Impact of COVID-19 on access to laboratories and human participants: exercise science faculty perspectives.

Restrictions due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic impacted the ability of faculty and students in exercise science to work in lab settings with human participants. The purpose of this study was to determine how exercise science faculty were impacted by COVID-19 restrictions with respect to access and use of exercise science lab and research facilities. Of the 100 surveyed participants categorized as requiring access to people and lab spaces (lab-based faculty), 61% (n = 61) reported decreased research productivity with 87% (n = 53) of those faculty in one or more of the following subdisciplines: exercise physiology, clinical exercise physiology, or biomechanics. Of all lab-based faculty, 40% (n = 40) participants reported having access to students and lab spaces and 55% (n = 55) indicated they were allowed to conduct in-person research. Of tenure-track lab-based faculty, 80% (n = 20) reported a decrease in research productivity, of which 60.0% (n = 12) identified as female. Among faculty with 5 or less years of teaching experience (n = 23), 69.6% (n = 16) reported a decrease in productivity, with 68.8% (n = 11) of those being female. All exercise science faculty surveyed reported issues with safety and social distancing, modified lab and research procedures, faculty workload, and research productivity. This information can be leveraged to create better infrastructure to support faculty and develop and implement strategies to reduce workload inequities.

"Crisis" or "opportunity"? COVID-19 pandemic's impact on environmentally sound invention efficiency in China.

Introduction: The environmentally sound invention (ESI) is a "bridge" between environmental sound technologies (ESTs) and green productions. This study investigates the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on ESI efficiency using a multi-methods model in three stages. Methods: The ESI efficiency is measured using the Slack-Based Measure (SBM) method in the first stage. By excluding the environmental effect of the pandemic on each province using the stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) model's results in the second stage, this study compares the ESI efficiency change with or without the influence of the pandemic in the third stage. Results: The results show that the pandemic can be a "crisis" in the short term, but an "opportunity" in the long term. First, the SBM efficiency results in the first stage show a decrease in the number of the average efficient provinces in which the pandemic is more severe during 2020-2021. Second, results of the spatial Tobit and SFA models provide evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacts the ESI efficiency during 2020, this impact is decreasing in 2021, and this impact has a spatial diffusion effect. Discussion: Based on these results, this study discussed the theoretical and political implications. This paper enriches the knowledge of ESTs research and development by proposing a three-stage approach with multi-methods to investigate the influence of the pandemic's impact on ESI efficiency.

Technical Efficiency Evaluation of Primary Health Care Institutions in Shenzhen, China, and Its Policy Implications under the COVID-19 Pandemic.

(1) Background: Primary health care institutions (PHCI) play an important role in reducing health inequities and achieving universal health coverage. However, despite the increasing inputs of healthcare resources in China, the proportion of patient visits in PHCI keeps declining. In 2020, the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic further exerted a severe stress on the operation of PHCI due to administrative orders. This study aims to evaluate the efficiency change in PHCI and provide policy recommendations for the transformation of PHCI in the post-pandemic era. (2) Methods: Data envelope analysis (DEA) and the Malmquist index model were applied to estimate the technical efficiency of PHCI in Shenzhen, China, from 2016 to 2020. The Tobit regression model was then used to analyze the influencing factors of efficiency of PHCI. (3) Results: The results of our analysis reflect considerable low levels of technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency, and scale efficiency of PHCI in Shenzhen, China, in 2017 and 2020. Compared to years before the epidemic, the productivity of PHCI decreased by 24.6% in 2020, which reached the nadir, during the COVID-19 pandemic along with the considerable reduction of technological efficiency, despite the significant inputs of health personnel and volume of health services. The growth of technical efficiency of PHCI is significantly affected by the revenue from operation, percentage of doctors and nurses in health technicians, ratio of doctors and nurses, service population, proportion of children in the service population, and numbers of PHCI within one kilometer. (4) Conclusion: The technical efficiency significantly declines along with the COVID-19 outbreak in Shenzhen, China, with the deterioration of underlying technical efficiency change and technological efficiency change, regardless of the immense inputs of health resources. Transformation of PHCI such as adopting tele-health technologies to maximize primary care delivery is needed to optimize utilization of health resource inputs. This study brings insights to improve the performances of PHCI in China in response to the current epidemiologic transition and future epidemic outbreaks more effectively, and to promote the national strategy of Healthy China 2030.

Effects of Vertical Fiscal Imbalance on Fiscal Health Expenditure Efficiency-Evidence from China.

Improving fiscal health expenditure efficiency is an inherent requirement of the strategy of "healthy China" and "high-quality development". The outbreak of COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of efficient health system. First, this paper systematically sorts out the multiple theoretical mechanisms of the positive and negative relationship between vertical fiscal imbalance and fiscal health expenditure efficiency. Secondly, a comprehensive index system, including the quantity and quality of medical services, is constructed, and the super-efficiency DEA model is used to measure fiscal health expenditure efficiency. There are obvious differences between eastern and western regions. Finally, the fixed effect model is constructed to carry out empirical research and it is found that the vertical fiscal imbalance in China has an overall positive and significant impact on the fiscal health expenditure efficiency, which is mainly achieved by optimizing the resources allocation between primary medical institutions and hospitals. Heterogeneity analysis shows that transfer payment scale has a corrective effect on the vertical fiscal imbalance's effect. The result of quantile regression shows that the impact of vertical fiscal imbalance is not constant, and it gradually turns from positive to negative along with the improvement of fiscal health expenditure efficiency.

Impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on China's tourism economy and green finance efficiency.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, production costs have grown, while human and economic resources have been reduced. COVID-19 epidemic costs can be reduced by implementing green financial policies, including carbon pricing, transferable green certificates, and green credit. In addition, China's tourist industry is a significant source of revenue for the government. Coronavirus has been found in 30 Chinese regions, and a study is being conducted to determine its influence on the tourism business and green financial efficiency. Econometric strategies that are capable of dealing with the most complex issues are employed in this study. According to the GMM system, the breakout of Covid-19 had a negative effect on the tourism business and the efficiency of green financing. Aside from that, the effects of gross capital creation, infrastructural expansion, and renewable energy consumption are all good. The influence of per capita income on the tourism industry is beneficial but detrimental to the efficiency of green finance. Due to the current pandemic condition, this report presents a number of critical recommendations for boosting tourism and green financial efficiency.

Does the Digital Economy Increase Green TFP in Cities?

COVID-19 accelerated the growth of the digital economy and digital transformation across the globe. Meanwhile, it also created a higher demand for productivity in the real economy. Hence, the correlation between the digital economy and green productivity is worth studying as COVID-19 prevention becomes the norm. The digital economy overcomes the limitations imposed by traditional factors of production on economic growth and empowers innovative R&D and resource allocation in all aspects. This study delved into the digital economy by focusing on its green value at different levels of development. The study gathered the green-productivity indices and the principal components of the digital economy for each prefecture-level city in China from 2011 to 2019 and meticulously portrayed their trends in spatial and temporal figures. Meanwhile, regression models were used to verify the mechanism through which digital-economy development influences the changes in green productivity. The results showed that: (1) a higher level of digital economy helps to increase urban green total-factor productivity (GTFP) and that the conclusions of this paper still held after potential endogeneity problems were solved through the instrumental-variables approach; (2) the digital economy will drive an increase in urban GTFP by upgrading firms' production technologies and that digital-economy development encourages green patent applications from firms; and (3) as the digital economy develops, it will also drive urban GTFP increases by removing polluting enterprises from the market and that the higher the level of digital-economy development, the greater the number and probability of polluting enterprises exiting the market. In view of this study's results, the government should increase the importance of the digital economy, strengthen the role of the digital economy in promoting urban green development, and provide more guidance on regional green development with the help of the digital economy.

Implementation of Lean Management Tools Using an Example of Analysis of Prolonged Stays of Patients in a Multi-Specialist Hospital in Poland.

Healthcare institutions in Poland constantly encounter challenges related both to the quality of provided services and to the pressures associated with treatment effectiveness and economic efficiency. The implemented solutions have a goal of improving the service quality of lowering the continuously increasing operational costs. The aim of this paper is to present the application of Lean Management (LM) tools in a Polish hospital, which allowed for the identification of prolonged stays as one of the main issues affecting the service costs and the deteriorating financial results of the hospital. The study was conducted in the neurology department and involved an analysis of data for the whole of 2019 and the first half of 2022. In addition, surveys were conducted among the medical staff to help identify the main causes of prolonged stays. Methods of data analysis and feasible solutions were developed in order to improve the economic efficiency of the unit. The analysis shows that the application of LM tools may contribute to improvement in the functioning of hospitals and that further studies should focus on the development of the method to evaluate efficiency of the implemented solutions intended at shortening the hospital stays of the patients.

Mapping Scientific Productivity Trends and Hotspots in Remdesivir Research Publications: A Bibliometric Study from 2016 to 2021.

In response to global efforts to control and exterminate infectious diseases, this study aims to provide insight into the productivity of remdesivir research and highlight future directions. To achieve this, there is a need to summarize and curate evidence from the literature. As a result, this study carried out comprehensive scientific research to detect trends in published articles related to remdesivir using a bibliometric analysis. Keywords associated with remdesivir were used to access pertinent published articles using the Scopus database. A total of 5321 research documents were retrieved, primarily as novel research articles (n = 2440; 46%). The number of publications increased exponentially from 2020 up to the present. The papers published by the top 12 institutions focusing on remdesivir accounted for 25.69% of the overall number of articles. The USA ranked as the most productive country, with 906 documents (37.1%), equivalent to one-third of the global publications in this field. The most productive institution was Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai, in the USA (103 publications). The New England Journal of Medicine was the most cited, with an h-index of 13. The publication of research on remdesivir has gained momentum in the past year. The importance of remdesivir suggests that it needs continued research to help global health organizations detect areas requiring instant action to implement suitable measures. Furthermore, this study offers evolving hotspots and valuable insights into the scientific advances in this field and provides scaling-up analysis and evidence diffusion on remdesivir.

Differences in self-perception of productivity and mental health among the STEMM-field scientists during the COVID-19 pandemic by sex and status as a parent: A survey in six languages.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented challenges for working conditions for scientists, but little is known for how the associations of these challenges with scientists' mental health and productivity differ by sex and status as a parent. This online survey study in six languages collected data from 4,494 scientists in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine fields across 132 countries during October-December 2021. We compared the type of challenges for work, changes in work hours, and perception in productivity during the pandemic by sex and status as a parent (children <18 years living at home). Regression analyses analyzed the impacts of changed working conditions and work-life factors on productivity and mental health. We found that the percentage of participants with increased work hours was the highest in female participants, especially without children. Disproportionately higher increases in work hours were found for teaching and administration in women than men and for research/fundraising in non-parent participants than parent participants (p-value<0.001). Female participants were more concerned about the negative impacts of the pandemic on publications and long-term career progress, and less satisfied with their career progress than their male counterparts. There were differences in the type of institutional actions for the pandemic across study regions. The identified obstacles for work and home-life factors were associated with higher risks of experiencing depression, anxiety, and stress. Decision makers should consider the gender differences in the pandemic's adverse impacts on productivity in establishing equitable actions for career progress for scientists during pandemics.

Assessing the Efficiency and Productivity of the Hospital Clinics on the Island of Rhodes during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

(1) Background: The aim was to measure the efficiency and productivity of 15 specialty clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic period 2020-2021 in the General Hospital of Rhodes. (2) Methods: An input-oriented data envelopment analysis and the Malmquist productivity index are used. Labor and capital were used as inputs, and in-patient discharges and days were used as outputs. (3) Results: Five out of the seven clinics in the pathology sector appeared fully efficient with an optimal productivity, and the rest showed progress in 2021. In 2020 the COVID-19 pathology clinic appeared to be inefficient and less productive, while in 2021, it showed a positive performance change. The surgical sector showed very high efficiency rates or even reached an optimal efficiency in both years. The productivity measurement, in most of the surgical clinics, was satisfactory to very high. In 2020 the COVID-19 surgical clinic appeared to be more efficient and productive than in 2021 when its performance declined. (4) Conclusions: The hospital responded to the pressure during the pandemic, by increasing its efficiency and productivity from 2020 to 2021. This was due to the accomplishment of the appropriate organizational changes in the infrastructure, human resources, and technology. The efficiency and productivity assessments should be incorporated in the hospitals' decision making.

Working From Home During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Association With Work Productivity Loss Among Patients and Caregivers.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to measure the association of working from home (WFH) with work productivity loss due to caregiving responsibilities or health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: We conducted an online survey of family/friend caregivers (n = 150 WFH/75 non-WFH) and patients (n = 95/91) who worked during the past 7 days in May and July 2020, respectively. Absenteeism and presenteeism were measured using the Valuation of Lost Productivity questionnaire. RESULTS: Working from home was associated with higher odds of absenteeism (odds ratio, 2.53; 95% confidence interval, 1.11 to 5.77) and presenteeism (2.79; 1.26 to 6.18) among caregivers and higher odds of presenteeism among patients (2.78; 1.13 to 6.84). However, among caregivers with absenteeism more than 0 days, WFH was significantly associated with fewer absent workdays. CONCLUSIONS: Working from home was not associated with overall absenteeism and presenteeism in caregivers or patients. Working from home allows a more flexible and inclusive workplace without impacting productivity, although further research is needed.

Surgical productivity did not suffer despite the states of emergency against the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan: a retrospective observational study.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study is to compute surgical total factor productivity with Malmquist index, and to evaluate the effects of states of emergency against the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on its productivity change. We hypothesized that the states of emergency significantly reduced surgical total factor productivity in Japan. METHODS: The authors collected data from all the surgical procedures performed in Teikyo University Hospital from April 1 through September 30 in 2019-21. Non-radial and non-oriented Malmquist model under the variable returns-to-scale assumptions was employed. The decision making unit (DMU) was defined as a surgical specialty department. Inputs were defined as (1) the number of medical doctors who assisted surgery, and (2) the duration of surgical operation from skin incision to closure. The output was defined as the surgical fee for each surgery. The study period was divided into fifty-one ten- (or eleven-) day periods. We added all the inputs and outputs of the surgical procedures for each DMU during these study periods, and computed its Malmquist index, efficiency change and technical change. RESULTS: Seven thousand nine hundred and thirty-one surgical procedures were analyzed. The overall productivity and efficiency progressed significantly both during states of emergency and during no states of emergency. Our subgroup analysis demonstrated that there were no surgical specialties that had significantly different productivity, efficiency or technical changes between states of emergency and no states of emergency. CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrated that the surgical productivity did not suffer despite the states of emergency against the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan.

Working in the digital economy: A systematic review of the impact of work from home arrangements on personal and organizational performance and productivity.

Work-from-home has become an increasingly adopted practice globally. Given the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, such arrangements have risen substantially in a short timeframe. Work-from-home has been associated with several physical and mental health outcomes. This relationship has been supported by previous research; however, these health and safety issues often receive little resources and attention from business perspectives compared to organizational and worker performance and productivity. Therefore, aligning work-from-home practices with business goals may help catalyze awareness from decision makers and serve to effectively implement work-from-home policies. We conducted a review to synthesize current knowledge on the impact of work-from-home arrangements on personal and organizational performance and productivity. Four large databases including Scopus, PubMed, PsychInfo, and Business Source Complete were systematically searched. Through a two-step screening process, we selected and extracted data from 37 relevant articles. Key search terms surrounded two core concepts: work-from-home and productivity/performance. Of the articles published prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 79% (n = 19) demonstrated that work-from-home increased productivity and performance whereas 21% (n = 5) showed mixed or no effects. Of the articles published during the pandemic, 23% (n = 3) showed positive effects, 38% (n = 5) revealed mixed results, and 38% (n = 5) showed negative effects. Findings suggest that non-mandatory work-from-home arrangements can have positive impacts on productivity and performance. When work-from-home becomes mandatory and full-time, or external factors (i.e., COVID-19 pandemic) are at play, the overall impacts are less positive and can be detrimental to productivity and performance. Results will help foster an understanding of the impact of work-from-home on productivity and performance and inform the development of organizational strategies to create an effective, resilient, and inclusive work-from-home workplace by helping to effectively implement work-from-home policies that are aligned with business goals.

Evaluation and Obstacle Analysis of Emergency Response Capability in China.

Emergency response capability evaluation is an essential means to strengthen emergency response capacity-building and improve the level of government administration. Based on the whole life cycle of emergency management, the emergency capability evaluation index system is constructed from four aspects: prevention and emergency preparedness, monitoring and early warning, emergency response and rescue, and recovery and reconstruction. Firstly, the entropy method is applied to measure the emergency response capability level of 31 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2020. Second, the Theil index and ESDA (Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis) are applied in exploring the regional differences and spatial-temporal distribution characteristics of China's emergency response capacity. Finally, the obstacle degree model is used to explore the obstacle factors and obstacle degrees that affect the emergency response capability. The results show that: (1) The average value of China's emergency response capacity is 0.277, with a steady growth trend and a gradient distribution of "high in the east, low in the west, and average in center and northeast" in the four major regions. (2) From the perspective of spatial distribution characteristics, the unbalanced regional development leads to the obvious aggregation effect of "high-efficiency aggregation and low-efficiency aggregation", and the interaction of the "centripetal effect" and "centrifugal effect" finally forms the spatial clustering result of emergency response capability level in China. (3) Examining the source of regional differences, inter-regional differences are the decisive factor affecting the overall differences in emergency response capability, and the inter-regional differences show a reciprocating fluctuation of narrowing-widening-narrowing from 2011 to 2020. (4) Main obstacles restricting the improvement of China's emergency response capabilities are "the business volume of postal and telecommunication services per capita", "the daily disposal capacity of city sewage" and "the general public budget revenue by region". The extent of the obstacles' impacts in 2020 are 12.19%, 7.48%, and 7.08%, respectively. Based on the evaluation results, the following countermeasures are proposed: to realize the balance of each stage of emergency management during the holistic process; to strengthen emergency coordination and balanced regional development; and to implement precise measures to make up for the shortcomings of emergency response capabilities.

How Does Government Efficiency Affect Health Outcomes? The Empirical Evidence from 156 Countries.

This paper uses the unbalanced panel data of 156 countries during the period of 2002 to 2018 to explore the possible impact of government efficiency on health outcomes. Firstly, we used the fixed-effect model to examine the relationship between government efficiency and health outcomes and found that the increase in government efficiency can significantly improve health outcomes. Then, a series of robustness checks were carried out, which confirmed the reliability of the above result. Thirdly, this paper conducted a heterogeneity analysis from the perspective of life cycle. Fourthly, this paper investigated the mechanisms of the impact of government efficiency on health outcomes from the perspectives of economic growth, health innovation, education and corruption control. Finally, this paper studied the moderating effects of the ruling party's ideology and democracy on the relationship between government efficiency and health outcomes. The findings of this study provide some references for governments to improve health outcomes.

Trends of research productivity across author gender and research fields: A multidisciplinary and multi-country observational study.

Bibliographic properties of more than 75 million scholarly articles, are examined and trends in overall research productivity are analysed as a function of research field (over the period of 1970-2020) and author gender (over the period of 2006-2020). Potential disruptive effects of the Covid-19 pandemic are also investigated. Over the last decade (2010-2020), the annual number of publications have invariably increased every year with the largest relative increase in a single year happening in 2019 (more than 6% relative growth). But this momentum was interrupted in 2020. Trends show that Environmental Sciences and Engineering Environmental have been the fastest growing research fields. The disruption in patterns of scholarly publication due to the Covid-19 pandemic was unevenly distributed across fields, with Computer Science, Engineering and Social Science enduring the most notable declines. The overall trends of male and female productivity indicate that, in terms of absolute number of publications, the gender gap does not seem to be closing in any country. The trends in absolute gap between male and female authors is either parallel (e.g., Canada, Australia, England, USA) or widening (e.g., majority of countries, particularly Middle Eastern countries). In terms of the ratio of female to male productivity, however, the gap is narrowing almost invariably, though at markedly different rates across countries. While some countries are nearing a ratio of .7 and are well on track for a 0.9 female to male productivity ratio, our estimates show that certain countries (particularly across the Middle East) will not reach such targets within the next 100 years. Without interventional policies, a significant gap will continue to exist in such countries. The decrease or increase in research productivity during the first year of the pandemic, in contrast to trends established before 2020, was generally parallel for male and female authors. There has been no substantial gender difference in the disruption due to the pandemic. However, opposite trends were found in a few cases. It was observed that, in some countries (e.g., The Netherlands, The United States and Germany), male productivity has been more negatively affected by the pandemic. Overall, female research productivity seems to have been more resilient to the disruptive effect of Covid-19 pandemic, although the momentum of female researchers has been negatively affected in a comparable manner to that of males.

Tourism centres efficiency as spatial unites for applying blue economy approach: A case study of the Southern Red Sea region, Egypt.

This study aims to assess and analyse the efficiency of the tourism centres in the Southern Red Sea region, Egypt to apply coastal tourism development through the blue economy perspective. According to this aim, the study used two efficiency methods: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Free Disposal Hull (FDH). A total of 29 tourism centres were selected to conduct the DEA and FDH methods. These efficiency methods (DEA-FDH) used inputs and outputs variables to estimate the efficiency of the tourism centres. The selected inputs were the length of the shoreline (km), area (ha), tourism investments (million EGP), quality of coral reefs, numbers of hotels, and tourism accommodation capacity. While the outputs were employees' number and tourists' number. The results indicate that, generally, the tourism centres in the Southern Red Sea region of Egypt showed high-efficiency scores, which reflects their good preparedness to implement the various coastal tourism development strategies from the blue economy perspective. The tourism centres in the Safaga-Quseir tourism sector were the most efficient ones, regardless of the efficiency models used. While the tourist centres representing the Ras Banas tourism sector were the least efficient centres in the whole sample (29 tourism centres).

Does the Application of ICTs Improve the Efficiency of Agricultural Carbon Reduction? Evidence from Broadband Adoption in Rural China.

Based on the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, this paper examines whether rural broadband adoption affects agricultural carbon reduction efficiency (ACRE), using panel data from 30 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2019. This paper achieves a measurement of ACRE by taking the carbon sink of agricultural as one of the desired outputs and using a Slacks-Based Measure (SBM) model and the global Malmquist-Luenberger (GML) index. The results show that: (1) Rural broadband adoption has a positive effect on ACRE. The relationship between the income of rural residents and ACRE was an inverted U-shaped, which confirms the EKC hypothesis. (2) Land transfer has a significant promoting effect on the relationship between rural broadband adoption and ACRE. When the land transfer rate is high, the positive effect of broadband adoption is obvious. (3) The positive effect of broadband adoption on ACRE was more obvious when farmers invested more in production equipment, that is to say, it has a significant positive moderating effect. As farmers in many developing countries suffer from increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events, we believe that the results of this study also have implications for the implementation of agricultural carbon reduction and smart agricultural equipment roll-out in many countries.