The displacement of retail spending by students in host cities owing to Covid-19: A case study

The regulations implemented by governments in response to COVID-19 to limit the movement of people affected the nature of consumer spending. Consumption behaviour change, resulting from disasters or government-enforced regulation, is visible through spending displacement and response to fast-moving changes in circumstances. This study examines student spending in the host cities of universities and how a pandemic, such as COVID-19, may reduce or eliminate the spending injections into the economy through displaced spending. The pre-Covid-19 student survey spending results revealed that 81 per cent of students’ monthly retail spending takes place inside the host city with the rest spent outside. The Covid-19 enforced move towards online learning, and the potentially longer-term shifts from contact to online learning, will have a significant spending displacement effect on the host city. The results show that students are indifferent to spending during the week or on weekends and that most students are content to stay within the host city during weekends. No obvious time preference between the week and weekend for spending was found. The results show that student spending represents significant spending in the host city and for the time the COVID-19 restrictions remain in place, the spending displacement and loss of income for local businesses will be significant. The loss of student spending amounts to approximately R2 million daily. This not only highlights the cost of enforced lockdown measures, but also provides important indicators to university management upon considering replacing the existing tuition model of contact learning with one of online learning. Such a decision will lead to a significant negative impact on the economic activity of the Potchefstroom business community with far-reaching implications for employment, income generation and wealth disbursement in this university city

Beyond commercial real estate development: Student spending and economic recovery

As consumer spending changes after a disaster, cities are often faced with ways in which to revitalise or renew certain nodes. This paper provides insights into how students can be leveraged to support economic recovery after a crisis. Apart from the skill benefits that arise from educating the students, they are also spenders of money and represent the ideal market that could fast track revitalisation of nodes. The spending made by students acts as a demand driver for activity in the retail, residential and quasi-commercial sectors, with increasing consumer activity and improvement of aesthetic appeal key contributors. In this research, activities that can benefit from student spending are derived from a student survey. The results reveal that students spend money on retail related goods that, rent higher density residential accommodation, and spend on entertainment and transport activities. Inner-city nodes, such as the Christchurch central business district, can benefit from a student or young-adult centric development plan where affordable, high-density housing is provided. This will have flow-on effects on other industries, as students spend within these nodes and at the same time, support recovery and renewal

Influence of dipping practices on the seroprevalence of babesiosis and anaplasmosis in the foot-and-mouth disease buffer zone adjoining the Kruger National Park in South Africa

A serological survey of bovine babesiosis and anaplasmosis was conducted in the foot-and-mouth disease buffer zone surrounding the Kruger National Park in South Africa between 2001 and 2003 to determine whether the withdrawal of government-subsidized dipping in certain regions had affected the seroprevalence of these tick-borne diseases. Seroprevalence of Anaplasma marginale and Babesia bovis increased during the study period. This increase was greater in Limpopo Province where farmers had to supply their own acaricide than in Mpumalanga Province where dipping materials were provided by the local Veterinary Services. The number of animals testing positive for B. bigemina decreased in both provinces during the study period, which was attributed to possible vector displacement rather than more effective tick control measures. Responses to a questionnaire on ticks and tick-borne diseases revealed local knowledge on the subject to be highly variable and sometimes incorrect

Physician preparedness for resource allocation decisions under pandemic conditions: A cross-sectional survey of Canadian physicians, April 2020.

BackgroundUnder the pandemic conditions created by the novel coronavirus of 2019 (COVID-19), physicians have faced difficult choices allocating scarce resources, including but not limited to critical care beds and ventilators. Past experiences with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and current reports suggest that making these decisions carries a heavy emotional toll for physicians around the world. We sought to explore Canadian physicians' preparedness and attitudes regarding resource allocation decisions.MethodsFrom April 3 to April 13, 2020, we conducted an 8-question online survey of physicians practicing in the region of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, organized around 4 themes: physician preparedness for resource rationing, physician preparedness to offer palliative care, attitudes towards resource allocation policy, and approaches to resource allocation decision-making.ResultsWe collected 219 responses, of which 165 were used for analysis. The majority (78%) of respondents felt "somewhat" or "a little prepared" to make resource allocation decisions, and 13% felt "not at all prepared." A majority of respondents (63%) expected the provision of palliative care to be "very" or "somewhat difficult." Most respondents (83%) either strongly or somewhat agreed that there should be policy to guide resource allocation. Physicians overwhelmingly agreed on certain factors that would be important in resource allocation, including whether patients were likely to survive, and whether they had dementia and other significant comorbidities. Respondents generally did not feel confident that they would have the social support they needed at the time of making resource allocation decisions.InterpretationThis rapidly implemented survey suggests that a sample of Canadian physicians feel underprepared to make resource allocation decisions, and desire both more emotional support and clear, transparent, evidence-based policy

Purification, characterization and biosynthesis of parabutoxin 3, a component of <I>Parabuthus</I> <I>transvaalicus</I> venom

GesondheidswetenskappeFarmakologiePlease help us populate SUNScholar with the post print version of this article. It can be e-mailed to: [email protected]

Structural and spectroscopic studies of some copper(I) halide tert-butyl isocyanide adducts

Single-crystal structural characterizations confirm the existence of the unusual 1 : 4 copper(I) halide : unidentate ligand adducts [Cu(CNt-Bu)(4)]X for X = Cl, Br (two forms), I (the chloride and one form of the bromide being solvated) with crystal packing dominated by stacks of interleaving cations. Cu-C range between 1.941(2) and 1.972(4) angstrom. The structure of the 1 : 2 chloride complex is also recorded, being [ClCu(CNt-BU)(2)], with the copper(I) atom environment trigonal planar, while CuCN: (CNt-Bu) (1 : 1) is a single-stranded polymer which spirals about a crystallographic 3-axis (CN scrambled), the ligands being pendant from the ...CuCNCuCN... string. The Cu-65 static broadline NMR spectra of [Cu(CNt-BU)(4)]I and [Cu(CNt-Bu)(4)]Br center dot H2O in the solid state exhibit dominant, narrow -1/2 +1/2 central transition resonances and associated +/- 1/2 +/- 3/2 satellite transition resonances which are characteristic of first-order quadrupole broadened systems, while associated high-resolution Cu-65 MAS NMR data provide accurate measurement of the (CU)-C-65 isotropic chemical shifts. Both approaches provide complete data on the quadrupole and chemical shift interactions which contribute to these spectra. Far-IR spectra of products of reactions involving a range of CuX : t-BuNC ratios reveal the existence of 1 : 1.5 adducts for X = Br, I. Metal-carbon and metal-halogen bands are assigned in the far-IR spectra, which indicate a binuclear double halogen-bridged structure for the 1 : 1.5 complexes

Complexity in influenza virus targeted drug design: interaction with human sialidases.

With the global spread of the pandemic H1N1 and the ongoing pandemic potential of the H5N1 subtype, the influenza virus represents one of the most alarming viruses spreading worldwide. The influenza virus sialidase is an effective drug target, and a number of inhibitors are clinically effective against the virus (zanamivir, oseltamivir, peramivir). Here we report structural and biochemical studies of the human cytosolic sialidase Neu2 with influenza virus sialidase-targeting drugs and related compounds