Survival with Technology: Elderly Teachers’ Perspective Towards Emergency Online Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Philippines

This study analyzed the content of YouTube news clips on elderly teachers concerning emergency online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using traditional content analysis, the included news videos were transcribed, interview segments were translated and familiarized, dominant words were identified, data were coded, categorized, and themed. Four dominant words were highlighted: online, students, teachers, and pandemic. Three themes on technical challenges and support needs, health issues, and resilience emerged in the analysis. Results show that elderly teachers are persistent to adapt to emergency online learning despite the struggles they are facing. The analysis also highlights the negative effects of the sudden shift to emergency online learning on the physical and psychological health of elderly teachers. Furthermore, the elderly teachers, are ensuring students’ access to education even at their own cost. Implications to the country’s quality of education and suggestions of providing better technical and psychological health support to elderly teachers were presented.

Environmental Smog Control Costs and proceeds of Oil and Gas Conglomerates

The study was carried out to analyse cost implications of environmental smog control costs on the proceeds of oil and gas conglomerates. Panel data were collected and organized from financial statements of selected conglomerates. Data were analysed using ordinary least square of multivariate analysis. Empirical findings revealed that environmental smog control costs have significant effect on the proceeds of the conglomerates investigated. Thus the study suggested and acclaimed that conglomerates should ensure that smog management and controls policies are formulated and implemented to avoid projecting a bad image of the establishment which could lead to loss of goodwill and reduce proceeds in the long run, there should also be effective regulations that will lead to adequate cost disclosure and appropriate financial performance reporting.

Drug Repurposing for Glioblastoma and Current Advances in Drug Delivery—A Comprehensive Review of the Literature

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary malignant brain tumor in adults with an extremely poor prognosis. There is a dire need to develop effective therapeutics to overcome the intrinsic and acquired resistance of GBM to current therapies. The process of developing novel anti-neoplastic drugs from bench to bedside can incur significant time and cost implications. Drug repurposing may help overcome that obstacle. A wide range of drugs that are already approved for clinical use for the treatment of other diseases have been found to target GBM-associated signaling pathways and are being repurposed for the treatment of GBM. While many of these drugs are undergoing pre-clinical testing, others are in the clinical trial phase. Since GBM stem cells (GSCs) have been found to be a main source of tumor recurrence after surgery, recent studies have also investigated whether repurposed drugs that target these pathways can be used to counteract tumor recurrence. While several repurposed drugs have shown significant efficacy against GBM cell lines, the blood–brain barrier (BBB) can limit the ability of many of these drugs to reach intratumoral therapeutic concentrations. Localized intracranial delivery may help to achieve therapeutic drug concentration at the site of tumor resection while simultaneously minimizing toxicity and side effects. These strategies can be considered while repurposing drugs for GBM.

Next Generation Architect

<p>The stereotype of an architect is expensive, with minimal consideration and awareness towards cost and budget. This is damaging the reputation of the profession. This thesis will look at the Next Generation Architect who combines both design and construction to understand the cost implications from the start to the completion of the project. A Next Generation Architect works with an innovative approach that is more affordable to how they currently practice. They design houses that are both economical and retain a strong design quality, through the value of the aesthetics, materials, and living conditions. An effective architect should be able to design, mindful of costs, along with the implications involved and actively manage the costs, based on design decisions made. This research will commence by exploring tactics of affordability, housing economics, and costing and design tactics, to portray exemplars of affordable housing. Elements will be costed with data from QV costbuilder implemented through the use of Building information modelling (BIM) through Revit. The architectural value will explore the use of materials, living conditions, economics, and lifecycle to optimise the design. A series of precedents will be analysed to gain an understanding of the techniques of affordable methods used within New Zealand’s construction industry. This thesis aims to provide architecturally designed and preliminarily costed affordable architectural products. Through a series of architecturally designed standalone houses that explore affordability, and tested through the use of architecture as a product across four sites, displaying different site conditions of the Wellington region. This thesis will portray efficient, economic building and design techniques and cost monitoring while retaining a strong architectural quality. The aim is to convey the contemporary role of a Next Generation Architect who works accurately with value. Who is mindful of costs and designs economically, without compromising the quality of an architecturally designed product.</p>

Next Generation Architect

<p>The stereotype of an architect is expensive, with minimal consideration and awareness towards cost and budget. This is damaging the reputation of the profession. This thesis will look at the Next Generation Architect who combines both design and construction to understand the cost implications from the start to the completion of the project. A Next Generation Architect works with an innovative approach that is more affordable to how they currently practice. They design houses that are both economical and retain a strong design quality, through the value of the aesthetics, materials, and living conditions. An effective architect should be able to design, mindful of costs, along with the implications involved and actively manage the costs, based on design decisions made. This research will commence by exploring tactics of affordability, housing economics, and costing and design tactics, to portray exemplars of affordable housing. Elements will be costed with data from QV costbuilder implemented through the use of Building information modelling (BIM) through Revit. The architectural value will explore the use of materials, living conditions, economics, and lifecycle to optimise the design. A series of precedents will be analysed to gain an understanding of the techniques of affordable methods used within New Zealand’s construction industry. This thesis aims to provide architecturally designed and preliminarily costed affordable architectural products. Through a series of architecturally designed standalone houses that explore affordability, and tested through the use of architecture as a product across four sites, displaying different site conditions of the Wellington region. This thesis will portray efficient, economic building and design techniques and cost monitoring while retaining a strong architectural quality. The aim is to convey the contemporary role of a Next Generation Architect who works accurately with value. Who is mindful of costs and designs economically, without compromising the quality of an architecturally designed product.</p>

Critical Insight into Defects in Malaysia Hospital Buildings Maintenance Management

Healthcare buildings require efficient maintenance management to afford patients, visitors, and other users of hospital buildings such as healthcare professionals a serene and safe environment that accelerates wellbeing and provides maximum comfort. To achieve this goal, hospital buildings must adopt effective maintenance management approaches and services. Apart from ensuring the safety of the environment, users of the buildings must be satisfied with the quality of available services, particularly, those offered to patients. Against this backdrop, this study assesses the effects of defects on hospital buildings and analyzes the practicality of maintenance best practices such as sufficient allocations of funds and appropriate management of resources (including time and labor) towards the improvement of the prevalent status quo. This is important because the maintenance practices employed in hospitals intrinsically impact the performance of the hospital buildings as a result of defects. Survey questionnaires were administered to users of hospital buildings in Malaysia. The most significant defects reported concerned Algae on concrete floors, weather and climate conditions, and sanitary appliance & fittings damages. These defects depreciate the appearance, functionality and utility of hospital buildings thereby lessening their performance and efficiency. Therefore, this study asserts the pertinence of reevaluating the maintenance management approaches employed towards the rectification of the highlighted defects in hospital buildings across Malaysia. The study posits the adoption of systemic proactive maintenance procedures to preempt decay, causalities and reduce cost implications.

Implementation of a structured emergency nursing framework results in significant cost benefit

Background Patients are at risk of deterioration on discharge from an emergency department (ED) to a ward, particularly in the first 72 h. The implementation of a structured emergency nursing framework (HIRAID) in regional New South Wales (NSW), Australia, resulted in a 50% reduction of clinical deterioration related to emergency nursing care. To date the cost implications of this are unknown. The aim of this study was to determine any net financial benefits arising from the implementation of the HIRAID emergency nursing framework. Methods This retrospective cohort study was conducted between March 2018 and February 2019 across two hospitals in regional NSW, Australia. Costs associated with the implementation of HIRAID at the study sites were calculated using an estimate of initial HIRAID implementation costs (AUD) ($492,917) and ongoing HIRAID implementation costs ($134,077). Equivalent savings per annum (i.e. in less patient deterioration) were calculated using projected estimates of ED admission and patient deterioration episodes via OLS regression with confidence intervals for incremental additional deterioration costs per episode used as the basis for scenario analysis. Results The HIRAID-equivalent savings per annum exceed the costs of implementation under all scenarios (Conservative, Expected and Optimistic). The estimated preliminary savings to the study sites per annum was $1,914,252 with a payback period of 75 days. Conservative projections estimated a net benefit of $1,813,760 per annum by 2022–23. The state-wide projected equivalent savings benefits of HIRAID equalled $227,585,008 per annum, by 2022–23. Conclusions The implementation of HIRAID reduced costs associated with resources consumed from patient deterioration episodes. The HIRAID-equivalent savings per annum to the hospital exceed the costs of implementation across a range of scenarios, and upscaling would result in significant patient and cost benefit.

Dentists' Practices and Attitudes Toward Using Personal Protection Equipment and Associated Drawbacks and Cost Implications During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Objectives: During the COVID-19 pandemic, dentists have had to work under stressful conditions due to the nature of their work. Personal protection equipment (PPE) has become mandatory for work in the dentistry field. This study aimed to examine dentists' practices and attitudes regarding the use of PPE and the associated drawbacks and cost implications during the pandemic.Methods: A questionnaire-based survey was used and was divided into five sections dedicated to collect demographic variables and to examine the dentists' practices, attitudes toward PPE, drawbacks, and cost of using PPE. Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to compare different sections of the questionnaire and linear regression was used to determine the predictors of the dentists' practices and attitudes toward PPE.Results: The mean of practices regarding use of PPE was 5.41 ± 1.71 (median 6), attitude toward using PPE scored 2.26 ± 0.90 (median 2), while the means of drawbacks and cost recorded equal scores of 5.22 ± 1.24 (median 5) and 1.68 ± 0.74 (median 2), respectively. The recently graduated dentists, those with postgraduate degrees and those working in the private sector demonstrated higher levels of practices on PPE than their counterparts. Regression analysis revealed that practices of PPE can be predicted on the basis of qualifications and work place, whereas attitude toward PPE is significantly influenced by qualification only.Conclusions: The study participants demonstrated satisfactory levels of practices and positive attitudes toward PPE. While complaints from using PPE and their cost were moderately affected.