Zhen Liu, Zulan Yang, Ming-Jie Liang, Yi Liu · 6 authors
In the face of the health challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, healing and therapeutic design (HTD) as interventions can help with improving people's health. It is considered to have great potential to promote health in the forms of art, architecture, landscape, space, and environment. However, there are insufficient design approaches to address the challenges during the HTD process. An increased number of studies have shown that emerging information modeling (IM) such as building information modeling (BIM), landscape information modeling (LIM), and city information modeling (CIM) coupled with blockchain (BC) functionalities have the potential to enhance designers' HTD by considering important design elements, namely design variables, design knowledge, and design decision. It can also address challenges during the design process, such as design changes, conflicts in design requirements, the lack of design evaluation tools and frameworks, and incomplete design information. Therefore, this paper aims to develop a conceptual BC enhanced IM for HTD (BC-HTD) framework that addresses the challenges in the HTD and promotes health and well-being. The structure of BC-HTD framework is twofold: (1) a conceptual high-level framework comprising three levels: user; system; and information, (2) a conceptual low-level framework of detailed content at the system level, which has been constructed using a mixed quantitative and qualitative method of literature analysis, and validated via a pre-interview questionnaire survey and follow-up interviews with industry experts and academics. This paper analyzes the process of BC enhanced HTD and the knowledge management of HTD to aid design decisions in managing design information. This paper is the first attempt to apply the advantages of BC enabled IM to enhance the HTD process. The results of this study can foster and propel new research pathways and knowledge on the value of design in the form of non-fungible token (NFT) based on the extended advantages of BC in the field of design, which can fully mobilize the healing and therapeutic behaviors of designers and the advantage potential of HTD to promote health, and realize the vision of Health Metaverse in the context of sustainable development.
The present study investigates the impact of COVID-19 on the volatility of BSE Sensex stock index. The weekly data on COVID-19 fatality cases, an independent variable, in India from 1 March 2020 to 27 December 2020 has been taken from the official website of the World Health Organization. The weekly data on a dependent variable (Sensex) and control variables (crude oil, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin) have also been considered for the period under study. The GARCH(1, 1) model has been used to extract the volatility series of the variables that are considered in the investigation, and vector error correction model (VECM) is also applied. Further, robust tests like ADF, variance decomposition test, impulse response test have been performed to check the validity of the results. The findings suggest the significant negative effect of COVID-19 fatality cases on BSE Sensex stock index during the specified study period. This negative coefficient of COVID-19 fatality cases in India reflects the increasing volatility of the BSE Sensex stock index.
The increasing spread of the coronavirus across countries and with no sight of vaccine uncovered soon has prompted affected countries to impose strict containment measures. In view to ease the enormous strain on health systems; disinfection, decontamination, contact tracking, and isolation are a few health protocols that are to be observed by companies that resumed their activities to protect their employees from being infected. Hence, against a backdrop of heightened uncertainty, this project leverages on the advancement of technology to design and built a smart Infrared thermal scanning with a camera (Thermovis-Mi-FRAHT-800). An Ultraviolet-C spectrum disinfection system and integration of blockchain technology for data sharing, managing health records, and access control. SketchUp used as a 3D design platform for this project. This system designed with a precautionary measure which includes 3 conditions to be met for the automated barrier to be open which include temperature measurement, disinfection, and sanitization processes. Overall, a person spends less than a minute in the walkthrough path chamber as the process takes 20 to 25 seconds each. By this calculation, we assume that 2 people would be able to get disinfected within a minute which comes up to 120 people per hour. Thus, reducing the number of monitoring staffs in direct contact with the stakeholders with potential infection issues. It is envisaged that developing this conceptual design would be the cornerstone in adhering to control measure through appropriate infection control and modification using current and future technologies.