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Copyright of Student Niepełnosprawny. Szkice i Rozprawy is the property of Siedlce University of Natural Sciences & Humanities 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.)

This research first adopts three indicators to measure the systemic risk of different financial industries in China. Second, we employ the Time Varying Parameter-Stochastic Volatility-Vector Auto Regression (TVP-SV-VAR) model to investigate the time-varying relationship among COVID-19 epidemic, crude oil price, and financial systemic risk. The results herein not only help us grasp the current level of systematic risk in China, but also can assist at improving the early warning risk indicators and enhance the risk management system. Lastly, this research can also help investors to make reasonable asset planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to examine how the COVID-19 epidemic has affected the working capital management practices of Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) companies. From 2012 to 2021, 101 firms were studied in the financial sector. The data was also examined using a Multiple Regression Model in the study. The results revealed that Covid-19 Pandemic has significant and negative effect on working capital management. According to the results, companies tended to take a relatively conservative approach to managing their working capital. More importantly, the data demonstrated that the COVID-19 pandemic crisis drove changes in working capital management practices. Companies with a high FL, QR, and CCC have attempted to increase their client base by prolonging the average age of their accounts receivable and decreasing the turnover rate of their liabilities, respectively. Companies with a greater CCC, as well as those whose principal current assets are accounts receivable, outperformed the other working capital management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Karbala Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) 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.)

Abstract This work is devoted to a stochastic model on the spread and control of corona virus (COVID-19), in which the total population of a corona infected area is divided into susceptible, infected, and recovered classes. In reality, the number of individuals who get disease, the number of deaths due to corona virus, and the number of recovered are stochastic, because nobody can tell the exact value of these numbers in the future. The models containing these terms must be stochastic. Such numbers are estimated and counted by a random process called a Poisson process (or birth process). We construct an SIR-type model in which the above numbers are stochastic and counted by a Poisson process. To understand the spread and control of corona virus in a better way, we first study the stability of the corresponding deterministic model, investigate the unique nonnegative strong solution and an inequality managing of which leads to control of the virus. After this, we pass to the stochastic model and show the existence of a unique strong solution. Next, we use the supermartingale approach to investigate a bound managing of which also leads to decrease of the number of infected individuals. Finally, we use the data of the COVOD-19 in USA to calculate the intensity of Poisson processes and verify our results.

Background:At the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, there was a lack of sufficient nursing experience for pneumonia caused by COVID-19. All nursing decisions had to be innovatively made and measures taken by nurses using their existing knowledge and skills. This required nurses to have a solid theoretical understanding of infectious diseases and epidemiology, evidence-based solid practice skills, and problem-solving skills. The COVID outbreak reminded undergraduates to master relevant knowledge and abilities during school study.MethodsQualitative research on knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of the COVID-19 epidemic was conducted using semi-structured interviews among sophomore nursing students in the university. Based on the characteristics of the KAP of nursing students, we analyzed the deficiencies of the knowledge and ability to deal with large-scale public health emergencies in the second-year nursing education.ResultsA total of 12 subject headings and 41 sublevel headings were identified from three aspects of KAP. The subject headings included knowledge aspect (the origin of the disease, the route of transmission, main symptoms, the epidemiological characteristics of the disease, scientific cognition of information sources), attitude aspect (different emotional experiences, a certain degree of influence, different views on the development trend of the epidemic, support the government's prevention and control strategies), and behavior aspect (do an excellent job in self-protection, help family members to protect, and participate in social anti-epidemic actions). According to this analysis, second-year nursing students have three deficiencies in dealing with large-scale public health emergencies: knowledge of infectious diseases and epidemiology, evidence-based practice skills, and problem- solving ability.ConclusionWhen students start nursing professional courses, the knowledge of infectious diseases and epidemiology, training of evidence-based practice skills, and problem-solving ability should be strengthened to improve the ability of nursing undergraduates to respond to large-scale public health emergencies after entering the workplace.

Background: ELT scenario in Saudi Arabia has undergone a sea change since the pandemic. With an aim to maximize resource utilization and ensure wide learner base, college students (male and female) are taught simultaneously, the former in a face-to-face mode and the latter in an audio-only mode. The nomenclature given to this unique classroom design by the researchers is Lateral Multimodal Learning (LML), one which has its own advantages and disadvantages. This mode of learning puts a great deal of pressure on the teachers as they must attend to a huge number of students with different needs and levels of competence, whereas it ensures best utilization of infrastructural and human resources by the administrations. Being a newly developed educational model, it is important to assess the efficiency of this type of learning. Methods: This study evaluates the model from the point of view of students (99), using a questionnaire, and that of teachers (06), using semi-structured interviews. Results: The results show that Saudi female students present high perceptions of learning via LML (M=4.03); are satisfied with this type of learning (M= 3.81) and the aids applied in learning via LML (M= 4.02). Findings also show moderate perceptions on the difficulties they encountered while emerging in LML mode (M =3.39). Furthermore, the study shows correlation between the four domains, i.e., perceptions, satisfactions, challenges, and aid. The highest correlations were between perceptions and satisfactions (r=.719); perceptions and aids (r=.659), and satisfaction and aids (r=.656). The teachers’ interviews show their agreement on the efficacy of LML as being professionally fulfilling and one that they would like to continue with in the future too. Conclusions: The study concludes with recommendations, which would be of great benefit and help for all parties or stakeholders involved.

The study investigates the influence of the COVID-19 on the rate of R&D investment and foreign exchange development of China's most important emerging industry firms. From 2010 to 2020, data were collected from 26 locations across China, focusing on seven different types of critical creating companies. To analyze the data, we have applied Fourier Increased Unit Root Test, Granger causality assessments test, Pattern Assessment test, Poisson pseudo most excellent probability (PPML) approach, Wald test, and Regression analysis test. The results of the tests reveal a clear underlying association among COVID-19 relates Chinese exports and imports. COVID-19's instant effects on imports and exports lack working capital have been calculated, but the short-term, medium-to-long-term products are composite and unidentified. The article result main results are following: (i) The COVID-19 impacts the R&D investment is main industries like as high-end equipment industry, new materials industry, and new-era data innovation. (ii) The COVID-19 highly affects the imports and exports development network of Chinese strategic emerging industries which emphasizes cross-industry grouping features. The study provides the guidance to the future researchers to focus on COVID-19 affects on the strategic emerging industries of developed and underdeveloped countries to determine of foreign direct investment inflow and unemployment growth rates.JEL: G20, O10, O40

Objective: We sought to compare the clinical characteristics of pediatric respiratory tract infection and respiratory pathogen isolations during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic to those of cases in 2018 and 2019.Methods: Our study included all children from 28 days to 15 years old with respiratory tract infections who were admitted to the Department of Respiration, in the Children's Hospital of Soochow University, between January 2018 and December 2020. Human rhinovirus (HRV) and human metapneumovirus (hMPV) were detected by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Mycoplasma pneumoniae (MP) and human bocavirus (HBoV) were detected by real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR); In parallel, Mycoplasma pneumoniae was detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, and bacteria were detected by culture in blood, bronchoalveolar lavage specimen, and pleural fluid.Results: Compared to 2018 and 2019, the pathogen detection rate was significantly lower in 2020. With regard to infections caused by single pathogens, in 2020, the detection rates of MP were the lowest and those of HRV were the highest when compared to those in 2018 and 2019. Meanwhile, the positive rates of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and hMPV reported in 2020 were less than those recorded in 2018 but similar to those recorded in 2019. Also, the 2020 rate of adenovirus (ADV) was lower than that recorded in 2019, but similar to that recorded in 2018. There were no statistical differences in the positive rates of HBoV and PIV III over the 3 years surveyed. Infections in infants were significantly less common in 2020, but no significant difference was found among children aged 1 to 3 years. The detection rate of pathogens in children old than 5 years in 2020 was significantly lower than those recorded in the previous 2 years. Notably, the pathogen detection rates in the first and second quarters of 2020 were similar to those recorded in the previous 2 years; however, the rates were reduced in the third and fourth quarters of 2020. As for co-infections, the positive rate was at its lowest in 2020. In the previous 2 years, viral–MP was the most common type of mixed infection. By contrast, in 2020, viral–viral infections were the most common combination.Conclusion: The pathogen detection rate was significantly reduced in Suzhou City during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public interventions may help to prevent respiratory pathogen infections in children.

Vietnam’s success in attracting foreign direct investment and international economic integration has enabled Vietnamese key products to gain foothold in major markets, increasing its competitiveness in the global supply chain thereby. The article analyzes the role of some key sectors in the manufacturing industry of Vietnam in the current global supply chain such as electronics, textile, footwear, and farm produce and fi sh processing. It also identifi es diffi culties faced by enterprises in the context of the epidemic and suggests several remedies for securing Vietnam’s position in the global supply chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to study the feasibility of using prospective space-time permutation scan statistics model to detect the potential outbreak areas of COVID-19 epidemic in the specific country and to provide early warnings. Using the analysis software SaTScan 9-7, the daily simulation monitoring and early warning on the geographical distribution of 1616 COVID-19 cases in 16 federal states, 40 administrative regions and 225 counties in Germany are conducted. The results show that: based on the prospective space-time permutation scan statistics model, a total of 6 clusters are detected across Germany on March 8, 9, 10, and 11, and they are all non-randomly significant clusters, which successfully warn the trend of outbreaks in some border areas of Saxony and Thuringia. The study has also verified that this method has certain practical value for the space-time detection of the outbreak of COVID-19 epidemic, and can provide scientific methods and case references for the early warning of domestic epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To explore the influence of COVID-19 epidemic on the recruitment of sperm donors, and to provide suggestion for sperm bank recruitment in the post-epidemic period. Methods The sperm donors for preliminary screening in Hunan Sperm Bank were statistically analyzed, and the changes in the recruitment and the qualified rate of sperm donors before and after the epidemic were analyzed, as well as the changes in the qualified rate of sperm donors of different populations in the post-epidemic period. Results The qualified rate, semen concentration and sperm motility of sperm donors decreased significantly after the epidemic, the qualified rate of sperm donors in age group 20~24, 25~29, 30 ~34 was significantly different before and after the epidemic. In the post-epidemic period, the qualified rate of sperm donors was not significantly affected by the donor's occupation, age and education background, but was significantly affected in different seasons. Conclusion The COVID-19 epidemic has a great impact on the recruitment of sperm donors. It is suggested that the donor recruitment of sperm bank in the post-epidemic period should be mainly comprised of college students, people aged 20-30, and people with college degree or above. In the season with suitable temperature, we should increase the publicity of sperm supply and pay attention to the mental health of sperm donors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: We assessed the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on HIV suppression rates in people living with HIV (PLWH) attending a large Italian HIV clinic. Setting: The HIV outpatient clinic of the Infectious Diseases Department of Luigi Sacco Hospital, Milan, Italy, which serves more than 5000 PLWH per year. Methods: A before and after quasi -experimental study design was used to make a retrospective assessment of the monthly trend of HIV-RNA determinations of ≥50 among the PLWH attending our clinic, with "before" being the period from January 1, 2016 to February 20, 2020, and "after" being the period from February 21, 2020 to December 31, 2020 (the COVID-19 period). Interrupted time series analysis was used to evaluate any changes in the trend. Results: During the study period, 70,349 HIV-RNA viral load determinations were made, and the percentage of HIV-RNA viral load determinations of <50 copies/mL increased from 88.4% in 2016 to 93.2% in 2020 (P < 0.0001). There was a significant monthly trend toward a decrease in the number of HIV-RNA determinations of ≥50 copies/mL before the pandemic (β −0.084; standard error 0.015; P < 0.001), and this did not significantly change after it started (β −0.039, standard error 0.161; P = 0.811). Conclusions: A high prevalence of viral suppression was maintained among the PLWH referring to our clinic, despite the structural barriers raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. The use of simplified methods of delivering care (such as teleconsultations and multiple antiretroviral treatment prescriptions) may have contributed to preserving this continuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Frontiers of Information Technology & Electronic Engineering is the property of Springer Nature 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.)

This study aimed to explore the psychological status and influencing factors of men who have sex with men (MSM) during the stable period of the COVID-19 epidemic, to provide a reference for the mental health counseling of MSM, and to provide a scientific basis for this group to actively respond to public health emergencies. A cross-sectional survey was conducted on the demographic characteristics, epidemic experiences, risk perception, and COVID-19-related attitudes of MSM in western China, and MSM anxiety and depression were assessed by using the Anxiety Self-Rating Scale and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D) Scale. The incidences of MSM anxiety and depression in the post-COVID-19 epidemic period are 21.7% and 38.0%, respectively. Logistic regression analysis showed that in terms of anxiety, high controllability of the epidemic (OR = 0.7616) is a protective factor. Thinking that they are more susceptible to COVID-19 (OR = 1.6168) and worrying about another outbreak of the epidemic (OR = 1.4793) are risk factors. In terms of depression, being able to protect themselves from being infected with COVID-19 (OR = 0.6280) is a protective factor. The role of anal sex as "0"/"0.5," and believing that they are more susceptible to COVID-19 (OR = 1.3408) are risk factors. The sudden outbreak affected the psychological state of MSM and even caused negative feelings of anxiety and depression. These findings suggest that prevention and education should be strengthened, and effective intervention measures should be taken as soon as possible, to improve the mental health of MSM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the Chinese government called for "targeted resumption of work and production in different regions and at different levels" after the novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) outbreak, rural migrant workers returning to work became an important factor for economic recovery and stabilizing labor supply. Based on data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, this paper investigates farmers' perception of risk in the epidemic situation and reveals the impact of farmers' risk perception on working outside of their hometowns. The results show that: 1) farmers generally believe the risk of epidemics is higher in urban areas than in rural areas; and 2) farmers' risk perceptions significantly influence their decisions of working outside of their hometowns. This paper provides important policy implications in labor supply and crisis management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Secretary (16742354) is the property of Secretary Editorial Office 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 effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in the form of a reduction in the own revenue of local government units and the corresponding reduction in their expenditure, including asset expenditure, were the determining factor for the introduction of extraordinary and temporary mechanisms to minimise this negative phenomenon from 2020. One of such solutions is the Government Fund for Local Investments, separated within the state special-purpose fund - the COVID-19 Counteracting Fund. The aim of this study is to establish the legal status of the Government Fund for Local Investments (Rządowy Fundusz Inwestycji Lokalnych - RFIL). The hypothesis about the temporary nature of this fund and its close relations with the COVID-19 Counteracting Fund has been verified as being true. It has been established that the RFIL does not have its own sources of revenue, and its financial resources are the result of separating a certain amount of funds accumulated in the account of the COVID-19 Counteracting Fund, which means it is, in fact, its sub-fund with clearly defined tasks to be performed. The RFIL-provided support is non-returnable, and its only beneficiaries are local government units. The resources transferred from this fund may only be used for the implementation of investment projects or for meeting asset expenses. The study uses the legal-dogmatic method and, additionally, the statistical analytical method, to present specific numerical values reflecting the importance of the RFIL support in relation to the own revenue of local government units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an effort to limit the effects of the COVID-19 epidemic determined by restrictions in economic activity and various areas of social activity, the catalogue of preventive actions was expanded by tax and legal instruments in the form of income tax reliefs inclining taxpayers to certain behaviours. The reliefs entitle taxpayers to deduct the value of donations made for the purposes of counteracting COVID-19 from the tax base. Two types of such donations have been distinguished, i.e., donations for entities participating in the treatment of infected persons and donations for educational institutions providing remote education. The aim of this article is to establish the premises justifying the claim that the tax reliefs for donations made by income tax payers are autonomous in relation to other tax preferences available to taxpayers making donations for other socially useful purposes. The hypothesis about the ad hoc and temporary nature of these tax reliefs has been verified as true, and the dominance of the motivating and stimulating function over their fiscal function has been demonstrated. Symmetrical solutions have been identified in the legal structure of the subject tax reliefs, as the donor uses a deduction from the tax base, while the recipient does not include the accepted donation in their income. The study uses the legal-dogmatic method and, in addition, the empirical analytical method to present the jurisprudence of courts in the field of applying tax reliefs due to donations made by income tax payers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Since the first outbreak of SARS-CoV-2, the clinical characteristics of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been progressively changed. Data reporting a viral intra-host and inter-host evolution favouring the appearance of mild SARS-CoV-2 strains are since being accumulating. To better understand the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 pathogenicity and its adaptation to the host, it is therefore crucial to investigate the genetic and phenotypic characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 strains circulating lately in the epidemic. Methods Nasopharyngeal swabs have been analyzed for viral load in the early (March 2020) and late (May 2020) phases of epidemic in Brescia, Italy. Isolation of SARS-CoV-2 from 2 high viral load specimens identified on March 9 (AP66) and on May 8 (GZ69) was performed on Vero E6 cells. Amount of virus released was assessed by quantitative PCR. Genotypic characterization of AP66 and GZ69 was performed by next generation sequencing followed by an in-depth in silico analysis of nucleotide mutations. Results The SARS-CoV-2 GZ69 strain, isolated in May from an asymptomatic healthcare worker, showed an unprecedented capability of replication in Vero E6 cells in the absence of any evident cytopathic effect. Vero E6 subculturing, up to passage 4, showed that SARS-CoV-2 GZ69 infection was as productive as the one sustained by the cytopathic strain AP66. Whole genome sequencing of the persistently replicating SARS-CoV-2 GZ69 has shown that this strain differs from the early AP66 variant in 9 nucleotide positions (C2939T; C3828T; G21784T; T21846C; T24631C; G28881A; G28882A; G28883C; G29810T) which lead to 6 non-synonymous substitutions spanning on ORF1ab (P892S; S1188L), S (K74N; I95T) and N (R203K, G204R) proteins. Conclusions Identification of the peculiar SARS-CoV-2 GZ69 strain in the late Italian epidemic highlights the need to better characterize viral variants circulating among asymptomatic or paucisymptomatic individuals. The current approach could unravel the ways for future studies aimed at analyzing the selection process which favours viral mutations in the human host.

Abstract In this work, we formulate and analyze a new mathematical model for COVID-19 epidemic with isolated class in fractional order. This model is described by a system of fractional-order differential equations model and includes five classes, namely, S (susceptible class), E (exposed class), I (infected class), Q (isolated class), and R (recovered class). Dynamics and numerical approximations for the proposed fractional-order model are studied. Firstly, positivity and boundedness of the model are established. Secondly, the basic reproduction number of the model is calculated by using the next generation matrix approach. Then, asymptotic stability of the model is investigated. Lastly, we apply the adaptive predictor–corrector algorithm and fourth-order Runge–Kutta (RK4) method to simulate the proposed model. Consequently, a set of numerical simulations are performed to support the validity of the theoretical results. The numerical simulations indicate that there is a good agreement between theoretical results and numerical ones.

A case of acute respiratory distress syndrome due to SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza A co-infection and a mini-review of the literature is reported. Even in COVID-19 epidemics, the early identification of concurrent respiratory pathogens is important to improve etiological diagnosis, preventive measures and patients’ clinical management and outcome.

Objective: Stressful events increase in traumatic conditions. Coronavirus is a new and serious challenge and significant public health problem, which can cause different stressors. This study has identified stressful events experienced by Iranian adults during the COVID-19 epidemic. Method: Data on stressful events during the COVID-19 epidemic were collected online from 418 adults (mean age 37.16 years; 57.4% female and 42.6% male) using quota sampling method. Epidemic Stressful Events Checklist was applied for data collection. Data were analyzed by applying descriptive graphs and tables, the independent sample t-test, the Fisher’s F test, and post hoc Bonferroni test. Results: The most frequent stressful event was rise in essential goods prices (84.7%); however, its perceived stress was not at the highest level. The highest severity of perceived stress was related to the death of a family member (4.83) due to COVID-19 infection, which was an event with the least occurrence, and the lowest severity of perceived stress was related to medical team performance (2.50). The results showed the severity of perceived stress is higher in women than men (t = 3.42; P value < 0.01) and also in the laboring occupations compared to other occupations (F = 3.18; P value < 0.05). Conclusion: Traumatic events can lead to more serious concerns, eg., worrying about those we love, concerns about the future of our life, and about what politicians and macro planners will do to protect our lives. Moreover, traumatic events can cause concerns about food, basic needs, and lack of resources to survive.

Research background: On 11 March 2020, the Covid-19 epidemic was identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a global pandemic. The rapid increase in the scale of the epidemic has led to the introduction of non-pharmaceutical countermeasures. Forecast of the Covid-19 prevalence is an essential element in the actions undertaken by authorities. Purpose of the article: The article aims to assess the usefulness of the Auto-regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model for predicting the dynamics of Covid-19 incidence at different stages of the epidemic, from the first phase of growth, to the maximum daily incidence, until the phase of the epidemic's extinction. Methods: ARIMA(p,d,q) models are used to predict the dynamics of virus distribution in many diseases. Model estimates, forecasts, and the accuracy of forecasts are presented in this paper. Findings & Value added: Using the ARIMA(1,2,0) model for forecasting the dynamics of Covid-19 cases in each stage of the epidemic is a way of evaluating the implemented non-pharmaceutical countermeasures on the dynamics of the epidemic.

The authors express gratitude to all healthcare professionals of Moscow and regions who took part in the research. The authors are also grateful for assistance by the consultations in data processing period to A.A. Gerasimova, medical psychologist of the Moscow Service of Psychological Population Assistance.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, detected first in China in December 2019, is now rapidly spreading across the world. India responded by drawing up National Containment Plan for COVID-19 that envisaged screening of people for COVID-19 for early detection of infection, providing community, primary health care-centered management for those with mild infection, tertiary care for those with severe infection, and health education to the population to reduce person-to-person transmission of infection. To minimize the spread of infection from other countries, all travelers were screened and quarantined; in the third week of March, India imposed ban on all international travel. To prevent person-to-person spread, congregation of people for commercial, educational, entertainment, sports, religious, and other social activities was banned. To minimize intracity, interstate, and urban rural spread, India imposed nationwide lockdown on 25th March 2020. The lockdown flattened the epidemic curve and provided needed time for the country to reorganize the health system, so that it can provide needed care for the increasing number of COVID-19 patients at all levels of health care. National guidelines for screening of people for severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 infection, quarantine, and home isolation and care of infected people were drawn up and implemented. Health education on methods by which person-to-person transmission of infection can be minimized has been provided using all media of communication. Global comparison shows that currently India has low infection rates, low fatality rates per 1,00,000, and high recovery rates. There are ongoing research studies to document the course and outcome of COVID-19 in India. Clinical trials of potential drugs for treatment of severe infections and vaccines for preventing infection in the high-risk groups are underway. A COVID-19 disease surveillance program is underway to track the infection rates and bring appropriate midcourse corrections in interventions. In the coming months, the people and health system will not only have to evolve a sustainable strategy to provide needed care for COVID-19 cases but also ensure that all other health care programs are implemented and patients with other illnesses get optimal care too.

The COVID-19 pandemic has struck the world and forced countries to go into lockdown including education sector. Students have been staying in hostels or houses, unable to go to university campuses. This situation has left university administrators no choice, but to have an online learning channel. Malaysian universities in particular have gone through many challenges to bring their online learning system up and ready to resume education process. However, students have found themselves caught in this situation (pure online learning) with no plan or readiness. Literature reviews showed that students encountered some challenges that could not be easily resolved. This study explored the challenges encountered by students of a government-linked university. This university is one of the largest in Malaysia with over 10 campuses across the country. This study collected 284 valid answers. The findings show that respondents lacked full readiness in this situation physically, environmentally, and psychologically with some differences in perspectives according to their gender, age, and residing state. Respondents were concerned about the implications of lockdown on their performance. The findings of this study indicate that a sudden switch to a pure online alternative creates considerable challenges to students who have no plans to be physically apart from classes. The findings also indicate that the current blended learning process which uses online learning as a support mechanism for face-to-face learning has faced a considerable challenge to replace it, particularly with unprepared students.

Background: Solidarity, such as community connectedness and social cohesion, may be useful in improving HIV testing uptake among men who have sex with men (MSM). This study aimed to evaluate the impact of solidarity on HIV testing before the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and HIV testing willingness during COVID-19 among MSM in China.Materials and Methods: An online survey was conducted to collect sociodemographic, sexual behavioral, and solidarity items' information from the participants. We first used factor analysis to reveal the principal component of the solidarity items and then used logistic regression to study the impact of solidarity on HIV testing, by adjusting the possible confounding factors, such as age and education.Results: Social cohesion and community connectedness were revealed by the factor analysis. MSM with high community connectedness were more willing to undergo HIV testing before the epidemic adjusted by age [odds ratio (OR): 1.07, 95% CI: 1.01–1.13]. The community connectedness was also related to the willingness of HIV testing during the epidemic, with adjustments of 1.09 (95% CI: 1.03–1.15). People who did not test for HIV before the COVID-19 epidemic were more willing to have the HIV test during the epidemic, which was correlated with the community connectedness, and the OR value was 1.14 (95%: 1.03–1.25).Conclusion: A high level of community connectedness helped to increase the HIV testing rate before COVID-19 and the willingness of HIV testing during the epidemic among MSM. Strategies can strengthen the role of the community in the management and service of MSM.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which has ravaged the world, has led to a rethinking of the relationship between humans and nature and the clichés of the economic-centered model. Thus, the ecological economy has been reviewed, especially from an ethical worldview. This paper uses statistical methods to retrieve and categorize 3,646 wildlife crime cases for analysis and quantitative research. It adopts legal and ethical perspectives to analyze the subject and the subjective, incidence, and sentencing factors of wildlife crimes and uses the ecological economic ethical model to measure wildlife crimes. We argue that the existing judicial system fails to answer the difficulties of the economic ethics of wildlife crimes. It is recommended that ecological and economic ethical awareness be internalized. We suggest calling for comprehensive legislation on wildlife crimes from the perspective of ecological economic ethics to effectively prevent and reduce wildlife crime and eventually promote public health.

In the future, new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus might emerge and cause outbreaks. If this occurs, the implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) can be reconsidered. Consideration of the potential benefits and harms of implementing NPIs, and ultimately deciding about implementing NPIs, is currently mainly executed by experts and governments. However, general literature on public engagement suggests that integrating public perspectives into decision-making can enhance the quality of decisions and foster greater public understanding of them. In this study, a deliberative mini-public was conducted to integrate this public perspective. The aim was to elicit public considerations regarding non-pharmaceutical interventions by asking a diverse group of citizens to participate as decision-makers and convene, learn and deliberate about implementing non-pharmaceutical interventions during a hypothetical outbreak of a new SARS-CoV-2 variant. Participants emphasized the importance of early implementation during the outbreak, to prevent exceeding healthcare capacity, long-term mental health issues, educational deficits, and bankruptcies. Additionally, participants stressed taking public support into account, and shared ideas on maintaining support. Furthermore, participants wanted to give citizens personal responsibility and freedom in making their own assessment regarding adherence to interventions and how much risk of infection they would be willing to accept. Participants also expressed the need for the government to adopt a learning attitude towards improvements in pandemic response, and to generate more focus on long-term strategies. The deliberative mini-public, revealed public considerations that reflected public values and needs. These considerations might be helpful in better aligning epidemic management policies with public perspectives. Regarding the deliberative mini-public, uncertainties remain about the design and impact on a bigger scale., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2024 The Authors.)

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a deep impact on the lives of the entire world population, inducing a participated societal debate. As in other contexts, the debate has been the subject of several d/misinformation campaigns; in a quite unprecedented fashion, however, the presence of false information has seriously put at risk the public health. In this sense, detecting the presence of malicious narratives and identifying the kinds of users that are more prone to spread them represent the first step to limit the persistence of the former ones. In the present paper we analyse the semantic network observed on Twitter during the first Italian lockdown (induced by the hashtags contained in approximately 1.5 millions tweets published between the 23rd of March 2020 and the 23rd of April 2020) and study the extent to which various discursive communities are exposed to d/misinformation arguments. As observed in other studies, the recovered discursive communities largely overlap with traditional political parties, even if the debated topics concern different facets of the management of the pandemic. Although the themes directly related to d/misinformation are a minority of those discussed within our semantic networks, their popularity is unevenly distributed among the various discursive communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a case study whose focus is on examining the relationship among students of one fifth grade class during the period of combined schooling in the school year 2020/2021. This schooling model was introduced in order to enable appropriate physical distance among students in the classroom. Also, this was one of the important preventiv measures of the COVID-19 epidemic. Our intention is to check whether and to what extent the application of this schooling model, which included the division of classes into two groups, reflected on the mutual relations of students. We paid the most attention to friend's relations. This paper represents an anthropological contribution to the issue of interpersonal relations among children in condition when many relations in society have changed due to the 'new normality'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the existing researches on public health events focus on the number and duration of events in a year or month, which are carried out by regression equation. COVID-19 epidemic, which was discovered in Wuhan, Hubei Province, quickly spread to the whole country, and then appeared as a global public health event. During the epidemic period, Chinese netizens inquired about the dynamics of COVID-19 epidemic through Baidu search platform, and learned about relevant epidemic prevention information. These groups' search behavior data not only reflect people's attention to COVID-19 epidemic, but also contain the stage characteristics and evolution trend of COVID-19 epidemic. Therefore, the time, space and attribute laws of propagation of COVID-19 epidemic can be discovered by deeply mining more information in the time series data of search behavior. In this study, it is found that transforming time series data into visibility network through the principle of visibility algorithm can dig more hidden information in time series data, which may help us fully understand the attention to COVID-19 epidemic in Chinese provinces and cities, and evaluate the deficiencies of early warning and prevention of major epidemics. What's more, it will improve the ability to cope with public health crisis and social decision-making level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to reveal the effect of the Covid-19 outbreak on the precious metals and diamonds market for the period 17.03.2020-05.02.2021. In this context, firstly in the study, it has been investigated that the existence of long-run relationship between Turkey’s daily deaths and Covid-19 daily cases caused by Covid-19 and daily gold, silver, platinum and palladium prices by Maki cointegration test, it has been determined that there is a long-term relationship between silver, platinum and palladium prices and the numbers of cases, and between silver and platinum prices and the numbers of deaths. However, it could not be determined that there are significant relationship between gold prices and the number of cases and deaths and between palladium prices and the number of deaths. Finally, in the study, the magnitude of the relationship between series which have been determined long term relationship has been investigated through the FMOLS estimator by taking into account structural breaks, it has been determined that there is a negative-way relationship between silver prices and the numbers of cases and deaths in the long run. Furthermore, it has been concluded that there are not statistically significant relationship between platinum prices and the numbers of cases and deaths and palladium prices and the numbers of cases and the effect of structural breaks on the prices of the relevant metals varies depending on time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been observed that the world economies have been significantly affected by the Covid-19 epidemic process, which has caused increasing concerns about human health and life. During the epidemic period, many economies, including the most developed economies of the world, have entered the biggest recession in recent years. This situation has created great curiosity about effects of the Covid-19 epidemic on the economies of the country and how long the recovery will take. Basically, the measures taken to contain the Covid-19 epidemic have deeply affected the labor markets by causing production to come to a halt in most sectors. During the epidemic period, there was a record increase in unemployment in the world. However, in some sectors that are qualitatively suitable, it has been observed that working from home has come to the fore in the direction of digitalization. In this context, survey questions were prepared to determine the trends in the labor markets during the Covid-19 epidemic. The results obtained were that the supply shock caused by the epidemic affected the demand and supply of labor as well as the functioning of the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 epidemic spread globally at the start of 2020, resulting in a wide range of diffusion of infectious diseases. At present, SARS-CoV-2 is still prevalent worldwide, and it is of great practical significance to strengthen the study on the COVID-19 epidemic. Based on the COVID-19 confirmed cases and incidence, this article explored both the temporal and spatial distribution pattern of COVID-19 in Hunan Province and its influencing variables between January 21 and February 28, 2020 by using ArcGIS 10.3 and GeoDetector. The results show that: 1) The epidemic evolved with temporal phasing. The epidemic in Hunan Province can be divided into four basic stages: the diffusion period, peak period, decay period, and the stagnant period. The first COVID-19 confirmed case of 84.47% affected counties was imported from Wuhan;2) The epidemic spread as a result of transportation convenience. The confirmed COVID-19 cases were concentrated near major railway lines, which were also high-incidence areas. The epidemic occurred "early in prefecture-level cities and frequently in urban areas"; 3) the extent of the epidemic has distance attenuation. The COVID-19 cases and high-incidence areas were mainly distributed in the middle, north, and northeast of Hunan, in regions in proximity to Wuhan; 4) the epidemic was distributed with spatial aggregation. The agglomeration level of cases and incidences increased first and then remained high. The hot spots identified are in Changzhutan and Yueyang City, while the cold spots are in Xiangxi Prefecture; 5) the epidemic prevalence was of variable interaction. Wind-free, cold and dry weather was more conducive to the spread of the epidemic; population density, road network density and GDP were the main factors affecting the epidemic spatial differentiation; and the strongest variable interaction happened between natural and social factors. 6) the influencing variables of the COVID-19 epidemic have spatial heterogeneity. The impacts of spatial distance and population density have spatial heterogeneity on both the reported cases the total infections rates of COVID-19, spatial distance has the greatest impact in northeast Hunan, and population density has the greatest impact in northwest and northern Hunan; but the mobility of population and the number of health technicians only have spatial heterogeneity of impacts on the reported cases of COVID- 19, the impact of population mobility is diminishing from north to south in Hunan, and the influence of the number of health technicians decreases gradually with the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan city agglomeration as the core to the outer circle. The paper's conclusions are consistent with other scholars' studies in other regions, confirming that the epidemic not only spreads significantly in neighboring areas, but there are also "jump spreads" to distant cities that rely on the transportation network in Hunan. It is evident that restricting the entry of residents of affected areas plays a key role in COVID-19 prevention and control, and moreover, allocating plentiful health technicians, executing rigorous transport quarantine, and adopting compatible preventing measures with local and temporal conditions, are the top priorities in effectively responding to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important task of the country's socio-economic development, protecting the rights of female workers in employment and income is concerned and implemented by international organizations and all countries in the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting the global economy and hurt the incomes and employment of many female workers. In Vietnam nowadays, there is an increase in the unemployment rate of female workers, gender inequality in employment and income, and the ability to secure their jobs and income. The article analyzes the current regulations and their implementation in the employment and income of Vietnamese female workers in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The article also proposes some recommendations on legal provisions related to training backup jobs, arranging and employing female employees, providing income support for female employees during leave due to the COVID-19 epidemic; and policies related to female workers and their employers. These recommendations will improve Vietnam's labor law on female workers' rights in employment and income and enhance the efficiency of human resource use and socio-economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning local representations is important for face recognition (FR). Recent attention-based networks emphasize few facial parts, while ignoring other potentially discriminative ones. This is more serious when there are large pose variations, occlusions (e.g. face masks), or other image quality changes. To address this, we propose Diverse and Sparse Attentions, called DSA-Face. First, a divergence loss is designed to explicitly encourage the diversity among multiple attention maps by maximizing the Euclidean distance between every pair attention maps. As a result, a Pairwise Self-Contrastive Attention (PSCA) is developed to locate diverse facial parts which provide comprehensive descriptions. Second, an Attention Sparsity Loss (ASL) is proposed to encourage sparse responses in attention maps where only discriminative parts are emphasized while distracted regions (e.g. background or face masks) are discouraged. Built upon the PSCA and ASL, the DSA-Face model is developed to learn diverse and sparse attentions, which can extract diverse discriminative local representations and suppress the focus on noisy regions. Due to the pandemic of the COVID-19, the task of masked face matching is now very important, and our model can handle this much better than previous methods, demonstrating its effectiveness and usefulness. Moreover, our model outperforms the state-of-the-art methods on several other FR benchmarks, showing that it is also general to address various challenges in FR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study was made to experiment and explore the effectiveness of augmented reality-based Cloud education systems on critical thinking of the students in the Coronavirus Disease 2019 epidemic. Augmented Reality (AR) can help reduce social and business impact while supporting business continuity through epidemics. The study adopted an experimental research design, wherein 42 samples were considered. For the study; Concept visualization, Concept perception, Concept correlation with the real world, Interactive, Concept inferential, and interpretation were considered as study variables associated with critical thinking. The analysis for the study was conducted using SPSS- 23 Application. The study indicated that both male and female respondents agree that the augmented reality helping them better visualize, perceive, interpret, and correlate it with the real world than other conventional and traditional teaching methods. Further, it was identified that Critical thinking of students is strong with Concept visualization, Concept perception, Concept correlation with the real world, Interactive, Concept inferential, and interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Objective: Our objective is to explore the effect of applying cloud video conferencing methods to the informed consent process in an early-phase clinical trial during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: All participants who intended to participate in the trial were informed via a cloud video conference before signing the informed consent forms (ICF). Then, the attitudes of the participants with the cloud video conference and their understanding of the trial were evaluated using a questionnaire when they visited to sign the ICF onsite.Results: A total of 165 subjects participated in the cloud video conference process, and 142 visited the site to sign and date the ICFs at the center during the appointment time. The survey showed that nearly 100% of the subjects evaluated the video-based informed consent process as very good or good and gave correct answers to questions about the trial. Furthermore, 136 (95.8%) subjects believed that the knowledge about the trial derived via the video-based informed consent process was consistent with the onsite reality, and 139 (97.9%) subjects expressed their willingness to participate in an informed consent procedure undertaken through an online video conference.Conclusions: The video-based informed consent process achieved the same effects as an onsite informed consent process. The former saves time and cost of transportation for the subject and exhibits good public acceptance; especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, this process is conducive for reducing the risk of subject infection due to travel and would also help avoid crowding on site.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 is challenging the dental community to an unprecedented degree. Knowledge of the increased risk of infection in dental settings has been disseminated to the public and guidelines have been formulated to assist dental attendance decision-making. However, dental attendance behaviors incompatible with treatment need is not uncommon in clinical settings. Important gaps remain in the knowledge about how psychological factors are affecting dental attendance behaviors during the COVID-19 epidemic. In this cross-sectional study, a questionnaire survey was performed during February and March 2020. A total of 342 and 294 dental patients who attended and avoided dental visits, respectively, were included. The participants were classified into four groups based on dental attendance behavior and emergent/urgent dental treatment need. Bivariate analysis was performed to investigate factors associated with dental attendance. Multivariable logistic regression based on principal component scores was performed to identify major psychological constructs associated with unnecessary dental avoidance and attendance. Among all the factors explored, inability to wear masks during dental treatment (P < 0.001; effect size: 0.32) was most closely associated with the overall pattern of dental attendance among participants. Multivariable regression suggested that unnecessary dental avoidance was associated with perceived risk of infection in general and in dental settings (odds ratio [95% CI]: 0.62 [0.53, 0.72]; p < 0.001), perceived impact of COVID-19 and dental problems on general health (0.79 [0.65, 0.97]; 0.021), and personal traits such as trust and anxiety (0.77 [0.61, 0.98]; 0.038). Unnecessary dental attendance was associated with optimism toward the epidemic (1.68 [1.42, 2.01];

Abstract This study suggests the importance of instituting accompanying measures to prevent potential negative mental and social impacts on people receiving false‐positive results.

The COVID-19 epidemic has had a strong impact on school systems, as most of the world’s countries have closed schools and established distance schooling. In a case study on a 4th grade elementary school participant in Slovenia, the author researched the expression and changes in attitudes towards school, self-perceived school competence, and general self-esteem, both during and after distance schooling. With the help of different questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, the author concludes that the distance schooling in the participant's elementary school was well organized and that the participant was satisfied with its implementation. The author found more positive attitudes towards school and self-esteem in the post-epidemic period in the participant, while there were no differences in self-perceived school competence between the two periods.

During the COVID-19 epidemic, online teaching was widely used at Nanjing Medical University. Based on the practice, student evaluation surveys were used as the main assessment to analyze the effect of online teaching. Eventually, 826 undergraduates at Nanjing Medical University participated in the questionnaire survey. This study described the present situation of online studying among medical students, and some suggestions were put forward. The survey showed that online education could not replace face-to-face learning, but it presented great potential for application in teaching fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a nonlinear robust control policy is designed together with a state observer in order to manage the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak having an uncertain epidemiological model with unmeasurable variables. This nonlinear model for the COVID-19 epidemic includes eight state variables (susceptible, exposed, infected, quarantined, hospitalized, recovered, deceased, and insusceptible populations). Two plausible scenarios are put forward in this article to control this epidemic before and after its vaccine invention. In the first scenario, the social distancing and hospitalization rates are employed as two applicable control inputs to diminish the exposed and infected groups. However, in the second scenario after the vaccine development, the vaccination rate is taken into account as the third control input to reduce the susceptible populations, in addition to the two objectives of the first scenario. The proposed feedback control measures are defined in terms of the hospitalized and deceased populations due to the available statistical data, while other unmeasurable compartmental variables are estimated by an extended Kalman filter (EKF). In other words, the susceptible, exposed, infected, quarantined, recovered, and insusceptible individuals cannot be identified precisely because of the asymptomatic infection of COVID-19 in some cases, its incubation period, and the lack of an adequate community screening. Utilizing the Lyapunov theorem, the stability and bounded tracking convergence of the closed-loop epidemiological system are investigated in the presence of modeling uncertainties. Finally, a comprehensive simulation study is conducted based on Canada's reported cases for two defined timing plans (with different treatment rates). Obtained results demonstrate that the developed EKF-based control scheme can achieve desired epidemic goals (exponential decrease of infected, exposed, and susceptible people). • A hypothetical robust control policy to manage the COVID-19 outbreak. • Two scenarios for the epidemic control before and after the vaccine development. • Hospitalized and deceased populations are the only available feedback data. • EKF is used to estimate other unmeasurable compartments' populations. • Lyapunov theorem is employed to ensure the controlled epidemic's stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of COVID-19 at the beginning of 2020 has a great impact on public health security at home and abroad. Community is the basic unit of urban epidemic prevention, and improving community resilience is of great significance for reducing the spread of the epidemic and maintaining the normal life of residents during the epidemic. Based on the concept of resilience, 10 indicators were selected from four dimensions of urban space, including facilities, space, nature and society, to construct a community resilience evaluation indicator system for epidemic prevention, and 56 housing estates in Congtai District, Handan City, were selected for scientifi c evaluation. The results showed that the overall resilience of this region was relatively low and the resilience index decreased from southwest to northeast with the degree of urban development. The accessibility of urban open space, the proportion of redundant space area and the area of public space per capita had the lowest resilience index. Finally, policy suggestions were put forward to improve the resilience of housing estates in the region, so as to promote the steady progress of the city towards the agenda for sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Szociológiai Szemle is the property of Hungarian Sociological Association 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.)

Copyright of Experimental Technology & Management is the property of Experimental Technology & Management Editorial Office 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 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 is challenging the dental community to an unprecedented degree. Knowledge of the increased risk of infection in dental settings has been disseminated to the public and guidelines have been formulated to assist dental attendance decision-making. However, dental attendance behaviors incompatible with treatment need is not uncommon in clinical settings. Important gaps remain in the knowledge about how psychological factors are affecting dental attendance behaviors during the COVID-19 epidemic. In this cross-sectional study, a questionnaire survey was performed during February and March 2020. A total of 342 and 294 dental patients who attended and avoided dental visits, respectively, were included. The participants were classified into four groups based on dental attendance behavior and emergent/urgent dental treatment need. Bivariate analysis was performed to investigate factors associated with dental attendance. Multivariable logistic regression based on principal component scores was performed to identify major psychological constructs associated with unnecessary dental avoidance and attendance. Among all the factors explored, inability to wear masks during dental treatment (P < 0.001; effect size: 0.32) was most closely associated with the overall pattern of dental attendance among participants. Multivariable regression suggested that unnecessary dental avoidance was associated with perceived risk of infection in general and in dental settings (odds ratio [95% CI]: 0.62 [0.53, 0.72]; p < 0.001), perceived impact of COVID-19 and dental problems on general health (0.79 [0.65, 0.97]; 0.021), and personal traits such as trust and anxiety (0.77 [0.61, 0.98]; 0.038). Unnecessary dental attendance was associated with optimism toward the epidemic (1.68 [1.42, 2.01]; <0.001) and trust (1.39 [1.13, 1.74]; 0.002). Multidisciplinary efforts involving dental and medical professionals as well as psychologists are warranted to promote more widespread adoption, among the general public, of dental attendance behaviors compatible with dental treatment need during the COVID-19 epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]