@article{XuNieWangetal.2021, author = {Xu, Xun and Nie, Yan and Wang, Weiwei and Ma, Nan and Lendlein, Andreas}, title = {Periodic thermomechanical modulation of toll-like receptor expression and distribution in mesenchymal stromal cells}, series = {MRS communications / a publication of the Materials Research Society}, volume = {11}, journal = {MRS communications / a publication of the Materials Research Society}, number = {4}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Berlin}, issn = {2159-6867}, doi = {10.1557/s43579-021-00049-5}, pages = {425 -- 431}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Toll-like receptor (TLR) can trigger an immune response against virus including SARS-CoV-2. TLR expression/distribution is varying in mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) depending on their culture environments. Here, to explore the effect of periodic thermomechanical cues on TLRs, thermally controlled shape-memory polymer sheets with programmable actuation capacity were created. The proportion of MSCs expressing SARS-CoV-2-associated TLRs was increased upon stimulation. The TLR4/7 colocalization was promoted and retained in the endoplasmic reticula. The TLR redistribution was driven by myosin-mediated F-actin assembly. These results highlight the potential of boosting the immunity for combating COVID-19 via thermomechanical preconditioning of MSCs.}, language = {en} } @article{SchneidemesserSibiyaCaseiroetal.2021, author = {Schneidemesser, Erika von and Sibiya, Bheki and Caseiro, Alexandre and Butler, Tim and Lawrence, Mark and Leitao, Joana and Lupa{\c{s}}cu, Aura and Salvador, Pedro}, title = {Learning from the COVID-19 lockdown in Berlin}, series = {Atmospheric environment: X}, volume = {12}, journal = {Atmospheric environment: X}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {2590-1621}, doi = {10.1016/j.aeaoa.2021.100122}, pages = {13}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Urban air pollution is a substantial threat to human health. Traffic emissions remain a large contributor to air pollution in urban areas. The mobility restrictions put in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic provided a large-scale real-world experiment that allows for the evaluation of changes in traffic emissions and the corresponding changes in air quality. Here we use observational data, as well as modelling, to analyse changes in nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and particulate matter resulting from the COVID-19 restrictions at the height of the lockdown period in Spring of 2020. Accounting for the influence of meteorology on air quality, we found that reduction of ca. 30-50 \% in traffic counts, dominated by changes in passenger cars, corresponded to reductions in median observed nitrogen dioxide concentrations of ca. 40 \% (traffic and urban background locations) and a ca. 22 \% increase in ozone (urban background locations) during weekdays. Lesser reductions in nitrogen dioxide concentrations were observed at urban background stations at weekends, and no change in ozone was observed. The modelled reductions in median nitrogen dioxide at urban background locations were smaller than the observed reductions and the change was not significant. The model results showed no significant change in ozone on weekdays or weekends. The lack of a simulated weekday/weekend effect is consistent with previous work suggesting that NOx emissions from traffic could be significantly underestimated in European cities by models. These results indicate the potential for improvements in air quality due to policies for reducing traffic, along with the scale of reductions that would be needed to result in meaningful changes in air quality if a transition to sustainable mobility is to be seriously considered. They also confirm once more the highly relevant role of traffic for air quality in urban areas.}, language = {en} } @article{GraeberKritikosSeebauer2021, author = {Graeber, Daniel and Kritikos, Alexander and Seebauer, Johannes}, title = {COVID-19}, series = {Journal of population economics}, volume = {34}, journal = {Journal of population economics}, number = {4}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Berlin}, issn = {0933-1433}, doi = {10.1007/s00148-021-00849-y}, pages = {1141 -- 1187}, year = {2021}, abstract = {We investigate how the economic consequences of the pandemic and the government-mandated measures to contain its spread affect the self-employed — particularly women — in Germany. For our analysis, we use representative, real-time survey data in which respondents were asked about their situation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings indicate that among the self-employed, who generally face a higher likelihood of income losses due to COVID-19 than employees, women are about one-third more likely to experience income losses than their male counterparts. We do not find a comparable gender gap among employees. Our results further suggest that the gender gap among the self-employed is largely explained by the fact that women disproportionately work in industries that are more severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analysis of potential mechanisms reveals that women are significantly more likely to be impacted by government-imposed restrictions, e.g., the regulation of opening hours. We conclude that future policy measures intending to mitigate the consequences of such shocks should account for this considerable variation in economic hardship.}, language = {en} } @article{SteinmayrLazaridesWeidingeretal.2021, author = {Steinmayr, Ricarda and Lazarides, Rebecca and Weidinger, Anne Franziska and Christiansen, Hanna}, title = {Teaching and learning during the first COVID-19 school lockdown: Realization and associations with parent-perceived students' academic outcomes}, series = {Zeitschrift f{\"u}r p{\"a}dagogische Psychologie}, volume = {35}, journal = {Zeitschrift f{\"u}r p{\"a}dagogische Psychologie}, number = {2-3}, publisher = {Hogrefe Verlag}, address = {G{\"o}ttingen}, issn = {1010-0652}, doi = {10.1024/1010-0652/a000306}, pages = {85 -- 106}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all schools in Germany were locked down for several months in 2020. How schools realized teaching during the school lockdown greatly varied from school to school. N = 2,647 parents participated in an online survey and rated the following activities of teachers in mathematics, language arts (German), English, and science / biology during the school lockdown: frequency of sending task assignments, task solutions and requesting for solutions, giving task-related feedback, grading tasks, providing lessons per videoconference, and communicating via telecommunication tools with students and / or parents. Parents also reported student academic outcomes during the school lockdown (child's learning motivation, competent and independent learning, learning progress). Parents further reported student characteristics and social background variables: child's negative emotionality, school engagement, mathematical and language competencies, and child's social and cultural capital. Data were separately analyzed for elementary and secondary schools. In both samples, frequency of student-teacher communication was associated with all academic outcomes, except for learning progress in elementary school. Frequency of parent-teacher communication was associated with motivation and learning progress, but not with competent and independent learning, in both samples. Other distant teaching activities were differentially related to students' academic outcomes in elementary vs. secondary school. School engagement explained most additional variance in all students' outcomes during the school lockdown. Parent's highest school leaving certificate incrementally predicted students' motivation, and competent and independent learning in secondary school, as well as learning progress in elementary school. The variable "child has own bedroom" additionally explained variance in students' competent and independent learning during the school lockdown in both samples. Thus, both teaching activities during the school lockdown as well as children's characteristics and social background were independently important for students' motivation, competent and independent learning, and learning progress. Results are discussed with regard to their practical implications for realizing distant teaching.}, language = {en} } @article{grosseDetersMeierMileketal.2021, author = {große Deters, Fenne and Meier, Tabea and Milek, Anne and Horn, Andrea B.}, title = {Self-focused and other-focused health concerns as predictors of the uptake of corona contact tracing apps}, series = {Journal of medical internet research}, volume = {23}, journal = {Journal of medical internet research}, number = {8}, publisher = {Centre of Global eHealth Innovation}, address = {Toronto}, issn = {1438-8871}, doi = {10.2196/29268}, pages = {15}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Background: Corona contact tracing apps are a novel and promising measure to reduce the spread of COVID-19. They can help to balance the need to maintain normal life and economic activities as much as possible while still avoiding exponentially growing case numbers. However, a majority of citizens need to be willing to install such an app for it to be effective. Hence, knowledge about drivers for app uptake is crucial. Objective: This study aimed to add to our understanding of underlying psychological factors motivating app uptake. More specifically, we investigated the role of concern for one's own health and concern to unknowingly infect others. Methods: A two-wave survey with 346 German-speaking participants from Switzerland and Germany was conducted. We measured the uptake of two decentralized contact tracing apps officially launched by governments (Corona-Warn-App, Germany; SwissCovid, Switzerland), as well as concerns regarding COVID-19 and control variables. Results: Controlling for demographic variables and general attitudes toward the government and the pandemic, logistic regression analysis showed a significant effect of self-focused concerns (odds ratio [OR] 1.64, P=.002). Meanwhile, concern of unknowingly infecting others did not contribute significantly to the prediction of app uptake over and above concern for one's own health (OR 1.01, P=.92). Longitudinal analyses replicated this pattern and showed no support for the possibility that app uptake provokes changes in levels of concern. Testing for a curvilinear relationship, there was no evidence that "too much" concern leads to defensive reactions and reduces app uptake. Conclusions: As one of the first studies to assess the installation of already launched corona tracing apps, this study extends our knowledge of the motivational landscape of app uptake. Based on this, practical implications for communication strategies and app design are discussed.}, language = {en} } @article{AbuJarourAjjanFedorowiczetal.2021, author = {AbuJarour, Safa'a and Ajjan, Haya and Fedorowicz, Jane and Owens, Dawn}, title = {How working from home during COVID-19 affects academic productivity}, series = {Communications of the Association for Information Systems : CAIS}, volume = {48}, journal = {Communications of the Association for Information Systems : CAIS}, publisher = {Association for Information Systems}, address = {New York, NY}, issn = {1529-3181}, doi = {10.17705/1CAIS.04808}, pages = {55 -- 64}, year = {2021}, abstract = {The coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has forced most academics to work from home. This sudden venue change can affect academics' productivity and exacerbate the challenges that confront universities as they face an uncertain future. In this paper, we identify factors that influence academics' productivity while working from home during the mandate to self-isolate. From analyzing results from a global survey we conducted, we found that both personal and technology-related factors affect an individual's attitude toward working from home and productivity. Our results should prove valuable to university administrators to better address the work-life challenges that academics face.}, language = {en} } @article{KuhlmannBouckaertGallietal.2021, author = {Kuhlmann, Sabine and Bouckaert, Geert and Galli, Davide and Reiter, Renate and van Hecke, Steven}, title = {Opportunity management of the COVID-19 pandemic}, series = {International review of administrative sciences}, volume = {87}, journal = {International review of administrative sciences}, number = {3}, publisher = {Sage}, address = {Los Angeles, California}, issn = {0020-8523}, doi = {10.1177/0020852321992102}, pages = {497 -- 517}, year = {2021}, abstract = {This article provides a conceptual framework for the analysis of COVID-19 crisis governance in the first half of 2020 from a cross-country comparative perspective. It focuses on the issue of opportunity management, that is, how the crisis was used by relevant actors of distinctly different administrative cultures as a window of opportunity. We started from an overall interest in the factors that have influenced the national politics of crisis management to answer the question of whether and how political and administrative actors in various countries have used the crisis as an opportunity to facilitate, accelerate or prevent changes in institutional settings. The objective is to study the institutional settings and governance structures, (alleged) solutions and remedies, and constellations of actors and preferences that have influenced the mode of crisis and opportunity management. Finally, the article summarizes some major comparative findings drawn from the country studies of this Special Issue, focusing on similarities and differences in crisis responses and patterns of opportunity management.}, language = {en} } @article{ChanJaladankiSomanietal.2021, author = {Chan, Lili and Jaladanki, Suraj K. and Somani, Sulaiman and Paranjpe, Ishan and Kumar, Arvind and Zhao, Shan and Kaufman, Lewis and Leisman, Staci and Sharma, Shuchita and He, John Cijiang and Murphy, Barbara and Fayad, Zahi A. and Levin, Matthew A. and B{\"o}ttinger, Erwin and Charney, Alexander W. and Glicksberg, Benjamin and Coca, Steven G. and Nadkarni, Girish N.}, title = {Outcomes of patients on maintenance dialysis hospitalized with COVID-19}, series = {Clinical journal of the American Society of Nephrology : CJASN}, volume = {16}, journal = {Clinical journal of the American Society of Nephrology : CJASN}, number = {3}, publisher = {American Society of Nephrology}, address = {Washington}, organization = {Mount Sinai Covid I}, issn = {1555-9041}, doi = {10.2215/CJN.12360720}, pages = {452 -- 455}, year = {2021}, language = {en} } @article{ChanChaudharySahaetal.2021, author = {Chan, Lili and Chaudhary, Kumardeep and Saha, Aparna and Chauhan, Kinsuk and Vaid, Akhil and Zhao, Shan and Paranjpe, Ishan and Somani, Sulaiman and Richter, Felix and Miotto, Riccardo and Lala, Anuradha and Kia, Arash and Timsina, Prem and Li, Li and Freeman, Robert and Chen, Rong and Narula, Jagat and Just, Allan C. and Horowitz, Carol and Fayad, Zahi and Cordon-Cardo, Carlos and Schadt, Eric and Levin, Matthew A. and Reich, David L. and Fuster, Valentin and Murphy, Barbara and He, John C. and Charney, Alexander W. and B{\"o}ttinger, Erwin and Glicksberg, Benjamin and Coca, Steven G. and Nadkarni, Girish N.}, title = {AKI in hospitalized patients with COVID-19}, series = {Journal of the American Society of Nephrology : JASN}, volume = {32}, journal = {Journal of the American Society of Nephrology : JASN}, number = {1}, publisher = {American Society of Nephrology}, address = {Washington}, organization = {Mt Sinai COVID Informatics Ct}, issn = {1046-6673}, doi = {10.1681/ASN.2020050615}, pages = {151 -- 160}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Background: Early reports indicate that AKI is common among patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and associatedwith worse outcomes. However, AKI among hospitalized patients with COVID19 in the United States is not well described. Methods: This retrospective, observational study involved a review of data from electronic health records of patients aged >= 18 years with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 admitted to the Mount Sinai Health System from February 27 to May 30, 2020. We describe the frequency of AKI and dialysis requirement, AKI recovery, and adjusted odds ratios (aORs) with mortality. Results: Of 3993 hospitalized patients with COVID-19, AKI occurred in 1835 (46\%) patients; 347 (19\%) of the patientswith AKI required dialysis. The proportionswith stages 1, 2, or 3 AKIwere 39\%, 19\%, and 42\%, respectively. A total of 976 (24\%) patients were admitted to intensive care, and 745 (76\%) experienced AKI. Of the 435 patients with AKI and urine studies, 84\% had proteinuria, 81\% had hematuria, and 60\% had leukocyturia. Independent predictors of severe AKI were CKD, men, and higher serum potassium at admission. In-hospital mortality was 50\% among patients with AKI versus 8\% among those without AKI (aOR, 9.2; 95\% confidence interval, 7.5 to 11.3). Of survivors with AKI who were discharged, 35\% had not recovered to baseline kidney function by the time of discharge. An additional 28 of 77 (36\%) patients who had not recovered kidney function at discharge did so on posthospital follow-up. Conclusions: AKI is common among patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and is associated with high mortality. Of all patients with AKI, only 30\% survived with recovery of kidney function by the time of discharge.}, language = {en} } @article{HeckeFuhrWolfs2021, author = {Hecke, Steven van and Fuhr, Harald and Wolfs, Wouter}, title = {The politics of crisis management by regional and international organizations in fighting against a global pandemic}, series = {International review of administrative sciences : an international journal of comparative public administration}, volume = {87}, journal = {International review of administrative sciences : an international journal of comparative public administration}, number = {3}, publisher = {Sage}, address = {Los Angeles, Calif. [u.a.]}, issn = {0020-8523}, doi = {10.1177/0020852320984516}, pages = {672 -- 690}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Despite new challenges like climate change and digitalization, global and regional organizations recently went through turbulent times due to a lack of support from several of their member states. Next to this crisis of multilateralism, the COVID-19 pandemic now seems to question the added value of international organizations for addressing global governance issues more specifically. This article analyses this double challenge that several organizations are facing and compares their ways of managing the crisis by looking at their institutional and political context, their governance structure, and their behaviour during the pandemic until June 2020. More specifically, it will explain the different and fragmented responses of the World Health Organization, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund/World Bank. With the aim of understanding the old and new problems that these international organizations are trying to solve, this article argues that the level of autonomy vis-a-vis the member states is crucial for understanding the politics of crisis management.
Points for practitioners
As intergovernmental bodies, international organizations require authorization by their member states. Since they also need funding for their operations, different degrees of autonomy also matter for reacting to emerging challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The potential for international organizations is limited, though through proactive and bold initiatives, they can seize the opportunity of the crisis and partly overcome institutional and political constraints.}, language = {en} } @article{VaidChanChaudharyetal.2021, author = {Vaid, Akhil and Chan, Lili and Chaudhary, Kumardeep and Jaladanki, Suraj K. and Paranjpe, Ishan and Russak, Adam J. and Kia, Arash and Timsina, Prem and Levin, Matthew A. and He, John Cijiang and B{\"o}ttinger, Erwin and Charney, Alexander W. and Fayad, Zahi A. and Coca, Steven G. and Glicksberg, Benjamin S. and Nadkarni, Girish N.}, title = {Predictive approaches for acute dialysis requirement and death in COVID-19}, series = {Clinical journal of the American Society of Nephrology : CJASN}, volume = {16}, journal = {Clinical journal of the American Society of Nephrology : CJASN}, number = {8}, publisher = {American Society of Nephrology}, address = {Washington}, organization = {MSCIC}, issn = {1555-9041}, doi = {10.2215/CJN.17311120}, pages = {1158 -- 1168}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Background and objectives AKI treated with dialysis initiation is a common complication of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among hospitalized patients. However, dialysis supplies and personnel are often limited. Design, setting, participants, \& measurements Using data from adult patients hospitalized with COVID-19 from five hospitals from theMount Sinai Health System who were admitted between March 10 and December 26, 2020, we developed and validated several models (logistic regression, Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO), random forest, and eXtreme GradientBoosting [XGBoost; with and without imputation]) for predicting treatment with dialysis or death at various time horizons (1, 3, 5, and 7 days) after hospital admission. Patients admitted to theMount Sinai Hospital were used for internal validation, whereas the other hospitals formed part of the external validation cohort. Features included demographics, comorbidities, and laboratory and vital signs within 12 hours of hospital admission. Results A total of 6093 patients (2442 in training and 3651 in external validation) were included in the final cohort. Of the different modeling approaches used, XGBoost without imputation had the highest area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) curve on internal validation (range of 0.93-0.98) and area under the precisionrecall curve (AUPRC; range of 0.78-0.82) for all time points. XGBoost without imputation also had the highest test parameters on external validation (AUROC range of 0.85-0.87, and AUPRC range of 0.27-0.54) across all time windows. XGBoost without imputation outperformed all models with higher precision and recall (mean difference in AUROC of 0.04; mean difference in AUPRC of 0.15). Features of creatinine, BUN, and red cell distribution width were major drivers of the model's prediction. Conclusions An XGBoost model without imputation for prediction of a composite outcome of either death or dialysis in patients positive for COVID-19 had the best performance, as compared with standard and other machine learning models.}, language = {en} } @article{BreierKallmuenzerClaussetal.2021, author = {Breier, Matthias and Kallmuenzer, Andreas and Clauss, Thomas and Gast, Johanna and Kraus, Sascha and Tiberius, Victor}, title = {The role of business model innovation in the hospitality industry during the COVID-19 crisis}, series = {International journal of hospitality management}, volume = {92}, journal = {International journal of hospitality management}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0278-4319}, doi = {10.1016/j.ijhm.2020.102723}, pages = {10}, year = {2021}, abstract = {The hospitality industry worldwide is among the hardest-hit industries from the COVID-19 lockdowns. Initial theoretical and practical observations in the hospitality industry indicate that business model innovation (BMI) might be a solution to recover from and successfully cope with the COVID-19 crisis. Interestingly, some firms in the hospitality industry already started to successfully adapt their business models. This study explores the why and how of these successful recovery attempts through BMI by conducting a multiple case study of six hospitality firms in Austria. We rely on interview data from managers together with one of their main stammgasts for each case, which we triangulate with secondary data for the analysis. Findings show that BMI is applied during and after the crisis to create new revenue streams and secure a higher level of liquidity, with an important role of stammgasts.}, language = {en} } @article{ForsterHeinzel2021, author = {Forster, Timon and Heinzel, Mirko Noa}, title = {Reacting, fast and slow}, series = {Journal of European public policy}, volume = {28}, journal = {Journal of European public policy}, number = {8}, publisher = {Routledge, Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {1350-1763}, doi = {10.1080/13501763.2021.1942157}, pages = {1299 -- 1320}, year = {2021}, abstract = {The COVID-19 pandemic created extraordinary challenges for governments to safeguard the well-being of their people. To what extent has leaders' reliance on scientific advice shaped government responses to the COVID-19 outbreak? We argue that leaders who tend to orient themselves on expert advice realized the extent of the crisis earlier. Consequently, these governments would adopt containment measures relatively quickly, despite the high uncertainty they faced. Over time, differences in government responses based on the use of science would dissipate due to herding effects. We test our argument on data combining 163 government responses to the pandemic with national- and individual-level characteristics. Consistent with our argument, we find that countries governed by politicians with a stronger technocratic mentality, approximated by holding a PhD, adopted restrictive containment measures faster in the early, but not in the later, stages of the crisis. This importance of expert-based leadership plausibly extends to other large-scale societal crises.}, language = {en} } @article{SteppertSteppertSterlaccietal.2021, author = {Steppert, Claus and Steppert, Isabel and Sterlacci, William and Bollinger, Thomas}, title = {Rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2 infection by multicapillary column coupled ion mobility spectrometry (MCC-IMS) of breath}, series = {Journal of breath research : volatiles for medical diagnosis ; official journal of the International Association for Breath Research (IABR) and the International Society for Breath Odor Research (ISBOR)}, volume = {15}, journal = {Journal of breath research : volatiles for medical diagnosis ; official journal of the International Association for Breath Research (IABR) and the International Society for Breath Odor Research (ISBOR)}, number = {2}, publisher = {IOP Publ. Ltd.}, address = {Bristol}, issn = {1752-7163}, doi = {10.1088/1752-7163/abe5ca}, pages = {8}, year = {2021}, abstract = {There is an urgent need for screening of patients with a communicable viral disease to cut infection chains. Recently, we demonstrated that ion mobility spectrometry coupled with a multicapillary column (MCC-IMS) is able to identify influenza-A infections in patients' breath. With a decreasing influenza epidemic and upcoming SARS-CoV-2 infections we proceeded further and analyzed patients with suspected SARS-CoV-2 infections. In this study, the nasal breath of 75 patients (34 male, 41 female, aged 64.4 +/- 15.4 years) was investigated by MCC-IMS for viral infections. Fourteen were positively diagnosed with influenza-A infection and sixteen with SARS-CoV-2 by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) of nasopharyngeal swabs. In one patient RT-PCR was highly suspicious of SARS-CoV-2 but initially inconclusive. The remaining 44 patients served as controls. Breath fingerprints for specific infections were assessed by a combination of cluster analysis and multivariate statistics. There were no significant differences in gender or age according to the groups. In the cross validation of the discriminant analysis 72 of the 74 clearly defined patients could be correctly classified to the respective group. Even the inconclusive patient could be mapped to the SARS-CoV-2 group by applying the discrimination functions. Conclusion: SARS-CoV-2 infection and influenza-A infection can be detected with the help of MCC-IMS in breath in this pilot study. As this method provides a fast non-invasive diagnosis it should be further developed in a larger cohort for screening of communicable viral diseases. A validation study is ongoing during the second wave of COVID-19. Trial registration: ClinicalTrial.gov, NCT04282135 Registered 20 February 2020-Retrospectively registered,}, language = {en} } @article{HeinzelLiese2021, author = {Heinzel, Mirko Noa and Liese, Andrea}, title = {Expert authority and support for COVID-19 measures in Germany and the UK}, series = {West European politics}, journal = {West European politics}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {0140-2382}, doi = {10.1080/01402382.2021.1873630}, pages = {1258 -- 1282}, year = {2021}, abstract = {During COVID-19, various public institutions tried to shape citizens' behaviour to slow the spread of the pandemic. How did their authority affect citizens' support of public measures taken to combat the spread of COVID-19? The article makes two contributions. First, it presents a novel conceptualisation of authority as a source heuristic. Second, it analyses the authority of four types of public institutions (health ministries, universities, public health agencies, the WHO) in two countries (Germany and the UK), drawing on novel data from a survey experiment conducted in May 2020. On average, institutional endorsements seem to have mattered little. However, there is an observable polarisation effect where citizens who ascribe much expertise to public institutions support COVID-19 measures more than the control group. Furthermore, those who ascribe little expertise support them less than the control group. Finally, neither perception of biases nor exposure to institutions in public debates seems consistently to affect their authority.}, language = {en} } @article{EngbertRabeKliegletal.2021, author = {Engbert, Ralf and Rabe, Maximilian Michael and Kliegl, Reinhold and Reich, Sebastian}, title = {Sequential data assimilation of the stochastic SEIR epidemic model for regional COVID-19 dynamics}, series = {Bulletin of mathematical biology : official journal of the Society for Mathematical Biology}, volume = {83}, journal = {Bulletin of mathematical biology : official journal of the Society for Mathematical Biology}, number = {1}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {New York}, issn = {0092-8240}, doi = {10.1007/s11538-020-00834-8}, pages = {16}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Newly emerging pandemics like COVID-19 call for predictive models to implement precisely tuned responses to limit their deep impact on society. Standard epidemic models provide a theoretically well-founded dynamical description of disease incidence. For COVID-19 with infectiousness peaking before and at symptom onset, the SEIR model explains the hidden build-up of exposed individuals which creates challenges for containment strategies. However, spatial heterogeneity raises questions about the adequacy of modeling epidemic outbreaks on the level of a whole country. Here, we show that by applying sequential data assimilation to the stochastic SEIR epidemic model, we can capture the dynamic behavior of outbreaks on a regional level. Regional modeling, with relatively low numbers of infected and demographic noise, accounts for both spatial heterogeneity and stochasticity. Based on adapted models, short-term predictions can be achieved. Thus, with the help of these sequential data assimilation methods, more realistic epidemic models are within reach.}, language = {en} } @article{VladovaUllrichBenderetal.2021, author = {Vladova, Gergana and Ullrich, Andr{\´e} and Bender, Benedict and Gronau, Norbert}, title = {Students' acceptance of technology-mediated teaching - How it was influenced during the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020}, series = {Frontiers in psychology / Frontiers Research Foundation}, volume = {12}, journal = {Frontiers in psychology / Frontiers Research Foundation}, publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation}, address = {Lausanne}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2021.636086}, pages = {15}, year = {2021}, abstract = {In response to the impending spread of COVID-19, universities worldwide abruptly stopped face-to-face teaching and switched to technology-mediated teaching. As a result, the use of technology in the learning processes of students of different disciplines became essential and the only way to teach, communicate and collaborate for months. In this crisis context, we conducted a longitudinal study in four German universities, in which we collected a total of 875 responses from students of information systems and music and arts at four points in time during the spring-summer 2020 semester. Our study focused on (1) the students' acceptance of technology-mediated learning, (2) any change in this acceptance during the semester and (3) the differences in acceptance between the two disciplines. We applied the Technology Acceptance Model and were able to validate it for the extreme situation of the COVID-19 pandemic. We extended the model with three new variables (time flexibility, learning flexibility and social isolation) that influenced the construct of perceived usefulness. Furthermore, we detected differences between the disciplines and over time. In this paper, we present and discuss our study's results and derive short- and long-term implications for science and practice.}, language = {en} }