Search results for: pandemic. Economics variables shocks

Authors: Faeze omid, Morteza Banakar

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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on global health and healthcare systems, including oral health. The lockdown measures implemented in many countries have led to changes in oral health behaviors, access to dental care, and the delivery of dental services. However, the extent of these changes and their effects on oral health outcomes remains unclear. This systematic review aims to synthesize the available evidence on the state of oral health after the COVID-19 lockdown. Methods: We conducted a systematic search of electronic databases (PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and Web of Science) and grey literature sources for studies reporting on oral health outcomes after the COVID-19 lockdown. We included studies published in English between January 2020 and March 2023. Two reviewers independently screened the titles, abstracts, and full texts of potentially relevant articles and extracted data from included studies. We used a narrative synthesis approach to summarize the findings. Results: Our search identified 23 studies from 12 countries, including cross-sectional surveys, cohort studies, and case reports. The studies reported on changes in oral health behaviors, access to dental care, and the prevalence and severity of dental conditions after the COVID-19 lockdown. Overall, the evidence suggests that the lockdown measures had a negative impact on oral health outcomes, particularly among vulnerable populations. There were decreases in dental attendance, increases in dental anxiety and fear, and changes in oral hygiene practices. Furthermore, there were increases in the incidence and severity of dental conditions, such as dental caries and periodontal disease, and delays in the diagnosis and treatment of oral cancers. Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdown measures have had significant effects on oral health outcomes, with negative impacts on oral health behaviors, access to care, and the prevalence and severity of dental conditions. These findings highlight the need for continued monitoring and interventions to address the long-term effects of the pandemic on oral health.

Keywords: COVID-19, oral health, systematic review, dental public health

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Authors: Amin Nakhostin-Ansari, Samaneh Akbarour, Khosro Sadeghniiat Haghighi, Zahra Banafsheh Alemohammad, Farnaz Etesam, Arezu Najafi, Mahnaz Khalafehnilsaz

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Introduction: The outbreak of coronavirus disease has considerably burdened the healthcare system in Iran. This study aimed to evaluate the characteristics of insomnia experienced by the general Iranian population during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: A scale(FCV-19) was used for Fear of COVID-19, Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2), and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale-2 (GAD-2) for detailed characterization of insomnia and its patterns Results: In total, 675 people with insomnia with the mean age of 40.28 years (SD=11.15) participated in this study. Prevalence of difficulty initiating sleep (DIS), difficulty maintaining sleep (DMS), and early morning awakening (EMA) were 91.4%, 86.7%, and 77%, respectively. DIS, DMS, and EMA were more common in people with depression and anxiety. FCV-19 score was higher in those with more severe types of DIS, DMS, and EMA (P<0.001). FCV-19 was a risk factor for all patterns of insomnia (OR=1.19, 1.12, 1.02 for DIS, DMS, and EMA, respectively). Conclusion: fear of COVID-19 is a major factor to insomnia patterns. Investigation of COVID-19 fear in people with insomnia and the addition of attributed relieving or management strategies to conventional management of insomnia are reasonable approaches to improve the sleep condition of people in the pandemic.

Keywords: insomnia, difficulty maintaining sleep, COVID-19, Coronavirus

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Authors: Paria Koraei, Meysam Ahmadzadeh, Reza Shahriarirad, Keivan Ranjbar, Farzane Farahmand

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The rapid spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has enlisted dental offices in high-risk places. A cross-sectional survey was carried out among the general population aged 17 and above in Shiraz, Fars, Iran. The patients' demographic features were recorded and analyzed against questions regarding fear, anxiety, and attitude toward dental appointments. The Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS) questionnaire was used for the evaluation of anxiety levels. Among a total of 760 participants, the average age was 32.33±11.27 years, while 242 (31.8%) were male and 357 (47%) were single. Based on the anxiety scores, 336 (44.2%) participants had mild anxiety, 215 (28.3%) had moderate anxiety, 74 (9.7%) had high, and 135 (17.8%) had severe anxiety. The majority of participants used masks (93.8%) and disinfectants (79.9%) during dental visits, and the most emphasized policies during dental visits were using disposable face masks by the personnel (83.6%) and controlling the number of visitors in the office (81.8%). Only 226 (29.7%) reported that they hadn’t postponed their dental visits. Our findings demonstrated that anxiety in people increases toward dental treatments during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in decreased dental appointments. Dentally anxious people were more likely to be female and married couples. Being female and older age are possible risk factors for developing a fear of dental procedures.

Keywords: Covid-19, anxiety, fear, dentistry, dental care

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Authors: Jolanta Jonak

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Emotional wellbeing is crucial for healthy development of children, youth, and adolescence. Lack of healthy emotional development and functioning can lead to many challenges in academic, social, and physical domains. Unfortunately, mental health problems are steadily increasing over the past several years and significantly intensified during and after the Covid 19 pandemic. Some experts warn that globally, we are entering a mental health crisis pandemic. Prior to the Covid 19 pandemic in 2020, a considerable number of youth aged 6-17 experienced a mental health disorder each year, with half of all mental health conditions beginning by age 14. The most common mental health disorders in children are Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), behavior problems, anxiety, and depression. In U.S. schools, youth with these diagnoses tend to be classified under the umbrella of Emotional Disability. Several concerning trends have been emerging about the mental health of U.S. high school students. These trends have been steadily increasing for the past decade, particularly having increasing numbers of high school students who experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, seriously considered attempting suicide, made a suicide plan, and attempted suicide. The number of students who felt persistently sad or hopeless increased across every racial and ethnic group. Parents, educators, and mental health providers are key stakeholders that are responsible for actively and effectively supporting struggling youth. A commonly faced challenge is that mental wellbeing is not supported as effectively as it should be. When effective prevention is paired with enhanced treatment developed on a multidisciplinary approach, mental health and emotional wellbeing in young people can be positively enhanced. Major health organizations including the Center for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health encourage health professionals and other stakeholders to focus on addressing emotional wellbeing and mental health of young people.

Keywords: social emotional wellbeing, disability, learning, prevention

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Authors: Jang-hyun Oh, Kyoung-ho Choi, Jea-sun Lee

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The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic brought reconsiderations and doubts about urban density as compact cities became epidemic hot spots. Density, though, provides an upside in that medical services required to protect citizens against the spread of disease are concentrated within compact cities, which helps reduce the mortality rate. Sociodemographic characteristics are also a crucial factor in determining the vulnerability of the population, and the purpose of this study is to empirically discover how these three urban factors affect the severity of the epidemic impacts. The study aimed to investigate the influential relationships between urban factors and epidemic impacts and provide answers to whether superb medical service in compact cities can scale down the impacts of COVID-19. SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) was applied as a suitable research method for verifying interrelationships between factors based on theoretical grounds. The study accounted for 144 municipalities in South Korea during periods from the first emergence of COVID-19 to December 31st, 2022. The study collected data related to infection and mortality cases from each municipality, and it holds significance as primary research that enlightens the aspects of epidemic impact concerning urban settings and investigates for the first time the mediated effects of medical service. The result of the evaluation shows that compact cities are most likely to have lower sociodemographic vulnerability and better quality of medical service, while cities with low density contain a higher portion of vulnerable populations and poorer medical services. However, the quality of medical service had no significant influence in reducing neither the infection rate nor the mortality rate. Instead, density acted as the major influencing factor in the infection rate, while sociodemographic vulnerability was the major determinant of the mortality rate. Thus, the findings strongly paraphrase that compact cities, although with high infection rates, tend to have lower mortality rates due to less vulnerability in sociodemographics, Whereas death was more frequent in less dense cities due to higher portions of vulnerable populations such as the elderly and low-income classes. Findings suggest an important lesson for post-pandemic urban planning-intrinsic characteristics of urban settings, such as density and population, must be taken into account to effectively counteract future epidemics and minimize the severity of their impacts. Moreover, the study is expected to contribute as a primary reference material for follow-up studies that further investigate related subjects, including urban medical services during the pandemic.

Keywords: urban planning, sociodemographic vulnerability, medical service, COVID-19, pandemic

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Authors: Mehmet Bekmezci, Ismail Celik, Ismail Sahin, Ahmet Kiray, A. Oguz Akturk

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In this research, students’ scientific attitude, computer anxiety, educational use of the Internet, academic achievement, and problematic use of the Internet are analyzed based on different variables (gender, parents’ educational level and daily access to the Internet). The research group involves 361 students from two middle schools which are located in the center of Konya. The “general survey method” is adopted in the research. In accordance with the purpose of the study, percentage, mean, standard deviation, independent samples t--‐test, ANOVA (variance) are employed in the study. A total of four scales are implemented. These four scales include a total of 13 sub-dimensions. The scores from these scales and their subscales are studied in terms of various variables. In the research, students’ scientific attitude, computer anxiety, educational use of the Internet, the problematic Internet use and academic achievement (gender, parent educational level, and daily access to the Internet) are investigated based on various variables and some significant relations are found.

Keywords: scientific attitude, educational use of the internet, computer anxiety, problematic use of the internet, academic achievement

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Authors: May B. Eclar, Romeo M. Alip, Ailyn C. Eay, Jennifer M. Alip, Michelle A. Mejica, Eloy C.eclar

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The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly changed the educational landscape of the Philippines. The groups affected by these changes are the poor and those living in the Geographically Isolated and Depressed Areas (GIDA), such as the Indigenous Peoples (IP). This was heavily experienced by the ten IP schools in Zambales, a province in the country. With this in mind, plus other factors relative to safety, the Schools Division of Zambales selected these ten schools to conduct the pilot implementation of in-person classes two (2) years after the country-wide school closures. This study aimed to explore the lived experiences of the school heads of the first ten Indigenous People’s (IP) schools that shifted from distance learning to limited in-person learning. These include the challenges met and the coping mechanism they set to overcome the challenges. The study is linked to experiential learning theory as it focuses on the idea that the best way to learn things is by having experiences). It made use of qualitative research, specifically phenomenology. All the ten school heads from the IP schools were chosen as participants in the study. Afterward, participants underwent semi-structured interviews, both individual and focus group discussions, for triangulation. Data were analyzed through thematic analysis. As a result, the study found that most IP schools did not struggle to convince parents to send their children back to school as they downplay the pandemic threat due to their geographical location. The parents struggled the most during modular learning since many of them are either illiterate, too old to teach their children, busy with their lands, or have too many children to teach. Moreover, there is a meager vaccination rate in the ten barangays where the schools are located because of local beliefs. In terms of financial needs, school heads did not find it difficult even though funding is needed to adjust the schools to the new normal because of the financial support coming from the central office. Technical assistance was also provided to the schools by division personnel. Teachers also welcomed the idea of shifting back to in-person classes, and minor challenges were met but were solved immediately through various mechanisms. Learning losses were evident since most learners struggled with essential reading, writing, and counting skills. Although the community has positively received the conduct of in-person classes, the challenges these IP schools have been experiencing pre-pandemic were also exacerbated due to the school closures. It is therefore recommended that constant monitoring and provision of support must continue to solve other challenges the ten IP schools are still experiencing due to in-person classes

Keywords: In-person learning, indigenous peoples, phenomenology, philippines

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Authors: Ashneel Ajay Singh, Naoki Suzuki, Kazumi Sakuramoto, Swastika Roshni, Paras Nath, Alok Kalla

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Albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga) is one of the commercially important species of tuna in the North Pacific region. Despite the long history of albacore fisheries in the Pacific, its ecological characteristics are not sufficiently understood. The effects of changing climate on numerous commercially and ecologically important fish species including albacore tuna have been documented over the past decades. The objective of this study was to explore and elucidate the relationship of environmental variables with the stock parameters of albacore tuna. The relationship of the North Pacific albacore tuna recruitment (R), spawning stock biomass (SSB) and recruits per spawning biomass (RPS) from 1970 to 2012 with the environmental factors of sea surface temperature (SST), Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO), El Niño southern oscillation (ENSO) and Pacific warm pool index (PWI) was construed. SST and PDO were used as independent variables with SSB to construct stock reproduction models for R and RPS as they showed most significant relationship with the dependent variables. ENSO and PWI were excluded due to collinearity effects with SST and PDO. Model selections were based on R2 values, Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and significant parameter estimates at p<0.05. Models with single independent variables of SST, PDO, ENSO and PWI were also constructed to illuminate their individual effect on albacore R and RPS. From the results it can be said that SST and PDO resulted in the most significant models for reproducing North Pacific albacore tuna R and RPS time series. SST has the highest impact on albacore R and RPS when comparing models with single environmental variables. It is important for fishery managers and decision makers to incorporate the findings into their albacore tuna management plans for the North Pacific Oceanic region.

Keywords: Albacore tuna, El Niño southern oscillation, Pacific decadal oscillation, sea surface temperature

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Authors: Samah Said, Muhsin Elie Rahhal

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Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, disposable plastic-based face masks were excessively used worldwide. Therefore, the production and consumption rates of these masks were significantly brought up, which led to severe environmental problems. The main purpose of this research is to test the possibility of reinforcing soil deposits with mask fibers to reuse pandemic-generated waste materials. When testing the compaction properties, the sand was reinforced with a fiber content that increased from 0% to 0.5%, with successive small increments of 0.1%. The optimum content of 0.1% remarkably increased the maximum dry density of the soil and dropped its optimum moisture content. Add to that, it was noticed that 15 mm and rectangular chips were, respectively, the optimum fiber length and shape to maximize the improvement of the sand compaction properties. Regarding the shear strength, fiber contents of 0.1%, 0.25%, and 0.5% were adopted. The direct shear tests have shown that the highest enhancement was observed for the optimum fiber content of 0.25%. Similarly to compaction tests, 15 mm and rectangular chips were respectively the optimum fiber length and shape to extremely enhance the shear resistance of the tested sand.

Keywords: COVID-19, mask fibers, compaction properties, soil reinforcement, shear resistance

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Authors: Kaori Narita, Juan de Dios Tena Horrillo, Claudio Detotto

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Decisions on replacement of leaders are of significance and high prevalence in any organization, and concerns many of its stakeholders, whether it is a leader in a political party or a CEO of a firm, as indicated by high media coverage of such events. This merits an investigation into the consequences and implications of a leadership change on the performances and behavior of organizations and their workers. Sport economics provides a fruitful field to explore these issues due to the high frequencies of managerial changes in professional sports clubs and the transparency and regularity of observations of team performance and players’ abilities. Much of the existing research on managerial change focuses on how this affects the performance of an organization. However, there is scarcely attention paid to the consequences of such events on the behavior of individuals within the organization. Changes in behavior and attitudes of a group of workers due to a managerial change could be of great interest in management science, psychology, and operational research. On the other hand, these changes cannot be observed in the final outcome of the organization, as this is affected by many other unobserved shocks, for example, the stress level of workers with the need to deal with a difficult situation. To fill this gap, this study shows the first attempt to evaluate the impact of managerial change on players’ behaviors such as attack intensity, aggressiveness, and efforts. The data used in this study is from the top tier Italian football league (“Serie A”), where an average of 13 within season replacements of head coaches were observed over the period of seasons from 2000/2001 to 2017/18. The preliminary estimation employs Pooled Ordinary Least Square (POLS) and club-season Fixed Effect (FE) in order to assess the marginal effect of having a new manager on the number of shots, corners and red/yellow cards after controlling for a home-field advantage, ex ante abilities and current positions in the league of a team and their opponent. The results from this preliminary estimation suggest that the teams do not show a significant difference in their behaviors before and after the managerial change. To build on these preliminary results, other methods, including propensity score matching and non-linear model estimates, will be used. Moreover, the study will further investigate these issues by considering other measurements of attack intensity, aggressiveness, and efforts, such as possessions, a number of fouls and the athletic performance of players, respectively. Finally, the study is going to investigate whether these results vary over the characteristics of a new head coach, for example, their age and experience as a manager and a player. Thus far, this study suggests that certain behaviours of individuals in an organisation are not immediately affected by a change in leadership. To confirm this preliminary finding and lead to a more solid conclusion, further investigation will be conducted in the aforementioned manner, and the results will be elaborated in the conference.

Keywords: behaviour, effort, manager characteristics, managerial change, sport economics

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Authors: Analiza Acuña-Villacorte

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The underlying principle behind the harmonization in international education does not solely aim for the comparability but also the compatibility of outputs produced. The international standard in the different professions particularly in engineering defines the required graduate attributes to attain suitable qualifications and recognitions. This study described the language practices of the Electronics Engineering students of Bulacan State University, Philippines who will be deployed for their internship program. The purpose of the study was achieved by determining the language proficiency of the students in terms of speaking, listening, reading, and writing, and checking the adherence of the University to the commitment of intensifying community building for the Association of Southeast Asian Nation Vision 2020. The analysis of variance of the variables defined the significance between the causal variables and dependent variables. Thus, this study identified the mechanism that would regulate language practices in the Electronics Engineering program.

Keywords: communicative competence, language practices, mechanisms, outcomes-based education

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Authors: Jakob Krause

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Past Financial Crisis has shown that contemporary risk management models provide an unjustified sense of security and fail miserably in situations in which they are needed the most. In this paper, we start from the assumption that risk is a notion that changes over time and therefore past data points only have limited explanatory power for the current situation. Our objective is to derive the optimal amount of representative information by optimizing between the two adverse forces of estimator convergence, incentivizing us to use as much data as possible, and the aforementioned non-representativeness doing the opposite. In this endeavor, the cornerstone assumption of having access to identically distributed random variables is weakened and substituted by the assumption that the law of the data generating process changes over time. Hence, in this paper, we give a quantitative theory on how to perform statistical analysis in non-ergodic systems. As an application, we discuss the impact of a paragraph in the last iteration of proposals by the Basel Committee on Banking Regulation. We start from the premise that the severity of assumptions should correspond to the robustness of the system they describe. Hence, in the formal description of physical systems, the level of assumptions can be much higher. It follows that every concept that is carried over from the natural sciences to economics must be checked for its plausibility in the new surroundings. Most of the probability theory has been developed for the analysis of physical systems and is based on the independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) assumption. In Economics both parts of the i.i.d. assumption are inappropriate. However, only dependence has, so far, been weakened to a sufficient degree. In this paper, an appropriate class of non-stationary processes is used, and their law is tied to a formal object measuring representativeness. Subsequently, that data set is identified that on average minimizes the estimation error stemming from both, insufficient and non-representative, data. Applications are far reaching in a variety of fields. In the paper itself, we apply the results in order to analyze a paragraph in the Basel 3 framework on banking regulation with severe implications on financial stability. Beyond the realm of finance, other potential applications include the reproducibility crisis in the social sciences (but not in the natural sciences) and modeling limited understanding and learning behavior in economics.

Keywords: banking regulation, non-ergodicity, risk management, semimartingale modeling

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Authors: Naveed Ul Hassan, Bilal Aziz, Maryam Mushtaq, Imran Ameen Khan

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Equity risk premium (ERP) is the stock return in excess of risk free return. Even though it is an essential topic of finance but still there is no common consensus upon its forecasting. For forecasting ERP, apart from the macroeconomic variables attention is devoted to technical indicators as well. For this purpose, set of 14 technical and 14 macro-economic variables is selected and all forecasts are generated based on a standard predictive regression framework, where ERP is regressed on a constant and a lag of a macroeconomic variable or technical indicator. The comparative results showed that technical indicators provide better indications about ERP estimates as compared to macro-economic variables. The relative strength of ERP predictability is also investigated by using National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) data of business cycle expansion and recessions and found that ERP predictability is more than twice for recessions as compared to expansions.

Keywords: equity risk premium, forecasting, macroeconomic indicators, technical indicators

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Authors: Nisith K. Datta, Rakesh Bharti

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The purpose of the study was to find out the effects of Aquatic and Land plyometric training on selected physical variables in intercollegiate male handball players. To achieve this purpose of the study, forty five handball players of Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat, Gujarat were selected as players at random and their age ranged between 18 to 21 years. The selected players were divided into three equal groups of fifteen players each. Group I underwent Aquatic plyometric training, Group II underwent Land plyometric training and Group III Control group for three days per week for twelve weeks. Control Group did not participate in any special training programme apart from their regular activities as per their curriculum. The following physical fitness variables namely speed; leg explosive power and agility were selected as dependent variables. All the players of three groups were tested on selected dependent variables prior to and immediately after the training programme. The analysis of covariance was used to analyze the significant difference, if any among the groups. Since, three groups were compared, whenever the obtained ‘F’ ratio for adjusted post test was found to be significant, the Scheffe’s test to find out the paired mean differences, if any. The 0.05 level of confidence was fixed as the level of significance to test the ‘F’ ratio obtained by the analysis of covariance, which was considered as an appropriate. The result of the study indicates due to Aquatic and Land plyometric training on speed, explosive power, and agility has been improved significantly.

Keywords: aquatic training, explosive power, plyometric training, speed

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Authors: Laura Zizka, Gaby Probst

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The Covid-19 pandemic has affected the way Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have given their courses. From emergency remote where all students and faculty were immediately confined to home teaching and learning, the continuing evolving sanitary situation obliged HEIs to adopt other methods of teaching and learning from blended courses that included both synchronous and asynchronous courses and activities to hy-flex models where some students were on campus while others followed the course simultaneously online. Each semester brought new challenges for HEIs and, subsequently, additional emotional reactions. This paper investigates the affective side of teaching and learning in various online modalities and its toll on students and faculty members over the past three semesters. The findings confirm that students and faculty who have more self-efficacy, flexibility, and resilience reported positive emotions and embraced the opportunities that these past semesters have offered. While HEIs have begun a new semester in an attempt to return to ‘normal’ face-to-face courses, this paper posits that there are lessons to be learned from these past three semesters. The opportunities that arose from the challenge of the pandemic should be considered when moving forward by focusing on a greater emphasis on the affective aspect of teaching and learning in HEIs worldwide.

Keywords: effective teaching and learning, higher education, engagement, interaction, motivation

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Authors: E. Tchandao Mangamana, V. Cariou, E. Vigneau, R. Glele Kakai, E. M. Qannari

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A new definition of a latent variable associated with a dataset makes it possible to propose variants of the PLS2 regression and the multi-block PLS (MB-PLS). We shall refer to these variants as Rd-PLS regression and Rd-MB-PLS respectively because they are inspired by both Redundancy analysis and PLS regression. Usually, a latent variable t associated with a dataset Z is defined as a linear combination of the variables of Z with the constraint that the length of the loading weights vector equals 1. Formally, t=Zw with ‖w‖=1. Denoting by Z' the transpose of Z, we define herein, a latent variable by t=ZZ’q with the constraint that the auxiliary variable q has a norm equal to 1. This new definition of a latent variable entails that, as previously, t is a linear combination of the variables in Z and, in addition, the loading vector w=Z’q is constrained to be a linear combination of the rows of Z. More importantly, t could be interpreted as a kind of projection of the auxiliary variable q onto the space generated by the variables in Z, since it is collinear to the first PLS1 component of q onto Z. Consider the situation in which we aim to predict a dataset Y from another dataset X. These two datasets relate to the same individuals and are assumed to be centered. Let us consider a latent variable u=YY’q to which we associate the variable t= XX’YY’q. Rd-PLS consists in seeking q (and therefore u and t) so that the covariance between t and u is maximum. The solution to this problem is straightforward and consists in setting q to the eigenvector of YY’XX’YY’ associated with the largest eigenvalue. For the determination of higher order components, we deflate X and Y with respect to the latent variable t. Extending Rd-PLS to the context of multi-block data is relatively easy. Starting from a latent variable u=YY’q, we consider its ‘projection’ on the space generated by the variables of each block Xk (k=1, ..., K) namely, tk= XkXk'YY’q. Thereafter, Rd-MB-PLS seeks q in order to maximize the average of the covariances of u with tk (k=1, ..., K). The solution to this problem is given by q, eigenvector of YY’XX’YY’, where X is the dataset obtained by horizontally merging datasets Xk (k=1, ..., K). For the determination of latent variables of order higher than 1, we use a deflation of Y and Xk with respect to the variable t= XX’YY’q. In the same vein, extending Rd-MB-PLS to the path modeling setting is straightforward. Methods are illustrated on the basis of case studies and performance of Rd-PLS and Rd-MB-PLS in terms of prediction is compared to that of PLS2 and MB-PLS.

Keywords: multiblock data analysis, partial least squares regression, path modeling, redundancy analysis

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Authors: Geumchan Hwang

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Professional sport leagues in Europe and North America are shut down due to novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak. Football leagues in Europe (e.g., La Liga, English Premier League, Bundesliga, Serie A, and Ligue 1) and big four professional sport leagues in North America (e.g., National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, and National Hockey League) are indefinitely suspended or delayed. COVID-19 outbreak has a growing negative impact on economics of sport leagues. For example, loss of revenue in Europe’s top five leagues due to the COVID-19 pandemic was estimated at € 4 billion and loss of revenue in the NBA was estimated at $650 million as of March 2020. In the unprecedented difficult situation, sport teams and leagues try to communicate with sport fans through diverse media platforms. In sport, however, very few studies have been done regarding how sport organizations effectively communicate with sport fans during pandemics, such as COVID-19 outbreak. Understanding sport organizations’ crisis communication is important to develop effective crisis management strategies for sport organizations. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to examine how sport organizations communicate with sport fans via online platforms in COVID-19 outbreak and how sport fans evaluate their communication strategies. 9 official sport league sites (i.e., five major football leagues in Europe and four major sport leagues in North America) and COVID-19 news articles published between January and June in 2020 will be analyzed in terms of coronavirus information, teams and players’ live update, fan interaction, fan support, and community engagement. In addition, comments posted on social media sites (i.e., Facebook and Twitter) of major sport leagues will be also analyzed to examine how sport fans perceive online messages provided by sport leagues as an effective communication strategy. To measure the effectiveness of crisis communication performance, five components (i.e., prompt, compassionate, honest, informative, and interactive) of crisis communication will be collected from leagues’ official websites information and social media posts. Upon completing data collection, content analysis method will be used to evaluate effectiveness of crisis communication among 9 professional sport leagues. The results of the study will provide athletic directors, administrators, and public relations managers in sport organizations with practical information regarding how athlete celebrities and sport organizations should interact with their fans in pandemic situations. In particular, this study will contribute to developing specific crisis management plan for sport organizations. For instance, football teams and leagues in Europe will be able to create standard manuals to minimize damages caused by disease outbreak, such as COVID-19 outbreak.

Keywords: COVID-19, communication, sport leagues, fans

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Authors: Karima Afif, Jacinthe Clouthier, Marie-Ève Gaboury-Bonhomme, Véronique Provencher, Morgane Leclercq

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This paper investigates how food banks have secured and improved their supply chain resilience to pursue their mission during COVID-19. More specifically, the implications of the COVID-19 outbreak on the food aid needs, donations, operations, and mission of food banks are explored. To develop an in-depth understanding of the reactions and actions that they have been taken, a qualitative approach has been adopted using a multiple case study design. Data from two focus groups, 12 semi-structured interviews with key informants covering all supply chain levels, and field notes from 7 workplace observations in donation points, food bank facilities, and community-based organizations in Québec (Canada) are triangulated. The results highlight that the pandemic has significantly and unpredictably increased the number of food aid demands, causing significant operational challenges for the food banks supply chain, as well as an unprecedented shortage of donations to food banks. Besides, the sanitary measures have required several adaptative strategies. These implications have caused food banks to enhance their operational flexibility, optimize their logistics operations, enhance their human resources management, and expand collaboration within their supply chain.

Keywords: supply chain resilience, food banks, food donations, food aid, COVID-19

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Authors: J. Cabral, C. Barreto Carvalho, C. da Motta, M. Sousa

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Community integration is a construct that an increasing body of research has shown to have a significant impact in well-being and recovery of people with psychiatric problems. However, there are few studies that explore which factors can be associated and predict community integration. Moreover, community integration has been mostly studied in minority groups, and currently literature on the definition and manifestation of community integration in the more general population is scarce. Thus, the current study aims to characterize community integration and explore possible predictor variables in a sample of participants with psychiatric problems (PP, N=183) and a sample of participants from the general population (GP, N=211). Results show that people with psychiatric problems present above average values of community integration, but are significantly lower than their healthy counterparts. It was also possible to observe that community integration does not vary in terms of the socio-demographic characteristics of both groups in this study. Correlation and multiple regression showed that, among several variables that literature present as relevant in the community integration process, only three variables emerged as having the most explanatory value in community integration of both groups: sense of community, basic needs satisfaction and submission. These results also shown that those variables have increased explanatory power in the PP sample, which leads us to emphasize the need to address this issue in future studies and increase the understanding of the factors that can be involved in the promotion of community integration, in order to devise more effective interventions in this field.

Keywords: community integration, mental illness, predictors, psychiatric problems

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Authors: Dirson Santos De Campos, Deller James Ferreira, Anderson Cavalcante Gonçalves, Uyara Ferreira Silva

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Rubrics to learning research provide many evaluation criteria and expected performance standards linked to defined student activity for learning and pedagogical objectives. Despite the rubric being used in education at all levels, academic literature on rubrics as a tool to support research in SQL Education is quite rare. There is a large class of SQL queries is syntactically correct, but certainly, not all are semantically correct. Detecting and correcting errors is a recurring problem in SQL education. In this paper, we usthe Rubric Abstract Framework (RAF), which consists of steps, that allows us to map the information to measure student performance guided by didactic objectives defined by the teacher as long as it is contextualized domain modeling by rubric. An empirical study was done that demonstrates how rubrics can mitigate student difficulties in finding logical errors and easing teacher workload in SQL education. Detecting and correcting logical errors is an important skill for students. Researchers have proposed several ways to improve SQL education because understanding this paradigm skills are crucial in software engineering and computer science. The RAF instantiation was using in an empirical study developed during the COVID-19 pandemic in database course. The pandemic transformed face-to-face and remote education, without presential classes. The lab activities were conducted remotely, which hinders the teaching-learning process, in particular for this research, in verifying the evidence or statements of knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) of students. Various research in academia and industry involved databases. The innovation proposed in this paper is the approach used where the results obtained when using rubrics to map logical errors in query formulation have been analyzed with gains obtained by students empirically verified. The research approach can be used in the post-pandemic period in both classroom and distance learning.

Keywords: rubric, logical error, structured query language (SQL), empirical study, SQL education

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Authors: Muhamad Syafiq Hakimi Kamaruddin, Norhidayah Suleiman

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Ginger extracts (Zingiber officinale Rosc.) have been attributed therapeutic properties primarily as antioxidant, anticancer, and anti-inflammatory properties. Conventional extractions including Soxhlet and maceration are commonly used to extract the bioactive compounds from plant material. Nevertheless, high energy consumption and being non-environmentally friendly are the predominant limitations of the conventional extractions method. Herein, green technology, namely supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) extraction, is used to study process variables' effects on extract yields. Herein, green technology, namely supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) extraction, is used to study process variables' effects on extract yields. A pressure (10-30 MPa), temperature (40-60 °C), and median particle size (300-600 µm) were conducted at a CO2 flow rate of 0.9 ± 0.2 g/min for 120 mins. The highest overall yield was 4.58% obtained by the scCO2 extraction conditions of 300 bar and 60 °C with 300µm of ginger powder for 120 mins. In comparison, the yield of the extract was increased considerably within a short extraction time. The results show that scCO2 has a remarkable ability over ginger extract and is a promising technology for extracting bioactive compounds from plant material.

Keywords: conventional, ginger, non-environmentally, supercritical carbon dioxide, technology

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Authors: Manan Aslam, Shafqat Rasool

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This paper attempts to examine impact of major factors affecting marketed surplus of seed cotton in district Khanewal (Punjab) using primary source of data. A representative sample of 40 cotton farmers was selected using stratified random sampling technique. The impact of major factors on marketed surplus of seed cotton growers was estimated by employing double log form of regression analysis. The value of adjusted R2 was 0.64 whereas the F-value was 10.81. The findings of analysis revealed that experience of farmers, education of farmers, area under cotton crop and distance from wholesale market were the significant variables affecting marketed surplus of cotton whereas the variables (marketing cost and sale price) showed insignificant impact. The study suggests improving prevalent marketing practices to increase volume of marketed surplus of cotton in district Khanewal.

Keywords: seed cotton, marketed surplus, double log regression analysis

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Authors: V. Charaia

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This article presents SWOT analysis for Georgian - South Ossetian conflict. The research analyzes socio-economic aspects and considers future prospects for all sides including neighbor countries and regions. Also it includes the possibilities of positive intervention of neighbor countries to solve the conflict or to mitigate its negative results. The main question of the article is: What will it take to award Georgians and South Ossetians with a peace dividend?

Keywords: conflict economics, investments, trade, remittances

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Authors: Nazish Badar

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Background: To investigate the epidemic resurgent wave of influenza A (H1N1) pdm09 infections during 2015-16 Influenza season(Nov,15 –Feb,16) we compared epidemiological features of influenza A (H1N1) pdm09 associated hospitalizations and deaths during this period in Pakistan. Methods: Respiratory samples were tested using CDC Real-Time RT-PCR protocols. Demographic and epidemiological data was analyzed using SPSS. Risk ratio was calculated between age groups to compare patients that were hospitalized and died due to influenza A (H1N1) pdm09 during this period. Results: A total of 1970 specimens were analyzed; influenza virus was detected in 494(25%) samples, including 458(93%) Influenza type A and 36(7%) influenza type B viruses. Amongst influenza A viruses, 351(77%) A(H1N1) pdm09 and 107(23%) were A/H3N2. Influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 peaked in January 2016 when 250(54%) of tested patients were positive. The resurgent waves increased hospitalizations due to pdmH1N1 as compared to the rest part of the year. Overall 267(76%) A(H1N1) pdm09 cases were hospitalized. Adults ≥18 years showed the highest relative risk of hospitalization (1.2). Median interval of hospitalization and symptom onset was five days for all age groups. During this period, a total of 34 laboratory-confirmed deaths associated with pandemic influenza A (H1N1) were reported out of 1970 cases, the case fatality rate was 1.72%. the male to female ratio was 2:1in reported deaths. The majority of the deaths during that period occurred in adults ≥18 years of age. Overall median age of the death cases was 42.8 years with underlying medical conditions. The median number of days between symptom onset was two days. The diagnosis upon admission in influenza-associated fatal cases was pneumonia (53%). Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome 9 (26%), eight out of which (88%) required mechanical ventilation. Conclusions: The present resurgence of pandemic virus cannot be attributed to a single factor. The prolong cold and dry weather, possibility of drift in virus and absence of annual flu vaccination may have played an integrated role in resurfacing of pandemic virus.

Keywords: influenza A (H1N1)pdm 09, resurgence, epidemiology, Pakistan

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Authors: Inese Trusina, Elita Jermolajeva

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Global challenges require a transition from the existing linear economic model to a model that will consider nature as a life support system for the developmenton the way to social well-being in the frame of the ecological economics paradigm. The article presentsbasic definitions for the development of formalized description of sustainabledevelopment monitoring. It provides examples of calculating the parameters of monitoring for the Baltic Sea region countries and their primary interpretation.

Keywords: sustainability, development, power, ecological economics, regional economic, monitoring

Procedia PDF Downloads 121

Authors: Rim Baroudi

Abstract:

The notion of the context-induced metaphors refers to the role of different contextual aspects (socio-cultural, linguistic, bodily-physical, and ideological) in affecting metaphor production. This has not been investigated in visual discourse. This paper intends to extend the focus of this research interest to study context-induced metaphors in newspapers’ cartoons. It seeks to account for different contextual variables influencing the production of metaphors in cartoons placing special focus on the ideological variable. The aim is to demonstrate how different contextual aspects are conditioned by the ideological variable. The study applied critical metaphor approach to analyse contextual variables shaping the conceptualization of ‘the Islamic State’ in the cartoons of 3 newspapers (Al-Ryadh newspaper, Tehran Times, and The New York Times). Findings have revealed the decisive role of the ideological context in conditioning and priming the rest of contextual variables in the conceptualisation of ‘the Islamic State’ in political cartoons of the three newspapers. These findings bear special importance to the study of bodily-physical and socio-cultural variables inducing and shaping political cognition in political cartoons in a way consistent with the ideological framework within which newspapers operate.

Keywords: context-induced metaphors, ideological context, the Islamic State, political cartoons

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Authors: M. I. Abdelhamid, A. O. Ghallab, R. S. Ettouney, M. A. El-Rifai

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An optimization scheme based on COM server is suggested for communication between Genetic Algorithm (GA) toolbox of MATLAB and Aspen HYSYS. The structure and details of the proposed framework are discussed. The power of the developed scheme is illustrated by its application to the optimization of a recently developed natural gas liquefaction process in which Aspen HYSYS was used for minimization of the power consumption by optimizing the values of five operating variables. In this work, optimization by coupling between the GA in MATLAB and Aspen HYSYS model of the same process using the same five decision variables enabled improvements in power consumption by 3.3%, when 77% of the natural gas feed is liquefied. Also on inclusion of the flow rates of both nitrogen and carbon dioxide refrigerants as two additional decision variables, the power consumption decreased by 6.5% for a 78% liquefaction of the natural gas feed.

Keywords: stranded gas liquefaction, genetic algorithm, COM server, single nitrogen expansion, carbon dioxide pre-cooling

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Authors: John Oupa Hlatshwayo

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Background: There seem to be preferred digital business models with varying impacts within hospitality, tourism and catering sub-sectors explored through online commerce, as all are ingrained in the business economics domain. Aim: A study aims to establish if such phenomena (Digital Business Models) exist and to what extent if any, within the hospitality, tourism and catering industries, respectively. Setting: This is a qualitative study conducted by exploring several (Four) institutions globally through Case Studies. Method: This research explored explanatory case studies to answer questions about ‘how’ or ’why’ with little control by a researcher over the occurrence of events. It is qualitative research, deductive, and inductive methods. Hence, a comprehensive approach to analyzing qualitative data was attainable through immersion by reading to understand the information. Findings: The results corroborated the notion that digital business models are applicable, by and large, in business economics. Thus, three sectors wherein enterprises operate in the business economics sphere have been narrowed down i.e. hospitality, tourism and catering, are also referred to as triangular polygons due to the atypical nature of being ‘stand-alone’, yet ‘sub-sectors’, but there are confounding factors to consider. Conclusion: The significance of digital business models and digital transformation shows an inevitable merger between business and technology within Hospitality, Tourism, and Catering. Contribution: Such symbiotic relationship of business and technology, persistent evolution of clients’ interface with end-products, forever changing market, current adaptation as well as adjustment to ‘new world order’ by enterprises must be embraced constantly without fail by Business Practitioners, Academics, Business Students, Organizations and Governments.

Keywords: digital business models, hospitality, tourism, catering, business economics

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Authors: Menan M. Elsayed, Hussein A. Heshmat

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The aim of the study is to determine the effect of 100 mg/d Pregnenolone on biological variables after plyometric training for volleyball players. Methods: 15 male volleyball players participated in this study. Serum levels of testosterone, creatine phosphokinase (CPK), lactate, and glucose were measured before and post-exercise. Results: Testosterone was not altered, while creatine phosphokinase (CPK), lactate, and glucose levels significantly decreased. It is recommended to use Pregnenolone administration to decreased muscle damage and delayed fatigue for volleyball players after plyometric training. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that oral Pregnenolone administration of 100 mg/d might decrease muscle damage and delayed fatigue which may affect positively the volleyball players after a plyometric training bout.

Keywords: biological variables, plyometric exercise program, pregnenolone, volleyball player

Procedia PDF Downloads 229

Authors: Grienggrai Rajchakit

Abstract:

As we all know that coronavirus is announced as a pandemic in the world by WHO. It is speeded all over the world with few days of time. To control this spreading, every citizen maintains social distance and self-preventive measures are the best strategies. As of now, many researchers and scientists are continuing their research in finding out the exact vaccine. The machine learning model finds that the coronavirus disease behaves in an exponential manner. To abolish the consequence of this pandemic, an efficient step should be taken to analyze this disease. In this paper, a recurrent neural network model is chosen to predict the number of active cases in a particular state. To make this prediction of active cases, we need a database. The database of COVID-19 is downloaded from the KAGGLE website and is analyzed by applying a recurrent LSTM neural network with univariant features to predict the number of active cases of patients suffering from the corona virus. The downloaded database is divided into training and testing the chosen neural network model. The model is trained with the training data set and tested with a testing dataset to predict the number of active cases in a particular state; here, we have concentrated on Andhra Pradesh state.

Keywords: COVID-19, coronavirus, KAGGLE, LSTM neural network, machine learning

Procedia PDF Downloads 160