Systemic Challenges in Internship Training for Health-Service Psychology: A Call to Action From Trainee Stakeholders.

The challenges observed in health service psychology (HSP) training during COVID-19 revealed systemic and philosophical issues that preexisted the pandemic, but became more visible during the global health crisis. In a position paper written by 23 trainees across different sites and training specializations, the authors use lessons learned from COVID-19 as a touchstone for a call to action in HSP training. Historically, trainee voices have been conspicuously absent from literature about clinical training. We describe longstanding dilemmas in HSP training that were exacerbated by the pandemic and will continue to require resolution after the pandemic has subsided. The authors make recommendations for systems-level changes that would advance equity and sustainability in HSP training. This article advances the conversation about HSP training by including the perspective of trainees as essential stakeholders.

Optical determination of filter effectiveness in potentially aerosol contaminated classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic

Increasing COVID-19 infections are reason of concern for all the inside workplaces where physical presence is necessary for collaborating. Classrooms are one of the suspected places, where usually students are closely placed to learn together as in times before the pandemic. To reduce the infection rate in classrooms, an air purifier was designed around a commercial filter which removes 99, 9% of particles with 3μm. A baseline optical study of air purification was carried out to ensure effectiveness of the purifier during operation in closed environment. With conclusive evidence of microscopic images, breathing tests and aerosol penetration test using oil, the filter effectiveness was recorded. Optical values for suspended particle counts are recorded for variations in air flow rates of the air purifier and the gradual change is helping to understand the filter performance. Already around 70% minimum effectiveness of one flattened tissue layer removed from the filter was recorded during the tests, where the functional filter is folded in zigzags and 25 times thicker than a single layer. Furthermore, microscopic images showed solids deposited on the filter fabric and fuzzy spots on the tissue could indicate possible dried aerosol spots. This could be the hint supporting the hypothesis that aerosols can be effectively filtered reducing the virus load thus also risk of super-spreading of potential infection risk to an acceptable level. Beyond this research, and with the same group, measurements were made finding out the degree of reduction in potential aerosols particles in a classroom with a continuously aerosol emitting person. On that basis from this and the other optical studies, it was concluded that the spread of COVID-19 virus can be mitigated through effective air purification systems in classrooms and students can continue learning smoothly during the ongoing pandemic. © 2021, Society for Imaging Science and Technology.

Airflow visualization and air purifier positioning optimization in potentially COVID-19 contaminated classrooms

Given the pandemic infection risk in classrooms and given the potential to purify COVID-19 prone air, this research team has visualized the flow of air to find the optimal position in a room. Through Schlieren imaging the air flow was studied to establish the circulation in the tested room. With a variation of air purifier positions in a model classroom, the imaging sensors have taken profiles of airflow and therefore contributed to identifying the optimal placings in heated classrooms. Given a random position of a potentially infected and COVID-19 infectious person, the systematic research measured concentrations of artificially produced particles that emulated aerosol distributions. The research established contaminations stabilizing after a quarter of an hour. The concentrations are only a fraction of the emitted effluents. In this way, the risk of superspreading can be mitigated and so the results allow continued academic work during the Corona pandemic. © 2021, Society for Imaging Science and Technology.

Food Value Chain Coordination in Practice: European and Australian Case Studies of the Creation of Chain Good Innovations*

Food value chain businesses form alliances with horizontal and/or vertical partners to take collective action to either overcome or ameliorate chain failure, or to take advantage of new opportunities available due to innovations in products or processes. The desired outcomes from the collective action would not be possible to achieve if these businesses acted independently. While such alliances and collaborations may take many forms, depending on the degree of commitment, the kind of governance and infrastructure linkages, they can often be thought of as “clubs” for the purpose of economic analysis. Several different types of clubs can be identified, thus the path to collective action chosen by clubs may vary according to existing capabilities and the scope for collaboration, particularly in relation to the potential for value-creating innovation. The result of the collective action is the provision of a chain good or service, which usually leads to greater and more valuable chain coordination. By collectively identifying, funding and acting to capture positive externalities associated with innovation, businesses in many parts of a food value chain can widen opportunities to increase whole-of-chain surplus as well as private profits. In this paper five mini-case studies are presented to demonstrate the breadth of past collective actions undertaken by businesses in food value chains, two in Europe and three in Australia. These are the Euro Pool System, and Global Standards certification in Europe and globally, as well as Meat Standards Australia, an Australian beef organic producer alliance (OBE Organic®), and the supply of food to households during Covid-19 lockdown in Australia. Each case study yields insights into the rationale of how businesses in different food value chains in different countries have acted as a club to use their joint resources to internalise positive innovation and coordination externalities. © 2021. All Rights Reserved.