommendations for future scientific directions; hopefully helping aviation to prepare for a post-COVID-19 world. • We give an overview of the COVID-19 impact on air transportation. • In total, 110 papers have been carefully studied, categorized, and reported. • We investigate airlines, passenger experience, and long-term impact. • We conclude our review paper with future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper explores crosslinguistic and multimodal health communication strategies employed by the South African government during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2022. Some governments used multiple languages, yet in most cases, English monolingualism was a predominant form of communication. This paper utilised a multimodal critical discourse analysis to explore public health communication by government officials in South Africa and by members of the National Coronavirus Command Council mandated to combat the spread of COVID-19 in South Africa. The paper interrogates how this language and messaging limited or enabled linguistic equity and social justice. The paper concludes that in a country such as South Africa, for any government's initiative to promote linguistic and social justice, it ought to be 'languaged' and messaged through the linguistic repertoires that the majority of its citizens understand; if not, it is doomed to fail as was the case with the South African government's COVID-19 communication strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic changed the employees' perception about the organization and above all the organization's perception about the employee. Traditionally, the employee has been seen as closely related to the physical workplaces, while today employees are increasingly getting used to the idea that they can work independently from their traditional office. The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether important managerial factors such as the sector in which an organization operates or its size play a role or not in employees' preference for remote work. After collecting 459 questionnaires in different public and private organizations in Albania and carrying out empirical analyses, it turns out that in the Albanian context, neither the sector nor the size of the organization has a statistically significant impact on employee's preference for remote work. In conclusion, this paper proposes a hybrid combination of office and remote work to have more motivated employees at work, making them more goal oriented, rather than simply being physically present in the office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determination of macroeconomic policies in real-time requires assessing the correct information regarding current economic conditions. This statement spurred researchers to develop methods involving high-frequency data for risk analysis. This paper extends the quarterly growth-at-risk (GaR) approach by involving a machine-learning approach based on the Mixed-Frequency Data Sampling Quantile Regression Neural Network (MIDAS-QRNN) model. This paper shows that the MIDAS-QRNN model has the best prediction accuracy and can show good PDB nowcasting. The monthly financial GaR can detect unusual economic growth movements during the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The licensed serving of alcoholic beverages is an important institutional aspect of food culture. In Sweden, the Government's policies to battle the Covid-19 pandemic meant further restrictions, including a temporary law, to mitigate contagion at licensed restaurants, bars, producers' tasting events, etc. This paper inquiries into the "art" exercised by managers of such businesses, already used to strict governance, of "being governed" when faced with these new and sudden policies. The study draws on Swedish Covid-19 policy and interviews with managers of licensed premises and a municipal auditor during the three months of the most far-reaching restrictions. By analyzing these materials through anthropological theories of state governance, the paper shows how Covid-19 restrictions were enacted in practice, including their discontents. The study's findings contribute to further insights into the role of alcohol policy in food culture and opens up for further bridging of food studies, service studies, and alcohol research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author comments on a paper published in the recent issue which analyzed various risk factors that may be associated with successful liberation from mechanical ventilation in subjects with COVID-19 acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Cited are an example of the Table 2 fallacy, which occurs when erroneous interpretations of regression models are drawn, presented by the paper, and the strengths and limitations of the study.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian war revealed vulnerabilities in supply chains, emphasizing the need for resilience in multiple industries. While Industry 4.0 is valuable, it cannot fully address complex supply chain challenges. Therefore, exploring additional drivers like Operations Management has become imperative. More clearly, the adoption of Operations Management tools and practices helps implement and use enabling technologies more effectively. In this context, the aim of the paper is to conduct a literature review to study supply chain resilience considering these two concepts. In other words, the objective of the work consists in examining the effectiveness of the mentioned combination. The paper presents a conceptual framework for enhancing supply chain resilience by exploring the potential of Industry 4.0 and Operations Management. The paper also underlines the positive impact issued from hybridizing both solutions to achieve resilience. As it discusses enhancing features of each concept aside the other. The paper provides a basic model for researchers to further detailed studies, and for managers to bringing the proposed framework from theory to practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 Pandemic forced educators across the country into online classes and, for many, using unfamiliar online tools for the first time. This research paper focuses on business professors and their acceptance of many online tools during and after the pandemic. Using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) created by Davis (1989), this paper examines Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use along with Attitude Towards Use and Intention to Use. This study will help determine not only usage of these new technological tools during the pandemic but also the adoption of these tools by business professors once they returned to the classroom again. The results of this study confirm usage of TAM, examine one-way teaching that has changed due to the pandemic and discusses further potential studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beyond severe illness and deaths, the COVID-19 pandemic brought widespread economic disruption, businesses closing, and unemployment surging to levels not experienced since the Great Depression. The effect of this pandemic on global tourism has been fast, extensive, widespread, and devastating. This paper identifies the significant characteristics of female entrepreneurial businesses. It examines the strategies taken between 2015 and 2022 to influence the firm's growth and reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings are based on the interviews conducted with ten female entrepreneurs who own and operate small family-based entrepreneurial firms in Poland's tourism and hospitality industry. This paper aims to deliver recommendations for policy actions and entrepreneurship strategies to effectively grow and curtail or counterbalance the impact of exogenous shocks such as the economic shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global COVID-19 pandemic highlighted that the delivery of online education inadvertently disadvantaged Indigenous Australian university students. This situation was particularly critical for Indigenous students from rural and remote locations. Australian universities increased the use of digital technologies to engage, support and teach due to students' inability to access campuses. This presented universities with challenges in supporting Indigenous students living in and returning to non-urban settings. Due to COVID, the need for better strategies and plans for Indigenous students returning to their rural or remote community to continue their studies is often not recognized. These communities often lack suitable infrastructure to access pedagogical and learning support opportunities. This paper explores how the business decision made by Australian universities to increase reliance on teaching online during COVID impacted the education of Indigenous students. This paper will then canvas ways this ongoing dilemma can be addressed by considering risks, measuring and monitoring performance to guide transformation, including universities' more inclusive and respectful use of digital technologies involving First Nations people and cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 disease outbreak resulted in a worldwide pandemic. Currently, the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), which relies on nasopharyngeal swabs to examine the existence of the ribonucleic acid (RNA) of SARS-CoV-27, is still a popular approach to testing for the disease. Despite the high level of specificity of testing with RT-PCR, the sensitivity of the method could be relatively low, and there is significant variability in efficacy depending on different sampling methods and the time of occurrence of symptoms. It is therefore essential for us to develop a machine-learning algorithm that can analyze computerized tomography images to detect the presence of COVID-19. Besides COVID-19, lung computerized tomography (CT) scan images can detect many other diseases, such as lung cancer, pneumonia, etc. This paper deals with the implementation of an algorithm that takes lung CT scans and lung X-ray images as input and predicts a list of probable diseases and possible diagnoses that infect the lungs. Machine learning algorithms will be able to predict disease by scanning the tiniest of regions easily missed by the human eye. This paper presents a survey of various machine learning algorithms that aid in detecting multiple diseases in lung CT scan images. Apart from the study of standard algorithms best suited for COVID-19 detection, this paper also includes recent trends. One of the major recent trends that can be incorporated into COVID-19 detection is TinyML. Tiny ML is an emerging area in machine learning algorithms that can be used to detect multiple diseases in lung CT scan images with better accuracy and in less time. This tool can aid doctors in their diagnosis and treatment of patients and help increase the efficiency of the treatment process. While understanding the features and mapping them using a hidden layer, there is a probability of compressing the dataset, as well as the model to process and classify the low-bit images in real-time using TinyML. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Building back better" post-pandemic, as advocated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, could advance the realization of health as a human right. However, the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely to represent a tipping point into a new and even more unequal normal, nationally and internationally, that represents a hostile environment for building back better. This paper begins with a brief explanation of the tipping point concept. It goes on to describe the mechanisms by which the pandemic and many responses to it have increased inequality, and then identifies three political dynamics that are inimical to realizing health as a human right even in formal democracies, two of them material (related to the unequal distribution of resources within societies and in the global economy) and one ideational (the continued hegemony of neoliberal ideas about the proper limits of public policy). Observations about the unequal future and what it means for health conclude the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the functioning of parliamentary control of the German Bundestag and the French Assemblée nationale was criticised. While the criticism in France focused mainly on legal obstacles; in Germany it was especially the work of the opposition parliamentary groups that was judged to be inadequate. However, the criticism left open why certain criteria were applied and to what extent they are recommendable or sufficient for an assessment of parliamentary control activities. This paper addresses this research gap by asking which criteria could be used for a more systematic evaluation of parliamentary control in times of crisis. This paper offers an evaluation along two criteria: the level of communication between the government, the parliamentary majority and the opposition parliamentary groups at the beginning of the crisis, and the differentiation of control instruments according to the frequency of their use in non-crisis periods. Following this approach, the control performance of the German Bundestag can be evaluated as somewhat better than that of the French National Assembly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the legislative activity conducted by the Parliament of the Republic of Fiji during the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2021. Exemplified by the characteristics of Pacific Island Countries, like small populations, remoteness, infrastructure challenges, cultural norms, and a susceptibility to natural disasters, the Parliament of Fiji has faced specific challenges to its administration and legislative activities. The paper describes the impact of the crisis on parliamentary operations like parliamentary sessions and committee meetings, resulting in an expedited rollout and usage of digital tools for online participation and communication. Moreover, it highlights the decreased influence of parliament on policymaking throughout the crisis, diminished executive oversight, and reduced public engagement. Although no state of emergency was declared in Fiji to deal with the crisis, the declaration of a natural disaster during the early stage of the pandemic allowed the government to impose several restrictive measures with little parliament debate and scrutiny. Subsequent law-making in non-pandemicrelated policy areas occurred in an expedited fashion, resulting in a reduced consultation and deliberation. Similarly, the frequency and intensity of oversight instruments by parliament declined. With debate of pandemic measures and assistance mainly relegated to the annual budget discussion, no specific parliamentary investigating committee was set up to scrutinize the national response to COVID-19. Although an improvement of public outreach by parliament could be witnessed in the use of multiple new communication channels, like live streaming of sessions and committee meetings, the personal interaction of members with their constituents declined and the frequency of public consultations suffered a setback. Almost two years since the onset of the pandemic, standing committees have returned to in-person meetings and conducting public consultations. It is hoped that with an end of the COVID-19 crisis in sight, the negative trends will be reversed and that the Parliament of Fiji will resume strengthening its core functions with reimagined opportunities for its democratic role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Treaties & Documents / Razprave in Gradivo is the property of Institut za Narodnostna Vprasanja 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 abstract 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 abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The 2021 American Rescue Plan included the temporary expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC)--the largest individual income tax credit program in the United States--for most families with children. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, how did the public perceive this social policy benefit for families, especially in relation to other traditional social programs? By focusing on the CTC, an understudied policy area, and presenting original survey data, this paper first shows that, while the majority of respondents favored the CTC, levels of support for these benefits were lower than support for other social programs. Second, the paper suggests that, compared to older people and people with disabilities, Americans view families as part of the "undeserving" population. Third, by presenting panel data, we show that there is no change in levels of CTC support even among recipients of these benefits. Overall, these findings shed light on important challenges to the development and implementation of family policy in the USA, as well as the possibility of recalibrating the US liberal welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Risk management should be seen as a continuous process, which needs to be updated and adjusted according to the changing business environment and organisational context. It is important that organisations approach risk management rigorously and allocate adequate time and resources to this process. The theoretical and methodological approaches summarised in this paper, could enable organisations to identify and classify potential risks and develop appropriate risk management strategies, as well as make informed decisions to mitigate the negative impact of risks and capitalise on opportunities. Risk assessment is part of a continuous risk management process, ensuring that the organisation remains prudent and prepared to meet the challenges of the changing business environment. A number of relevant aspects characterising risk management will be analysed and summarised, as well as risk management principles, tools and strategies. In addition to the theoretical approaches, an important part of the paper is devoted to highlighting the factors influencing risk and profitability and assessing the changes in the structure of these determinants as a result of the economic crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, we also aim to quantify the marginal impact of risks on profitability in order to optimise risk-profit and risk-capital-profitability relationships [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the COVID-19 outbreak, the traditional teaching mode in universities is limited, and online teaching is in full swing. However, various factors that affect students' online classroom experience in teaching have characteristics of fuzziness and uncertainty. Therefore, using the course of human resource management as an example, this paper employs the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE) method to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the classroom experience of online teaching students. This paper aims to minimize the impact of human or subjective factors by developing a scientific, rational, and practical multilevel fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model for assessing students' classroom experience in online teaching courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study adopted a participant observation method and reflected on planning and operating a nine-week nine-credit Taiwanese culture and Mandarin study abroad program. The program ran successfully in the face of surging COVID-19 cases in Kaohsiung and increased political tension associated with Nancy Pelosi's visit in Taiwan during the summer of 2022. This program resulted from a new international partnership between West Virginia University (WVU) in the United States and National Sun Yat-Sen University in Taiwan (NSYSU) through the Taiwan's Huayu Bilingual Exchanges of Selected Talent (BEST) initiative funded by Taiwan's Ministry of Education in 2021. This paper discusses how the administrative and pedagogical collaboration between WVU and NSYSU has made the study abroad programs affordable and accessible for students and productive for WVU student and faculty participants alike. The primary objective of the paper is twofold. First, the faculty lead's experience is shared to offer insights for higher education institutions in the U.S. and Taiwan interested in taking part in BEST or other grant-funded programs as they evaluate their options for developing study abroad programs. Second, administrators and faculty who have completed their study abroad programs can reflect on the feedback from both students and the faculty lead in the study as they assess their programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid transition to emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic posed challenges for teachers, students, and higher education institutions, impacting students' learning and engagement in the learning process. Based on Self-Determination Theory, this paper employs a collective case study research methodology to examine teachers' strategies for supporting students' learning and engagement in virtual learning environments during emergency remote teaching in the pandemic era, with the goal of offering guidelines to assist teachers in fostering student learning and engagement in these virtual settings. The inductive thematic analysis of eight semi-structured interviews with teachers from Spain, Oman, Nigeria and Cambodia revealed some challenges faced by teachers in engaging their students in virtual environments and some teaching and support strategies that teachers adopted to enhance students' engagement in virtual classrooms. The study synthesised a set of strategies for teachers in higher education to support students' engagement and learning in online environments. Teachers' autonomy, structure and involvement support strategies had a behavioural, emotional, cognitive, and agentic engagement on students' learning process. The paper discussed limitations and future research endeavours in online teaching and learning and students' engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides new evidence on the dynamic dependence and connectedness between investments in Financial Technology (FinTech) and green assets across different market conditions and investment horizons. The paper uses daily data and relies on wavelets coherency and quantile-based connectedness methods. First, our results indicate that the co-movement between FinTech and green bonds and clean energy stocks is mostly positive and strongest in the long-term but weak in the short-term, indicating a high probability of large joint losses for long-term investors and hedging opportunities of FinTech stocks for short-term investors in green financial assets. Second, the level of connectedness is stronger at both tails of the return distribution and similar in the short- and long-term while in the medium-term, normal market period total connectedness became stronger than the bearish market period connectedness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lastly, results also indicate that across all market conditions and time scales, FinTech stocks dominate most of the green financial assets as demonstrated by the net pairwise directional risk spillover. This suggests that FinTech stocks may not offer good hedging opportunities for green financial indexes. The paper provides some crucial implications based on these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an investigative summary of U.S. Twitter user sentiment on the availability of COVID-19 vaccines during the period of February 03-10, 2021. The sentiments were captured from 2,000 Twitter Tweet data observations collected during a seven-day period. This period of time was when the COVID-19 pandemic had reached one-year maturity, and the spread of the virus was showing a gradual decline of daily cases since peaking at over 300,000 on January 8, 2021 (CDC, 2021). Additionally, during this time, a pandemic milestone had been reached in which 34 million vaccinations (10% of the U.S. population) had been administered. The intent of this paper is to depict the tone of conversation about the COVID-19 vaccine through sentiment analysis, and to determine if sentiment scores were highly impacted by the location that the Tweet was authored. This is an exploratory study to provide baseline information in a subject area that is still in its infancy relative to other subject areas in the sentiment analysis discipline. The 2,000 Twitter Tweet data observations were captured from a sample representing every state in the U.S. and provides a broad-spectrum representation of sentiment from people of many diverse geopolitical, socioeconomic, scientific, medical backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plato in the Laws proposes a simulation of nearly ideal conditions regarding the experts' persuasion and observes that even in these circumstances some citizens will not agree with the epistemic authorities. In this paper, such situations are labelled as exhibiting persistent dissent. Plato maintains that persistent dissenters lack the virtue of sōphrosynē , but its meaning is notoriously difficult to decipher. This paper offers to examine the role of sōphrosynē in tackling persistent dissent in light of Plato's reflections on civic participation. This angle will not only uncover the epistemic aspect of sōphrosynē that lays the groundwork for persuasion, but it will also give a less optimistic assessment of the civic theory of the Laws , whilst simultaneously widening our own understanding of the range of disagreements between the experts and the non-experts and the difficulties in removing them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the concepts of interaction and digital divide in emergency remote education practices implemented due to the Covid-19 global pandemic are discussed, and the increasing importance of radio as a traditional mass communication tool in bridging the digital divide and structuring an interactive learning process is emphasized. In this article, the concepts of interaction and digital divide in emergency remote education practices implemented due to the Covid-19 global pandemic are discussed, and the increasing importance of radio as a traditional mass communication tool in bridging the digital divide and structuring an interactive learning process is emphasized. In this exploratory study, the main aim is to see the usefulness of university radio for education during the pandemic process by looking at the experiences gained during the Covid 19 pandemic period. The study examines the program preferences of the participants and reveals better program schedules and program types/themes that will be useful during the emergency education period. When the radio listening habits of Eskisehir Technical University students and academics are evaluated within the scope of emergency distance education applications, it is seen that radio broadcasts can be used as a powerful tool against the digital divide. Research findings show that there is a significant relationship between academic and students' radio listening time. The factor analysis showed also revealed different factor groups for academics and students. Within the framework of radio program types, six basic factors were determined for both groups. When the learner-instructor interaction is evaluated within the framework of both broadcast times and broadcast types, it is understood that the two-way interaction process can be structured within this framework. The abstract should be about 150-200 words. The abstracts of the research papers should include the purpose, methodology, and results while the abstracts of theoretical papers should provide the general framework, special contributions to the literature, and major conclusions. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What policy space does a country have for a short-term response to a catastrophic event? To quantify this space, the paper proposes a policy space index. The index combines a quantitative, albeit relatively limited and narrow, fiscal space concept with the indicators of nominal monetary space and reserve space. Each nominal policy space indicator is then adjusted for individual country's institutional features, such as the status of its currency, income group, access to capital markets, debt distress level, and the exchange rate regime. The final policy space index is derived as a composite of the three nominal policy space indicators, each adjusted for five institutional features. This index is different from the approach to measure fiscal space at the IMF and requires more work before it can be used operationally. The proposed index allows measuring the overall policy space in each country directly in percent of GDP. By way of illustration, the paper applies the index to the Covid-19 crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, hostilities and misinformation targeting the West have exploded across Chinese social media. This paper argues that contemporary anti-Western nationalism in the digital space must be interpreted in the context of popular historical memory. Namely, international scrutiny over COVID-19's origins brings to the forefront an enduring "siege mentality" whereby China perceives a West that continuously denigrates the Chinese populace as the "Sick Man of Asia"-frail, disease-ridden, and unsanitary. To qualify the importance of historical memory, this paper analyzes an extensive corpus of Weibo data through natural language processing (NLP) algorithms. By applying LDA topic modeling to Weibo posts mentioning the "Sick Man of Asia" during the early stages of the pandemic, it is possible to demonstrate that connotations surrounding this epithet has shifted from introspective self-criticism to an anti-Western "siege mentality." Moreover, Bayesian sentiment analysis of Weibo posts discussing COVID-19's origins show that posts alluding to historical memory are frequently the most emotionally-charged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to propose a novel SEIR stochastic epidemic model. A distinguishing feature of this new model is that it allows us to consider a setup under general latency and infectious period distributions. To some extent, queuing systems with infinitely many servers and a Markov chain with time-varying transition rate comprise the very technical underpinning of the paper. Although more general, the Markov chain is as tractable as previous models for exponentially distributed latency and infection periods. It is also significantly more straightforward and tractable than semi-Markov models with a similar level of generality. Based on stochastic stability, we derive a sufficient condition for a shrinking epidemic regarding the queuing system's occupation rate that drives the dynamics. Relying on this condition, we propose a class of ad-hoc stabilising mitigation strategies that seek to keep a balanced occupation rate after a prescribed mitigation-free period. We validate the approach in the light of the COVID-19 epidemic in England and in the state of Amazonas, Brazil, and assess the effect of different stabilising strategies in the latter setting. Results suggest that the proposed approach can curb the epidemic with various occupation rate levels if the mitigation is timely. • We propose queue-based stochastic epidemic model for viral epidemics. • The model is tractable yet general and applicable to large populations. • It describes epidemics with general latency and infectious periods. • We derive a control rule that ensure a shrinking epidemic. • Our experiments illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between policy compliance, the emergence of alternate epistemes and authorities in online spaces, and the decline of trust and legitimacy in democratic institutions. Drawing on insights from public policy, regulation theory, and political theory, the paper critically engages with scholarship on "policy-takers" to illuminate the tensions of compliance and legitimacy in liberal states. It proposes a compliance--legitimacy matrix that identifies the features of policy compliance--including consent, legitimacy, expertise, and trust--and their relationship to the disaggregation of policy knowledge. The article applies this framework to a case study of social media posts that respond to policy information during the management of the Covid-19 pandemic in Australia. Through analysis of these posts, the study reveals the distrust in "the science" and experts advocated by government and the calls from skeptic groups for noncompliance with public health measures. The paper argues that public policy faces an epistemic crisis of public confidence, with significant downstream consequences for compliance with public policy initiatives that has been brought on both by the failures of states to cultivate trust in science and the government. The compliance--legitimacy matrix offers a useful tool for policymakers to anticipate and address objections from policy-takers and to preempt and diffuse their fears. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Iberica is the property of Asociacion Europea de Lenguas para Fines Especificos 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 abstract 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 abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While industry and regulators' interest in decentralized clinical trials (DCTs) is long-standing, the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated and broadened the adoption and experience with these trials. The key idea in decentralization is bringing the clinical trial design, typically on-site, closer to the patient's experience (on-site or off-site). Thus, potential benefits of DCTs include reducing the burden of participation in trials, broadening access to a more diverse population, or using innovative endpoints collected off-site. This paper helps researchers to carefully evaluate the added value and the implications of DCTs beyond the operational aspects of their implementation. The proposed approach is to use the ICH E9(R1) estimand framework to guide the strategic decisions around each decentralization component. Furthermore, the framework can guide the process for clinical trialists to systematically consider the implications of decentralization, in turn, for each attribute of the estimand. We illustrate the use of this approach with a fully DCT case study and show that the proposed systematic process can uncover the scientific opportunities, assumptions, and potential risks associated with a possible use of decentralization components in the design of a trial. This process can also highlight the benefits of specifying estimand attributes in a granular way. Thus, we demonstrate that bringing a decentralization component into the design will not only impact estimators and estimation but can also correspond to addressing more granular questions, thereby uncovering new target estimands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have paid close attention to hospital resource planning in recent decades, but the impact of human factors, such as human immunity, on healthcare management has been neglected. This paper integrates physicians' differences to examine their effect on patient waiting time and patient satisfaction. A mixed-integer programming model is proposed by considering different levels of physicians and various types of departments. The model seeks an effective physician assignment between skills, experience, and immunity. A non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGS-II) is conducted to confirm the proposed verification of the model and perform human resource planning in hospitals based on these factors. The results of sensitivity analysis demonstrated that considering the classification of patients and physicians' issues causes a significant improvement in the efficiency of hospitals in the future. Furthermore, the number of physicians assigned to each department varies according to the type of patient, so the assignment of medical specialists in the hospital requires information about demands, including patient classification and morbidity rates in the healthcare sector. Healthcare organizations require the efficient allocation of clinical specialists. This model equips hospital administrators with sufficient knowledge of how to deal with the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To treat the novel COronaVIrus Disease (COVID), comparatively fewer medicines have been approved. Due to the global pandemic status of COVID, several medicines are being developed to treat patients. The modern COVID medicines development process has various challenges, including predicting and detecting hazardous COVID medicine responses. Moreover, correctly predicting harmful COVID medicine reactions is essential for health safety. Significant developments in computational models in medicine development can make it possible to identify adverse COVID medicine reactions. Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, there has been significant demand for developing COVID medicines. Therefore, this paper presents the transfer‐learning methodology and a multilabel convolutional neural network for COVID (MLCNN‐COV) medicines development model to identify negative responses of COVID medicines. For analysis, a framework is proposed with five multilabel transfer‐learning models, namely, MobileNetv2, ResNet50, VGG19, DenseNet201, and Inceptionv3, and an MLCNN‐COV model is designed with an image augmentation (IA) technique and validated through experiments on the image of three‐dimensional chemical conformer of 17 number of COVID medicines. The RGB color channel is utilized to represent the feature of the image, and image features are extracted by employing the Convolution2D and MaxPooling2D layer. The findings of the current MLCNN‐COV are promising, and it can identify individual adverse reactions of medicines, with the accuracy ranging from 88.24% to 100%, which outperformed the transfer‐learning model's performance. It shows that three‐dimensional conformers adequately identify negative COVID medicine responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the tourism sector was sometimes completely shut down. However, the strict measures were relaxed in periods characterized by lower infection rates. In this context, “revenge travelling”, an assumption that people would travel excessively to relieve their pandemic fatigue and compensate for missed holiday trips, was discussed amongst the tourism industry and media. This paper aims to unravel whether “revenge travelling” concerning COVID-19 is a reality or myth. It examines six indicators that constitute the phenomenon amongst students at a German university. Four out of the six indicators did not provide any proof of “revenge travelling” behavior. Tertiary students did not travel more frequently in 2021 than in 2020; they did not spend more on vacations, and COVID-19-related considerations did not change their travel planning. Additionally, only a minority of the students who travelled more often linked this to compensating for missed vacations. Nonetheless, the indicators “travel durations” and “travel destinations” revealed some evidence of travel behavior associated with the phenomenon. In sum, this study argues that COVID-19-related “revenge travelling” is a myth rather than reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]