• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
• /
• v.21 no.1
• /
• pp.70-76
• /
• 2021

The appearance of COVID-19 virus has affected many aspects of our life. These include and not limited to social, financial and economic changes. One of the most important impacts is the economic effects. Many countries have taken actions to continue the teaching process through online teaching platforms. The students are expected to graduate during the next few semesters with certificates that include some online-completed courses and their graduation certificates are called mixed certificates. This paper considers graduation mixed certificates with some online courses and its impact on graduates seeking jobs. First, we study how well the mixed certificates are accepted by job market. In other words, how different companies, organizations and even governmental entities would accept such certificates when hiring. We study the perception of job market for such certificates for different learning fields. Secondly, we study how well the online courses are accepted by the students keeping in mind that these students are used to traditional face to face teaching. Finally, we paper our results and recommendations according to the collected data from the surveys. Some of the results show that about 60% of companies don't have policies to encourage hiring graduates with mixed certificates. Also, colleges are almost divided evenly between preferring face to face and preferring online teaching.

• Journal of Public Diplomacy
• /
• v.1 no.1
• /
• pp.80-110
• /
• 2021

Public diplomacy (PD) scholars tend to consider two main principals: the country or agent that conducts PD (Actor A), and target groups in the host country in which PD is conducted (Actor B). The field currently lacks theories of how communications between Actors A and B can be disrupted by a third party, such as a group of motivated trolls, an organised advocacy group, or a hostile country and its agents. The purpose of this article is to outline some theoretical considerations for how the PD research field might move away from a two-actor model of PD to one in which disruption is part of the discussion. The case study explores the activities of an interest group called Media Watchdogs of Sweden (MEWAS). MEWAS was a group of around 200 members who met in a hidden Facebook group to coordinate off-platform activities aimed at influencing perceptions of how the Swedish government handled the COVID-19 pandemic in the eyes of foreign governments, researchers, decision-makers, and media. Much critical news coverage in the international press has been linked to this group. Unpacking some of MEWAS' activities, which can be considered a quite typical mixture of legitimate and illegitimate communication techniques used by activist groups, can help to shed light on some difficult questions regarding disruption in PD.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
• /
• v.15 no.5
• /
• pp.1630-1648
• /
• 2021

Owing to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, the pharmaceutical industry has attracted considerable attention, spurred by the widespread expectation of vaccine development. In this study, we collect relevant topics from news articles related to COVID-19 and explore their links with two South Korean pharmaceutical indices, the Drug and Medicine index of the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ) Pharmaceutical index. We use generalized Dirichlet-multinomial regression (g-DMR) to reveal the dynamic topic distributions over metadata of index values. The results of our analysis, obtained using g-DMR, reveal that a greater focus on specific news topics has a significant relationship with fluctuations in the indices. We also provide practical and theoretical implications based on this analysis.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.30 no.12
• /
• pp.1843-1853
• /
• 2020

COVID-19, caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has spread globally and caused serious social and economic problems. The WHO has declared this outbreak a pandemic. Currently, there are no approved vaccines or antiviral drugs that prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection. Drugs already approved for clinical use would be ideal candidates for rapid development as COVID-19 treatments. In this work, we screened 1,473 FDA-approved drugs to identify inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 infection using cell-based assays. The antiviral activity of each compound was measured based on the immunofluorescent staining of infected cells using anti-dsRNA antibody. Twenty-nine drugs among those tested showed antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2. We report this new list of inhibitors to quickly provide basic information for consideration in developing potential therapies.

• International Journal of Knowledge Content Development & Technology
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.7-21
• /
• 2021

The study was a descriptive cross-sectional survey which investigated the reading preferences of secondary school students in Nigeria during the lockdown occasioned by COVID-19 pandemic. A hundred secondary school students in Ile- Ife and Ilesa in Osun State, Nigeria were the study respondents. Close ended self-administered questionnaire was used to obtain data. Of the one hundred questionnaire which were applied to the study respondents, ninety-three were retrieved. Data obtained were analyzed using simple frequencies and percentages. The study established that majority of respondents were not pressured to read but read for pleasure. Preference for a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books which was read for purposes ranging from academic, social, relaxation and information was indicated by respondents. Availability of reading materials determined reading preference of majority of respondents as many could not afford to access electronic books whether free or not. The researchers recommended that different types of reading materials that suit the reading preferences and meet the diverse purpose of reading should be provided for the secondary school students during lockdown to improve their reading habits. Public libraries should function during this lock down period within the guidelines of the appropriate health authorities, while school libraries should be equipped to offer virtual services during the lockdown and the students should be exposed to e-books for their reading pleasure.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.51 no.6
• /
• pp.648-660
• /
• 2021

Purpose: This study aimed to develop an emerging infectious disease (COVID-19) simulation module for nursing students and verify its effectiveness. Methods: A one-group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study was conducted with 78 under-graduate nursing students. A simulation module was developed based on the Jeffries simulation model. It consisted of pre-simulation lectures on disaster nursing including infectious disease pandemics, practice, and debriefings with serial tests. The scenarios contained pre-hospital settings, home visits, arrival to the emergency department, and follow-up home visits for rehabilitation. Results: Disaster preparedness showed a statistically significant improvement, as did competencies in disaster nursing. Confidence in disaster nursing increased, as did willingness to participate in disaster response. However, critical thinking did not show significant differences between time points, and neither did triage scores. Conclusion: The developed simulation program targeting an infectious disease disaster positively impacts disaster preparedness, disaster nursing competency, and confidence in disaster nursing, among nursing students. Further studies are required to develop a high-fidelity module for nursing students and medical personnel. Based on the current pandemic, we suggest developing more scenarios with virtual reality simulations, as disaster simulation nursing education is required now more than ever.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.12-21
• /
• 2022

The College of engineering's capstone design is student-team-centred learning based on project-based learning and is one of the most important courses for students aiming to be competent professional engineers capable of solving real industrial problems. Therefore, in order to resolve the capstone problems, various face-to-face contacts such as frequent industrial site visits, multiple meetings with diverse people including team members, and repeated contacts with course-supervising and team-advising professors are prerequisite processes. However, according to the transition to fully online education due to the global pandemic of COVID-19, capstone design courses for 2020 and 2021 were also conducted online. Based on the modified students' evaluations of educational quality (SEEQ) with 3 perspectives such as curriculum, teaching-staff and students themselves, this study compares their evaluations of offline capstone designs from 2013 to 2019 and online capstone designs in 2020 and 2021 in the context of COVID-19. In 3 perspectives, the difference in students' evaluation of the online capstone between the beginning and the end of the course shows a positive effect, which is better than the offline capstone. Also, in various dimensions for each perspective, the online capstone shows a better evaluation than the offline capstone. These findings suggest that the online capstone design curriculum can be expected to have educational effects as well as students' satisfaction with the online curriculum in the future.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.32 no.9
• /
• pp.1073-1085
• /
• 2022

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has continued for over 2 years, following the outbreak of coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) in 2019. It has resulted in enormous casualties and severe economic crises. The rapid development of vaccines and therapeutics against SARS-CoV-2 has helped slow the spread. In the meantime, various mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 have emerged to evade current vaccines and therapeutics. A better understanding of SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis is a prerequisite for developing efficient, advanced vaccines and therapeutics. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, a tremendous amount of research has been conducted to unveil SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis, from clinical observations to biochemical analysis at the molecular level upon viral infection. In this review, we discuss the molecular mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 propagation and pathogenesis, with an update on recent advances.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.172-178
• /
• 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has been reshaping the world by accelerating non-contact services and technologies in various domains. Hospitals as a healthcare system lie at the center of the dramatic change because of their fundamental roles: medical diagnosis and treatments. Leading experts in health, science, and technologies have predicted that robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) can drive such a hospital transformation. Accordingly, several government-led projects have been developed and started toward smarter hospitals, where robots and AI replace or support healthcare personnel, particularly in the diagnosis and non-surgical treatment procedures. This article inspects the remaining element of healthcare services, i.e., surgical treatment, focusing on evaluating whether or not currently available laparoscopic surgical robotic systems are sufficiently preparing for the era of post-COVID-19 when contactless is the new normal. Challenges and future directions towards an effective, fully non-contact surgery are identified and summarized, including remote surgery assistance, domain-expansion of robotic surgery, and seamless integration with smart operating rooms, followed by emphasis on robot tranining for surgical staff.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.23-38
• /
• 2023

Purpose: Most people are worried about contracting COVID-19, which in turn increases anxiety that they may have contracted COVID-19. Therefore, this study examines the effect of restaurant safety consisting of hygiene, store management, and countermeasure on trust, anxiety, satisfaction, and revisit intention. Research design, data and methodology: The data were collected from 537 consumers who had experiences of visiting a restaurant within the last 2 months and analyzed with SPSS 28.0 and SmartPLS 4.0 programs. Result: The hygiene, management, and countermeasure had a significant positive (+) effect on trust. Restaurant hygiene was found to have a significant negative (-) effect on anxiety, but countermeasure had a significant positive (+) effect on anxiety. Meanwhile, management did not appear to have a significant effect on anxiety. Trust was found to have a significant positive (+) effect on satisfaction and revisit intention. Anxiety was found to have a significant negative (-) effect on satisfaction but had no significant effect on revisit intention. Finally, satisfaction was found to have a significant positive (+) effect on revisit intention. Conclusions: As a result of the study, this study explained the safety of restaurants in the COVID-19 pandemic environment through the protective motivation theory.