Urban Mobility in the Postpandemic Stage: A Comprehensive Investigation of a Variety of Cities in China

The global outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has affected the urban mobility of nations around the world. The pandemic may even have a potentially lasting impact on travel behaviors during the post-pandemic stage. China has basically stopped the spread of COVID-19 and reopened the economy, providing an unprecedented environment for investigating post-pandemic travel behaviors. This study conducts multiple investigations to show the changes in travel behaviors in the post-pandemic stage, on the basis of empirical travel data in a variety of cities in China. Specifically, this study demonstrates the changes in road network travel speed in 57 case cities and the changes in subway ridership in 26 case cities. Comprehensive comparisons can indicate the potential modal share in the post-pandemic stage. Further, this study conducts a case analysis of Beijing, where the city has experienced two waves of COVID-19. The variations in travel speed in the road network of Beijing at different stages of the pandemic help reveal the public's responses towards the varying severity of the pandemic. Finally, a case study of the Yuhang district in Hangzhou is conducted to demonstrate the changes in traffic volume and vehicle travel distance amid the post-pandemic stage based on license plate recognition data. Results indicate a decline in subway trips in the post-pandemic stage among case cities. The vehicular traffic in cities with subways has recovered in peak hours on weekdays and has been even more congested than the pre-pandemic levels;whereas the vehicular traffic in cities without subways has not rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. This situation implies a potential modal shift from public transportation to private vehicular travel modes. Results also indicate that commuting traffic is sensitive to the severity of the pandemic. This may be because countermeasures, e.g., work-from-home and suspension of non-essential businesses, will be implemented if the pandemic restarts. The travel speed in non-peak hours and on non-workdays is higher than pre-pandemic levels, indicating that non-essential travel demand may be reduced and the public's vigilance towards the pandemic may continue to the post-pandemic stage. These findings can help improve policymaking strategies in the post-pandemic new normal. © 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Building a One Country One Licensure Framework: Applications for the future of Canadian Space Physicians

Space medicine provides care in the most extreme environment known to humankind. The global space economy is forecast to be a $1 trillion industry by 2040. Its increased utilization will require additional legal healthcare support frameworks. We reviewed the current Canadian medicolegal framework for the capability to adapt to this new demand. Currently, Canadian physicians are required to hold a license in each province they practice. As space medicine encompasses multiple medical specialties and its practice is beyond Canadian provincial jurisdictions, we identified medicolegal gaps in the Canadian ability to provide space healthcare. Geographical licensing restrictions have caused detriment to healthcare provision in remote communities, military medicine, and telemedicine, exacerbated by COVID-19. By examining similarities and solutions from these terrestrial situations, bi-directional translational licensing solutions may be found. Recommendations for an improved Canadian licensing framework targeting provision of space medicine may lead to improving healthcare access and universality for Canadians nationwide. Author

Sustainability and the Thoroughbred Breeding and Racing Industries: An Enhanced One Welfare Perspective.

As society debates the use of animals in sport, entertainment, and leisure, there is an increasing focus on the welfare, social, and ecological impacts of such activities on the animals, human participants, people close to them, and the physical environment. This article introduces the "Enhanced One Welfare Framework" to reveal significant costs and benefits associated with Thoroughbred breeding and racing globally. In addition, relative to calls to ban horseracing and similar activities as part of sustainability approaches that focus chiefly on animals, the "Enhanced One Welfare Framework" is better positioned politically to guide discussions that renegotiate the conditions under which horses are used for sport and the impact racing has on humans and the planet. In 2020, the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities issued its minimum horse welfare standards based on the Five Domains model, positioning lifelong horse welfare as "fundamentally important to the viability and sustainability of the industry". In this article, we critique the One Welfare framework's historic lack of focus on sport and enhance it by including sport, leisure, and entertainment and framing it within the Five Domains model. We offer a novel extension of the Five Domains model beyond animal welfare to consider human welfare and the physical environmental impacts of the sport, leisure, and entertainment industries and propose innovations that may help thoroughbred breeding and racing assure a sustainable future.

The Doha Declaration at Twenty: Interpretation, Implementation, and Lessons Learned on the Relationship Between the TRIPS Agreement and Global Health

In the two decades since adoption of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health (“Doha Declaration”), it has been the subject of intense debate. The Declaration sets out WTO Members’ understanding of the relationship between the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (“TRIPS Agreement”) and global health;recognizes the existence of “flexibilities” in the Agreement;and identifies (in Paragraph 6) a “problem” that required “an expeditious solution.” In line with Paragraph 6, WTO Members ultimately agreed to amend the TRIPS Agreement to enable compulsory licensing for export to countries with insufficient pharmaceutical manufacturing capacities. This article reviews and interprets the language of the Doha Declaration, and considers its legal status. The article then examines practical experiences with the system established pursuant to Paragraph 6, drawing conclusions about that system and, more generally, compulsory licensing. Compulsory licensing is often a deeply flawed means to the critically important end of increasing access to medicines, and may ultimately be counterproductive to a country’s objectives of improving public health. The article also explains how the ongoing development and manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics provides real-world confirmation of the importance of intellectual property protection for incentivizing investments in R&D and fostering voluntary collaborations. It considers that proposals to reduce intellectual property protection in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic may reduce the pace of collaborations that are essential to producing the billions of vaccine doses needed in the coming months, while leaving the world unprepared for the next pandemic. © Terms and Conditions.

Comments on Copyright Aspects of Use of Copyright Works in Digital Teaching

In the current COVID-19 pandemic, teachers and students routinely take part in schooling via digital technologies, using their own and other authors' copyrighted works, even without their permission or licence. The aim of this article is to identify these aspects of copyright in online teaching and to offer solutions to them. Some of these aspects are addressed by EU Directive No. 2019/790 (Digital Directive), the implementation of which was reflected in the draft amendment to the Czech Copyright Act, which had not addressed them. To fulfil this goal, the author asked several research questions: What forms of use of copyright works refer to the terms e-learning, online teaching or digital teaching? Is it possible to apply a statutory teaching exemption to the use of copyright works of other authors without their consent under the current wording of the Copyright Act (AutZ)? Is there any case law regarding such an exemption that would be applicable to e-learning? How will the conditions for the use of copyright works in e-learning change with the AutZ amendment following the implementation of EU Directive No. 2019/790 (Digital Directive) and what practical organizational recommendations can be made? To the above goal and questions, we conducted research in Czech law relating to the use of copyright works in digital teaching. For this purpose, we used the method of empirical research of Czech legislation and case law containing the terms e-learning and online or digital teaching. We also employed a comparative method to compare Czech law and EU law. The article is primarily an overview with elements of reflection. It does not comprehensively address all aspects of copyright in teaching, such as plagiarism in general, but identifies copyright aspects specific to e-learning. Copyright: © 2022 by the author(s).

Related Theories and Practical Applications of Soft Computing in the Manufacturing Process of Industry 4.0 2021

Soft computing enables research, simulation, and analysis of complex problems and phenomena. [...]related developmental theories can be applied and used to solve problems that occurred in the manufacturing process of Industry 4.0. [...]advanced soft computing methods and decision-making techniques can be used to extract useful information and obtain effective manufacturing intelligence. Chiu et al. applied Kalman filter characteristics to eliminate noise in the signal transmission process in order to improve the stability and accuracy of localization. [...]the authors used the adaptive network based on the fuzzy inference system to obtain the environment parameter of the target.

Maintaining a social license to operate for wastewater-based monitoring: The case of managing infectious disease and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wastewater monitoring as a public health tool is well-established and the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic has seen its widespread uptake. Given the significant potential of wastewater monitoring as a public health surveillance and decision support tool, it is important to understand what measures are required to allow the long-term benefits of wastewater monitoring to be fully realized, including how to establish and/or maintain public support. The potential for positive SARS-CoV-2 detections to trigger enforced, community-wide public health interventions (e.g., lockdowns and other impacts on civil liberties) further emphasises the need to better understand the role of public engagement in successful wastewater-based monitoring programs. This paper systematically reviews the processes of building and maintaining the social license to operate wastewater monitoring. We specifically explore the relationship between different stakeholder communities and highlight the information and actions that are required to establish a social license to operate and then prevent its loss. The paper adds to the literature on social license to operate by extending its application to new domains and offers a dynamic model of social license to help guide the agenda for researcher and practitioner communities.

COVID-19 and Equitable Distribution of Vaccine: Emerging Debates within the Framework of the World Trade Organization Agreements

Vaccine nationalism is an obstacle to combating the global COVID-19 pandemic. Since the production of COVID-19 vaccines is still insufficient to meet the needs of the world population, developed countries primarily purchase them for their populations. The protection of intellectual property rights is another obstacle to the acceleration and widespread use of vaccine production. In order to overcome this obstacle, India and South Africa filed a waiver request before the World Trade Organization (WTO). This request aims to obtain official permission for the otherwise breach of the WTO Agreements provisions protecting intellectual property rights until the pandemic is over. The waiver request has become a topic of differing analysis. Some say the waiver request is unnecessary as the existing provisions of the GATT and TRIPS Agreements sufficiently serve the same purpose. In this article, the waiver request is considered critical and necessary. The provisions of the WTO Agreements that allow recourse to the national security exceptions or compulsory licensing were analyzed to evaluate whether or not they would be an alternative to a waiver decision. They concluded that resorting to these already existing procedures in the WTO Agreements would likely bring about further trade disputes and, therefore, a waiver decision is preferable. Finally, this article addresses the issue of quantity restrictions in the international trade of vaccines.

Theoretical Analysis of the SIRVVD Model for Insights into the Target Rate of COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination in Japan

The effectiveness of the first dose of vaccination for COVID-19 is different from that of the second dose;therefore, in several studies, various mathematical models that can represent the states of the first and second vaccination doses have been developed. Using the results of these studies and considering the effects of the first and second vaccination doses, we can simulate the spread of infectious diseases. The susceptible-infected-recovered-vaccination1-vaccination2-death (SIRVVD) model is one of the proposed mathematical models;however, it has not been sufficiently theoretically analyzed. Therefore, we obtained an analytical expression for the number of infected persons by considering the numbers of susceptible and vaccinated persons as parameters. We used the solution to determine the target vaccination rate for decreasing the infection numbers of the COVID-19 Delta variant (B.1.617) in Japan. Furthermore, we investigated the target vaccination rates for cases with strong or weak variants by comparing with the COVID-19 Delta variant (B.1.617). This study contributes to the mathematical development of the SIRVVD model and provides insights into the target vaccination rate for decreasing the number of infections. Author

Environmental Adaptive Privacy Preserving Contact Tracing System: A Construction from Public Key Rerandomizable BLS Signatures

The COVID-19 pandemic has made the scientific community devise means to implement “contact tracing" mechanisms to mitigate the spread of the infection. The crucial idea is to scan and record close contacts between users using mobile device, in order to notify persons when their close contact(s) is diagnosed positive. First, the ability granted to service providers of the contact tracing systems to access user data violates user privacy, and attackers can fabricate identities and contact records in their devices, which harms the integrity of the system. Moreover, current contact tracing systems’false-positive rate is too high to be practical as they do not filter scan results outside the range of infections, since the range of transmission for droplets is far less than the scanning range for Bluetooth Low Energy used by these systems. Furthermore, current systems neglect airborne transmission, a far cry from a tool against viruses suspended in the air. In this paper, we propose a cryptographic framework for contact tracing and provide a construction based on public key rerandomizable BLS signature, being capable of providing users of contact tracing with comprehensive privacy protection. Besides, we also implement a commitment scheme to prevent fabrication of identities and contact records. To prove the concept of our framework and to solve other problems mentioned above, we proposed a new contact tracing system, using environmental factors (temperature, humidity and airflow) to filter out results outside estimated effective transmission distance, and also take airborne transmission into consideration. Finally, we evaluate the performance of our design by implementing our algorithm on mobile devices with satisfactory results. Author

Reformulation of Competency Development of Lecturers of State Islamic Religious Universities in Indonesia After Covid-19

The study of the competency of lecturers in Indonesia cannot be separated from the study of state intervention in education. State hegemony occurs in the form of formalization of regulations governing the improvement of capabilities and competences of lecturers. Research shows that the presence of Law No. 14 of 2005 and Government Regulation No. 37 of 2009 has been used as an implementation juridical foothold to encourage the increase of qualifications and competences of lecturers at State Islamic Religious Colleges (PTKIN) in Indonesia in general, and in UIN Ar-Raniry and UIN Bandung specifically. A qualitative-quantitative combination research design was applied in this research with data set approaches through documentation studies, observations, in-depth interviews, and questionnaires. This research establishes that the development of lecturer competence in PTKIN is in line with and not contradictory to the national education system and strengthens the content of Law No. 14 of 2005 and Government Regulation No. 37 of 2009. The qualifications and competences of lecturers at PTKIN have improved, but there is still a treat of implementation of regulations that have not been maximally felt by the lecturers. Upgrading the qualifications and competences of lecturers well and maximally, substantially affects PTKIN lecturers in improving the performance, professionalism and quality of academic benefits for students. These logical consequences have a positive impact on the transformation of education in the PTKIN environment after COVID-19, where learning processes and academic services can run online based on information technology. © 2022. All Rights Reserved.

Circuitree: a Datalog Reasoner in Zero-Knowledge

Driven by the increased consciousness in data ownership and privacy, zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) have become a popular tool to convince a third party of the truthfulness of a statement without disclosing any further information. As ZKPs are rather complex to design, frameworks that transform high-level languages into ZKPs have been proposed. We propose Circuitree, a Datalog reasoner in zero-knowledge. Datalog is a high-level declarative logic language that is generally used for querying. Furthermore, as a logic language, it can also be used to solve logic problems. An application using Circuitree can efficiently generate ZKPs, based on Datalog rules and encrypted data, to prove that a certain conclusion follows from a Datalog ruleset and encrypted input data. Compared to existing frameworks, which generally use their own limited imperative languages, Circuitree uses an existing high-level declarative language. We point out several applications for Circuitree, including EU Digital COVID Certificates and privacy-preserving access control for peer-to-peer (p2p) networks. Circuitree’s performance is evaluated for access control in a p2p network. First results show that our approach allows for fast proofs and proof verification for this application. Author

A new L1 multi-kernel learning support vector regression ensemble algorithm with AdaBoost

This paper proposes a new multi-kernel learning ensemble algorithm, called Ada-L1MKL-WSVR, which can be regarded as an extension of multi-kernel learning (MKL) and weighted support vector regression (WSVR). The first novelty is to add the L1 norm of the weights of the combined kernel function to the objective function of WSVR, which is used to adaptively select the optimal base models and their parameters. In addition, an accelerated method based on fast iterative shrinkage thresholding algorithm (FISTA) is developed to solve the weights of the combined kernel function. The second novelty is to propose an integrated learning framework based on AdaBoost, named Ada-L1MKL-WSVR. In this framework, we integrate FISTA into AdaBoost. At each iteration, we optimize the weights of the combined kernel function and update the weights of the training samples at the same time. Then an ensemble regression function of a set of regression functions is output. Finally, two groups of the experiments are designed to verify the performance of our algorithm. On the first group of the experiments including eight datasets from UCI machine learning repository, the MAEs and RMSEs of Ada-L1MKL-WSVR are reduced by 11.14% and 9.08% on average, respectively. Furthermore, on the second group of the experiments including the COVID-19 epidemic datasets from eight countries, the MAEs and RMSEs of Ada-L1MKL-WSVR are reduced by 31.19% and 29.98% on average, respectively. Author

IMEC SIGNS LICENSING AGREEMENT WITH MIDIAGNOSTICS

The article reports on Imec, a leading research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technology, and miDiagnostics, a spin-off of imec in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, announce that they have signed a non-exclusive licensing agreement for imec's patented technology. It mentions that the aerosols and droplets from exhaled breath are captured for screening for viral RNA through miDiagnostics ultrafast PCR technology.

A Comprehensive Literature Review on Children's Databases for Machine Learning Applications

The COVID-19 pandemic can be attributed as a main factor to accelerate the current digital transformation and to encourage innovation and technological adoption. Consequently, the care provided to our children, one of the significant aspects of life, needs to be adapted with the life’s changes. Children are our future and our most precious resources. They need our attention in all life domains including health, education, safety and social interaction. Nowadays, technologies have been incorporated with machine learning and it has been proven that they are more powerful, reliable and profitable. Machine learning methods have been applied by many children-related studies to generate predictive models for different applications. The efficacy of the generated models mainly rely on the constructed databases. This article carries out a comprehensive survey on available children’s databases constructed for machine-learning-based solutions with their methodologies, characteristics, challenges, and applications. First, it provides an overview of the available studies and classifies them based on their applications. Next, it defines a set of attributes and evaluates them while also shedding light on their pros and cons. The primary concerns related to collection, development and distribution of children’s databases are also discussed. This study can be considered as a guideline for researchers in multidisciplinary fields to construct reliable databases and to develop more advanced techniques. Author

Right to health versus intellectual property rights

The pandemic caused by covid-19 surprised us, and at the global level it confronted us with unforeseen situations. It has made us aware of the shortcomings of so many countries, for example, the lack of an effective social security system, unemployment, minimal use of information technologies, gaps in legislation, etc. And while it is true that these shortcomings have not been the same for all continents, what has been generalized is the confrontation between the right to health and other human rights. We witnessed the race between pharmaceutical companies and researchers to create a vaccine, and nowadays to see which countries have the economic capacity to acquire them. The right to health is thus pitted against the right to intellectual property, from which the following questions arise: should vaccines be commercialized in the face of a pandemic? Does health become a commodity and those who have the economic resources to access the vaccine have the right to the opportunity to continue living, which is denied to those who do not have such an alternative?

Data linkage for early intervention in the UK: Parental social license and social divisions

Electronic linking of public records and predictive analytics to identify families for preventive early intervention increasingly is promoted by governments. We use the concept of social license to address questions of social legitimacy, agreement, and trust in data linkage and analytics for parents of dependent children, who are the focus of early intervention initiatives in the UK. We review data-steered family policy and early intervention operational service practices. We draw on a consensus baseline analysis of data from a probability-based panel survey of parents, to show that informed consent to data linkage and use is important to all parents, but there are social divisions of knowledge, agreement, and trust. There is more social license for data linkage by services among parents in higher occupation, qualification, and income groups, than among Black parents, lone parents, younger parents, and parents in larger households. These marginalized groups of parents, collectively, are more likely to be the focus of identification for early intervention. We argue that government awareness-raising exercises about the merits of data linkage are likely to bolster existing social license among advantaged parents while running the risk of further disengagement among disadvantaged groups. This is especially where inequalities and forecasting inaccuracies are encoded into early intervention data gathering, linking, and predictive practices, with consequences for a cohesive and equal society.

Risk and protective factors associated with grandparent kinship caregivers' psychological distress in COVID-19: Kinship license status as a moderator.

COVID-19 and its related policy measures have increased the psychological distress of individuals, including grandparent kinship caregivers. Guided by the Resilience Model of Family Stress, Adjustment, and Adaptation, this study examines relationships between material hardship, parenting stress, social support, resilience and psychological distress of grandparent kinship caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the moderating role of kinship license status on these relationships. Kinship care licensing is a prerequisite to receiving financial assistance and other supporting services from the government. We administered a cross-sectional survey of grandparent kinship caregivers (N = 362) in the United States. Logistic regression results indicated that material hardship was associated with higher odds of experiencing psychological distress, whereas resilience and social support were associated with lower odds. Kinship license status moderated the relationships of social support and resilience with psychological distress. Results suggest that additional emergency funds and more tailored financial services should be provided to meet material needs, and interventions with a focus on resilience and social support are particularly needed. The moderating effects of license status indicate that some interventions should be specifically implemented among licensed kinship caregivers, whereas parallel services should be provided to kinship caregivers regardless of their license status.

Impact through engagement: Co-production of administrative data research and the approach of the Administrative Data Research Centre Northern Ireland.

BACKGROUND: The Administrative Data Research Centre Northern Ireland (ADRC NI) is a research partnership between Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University to facilitate access to linked administrative data for research purposes for public benefit and for evidence-based policy development. This requires a social licence extended by publics which is maintained by a robust approach to engagement and involvement. APPROACH: Public engagement is central to the ADRC NI approach to research. Research impact is pursued and secured through robust engagement and a model that moves towards co-production of research with publics and key stakeholders. This is done by focusing on data subjects (the cohort of people whose lives make up the datasets, placing value on experts by experience outside of academic knowledge, and working with public(s) as key data advocates, through project steering committees and targeted events with stakeholders. The work is led by a dedicated Public Engagement, Communications and Impact Manager. DISCUSSION: While there are strengths and limitations to the ADRC NI approach, examples of successful partnerships and clear pathways to impact demonstrate its utility and ability to amplify the positive impact of administrative data research. Working with publics as data use becomes more ubiquitous in a post-COVID-19 world will become more critical. ADRC NI's model is a potential way forward.