The COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruption to the economy due to the increasing infection that affects the workforce in different sectors. The Philippine government has imposed lockdowns to control the spread of infection. This urged the different sectors to implement flexible work schedules or work from home setup. A work-from-home (WFH) setup burdens both the employee and employer by installing different equipment set-ups such as WiFi-equipped laptops, computers, tablets, or smartphones. However, the internet stability in some of the areas in the Philippines is not yet reliable. In this study, an application is used collect survey information and provide an estimate of the telework internet cost requirement of a given government employee or a given government employee implementing a work-from-home set up in their respective household. This involves survey results from different respondents who are currently on a work-from-home setup and significant factors from the survey have been analyzed using machine learning (ML) algorithms. Among the machine learning algorithms used, the ensemble bagged trees model outperformed the other ML models. This work can be extended by incorporating a wider scope of datasets from different industry doing work from home set-up. In addition, in terms of education, it is also recommended to determine the WFH set up not just with the government employee and employer but to also extend this into the education side.

Efficient and reliable medical image analysis is indispensable in modern healthcare settings. The conventional approaches in diagnostics and evaluations from a mere picture are complex. It often leads to subjectivity due to experts' various experiences and expertise. Using convolutional neural networks, we proposed an end-to-end pipeline for automatic Cobb angle measurement to pinpoint scoliosis severity. Our results show that the Residual U-Net architecture provides vertebrae average segmentation accuracy of 92.95% based on Dice and Jaccard similarity coefficients. Furthermore, a comparative benchmark between physician's measurement and our machine-driven approach produces an acceptable mean deviation of 1.57 degrees and a T-test p-value of 0.9028, indicating no significant difference. This study has the potential to help doctors in prompt scoliosis magnitude assessments.

Student engagement and enrichment are key factors as learners have shifted from the traditional classroom to the virtual classroom when a flexible learning environment has been in place. It has posed a challenge for educators to shift from traditional educational methods to the utilization of technology-enhanced learning all the more since online and flexible mode were often used since the pandemic. This paper intends to convey that students may exhibit engagement inside the virtual classroom by posting student-generated questions during a discussion forum in the Canvas LMS as question-based inquiries. More so, students have enjoyed and increase their academic performance by playing and participating in a gamified learning activity. This research discussed an activity in encouraging students' learning, curiosity, and involvement in online learning environments. The authors aim for this objective by fusing the 1) utilization of student-generated questions in the goal of promoting learning and thinking, and 2) boosting student engagement through the use of gamified activities which increases students’ academic performance. These intentions will be realized in the virtual classroom implementation and its assessment. Employing the Canvas New Analytics, 148 first year-second semester students questioned their teacher about a course topic and as their questions were each replied to, they were graded through discussion post with an average grade of 99% for all sections. The game Jeopardy was played as an examination review session for the same sections and 181 students from the four sections have an average grade score of 77.5% in their midterm examination. A course learning objective item is also measured with a university target that at least 60% of students should reach an average grade score of 80% and above. For the CLO target, average of four sections reached 68.3% which is descriptively attained. Generating questioned-based inquiry in the forum discussion showed an increase in engagement and enrichment from students. The findings have a positive impact on them as their posted inquiries and questions gained them grades which indicated high average grade for each section. Utilizing a gamified learning activity in a pure online setting for the school year 2021-2022, allowing the students to participate in educational games is necessary to boost engagement and enrichment as well.

Governments and health agencies around the world have been at the forefront of managing the COVID-19 pandemic. To control the spread of the outbreak, mandatory safety protocols have been put into effect. Despite the continuous development and strict enforcement of these preventive guidelines, non-compliance with these mandatory safety protocols has been reported. Getting the message to the public is one of the key challenges in convincing people to follow mitigation policies. In this study, we employed the media of video games to advocate for COVID-19 safety protocols. We developed a video game called "Corona Larona" that features microgames with action gameplay playable on a mobile platform. Our video game concentrated on several preventive measures such as physical distancing, hand washing, wearing face masks as well as basic knowledge about the virus using in-game multiple choice questions. To our knowledge, this is the first video game dedicated to the COVID-19 outbreak and the mandatory safety protocols. In a time when many people play video games to survive their current situation, the Corona Larona game is a strategic example of using and maximizing this form of media for a more noble purpose.

The Virtual Dietitian (VD) application is a nutrition knowledge-based system that generates personalized meal plans in accordance with the one-size-does-not-fit-all concept of precision nutrition. A subset of the population that was not involved in its four-part developmental study was gym and fitness enthusiasts despite them being important target users. As part of our quality improvement (QI) plan, we initiated a two-phase user testing to inform modifications to VD. We recruited a total of 30 users with prior experience in nutrition applications. In phase 1, they used the current version of VD for a week and answered a mixed-form questionnaire afterward. We used the same questionnaire from our previous study, which is composed of System Usability Scale (SUS) items and open-ended questions. After months of system modification, the same set of users evaluated again the new VD version after another week of use. A paired-sample t-test showed a statistically significant difference in SUS scores before (SUS = 79) and after (SUS = 82) modifying VD based on the suggestions of the participants (p = 0.005). Some new features include water tracker and reminder modules, Google Fit integration, and other nutrition support services (e.g., teleconsultation with registered dietitians). Although further refinements to VD are still needed, we were able to incorporate a QI initiative typically employed by healthcare organizations into software development for a better and improved personalized nutrition application.

During the outbreak of COVID-19, the productivity gap between working in the office and at home has become a more critical issue in the labor market. For teachers with numerous vital responsibilities, the inescapable increased workload results in less productivity and efficiency. Following the reliance on productivity applications to lessen labor, we investigated the moderating effects of sociodemographic profiles of teachers through the Technology Acceptance Model. The demographic makeup of our participants (n = 513) was dominated by assistant professors, females, married, licensed teachers, aged 25 to 34 with a teaching experience of 6 to 10 years, and permanent and full-time in a public university. Our findings demonstrate that sociodemographic variables moderate the effects of perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) on teachers’ behavioral intention to use (BITU), except for the effects of gender in PEOU → BITU, teaching experience in PEOU → BITU, and educational attainment in PU → BITU.