• COVID-19
• 0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering close

The crisis surrounding COVID-19 has unsettled some of the key assumptions underlying the dominant understanding of internationalization in Australian higher education. In this paper, I discuss how ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has had numerous environmental consequences, including impacts on municipal waste management systems. Changes in consumption and waste disposal patterns and behaviours during the lockdown period have produced new challenges for solid waste management and waste diversion activities. This paper develops a conceptual model that reflects short-term changes in waste flows from households that are due to COVID-19 disruptions, focusing on the case of multi-residential buildings in Toronto, Canada. Multi-residential buildings are of interest because they differ from single family homes in several key ways that can produce some slightly different impacts of COVID-19 on waste flows and practices. Primary research for the study included interviews with 19 staff, residents and property managers of ten multi-residential buildings. All of the research took place while Toronto was still in partial-lockdown. Analysis of the interviews revealed five themes around the impact of COVID-19: (1) changes in garbage, recycling and organics flows, (2) new health and safety concerns, (3) changes in reuse and reduction practices, (4) changes in special waste and deposit-return bottle collections, and (5) changes in waste diversion and reduction education. Given the time frame of our study, we recognize these as short-term impacts and call for future research to determine how many of the changes are likely to perpetuate over the medium and longer term.

There has been an explosion of data published in a short period of time about COVID-19. It can be difficult for learners to stay on top of the latest information while also critically appraising each new piece of information. As a result, there can be a lack of local consensus on how to best manage these patients as new data continually becomes available.

In March 2020, the Australian Government added new temporary telehealth services to the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) to reduce the risk of patient–patient and patient–clinician transmission of the 2019 coronavirus (COVID-19). Here, the MBS statistics for general practitioner activity and the associated costs are described; a small increase in both activity and costs for the new MBS telehealth items were observed. The opportunities for future research and policy implications are also discussed.

Even though the COVID-19 pandemic has endured to be a serious threat for the societies, the state authorities have been seeking policies to re-open the schools and universities. It is clear that opening of the schools will cause more COVID-19 casualties, but the key question is how many students should attend the schools daily while keeping the casualties under control. In this paper, an artificial intelligence based long-term policy making algorithm has been developed to generate time varying policies for opening of the schools part-by-part. The key aim of the algorithm is to produce policies which maximize the number of the students attending the schools while minimizing the pandemic casualties under the worst-case uncertainties. The proposed algorithm consists of a multi-input-multi-output, uncertain, and adaptive background parametric model which is externally manipulated by the produced adaptive policy. Its long-term predictor assesses the possible future casualties under the current policy and its policy maker generates alternative solutions that minimize the future casualties. The results confirm that the proposed algorithm is able to generate effective policies which minimize the COVID-19 casualties while maximize the number of the students attending the schools under the worst-case uncertainties.

In recent years, the need for programming has increased. Self-study in programing is important for mastering it. However, many sites for learning programming only support personal computers. JavaScript Development Environment (JDE) was developed in our previous research. JDE is a single-page application that allows a user to learn programming on a smartphone. It imposes a small load on the server, thus many people can use it at the same time. Because it does not use a computer, it can be used in a classroom. Furthermore, JDE is suitable for distance learning (or e-learning). The number of remote classes has increased in Japan in 2020, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. In this paper, we introduce an example of distance learning using JDE and verify the effectiveness of JDE.

Abstract Background SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19) is potentially severe for individuals with compromised immune systems, including people living with HIV. Along with the direct health threats of COVID-19, there are disruptions to social relationships and health services resulting from mitigation efforts instituted by public health authorities. This study examined the relationship between trust in the government and trust in COVID-19 health information from the US CDC, state health departments, and social media on the experience of COVID-19 social and health services-related disruptions. Methods People living with HIV (N = 459) recruited through social media advertisements and chain referrals completed confidential surveys delivered through an online platform. Results Participants experienced high-levels of disruptions to social relationships and health services attributable to COVID-19 mitigation efforts. We also observed high-rates of inaccurate information and low-levels of trust in government and sources of COVID-19 information. Greater disruptions to social relationships were predicted by more concern about oneself and others contracting COVID-19, whereas disruptions to health services were predicted by greater concern for oneself contracting COVID-19, greater general medical mistrust, and less trust in information from the CDC. Conclusions Findings have implications for the necessity of rebuilding public trust in credible sources of health information and stepping up efforts to counter sources of inaccurate information.

Fitness and Yoga has been the focus of studies in recent decades for the not only the general well-being but also a therapeutic modality for mental stress, obesity, and other lifestyle disorders. Individual studies indicate positive effects of exercises like aerobics, walking and yoga under covid-19 lockdown conditions, suggesting that they can be used as non-pharmacological and as non-invasive interventions or as a supplement to drug therapy for the prevention and treatment of various mental and physical conditions. 120 moderately active healthy males (59) and females (61) volunteered to participate in the survey study with the aim to study the level of happiness and related variables age, body mass index, level of education and choice of physical activity of the participants. Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ) developed by psychologists Michael Argyle and Peter Hills at Oxford University was used to collect data. Results showed that there was no statistically significant difference in the choice of activity out of the three namely: aerobics, yoga and walking to stay fit and healthy. The level of happiness was found to be better for those who spent a greater number of years in school/college/university and another finding was that the level happiness was lower amongst the participants who were of more age as compared to the ones who were of lesser age. There was a significant difference in the level of happiness amongst the walkers, aerobic practitioners and yoga practitioners. It was not possible however to point out exactly the magnitude of difference between the three groups because the data was non-parametric. No gender differences were observed amongst males and females on level of happiness on activities chosen by the participants (aerobics, yoga and walking) to stay fit and healthy. Significant differences amongst the participants were observed amongst the underweight, normal weight and overweight participants