A Review of Research on Urban Playability from a Social Justice Perspective

Playability is an attribute that refers to the ability to stimulate individual responses or collective action in an immersive activity in an exploratory way. Playability is an important component of the enjoyment and well-being of urban dwellers, has the potential to stimulate urban vitality and is an important expression of the inclusiveness and equity of urban space. The pursuit of economic development and efficiency-oriented urban construction has led to the domination of urban space by overcrowded traffic, economy-oriented commerce and densely populated housing. Moreover, the existence of playable space has become a scarce resource and is seen as a site for the materialisation of social rights. As the haze of the COVID-19 pandemic fades and cities are again exposed to wider and more participatory use, determining how to adapt urban spaces to the playability needs of users of different ages, cultural backgrounds and social classes, and provide them with appropriate site use and experience, is becoming a hot issue of concern for building equitable and high-quality urban spaces. The study of the playability of urban spaces is highly complex, and the related research on social justice is cryptic. In order to better investigate the social equity aspects of urban playability, this paper integrates scientometric and manual methods to review the relevant research. This paper takes 2664 related papers from the Web of Science (WOS) core dataset from 1998 to 2022 as the research object and employs CiteSpace to organise the existing research results of playful urban spaces. Quantitative analysis is used to clarify the theoretical foundations, developments and research hotspots of urban spatial playability, while the manual collation and generalisation of the studies uncover the hidden issues of social justice research. Based on the proposed research method, we summarize the key three research stages related to urban spatial playability and social equity. We also discuss the development of urban spatial playability in the perspective of social justice from three aspects: micro, meso and macro. The results can help readers better understand the current status and development process of research on playful urban space. In particular, we clarify the issues related to social justice under the theme of the playability of urban spaces and provide directions for future research on building playful cities and promoting the development of urban socio-spatial equity.

Mental Health of Healthcare Workers in Indonesia, Philippines, and Taiwan During COVID-19 Pandemic: a Cross-Sectional Survey.

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to determine factors associated with hesitation and motivation to work among healthcare workers (HCWs) in Indonesia, Philippines, and Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: HCWs aged ≥20 years working in five hospitals in Indonesia, Philippines, and Taiwan were invited to participate in a self-administered mental health survey between 30 January 2021 and 31 August 2021. The 33-item questionnaire measured HCWs' perceived stress, level of motivation and hesitation to work, attitude and confidence regarding work, attitude on the policies by the hospital and government, and discrimination against the occupation. Each item was rated in a 4-point Likert scale from 0 (never) to 3 (always). Sociodemographic and occupational factors were also considered in data analysis. RESULTS: Of 1349 participants, 671 (49.7%) were from Indonesia, 365 (27.1%) from Philippines, and 313 (23.2%) from Taiwan. Overall, 20.8% of participants showed motivation to work and only 4.7% showed hesitation to work. Compared with HCWs in their 20s, HCWs in their 30s, 40s, and 50s had significantly lower hesitation to work (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 0.42, 0.33, and 0.11, respectively; p = 0.01, 0.02, and 0.03, respectively). Similarly, compared with HCWs in their 20s, HCWs in their 30, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s had significantly higher motivation to work (AOR = 1.71, 2.98, 5.92, 5.40, and 7.15, respectively; p = 0.01, <0.001, <0.001, <0.001, and 0.02, respectively). Clinical staff had lower motivation to work than non-clinical staff (AOR = 0.60, p = 0.01). Those who worked in high-risk areas had lower hesitation to work than those who worked in low-risk areas (AOR = 0.51, p = 0.03). Overall, higher hesitation to work was associated with 'wanting to leave job/study' (AOR = 4.54, p = 0.03) and 'feeling isolated' (AOR = 4.84, p = 0.01), whereas lower hesitation to work was associated with 'being confident about the future of medical practice' (AOR = 0.33, p = 0.02) and 'burden of child care including lack of nursery' (AOR = 0.30, p = 0.04). Higher motivation to work was associated with 'feeling of being protected by hospital' (AOR = 2.23, p = 0.001), 'confident in my country's pandemic prevention policy' (AOR = 2.19, p = 0.001), 'feeling of elevated mood' (AOR = 4.14, p = 0.004), and 'being confident about the future of medical practice' (AOR = 2.56, p < 0.001), whereas lower motivation to work was associated with 'exhausted mentally' (AOR = 0.35, p = 0.03). CONCLUSION: Various stress-related factors contribute to hesitation and motivation to work among HCWs in Indonesia, Philippines, and Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic. Proactive and practical strategies should be implemented to protect HCWs from the negative behavioural and emotional effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The effect of anti-cancer therapy on immunological response to COVID-19 vaccination

Background: The efficacy of SARS-COV-2 vaccination has been demonstrated in healthy individuals. Immune responses are less well characterised in cancer patient groups, especially those receiving anticancer therapy (e.g. immune therapy, chemotherapy and targeted therapies. We aim to assess the immune response to the SARS-COV-2 vaccination in patients with solid organ cancer on different systemic anti-cancer therapies. Methods: All patients received 2 doses of COVID-19 mRNA vaccination as part of the UK National vaccination programme;with the second booster dose administered within 12 weeks of the first dose. All patients received either BNT162b2 (Pfizer/BioNTech) or ChAdOx1 S (AstraZeneca) vaccines. Sequential serum samples were collected pre-booster dose vaccination (baseline/within -30 days) and after second dose SARS-COV-2 vaccination, at 14-35 days and 36-63 days. Presence and titres of serum Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein (S) antibody titres were measured. Seroconversion is defined as a response >0.8 U/ml, and maximum response to Anti-S is defined as >250 U/ml. Responses were measured in 3 patient groups according to the type of anti-cancer therapy: chemotherapy (CHT group), immune therapy (IO group) and targeted therapies, mainly VEGF TKI (TT group). Results: Overall, 61 patients were recruited: 45.9%(28/61) in CHT group, 32.8% (20/61) in IO group and 21.3% (13/61) in the TT group. Baseline characteristics were comparable between patient groups. In response to the booster dose vaccination at 14-35 days, the number of patients who seroconverted was 79.3% (23/29), 94.7% (18/19) and 84.6% (11/13) in the CHT, IO and TT groups, respectively. At this same time point, 51.7% (15/29) in the CHT group achieved maximum anti-S titre levels (>250 U/ml), compared with 78.9% (15/19) of patients in IO group and 69.2% (9/13) of patients in TT group. All 3 groups demonstrated a significant increase in Anti-S antibodies at 14-35 days after second dose vaccine when compared to pre-booster serum levels, with the largest increase seen in the IO group with a mean Anti-S increase of 149.1 U/ml (SD±105.0, p < 0.0001) followed by the TT group mean increase 120.2 U/ml (SD ±110.8, p < 0.01) and the CHT group, mean increase 83.0 U/ml (SD ±108.4, p < 0.001). Anti-S antibody levels were sustained at 36-63 days post-booster across all groups. However only IO patients had a sustained immune response to vaccination, with median Anti-S titres level of >250 U/ml and a significant drop was seen in the CHT group (median Anti-S level 138, p < 0.05). Conclusions: Anti-S titres increase following vaccination in all 3 groups but remain most sustained in the IO group at 36-63 days post-vaccination. Chemotherapy and other targeted therapy treated patients may benefit from early COVID-19 vaccine boosters, compared to patients receiving immune therapy.

Consenting surgical patients for the risk associated with contracting COVID-19 during their stay at the hospital

Aim: Literature is suggesting significant perioperative mortality and morbidity associated with COVID-19. Therefore, the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) has produced guidance detailing additional considerations in consenting for surgery whilst COVID-19 is prevalent within society. Section 3A of this document emphasizes the need to discuss the risk of contracting COVID-19 while patients are in hospital. We conducted a multi-cycle closed-loop audit to examine the adherence to this guidance. Method: We completed four audit cycles, each comprising data collection and educational intervention to disseminate the guidance. Data was obtained from consent forms for patients who had consented to both emergency and elective surgery over a two-month period at a large NHS Trust in London. The intervention consisted of teaching sessions, regular emails to the general surgical department, and posters displayed in common areas. Results: Consent forms from 139 patients were reviewed over the four cycles (n=38, 41, 28, and 32). The proportion of patients consented for the risk of contracting COVID-19 during the perioperative period rose serially between the cycles (37%, 61%, 71%, and 85% respectively), and was significantly increased between the first and last cycle (p , 0.01, two-sided Z-test). The interventions proved most effective for senior house officers who improved from consenting 8% initially to 100% on completion of the audit. Conclusions: We demonstrate the marked effectiveness of simple interventions combined with serial auditing to disseminate this message. The same practice may help improve consenting practice at other centres whilst COVID-19 is prevalent in society.

WHEN FACE RECOGNITION MEETS OCCLUSION: A NEW BENCHMARK

The existing face recognition datasets usually lack occlusion samples, which hinders the development of face recognition. Especially during the COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic, wearing a mask has become an effective means of preventing the virus spread. Traditional CNN-based face recognition models trained on existing datasets are almost ineffective for heavy occlusion. To this end, we pioneer a simulated occlusion face recognition dataset. In particular, we first collect a variety of glasses and masks as occlusion, and randomly combine the occlusion attributes (occlusion objects, textures,and colors) to achieve a large number of more realistic occlusion types. We then cover them in the proper position of the face image with the normal occlusion habit. Furthermore, we reasonably combine original normal face images and occluded face images to form our final dataset, termed as Webface-OCC. It covers 804,704 face images of 10,575 subjects, with diverse occlusion types to ensure its diversity and stability. Extensive experiments on public datasets show that the ArcFace retrained by our dataset significantly outperforms the state-of-the-arts. Webface-OCC is available at https://github.com/Baojin-Huang/Webface-OCC.