Impacts of the first COVID-19 Lockdown on Mobility and Consumption of Households in Sri Lanka: Results of a Survey

Sri Lanka was introduced to an unnamed virus on 27th January 2020 when a Chinese tourist was diagnosed with it [1]. Within 8 weeks, the virus named COVID-19 had begun infecting the local population, and the government was taking measures to prevent its spread in Sri Lanka. The government imposed an all-island curfew on 20th March 2020 [2]. Starting from 20th March, the government encouraged Work-from-Home (WFH) and allowed agricultural activities while imposing restrictions on all physical movements [3]. With curfew, the government allowed the distribution of essential items and goods transport through issuing curfew passes. In spite of these measures, people faced many hardships during this time. The department of Transport and Logistics Management, Faculty of Engineering, University of Moratuwa, conducted a survey on 12th April and completed on 20th April 2020, during a period that the country was having curfew almost all the time. The purpose of this survey was to determine the immediate impact that the government’s steps had on the people’s lives and their impressions on the future. Over 1100 respondents from all districts of the country took part in the online and email survey. As this would return a biased sample, we normalised the collected data across the districts and by educational profile to make the representation as accurate as possible [4]. The analysis led to the following 3 noteworthy findings that would be useful for any future emergency or return to curfew if the need so arises.

Home Sweet Home: New Insights Into the Location of Equine Premises in France and Keeping Habits to Inform Health Prevention and Disease Surveillance

Identifying and tracking equines are key activities in equine health prevention. France is one of the few European countries with an operational centralized database that records information on equines, owners, and keepers but not on the location and keeping conditions of equines. The objective of our study was to collect information on keeping habits of equines and the relative location of a wide range of equines, owners, and keepers and discuss their implication for surveillance and control of outbreak improvement. A national email survey was conducted among the 1.9% of people registered as owners and 8.2% of people registered as keepers in the French national equine identification database having given their agreement to be contacted by email. It led to the collection of information from 728 owners, 121 keepers, and 2,669 owner–keepers. Most of them housed their equines in a single commune (smallest geographic administrative unit in France) at their home as private individuals. The distance between the communes of residence and of holding was, in most cases (including 79% of owners in the owner survey, 89.5% of the keepers in the keeper survey, and about 94% of the owner–keepers in both surveys), less than 30 km. More than half of the keepers kept a maximum of five equines and the majority with two different uses/destinations together, mostly leisure-retirement, leisure-breeding, leisure-sport, and sport-breeding. The main limitation of the study was that a relatively limited number of people (n = 3518) were reachable due to the low availability of an email address and contact agreement. Nonetheless, the findings provide an overview of how equines are kept by non-professional owners and keepers and complements information usually collected by the French riding institute. Additionally, information collected is very helpful to determine a realistic estimate of the spatial distribution of equines in France. This information is very important for the equine sector, for demographic knowledge and also improvement of surveillance plans and control measures and for the management and monitoring of health events to limit the spread of diseases.

Social Awareness and Ideology: Self-Assessment and Socio-Civic Knowledge Competence

"The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt" (Russell, 1933, p. 28). One seldom hears doubt in the espousing of socio-civic, cultural, or political pronouncements. While the voices seem to always be “cocksure;” we first ask at what level is their objective knowledge and how well do they self-assess that knowledge? We explore how ideological positioning is related to self-assessment and objective knowledge. We conducted a non-comparative (absolute) quantitative study through an email survey of 330 residents of the U.S. over the age of 18 that examined objective socio-civic knowledge and self-assessed ideology and wokeness. The experimental results confirmed misestimations consistent with Dunning-Kruger Effects.

Patient Satisfaction With a COVID-19 Telehealth Lactation Care Model

ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to determine if patient satisfaction with teleconsults during the COVID-19 pandemic, both with and without corresponding car-side weight measurements, was different from satisfaction with in-person visits prior to the pandemic.MethodsRetrospective descriptive and quantitative analysis was used to examine existing patient satisfaction data collected via email survey from patients who completed at least one in-person visit from March 2019 to February 2020 or at least one teleconsult during April or May 2020.ResultsRespondents reported high levels of satisfaction with teleconsults. Approximately 97% of respondents found teleconsults helpful. Satisfaction with teleconsults during the pandemic, both with and without car-side weight measurements, was similar to satisfaction with in-person visits prior to the pandemic.ConclusionProviding families with teleconsults in conjunction with car-side weight measurements was a successful model for providing lactation services to patients during the COVD-19 pandemic.

Determinants of Customer Loyalty Dimensions

This study aims to explore the factors influencing attitudinal, affective, as well as cognitive loyalties. Theoretical framework was developed by integrating the e-service quality, e-satisfaction, e-loyalty (the three dimensions), e-commitment, and e-trust. Nine hundred thirty-seven valid replies were collected from internet shoppers through using email survey method. Exploratory factor analysis as well as Structural equation modeling was accomplished to examine the anticipated model by using SPSS-V23 and AMOS-V23. Results confirm that e-service quality has an influence on satisfaction, trust, and commitment. The authors have considered e-satisfaction, e-trust, and e-commitment as mediating variables between e-service quality and e-loyalty dimensions and tested for it as well. E-satisfaction has a substantial impact on e-trust and trust acts as a mediator between satisfaction and attitudinal, affective, and cognitive loyalty. Further, e-trust has an influence on commitment and commitment acts as a mediator between trust and attitudinal, affective, and cognitive loyalty. Moreover, commitment has a positive effect on attitudinal and cognitive loyalty but does not have any impact on affective loyalty.

Enlarging the Severe Hail Database in Finland by Using a Radar-Based Hail Detection Algorithm and Email Surveys to Limit Underreporting and Population Biases

Collecting hail reports to build a climatology is challenging in a sparsely populated country such as Finland. To expand an existing database, a new approach involving daily verification of a radar- and numerical weather prediction–based hail detection algorithm was trialed during late May–August for the 10-yr period, 2008–17. If the algorithm suggested a high likelihood of hail from each identified convective cell in specified locations, then an email survey was sent to people and businesses in these locations. Telephone calls were also used occasionally. Starting from 2010, the experiment was expanded to include trained storm spotters performing the surveys (project called TATSI). All the received hail reports were documented (severe or ≥2 cm, and nonsevere, excluding graupel), giving a more complete depiction of hail occurrence in Finland. In combination with reports from the general public, news, and social media, our hail survey resulted in a 292% increase in recorded severe hail days and a 414% increase in observed severe hail cases compared to a climatological study (1930–2006). More than 2200 email surveys were sent, and responses to these surveys accounted for 53% of Finland’s severe hail cases during 2008–17. Most of the 2200 emails were sent into rural locations with low population density. These additional hail reports allowed problems with the initial radar-based hail detection algorithm to be identified, leading to the introduction of a new hail index in 2009 with improved detection and nowcasting of severe hail. This study shows a way to collect hail reports in a sparsely populated country to mitigate underreporting and population biases.

Game Accessibility and Advocacy for Participation of the Japanese Disability Community

In this paper we examine the recent situation of advocacy through game accessibility of video games for people with physical disabilities and its challenges in Japan. We conducted an email survey among the dominant gaming companies in Japan. We discovered that most gaming companies developing games for those with disabilities have actually attempted to provide some consideration to people with disabilities through setting additional special functions such as “easy mode” and “support for visual disabilities”. One out of five companies could be categorized as having successfully developed games based on the concept of specialized assistive technology, and the remaining companies could be categorized as having developed games for disabilities based on the concept of barrier-reducing goods. We also found out that the major Japanese gaming corporations had a tendency not to be active in communicating with the disability communities. Our results might indicate that stronger interaction with the gaming companies is one direct way to enhance further development of games for people with disabilities. In addition to that, considering that games are a significant form of social participation for people with disabilities, more social understanding is required in the Japanese domestic context.