Perceptions of the Sense of Security, Belonging, and Acculturative Stress among International Students in China during COVID-19 Outbreak—An Empirical Analysis

Understanding the cross-cultural adaptation of students studying in foreign countries by exploring acculturative stress factors is crucial to ensure the smooth academic performance of the students and, in turn, to enhance the global reputation of their universities. Therefore, it is an area of interest for the authorities (Ministry) and the corresponding management of universities. Using a random sample of 138 international students in China, descriptive and logistic regressions were conducted to assess the levels and influence of acculturative stress factors on cross-cultural adaptation, specifically on international students' sense of security and belonging during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. The results revealed that students were most concerned about homesickness, which obtained the highest mean score. The regression results indicated that the perception of fear and discrimination significantly impacted international students' sense of security. The perception of fear, guilt, and how long the student stayed in China also significantly affected the sense of belonging. We argue that the reflections provided herein are essential for universities to improve how they manage and handle international students to mitigate the effects of acculturative stress, particularly when additional stressful conditions are present, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Perceptions of the Sense of Security, Belonging, and Acculturative Stress among International Students in China during COVID-19 Outbreak-An Empirical Analysis.

Understanding the cross-cultural adaptation of students studying in foreign countries by exploring acculturative stress factors is crucial to ensure the smooth academic performance of the students and, in turn, to enhance the global reputation of their universities. Therefore, it is an area of interest for the authorities (Ministry) and the corresponding management of universities. Using a random sample of 138 international students in China, descriptive and logistic regressions were conducted to assess the levels and influence of acculturative stress factors on cross-cultural adaptation, specifically on international students' sense of security and belonging during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. The results revealed that students were most concerned about homesickness, which obtained the highest mean score. The regression results indicated that the perception of fear and discrimination significantly impacted international students' sense of security. The perception of fear, guilt, and how long the student stayed in China also significantly affected the sense of belonging. We argue that the reflections provided herein are essential for universities to improve how they manage and handle international students to mitigate the effects of acculturative stress, particularly when additional stressful conditions are present, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Performance evaluation model of transportation infrastructure: Perspective of COVID-19.

The transportation systems are facing major challenges due to changes social environment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. How to construct a suitable evaluation criterion system and suitable assessment method to evaluate the status of the urban transportation resilience has become a predicament nowadays. Firstly, the criteria for evaluating the current state of transportation resilience involve many aspects. New features of transportation resilience under epidemic normalization are exposed, and previous summaries focusing on resilience characteristics under natural disasters can hardly reflect the current state of urban transportation resilience comprehensively. Based on this, this paper attempts to incorporate the new criteria (Dynamicity, Synergy, Policy) into the evaluation system. Secondly, the assessment of urban transportation resilience involves numerous indicators, which make it difficult to obtain quantitative figures for the criteria. With this background, a comprehensive multi-criteria assessment model based on q-rung orthopair 2-tuple linguistic sets is constructed to evaluate the status of transportation infrastructure from perspective on the COVID-19. Then, an example of urban transportation resilience is given to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach. Subsequently, sensitivity analysis about parameters and global robust sensitivity analysis are conducted, and comparative analysis of existing method is given. The results reveal that the proposed method is sensitive to global criteria weights, so it is suggested that more attention should be paid to the rationality of the weight of criteria to avoid the influence on the results when solving MCDM problems. Finally, the policy implications regarding transport infrastructure resilience and appropriate model development are given.

International Students' Mental Health Care in China: A Systematic Review.

International students in China are facing difficulties while adapting their Chinese culture, and their life is influenced by the widespread of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), and caring for their mental health is currently challenging. As a result, our aim is to explore the current mental health care of this minority in China and to provide useful suggestions for future research and institutes. We used the systematic review method, and it was conducted on 11 existing pieces of literature. Our results confirm the unsatisfying psychological situation of international students and the lack of research in this area. We focus on the causes and symptoms of mental problems and explore the effectiveness of methods.

Covid-19 pandemic effects on food safety - Multi-country survey study.

This study provides an important insight into the response of food safety systems during the first months of the pandemic, elevating the perspective of preventing Covid-19 within conventional food safety management systems. A multi-country survey was conducted in 16 countries involving 825 food companies. Based on the results of the survey, it is obvious that the level of maturity of a food safety system in place is the main trigger in classifying companies and their responses to the pandemic challenge. Staff awareness and hygiene are the two most important attributes in combating Covid-19, opposed to temperature checking of workers in food establishment and health protocols from the World Health Organization, recognized as attributes with limited salience and importance. Companies confirmed implementation of more restrictive hygiene procedures during the pandemic and the need for purchasing more additional personal protective equipment. Retailers were identified as the food supply chain link mostly affected by the pandemic opposed to food storage facilities ranked as least affected. During this challenging period, all companies declared that food safety has not been compromised at any moment. It is important to note that less than a half of the food companies had documented any emergency plans associated with pandemics and health issues in place.