The Role of Nato and the Eu in Response to Civilian Crises

Contemporary crises are characterised by heterogeneity, endemicity, continuity and complexity. They impact the possibility of national and international crisis management mechanisms functioning, which are themselves also in crisis and must be adapted to the new circumstances. The analysis presented in article is focused on a comparison of NATO's Civil Emergency Planning and the EU's Civil Protection Mechanism. The motivation for forming each was not only functional, but political as well. The factor de-motivating states' integration into this field is their fear of losing part of their sovereignty. Countries' cooperation through both mechanisms enables the coordinated, synergetic and successful use of available capabilities in a crisis. While the scope of NATO's and the EU's response to huge crises around the world is impressive, certain shortcomings are revealed when considering individual cases, especially NATO's limited response to the migrant crisis in Europe and the EU's hesitant response to the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

No significant changes in preterm birth, low‐birth‐weight, and small‐for‐gestational‐age infants during the first year of the COVID‐19 pandemic in a rural area in Japan

Aims: To evaluate the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic's impact on pregnancy outcomes in a Japanese rural area. Methods: This retrospective study focused on the periods between March 1, 2020, and February 28, 2021 (during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic), and January 1, 2017, and December 31, 2019. Singleton pregnancies delivered at or after 22 gestational weeks were included. Preterm delivery, low‐birth‐weight, and small‐for‐gestational‐age infant rates during the pandemic were compared to those in the preceding 3 years. Results: In the pandemic and control groups, 1650 and 5762 pregnant women were included, respectively. Two pregnant women with coronavirus disease 2019 were identified (0.1%). There were no significant intergroup differences in preterm delivery rates (control, 4% vs. pandemic, 3.3%;difference: −0.7% [95% confidence interval: −1.7%–0.3%], p = 0.22). The low‐birth‐weight rate tended to decrease;however, the difference was insignificant (7.9% vs. 6.5%;difference: −1.4% [95% confidence interval: −2.8–0%], p = 0.06). The small‐for‐gestational‐age infant rate was significantly lower in the pandemic than in the control group (7.3% vs. 5.2%;difference: −2.1% [95% confidence interval: −3.3–0.8%], p < 0.01). However, the interrupted time series analysis showed no significant trend. Conclusions: There were no significant changes in the rates of preterm delivery, low‐birth‐weight infants, and small‐for‐gestational‐age infants during the pandemic's first year compared to those in the preceding 3 years. Behavioral changes, such as "stay‐at‐home" measures, may not improve pregnancy outcomes in Japan.

Zooming into Feminist Family Therapy Telesupervision: Experiences of Supervisors during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the way feminist clinical supervisors provide supervision to family therapist trainees. This study explored the experiences of feminist family therapy supervisors who engaged in supervision remotely or had transitioned to virtual supervision. Using thematic analysis, four themes emerged from analysis of eight supervisors' answers to an online survey: using technology as a collaborative medium, self-of-the-supervisor process, intentional supervisory relationship, and supervisor responsibilities. In telling their stories, the supervisors described how they pivoted to support therapists, attended to parallel processes, and adjusted their own supervision techniques to maintain their feminist focus. The authors discuss implications of supervision adjustments and offer suggestions and considerations for remote feminist supervision and recommendations for future research.

The impact of COVID‐19 lockdown on children's and adolescents' mental health in Greece

The aim of the study was to investigate the impact of the COVID‐19 lockdown on children's and adolescents' mental health in Greece during the lockdown of spring 2020. A cross‐sectional survey of 1232 Greek parents was conducted in spring 2020. 35.1% of parents reported that their children's psychological health was significantly affected. Parental unemployment, limited opportunity for tele‐work and deteriorating psychological health, increased family conflicts and children's pre‐existing physical health conditions were all significantly associated with mental health impact. Children and adolescents may experience adverse mental health effects due to the COVID‐19 pandemic.

Bubble contagion effect between the main precious metals

Purpose: This study examines the extent to which gold and silver bubbles are correlated and which metal's bubble spills over to the other. In addition, the overlap in bubble-like episodes for the two metals is demonstrated and the influence of crises (global financial crises, European debt crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic) on the development of these episodes is compared. Design/methodology/approach: This study proposes a two-step approach. In the first step, price bubbles are identified based on the backward sup augmented Dickey–Fuller of Phillips et al. (2015a, 2015b) and modified by Phillips and Shi (2018). In the second step, the correlation in the contagion effect of the bubbles between the two precious metal prices is measured using a nonparametric regression with a time-varying coefficient approach developed by Greenaway-McGrevy and Phillips (2016). Findings: The findings suggest that the safe-haven property of gold and silver during financial market turbulence induces excessive price increases beyond their fundamental values. Furthermore, the results indicate that bubbles are contagious among precious metal markets and flow mainly from gold to silver;these findings are associated with the period after 2005, particularly during the global financial crisis. A contagious bubble effect is not found between gold and silver during the coronavirus disease 2020 pandemic. Practical implications: The results suggest that financial market participants should consider portfolio weights in precious markets in light of the bubble correlation between gold and silver, especially during crises. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that explores the correlation of bubble-like episodes between gold and silver. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Using Body Maps to Understand Elementary Teacher Candidates' Embodied Understanding of Care Related to Intersectional Marginalization during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Teacher educators need to thoroughly understand of teacher candidates' (TCs) experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to support TCs' development and practice of care in the post-pandemic era. Here, I examine how TCs identified body discourses, and examine how those TCs understood and enacted critically oriented caring practices during the pandemic in online asynchronous courses in the Southeastern U.S. I used body mapping as a pedagogical tool for TCs to identify, critically reflect on, and respond to body discourses that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic in their process of understanding and enacting caring practices. I find that TCs conceptualized their care toward students, families, and colleagues in three overlapping yet distinct ways: (a) care as a motherly presence;(b) care as relational work;and (c) care as the promotion of critical consciousness. This study contributes to current teacher education scholarship by showing that a deeper understanding of TC's embodied experiences is critical for supporting TCs' understanding and practice of care. In addition, this work highlights how body mapping activities can be used in practice, in order to scaffold teachers' critically oriented care work. © 2022 Association of Teacher Educators.

Lability of prenatal stress during the COVID‐19 pandemic links to negative affect in infancy

The association between prenatal stress and children's socioemotional development is well established. The COVID‐19 pandemic has been a particularly stressful period, which may impact the gestational environment. However, most studies to‐date have examined prenatal stress at a single time point, potentially masking the natural variation in stress that occurs over time, especially during a time as uncertain as the pandemic. This study leveraged dense ecological momentary assessments from a prenatal randomized control trial to examine patterns of prenatal stress over a 14‐week period (up to four assessments/day) in a U.S. sample of 72 mothers and infants. We first examined whether varied features of stress exposure (lability, mean, and baseline stress) differed depending on whether mothers reported on their stress before or during the pandemic. We next examined which features of stress were associated with 3‐month‐old infants' negative affect. We did not find differences in stress patterns before and during the pandemic. However, greater stress lability, accounting for baseline and mean stress, was associated with higher infant negative affect. These findings suggest that pathways from prenatal stress exposure to infant socioemotional development are complex, and close attention to stress patterns over time will be important for explicating these pathways.

Delivery anatomy kits help to keep practical veterinary classes during the COVID-19 pandemic

To address the restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and to search for assistive learning tools for the subject of Animal Anatomy II and Applied Anatomy, 123 anatomical kits were prepared at the Animal Anatomy Laboratory for students of the Veterinary Medicine course at the University of São Paulo, Faculty of Animal Science and Food Engineering (FZEA/USP) in Pirassununga city, São Paulo, Brazil. The kits contained anatomical pieces for teaching splanchnology and topographic anatomy (two different classes), and they were elaborated based on effective preservation techniques for the preparation of animal anatomical pieces. At the end of each course, we sent an online questionnaire to the students for evaluation of the methodology used. Alternative methods were used to minimize the odour and non-generation of chemical or microbiological contaminants. The acceptance of the kits was unanimous with adherence by all the students, who had the opportunity to experience the Anatomy class in its entirety, without leaving their homes. © 2022 Wiley-VCH GmbH.

Mainstream News Media's Role in Public Health Communication During Crises: Assessment of Coverage and Correction of COVID-19 Misinformation

Public health crises like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic appear to be the perfect breeding ground for misinformation. As influential information sources, mainstream news media have a unique opportunity to use their platform to debunk and educate the public about misinformation. Despite evidence lending support to the potential for mainstream news media to play a larger role in combating misinformation in society, empirical explorations of how they have contributed to the management of misinformation remain scant. This study aims to address these major gaps in research by investigating how mainstream news dailies gatekeep and correct COVID-19 related misinformation in Singapore. The content of 164 news articles published by the mainstream news dailies in Singapore from January 1 to April 30, 2020 on COVID-19 misinformation was analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Results show that the two main types of misinformation, fabricated and reconfigured misinformation, were covered almost equally by mainstream news media. Misinformation related to science and health were most frequently reported, followed by scams, and government policy. Statistically significant differences were found between how mainstream news media corrected the various types and topics of misinformation. Significant differences were also found within the various types, topics, and corrections of misinformation across the early stages of the pandemic. Taken together, these findings shed light on the critical role of mainstream news media as public education tools to correct misinformation during public health crises. From a theoretical perspective, these findings contribute to the understanding of media misinformation gatekeeping, and misinformation correction. From a practical perspective, it highlights the capacity and potential roles of the press in supporting government efforts to combat misinformation.

Economic policy uncertainty and environmental governance company volatility: Evidence from China

This study primarily investigates whether China's economic policy uncertainty (EPU) can predict the environmental governance index volatility, which selects companies regarding environmental protection such as sewage treatment, solid waste treatment, air treatment, and energy saving. Empirical results reveal that China's EPU index can predict the environmental governance index volatility. Furthermore, even during periods of fluctuating volatility and the COVID-19 pandemic, China's EPU index can reliably forecast the environmental governance index volatility. This paper tries to provide new evidence regarding the connection between EPU and environmental governance companies' stock volatility. © 2023

Climate policy uncertainty and stock market volatility: Evidence from different sectors

This paper mainly investigates whether the climate policy uncertainty index (CPU) can predict the volatility of Chinese stock market volatility considering different sectors. Out-of-sample results show that climate policy uncertainty index can have a greater effect on the utility sector. We also investigate the effects of CPU based on longer horizons, different volatility levels and the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper tries to provide new evidence based on sector stock indices. © 2022

Clinical experiences of final-year nursing students during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review and meta-synthesis

This systematic review aimed to qualitatively synthesise existing literature to examine the clinical nursing experiences of final-year nursing students during the COVID-19 pandemic and provide recommendations for the effective management of clinical placement of nursing students. A qualitative systematic review was conducted and reported following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. Five electronic databases were searched and qualitative studies were included for analysis if they focussed on the clinical nursing experiences of final-year nursing students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data synthesis was conducted by extracting all findings, developing categories, and producing synthesised findings. Four synthesised findings were concluded: 1) facing the unknown and willingness to help, 2) challenging the clinical environment, 3) transition improving professional identity, and 4) finding ways out of the pandemic. The transition of nursing students to clinical nursing practice during the pandemic is a personally and professionally challenging process, while nursing students try to adapt to the changing clinical environment and enhance their professional identity. Nursing managers and health policymakers should acknowledge the challenges encountered by nursing students during the pandemic and support the professional growth of future nursing teams by providing high-quality supervision.

Self-Care of Adults with Type 2 Diabetes During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Interpretive Description Study

Due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), diabetes services have been disrupted, causing difficulties for people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and understanding their experience could help improve diabetes care. Therefore, we used a qualitative interpretive description to explore the experience of self-care of adults with T2DM during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed theoretically. The sample (N = 30) was composed of 7 females and 23 males, with a mean age of 69.9 years (60–77) and 19.4 mean years (3–40) of people living with T2DM. Our findings show reduced physical activity and increased smoking and alcohol consumption affected that self-care. Increased food consumption and stress eating, with greater stress and anxiety, caused worsening of glycemic values. Participants were able to contact healthcare professionals via eHealth or telephone. Others, even those with complications, were not able to receive care or advice. These results suggest that easier contact with health providers, continuous engagement, eHealth solutions, and formal peer support could help self-care in T2DM. Advanced nursing roles and services could solve many issues reported in this study during and after the pandemic.

Global sensitivity analysis in epidemiological modeling

Operations researchers worldwide rely extensively on quantitative simulations to model alternative aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Proper uncertainty quantification and sensitivity analysis are fundamental to enrich the modeling process and communicate correctly informed insights to decision-makers. We develop a methodology to obtain insights on key uncertainty drivers, trend analysis and interaction quantification through an innovative combination of probabilistic sensitivity techniques and machine learning tools. We illustrate the approach by applying it to a representative of the family of susceptible-infectious-recovered (SIR) models recently used in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We focus on data of the early pandemic progression in Italy and the United States (the U.S.). We perform the analysis for both cases of correlated and uncorrelated inputs. Results show that quarantine rate and intervention time are the key uncertainty drivers, have opposite effects on the number of total infected individuals and are involved in the most relevant interactions. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.

Spillover effect of the RMB and Non-USD currencies after the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence captured from 30-minute high frequency data

Amid the faster- and wider-than-expected spread of COVID-19, which has added new twists to the global economic outlook and profoundly impacted the performance of major currencies around the world, the RMB has been performing well, and thus, its market standing has improved. However, uncertainties about the future pose enormous challenges to the RMB internationalization. By processing 30-min high-frequency data, this paper aims to study changes in the characteristics of the relationship between the RMB and other non-USD currencies at five stages of the pandemic, first by means of auxiliary regression analysis, in which the pandemic is accounted for with a dummy variable, and then with a VAR-BEKK-GARCH model. The research shows that since the latter stages of the global pandemic, significant negative spillover effects among major non-USD currencies can be observed, while the independence of offshore RMB has increased gradually, and there have been weakening trends in the sustainability of the mean spillover and volatility spillover effects among other currencies. As the "regular pandemic prevention and control” begins to take hold in China and the geopolitical uncertainty increasingly outbreaks, the top priority in global currency market should be to resist the pressure of RMB independence with policy changes and increase caution in investing RMB assets. © 2022 Elsevier Inc.

The Changing Job of School Nurses during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Media Content Analysis of Contributions to Stress

School nurses and unlicensed assistive personnel (UAPs) are essential to the health and wellness of school children. However, most US schools do not have a full-time licensed nurse. During the COVID-19 pandemic, school nurses and UAPs have been integral in ensuring that the health needs of students were met. They have seen a marked increase in their responsibilities included implementing COVID-19 mitigation strategies, screening for symptoms, testing students and staff, conducting contact tracing and data collection, and ensuring the implementation of rapidly changing COVID-19 guidelines and protocols for schools. The objective of this study was to explore COVID-19 occupational changes and their contributions to stress among school nurses and UAPs through a content analysis of local and national media articles. A Google search of articles published between February 2020 and September 2021 was conducted using the following search terms: 'school nurse', 'COVID-19', 'health aide', 'stress', and 'experiences'. A search was also conducted in Nexis Uni. Articles were included if the topic discussed school nurses or UAPs and COVID-19. All articles that examined nurses in other settings were excluded from the review. We examined topics and themes temporally (from February 2020 to September 2021) and spatially (i.e. the frequency by US state). Overall, 496 media articles discussing school nurses and COVID-19 were included in our review. The highest volume of articles was from September 2021 (22%, 111/496). Other months with relatively high volume of articles included August 2020 (9%, 43/496), January 2021 (10%, 47/496), February 2021 (9%, 44/496), and August 2021 (8%, 39/496). These larger article volumes coincided with notable COVID-19 events, including returning to school in the fall (August 2020 and August 2021), school nurses assisting with vaccine rollouts among adults in the USA (January/February 2021), concerns regarding the delta variant (August/September 2021), and vaccine rollouts for children ages 12–15 (September 2021). The representation of articles spatially (national, state, regional, or local) was 66 (13%) articles at national level, 217 (44%) state level, 25 (5%) regional level, and 188 (38%) local news at the city and/or village level. Pennsylvania had the highest frequency of articles, but when standardized to the state population, Alaska had the highest rate of media per 100 000 people. Three major themes were identified in our analysis: (i) safety;(ii) pandemic-related fatigue/stress;and (iii) nursing shortage/budget. The most represented theme for articles before September 2021 was that of safety. Over time, the themes of pandemic-related fatigue/stress and nursing shortage/budget increased with the most notable increase being in September 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in new occupational risks, burdens, and stressors experienced by school nurses and UAPs. School nurses play a critical role in disease surveillance, disaster preparedness, wellness and chronic disease prevention interventions, immunizations, mental health screening, and chronic disease education. Furthermore, they provide a safety net for our most vulnerable children. Given that school nurses were already over-burdened and under-resourced prior to the pandemic, characterization of these new burdens and stressors will inform emergency preparedness resources for school health personnel during future pandemics or outbreaks.

Conditioning factors in the remote learning context in higher education

With the epidemiological scenario produced by the COVID-19 pandemic, information technologies have increased their importance in education and become even more significant, forcing unforeseen and fundamental adjustments in the organization of work. To ensure that students continue to learn, these developments in educational institutions have led to the increasing use of remote learning. This study investigates the factors that facilitate or condition students' perception of their perceived efficacy and development of soft skills in a remote learning environment during the second COVID-19 blockade in Portugal. Between March 1 and 15, 2021, 258 students (higher education) who were enrolled in remote learning answered a web-based cross-sectional questionnaire. The results of the regression analysis revealed several conditioning factors for this type of learning that can impact on the effectiveness and development of students' competencies: technological issues, learning conditions (e.g., autonomy, study materials) and demotivation were significant factors. Given current and future generations of students, the results of this study provide clues for higher education managers and teachers to develop digital strategies to provide innovative, attractive and motivating learning environments.

Caring for children in foster and kinship care during a pandemic: lessons learned and recommendations

Through qualitative feedback from professionals in healthcare, mental health, and child welfare, this study explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the health and well-being of children in the child welfare system. Positive outcomes and challenges related to the care of children in foster or kinship care in Texas during the COVID-19 pandemic are described. Themes identified included disparities in the child welfare system;utilization of telehealth;cross-sector communication and collaboration;safety considerations;and placement stability and support. The article concludes with recommendations in each of these areas for ensuring the health and well-being of children in foster and kinship care during a pandemic.