A review of plastic pollution and their treatment technology: A circular economy platform by thermochemical pathway

The rapid expansion of plastic manufacturing industries in last several decades has brought serious concerns over the environmental impacts of plastic wastes. Recent outbreak of Covid-19 drastically increased production, use, and disposal of plastic products. Current management strategies for wasted plastics still rely on landfill and incineration that continue to exacerbate plastic pollution and carbon emissions. Many countries have put forward multifaceted administrative efforts to reduce plastic wastes, but the annual global generation of plastic wastes is still increasing. In techno-society, researchers have been exploring more effective plastic wastes treatment technologies to alleviate environmental impacts of plastic wastes. Such efforts entailed several technical options that can potentially contribute to establishing a circular economy for plastics. Thermochemical process is a prominent example of such techniques. This review presents an overview of the issue of plastic pollution, covering topics including global plastic production, environmental impacts, and toxicity. In addition, the global administrative efforts aimed at reducing plastic pollution are discussed, as well as detection and treatment strategies to establish a circular economy in plastic management. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.

Localization using Multi-Focal Spatial Attention for Masked Face Recognition

Since the beginning of world-wide COVID-19 pandemic, facial masks have been recommended to limit the spread of the disease. However, these masks hide certain facial attributes. Hence, it has become difficult for existing face recognition systems to perform identity verification on masked faces. In this context, it is necessary to develop masked Face Recognition (MFR) for contactless biometric recognition systems. Thus, in this paper, we propose Complementary Attention Learning and Multi-Focal Spatial Attention that precisely removes masked region by training complementary spatial attention to focus on two distinct regions: masked regions and backgrounds. In our method, standard spatial attention and networks focus on unmasked regions, and extract mask-invariant features while minimizing the loss of the conventional Face Recognition (FR) performance. For conventional FR, we evaluate the performance on the IJB-C, Age-DB, CALFW, and CPLFW datasets. We evaluate the MFR performance on the ICCV2021-MFR/Insightface track, and demonstrate the improved performance on the both MFR and FR datasets. Additionally, we empirically verify that spatial attention of proposed method is more precisely activated in unmasked regions. © 2023 IEEE.

The Competitiveness of Nations 1: Navigating the US-China Trade War and the COVID-19 Global Pandemic

In the existing reports on national competitiveness and rankings such as IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook and WEF Global Competitiveness Report, there are sizable discrepancies in the ranking order for the same countries. As a result, the reader is often confused because such an outcome creates difficulties for government officials when translating these findings into real-world policies. These discrepancies are actually due to the differences in logic and analytical models used by IMD and WEF. Therefore, in recognizing the problems and limitations of these models, this book presents the IPS model as a new approach. As an extension of Michael Porter's diamond model, it demonstrates a robust set of methodologies as well as offers a number of key policy implications for countries around the world that wish to enhance their national competitiveness. The analytical tools used in this book can be further utilized for other units of analysis such as industries and firms. As this book provides a series of sophisticated methodologies and specific guidelines for enhancing national competitiveness, both academics and practitioners can derive useful implications from this research. Alongside the theoretical frameworks and methodologies for national competitiveness presented in this book, timely topics are included such as the COVID-19 global pandemic and the US-China trade war. This book also includes various country-specific real-world cases that are assessed from the perspective of both developed and developing countries. © 2022 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Frontiers: Virus Shook the Streaming Star: Estimating the COVID-19 Impact on Music Consumption

Many have speculated that the recent outbreak of COVID-19 has led to a surge in the use of online streaming services. However, this assumption has not been closely examined for music streaming services, the consumption patterns of which can be different from video streaming services. To provide insights into this question, we analyze Spotify's streaming data for the weekly top 200 songs for two years in 60 countries between June 2018 and May 2020, along with varying lockdown policies and detailed daily mobility information from Google. Empirical evidence shows that the COVID-19 outbreak significantly reduced music streaming consumption in many countries. We also find that countries with larger mobility decreases saw more notable downturns in streaming during the pandemic. Further, we reveal that the mobility effect was attributable to the complementarity of music consumption to other activities and likely to be transient rather than irreversible. Alternative mechanisms, such as unobservable Spotify-specific factors, a demand shift from top-selling songs to niche music, and supply-side effects, did not explain the decline in music consumption.

Metabolic syndrome and the risk of COVID-19 infection: A nationwide population-based case-control study

OBJECTIVE: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a chronic, low-grade inflammatory disease. This study aimed to investigate the impact of MetS on the risk and severity of COVID- 19. METHODS: We investigated a nationwide cohort with COVID-19 including all patients who underwent the test for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS- CoV-2) in Korea. The COVID-19 group included 4,070 patients with positive SARS-CoV-2 test results, and the age- and sex-matched control group included 27,618 subjects with negative SARS-CoV-2 test results. The endpoints were SARS- CoV-2 positivity and the severity of COVID- 19. RESULTS: The prevalence of MetS was 24.7% and 24.5% in the COVID-19 and control groups, respectively. The presence of MetS was not associated with the risk of developing COVID-19. Among the components of MetS, central obesity was associated with a higher risk of COVID- 19 infection (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.17;95% confidence interval [CI], 1.06- 1.28, P = 0.001). The presence of MetS was significantly associated with severe COVID-19 (aOR, 1.25;95% CI, 0.78-2.00, P = 0.352). Among the individual components of MetS, prediabetes/ diabetes mellitus was associated with a higher risk of severe COVID-19 (aOR, 1.61;95% CI, 1.21-2.13, P = 0.001). The risk of severe COVID-19 linearly increased according to the number of metabolic components (P for trend = 0.005). CONCLUSION: In this nationwide cohort study, the individuals with MetS had significant increases in the risk of severe COVID-19 infection. These patients, particularly those with central obesity and insulin resistance, deserve special attention amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

CERT Training Platform over the Event-Recordable Container

The current COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many changes in the IT systems and services of institutions, which also heightened the concerns regarding the potential increase in intrusion incidents, especially when most works in institutions are performed at home. The need for pre-training against intrusion incidents has then become extremely necessary. Unfortunately, current learning methods in existing studies are insufficient for application in the present demand because these methods were originally designed for environments that are tailored-fit for learners and not in actual environments. This paper proposes a training system, namely, computer emergency response team (CERT), that can be specifically designed for learners in an institution to provide intrusion-incident cases using a Web-based training system. CERT can easily replicate the service or system in an institution to a honeypot environment to automatically collect and classify intrusion incidents using diverse evaluation criteria so that learning can be achieved from different perspectives. Hence, the institution operating service and system can easily be replicated. Artifacts of intrusion incidents are collected using the Docker container technology and event-recordable container, which are analyzed using a Web browser without installing a separate program. Thus, optimal learning results from the analysis of actual attacks are expected. © 2020 Owner/Author.

Digitally Mediated Shakespeare in South Korea

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic from January 2020 necessitated significant changes, a transition from an actual to a virtual stage, as performing arts in Korea experienced economic difficulties. This study analyses a live-streamed performance of Shakespeare in Korea: Othello and lago (2020) by The Greatest Masque and considers how the theatre company used aesthetics and technology for its virtual presentation and social media sites for interaction with the virtual audiences. The study also presents a future model for Korean Shakespeare - with greater emphasis on liveness and communality - which could be fulfilled virtually through social media.

Implementation of a Telemedicine Clinic in the Covid-19 Era

Background: COVID-19 has drastically altered the delivery of medical care in the United States and beyond. Healthcare providers have been forced to rapidly innovate to mitigate the spread of infection and maintain social distancing. Telemedicine allows for the continuation of vital patient care while decreasing the risk of virus transmission. Objective: We conducted a survey to assess the satisfaction of both patients and providers with rapid implementation of an electronic medical record (EMR) based video visit system. Methods: A survey hyperlink was distributed through EMR messages to patients and emails to providers. Results: 74/376 patients (19.7%) and 8/10 (80%) providers completed the survey. The population consisted of advanced heart failure (n = 37, 50%), mechanical circulatory support (n = 4, 5.4%), transplant (n = 19, 25.7%) and general cardiology (n = 14, 18.9%) patients and their respective providers. The patient survey consisted of validated survey questions to assess patient and provider perceptions. Patients were 69.7% male with a mean age of 65. 74% of the patients consider themselves early adopters or innovators with new technology. 85% of surveyed patients believed that telemedicine is simple to use and easy to learn. 77% felt the telemedicine system interface was of good quality, 88% believed it allows for good interaction with the provider, 95% believed it protects both patients and providers by limiting exposure to COVID-19, 83% were overall satisfied with this telemedicine system and would use it again. 75% of providers reported no telemedicine experience prior to COVID-19. Notably, 100% of physicians consider themselves early adopters or innovators with new technology. 87.5% deemed their patients highly complex. 100 % of providers felt that telemedicine is useful for their job and 87.5% felt that their job would be difficult to perform without it, 27.5% believed video visits save and reduce time spent on unproductive activities, and allow accomplishing more work and tasks more quickly, 87.5% believe the system is easy to use overall, 100% agree it enhances providers’ and patients’ safety during COVID-19. Conclusion: Patients reported high level of satisfaction with video visits and interaction with their providers as well as with the ease of use and convenience of telemedicine appointments. Providers found the telemedicine system easy to use and useful for their job, but many believe there is room for improvement with respect to time saving measures.