DIGITALIZATION OF PUBLIC CRIMINAL HEARINGS IN PERU DURING THE PANDEMIC: VIOLATION OF THE IMMEDIATE PRINCIPLE?

During the COVID 19 pandemic in Peru, the digitalization process of criminal public hearings increased, initiated in previous years by the introduction of ICTs in the work of legal institutions and professionals. This situation has given rise to debates on the application of the principle of immediacy, which traditionally governs criminal proceedings. The present work has the objective of analyzing the influence of digitalization on the principle of immediacy in criminal public hearings, held in Peru during the COVID 19 pandemic. To achieve this objective, a qualitative design study, descriptive and the use of theoretical level methods, to explain the use of ICTs and the digitization process, the general principles of law, with an emphasis on im-mediacy, and digitization in criminal public hearings. As a result, it is concluded that legislation and jurisprudence agree that the digitalization of public criminal hearings does not violate the principle of immediacy, but rather facilitates the interrelation of the parties, and the judge's appreciation of objective and subjective elements that guarantee his conviction. to dictate a fair and well-founded sentence in matters of facts and law. © 2023, University of Cienfuegos, Carlos Rafael Rodriguez. All rights reserved.

Making (female) health care work matter: The performative publics of #systemrelevant during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany

Over the last two years, digital media have contributed significantly to increasing the visibility of those who are outstandingly challenged by the pandemic. In Germany, the Twitter hashtag #systemrelevant [systemically relevant] initiated a public debate on values and working conditions. Applying the practice-theory-based concept of performative publics, we analyze the formation of this specific public with a special focus on its gendered structure. Results of our mixed-methods approach show how health care work has become the dominant issue of #systemrelevant. Civil society actors and engaged health care workers set the agenda, and journalism primarily responds to these voices. Although care work is performed predominantly by women, most of the attention online is given to men. However, on the level of tweets and linked content, the discourse in #systemrelevant counteracts stereotypical images of women in health care. Overall, the ethnographic data on the most significant collective actor show a continuous tension between symbolic recognition and their struggle for improving working conditions. © 2023 The authors.

Social Distance Monitoring Framework Using YOLO V5 Deep Architecture

Due to the current outburst and speedy spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a need to comply with social distancing rules by the general public. The public needs to, at minimum, hold a distance of 3 ft or 1 m among one another to follow strict social distancing as instructed by using the World Health Organization for general public safety. Researchers have proposed many solutions based on deep learning to reduce the current pandemic, including COVID-19 screening, diagnosis, social distancing monitoring, etc. This work focuses explicitly on social distancing monitoring by a deep learning approach. Here we employ the YOLOV5 object detection technique upon different images and videos to develop a strategy to assist and put strict social distancing in public. The YOLOV5 algorithm is more robust and has a quicker detection pace than its competitors. The suggested object detection framework shows an average precision rating of 94.75%. Some of the existing analyses suffer to identify humans within a range. A few identification blunders happen because of overlapping video frames or humans taking walks too near each other. This detection mistake is due to the overlapping structures, and human beings are standing too close to each other. This paper focuses on correctly identifying humans by using and overcoming the flaws of frame overlapping. Following the proposed social distancing technique also yields positive results in numerous variable eventualities. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Curse or Blessing? Combining Personality Traits and Technology Acceptance to Investigate the Intention to Use of Digital Contact Tracing in Germany

In order to trace the transmission of COVID-19, digital contact tracing (DCT) provides an enormous value for the public health. However, the acceptance of the German contact tracing app, the Corona-Warn-App (CWA), falls short of the expected coverage in the general public. Accordingly, this study focuses on investigating the influencing factors on the CWA's acceptance to demystify the missing puzzle and to face future pandemics. To assess this objective comprehensively, we investigate personality traits (guiding perception and behavior), subjective norm (expressing social influence), and trust in technology on acceptance variables. Our empirical results emphasize that besides the personality traits conscientiousness and agreeableness, perceived usefulness, subjective norm, and trust in technology play a vital role for engagement with the CWA. Our research offers starting points for the use of mobile health solutions, particularly in early epidemic stages. © 2022 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.

Human Lung Non-Invasive Anomaly Detection through UWB Microwave Imaging and Diagnosis of COVID-19: A Possible Application

This study shows a prototype for detecting lung effects using microwave imaging. Continuous monitoring of pulmonary fluid levels is one of the most successful approaches for detecting fluid in the lung;early Chest X-rays, computational tomography (CT)-scans, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are the most commonly used instruments for fluid detection. Nonetheless, they lack sensitivity to ionizing radiation and are inaccessible to the general public. This research focuses on the development of a low-cost, portable, and noninvasive device for detecting Covid-19 or lung damage. The simulation of the system involved the antenna design, a 3D model of the human lung, the building of a COMSOL model, and image processing to estimate the lung damage percentage. The simulation consisted of three components. The primary element requires mode switching for four array antennas (transmit and receive). In the paper, microwave tomography was used. Using microwave near-field imaging, the second component of the simulation analyses the lung's bioheat and electromagnetic waves as well as examines the image creation under various conditions;many electromagnetic factors seen at the receiving device are investigated. The final phase of the simulation shows the affected area of the lung phantom and the extent of the damage. © 2023 IEEE.

D-Test: Decentralized Application for Preventing Fake COVID-19 Test Certificate Scam by Blockchain

More than 6 million people have lost their lives due to COVID-19 across the world (Ghatkopar in Fake negative COVID-19 certificate scam unearthed, 2019, [2];WHO (World Health Organization) in https://covid19.who.int/table, [3]). Recently, fake COVID-19 test certificate scams have spiked up drastically and become one of the reasons for the spread of COVID-19. In light of the current scenario, this paper proposes a decentralized approach called, "D-Test” for COVID-19 testing which allows the hospital and the general public to register themselves at a common platform which follows the concept of CIA triad (Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability) and allows users to register without any fear of data breach. This platform registers users based on smart contract and enables the user to do the following once registered successfully: (a) Book Testing Slot, (b) Find nearby registered testing laboratories, and c) Generate the COVID-19 reports which could be imported and exported as and when required by the user. This has a higher value of trust because the source of the report can be traced back since usage of Blockchain prevents the likelihood of data tampering by an entity. This framework could help the government(s) keep track of distributing authentic COVID-19 testing certificates, prevent the fake COVID-19 testing certificate scams, and will speed up the process of verifying the users' test reports, thereby saving lives of many citizens around the world. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Does Telemedicine Affect Physician Decisions? Evidence from Antibiotic Prescriptions

Telemedicine has long been of interest to the U.S. general public. Yet, despite the advent of high-speed internet and mobile device technology, telemedicine did not reach its full potential until the COVID-19 pandemic spurred its unparalleled adoption. This sudden shift in the setting of healthcare delivery raises questions regarding possible changes in clinical decision-making. Using a unique set of patient-provider encounter data from the U.S. in 2020 and 2021, we examine the effect of telemedicine on antibiotic prescription errors for urinary tract infections. After accounting for potential endogeneity issues using provider fixed effects and an instrumental variable approach, we find a significantly lower likelihood of prescription errors with telemedicine relative to in-person encounters. We also find heterogeneous effects by a provider's patient volume and the patient-provider relationship. © 2023 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.

Outreach and educational activities of ALICE in the times of the pandemic

The onset of the COVID pandemic in 2020 stopped all outreach and educational activities with in-person participation. The ALICE collaboration soon adapted to the new situation imposed by lockdowns and other restrictions. The multitude of online tools and platforms available allowed us to continue reaching out to the public. In-person visits and talks were replaced by virtual visits and virtual talks, done with dedicated equipment and allowing remote audiences to see the experiment and interact with scientists. Masterclasses for high-school students were also adapted and were held online;web-based versions for the analysis programs were developed, making it easy for students at home to take part in this exciting hands-on activity and become scientists for a day. This new format made it possible to reach out to new audiences, both students and general public, who normally would not have the opportunity to travel and participate;it also motivated more colleagues to be involved in outreach. We will discuss how these online activities were implemented and the experience gained. © Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Kinetic intensities and moral registers of pandemic place branding

Emblematic of late capitalist modes of value creation, place branding draws on semiotic processes as well as on affective mobilization both to structure the representation and fruition of specific locales and to produce publics. Such governmental projects of people and places, however, are always open to possible acts of recontextualization. This article discusses the complex forms of social and semiotic regimentation (and subver-sion) underlying place-branding projects by exploring two social media campaigns that involved the city of Milan during two key moments of the Covid-19 outbreak. Revolving around different moral discourses of speed, both campaigns resulted in a partial or failed uptake. The initial (February 2020) celebration of fast-paced metropolitan work eth-ics evoked by #MilanoNonSiFerma (‘Milan doesn't stop') – a marketing and political faux pas – was followed (in May 2020) by a reparatory campaign #UnPassoAllaVolta (‘One step at a time'), aimed at endorsing the meditative quality of slow temporality. These morally inflected shifts in kinetic intensity materialized alternative forms of ethical sociality and disciplinary practices, showing how the semiotic regimentation of affects through moral registers and chronotopic formulations plays a key role within the fusion of media and capital characteristic of our post-Fordist present. © 2023, EQUINOX PUBLISHING.

Social Distance Monitoring Framework Using YOLO V5 Deep Architecture

Due to the current outburst and speedy spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a need to comply with social distancing rules by the general public. The public needs to, at minimum, hold a distance of 3 ft or 1 m among one another to follow strict social distancing as instructed by using the World Health Organization for general public safety. Researchers have proposed many solutions based on deep learning to reduce the current pandemic, including COVID-19 screening, diagnosis, social distancing monitoring, etc. This work focuses explicitly on social distancing monitoring by a deep learning approach. Here we employ the YOLOV5 object detection technique upon different images and videos to develop a strategy to assist and put strict social distancing in public. The YOLOV5 algorithm is more robust and has a quicker detection pace than its competitors. The suggested object detection framework shows an average precision rating of 94.75%. Some of the existing analyses suffer to identify humans within a range. A few identification blunders happen because of overlapping video frames or humans taking walks too near each other. This detection mistake is due to the overlapping structures, and human beings are standing too close to each other. This paper focuses on correctly identifying humans by using and overcoming the flaws of frame overlapping. Following the proposed social distancing technique also yields positive results in numerous variable eventualities. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

The adoption and perception of the use of videoconferencing in communication with publics, in Portugal: results of the European Communication Monitor 2021

The covid-19 pandemic has caused a profound disruption in informing and communicating. The pandemic and the associated political decisions accelerated the digital transformation of human life and work, with videoconferencing (VC) gaining relevance in work contexts. This article uses the technology acceptance model and aims to show how videoconferencing is used (situation) and perceived (perception) by communication and public relations professionals in Portugal, based on the results of ECM2021, adopting the deductive method and a quantitative approach. At the perceptual level, the results show that the respondents have the skills and organizational support to use VC in communication with the publics, not identifying a great obviation. In terms of expectations, respondents think that their peers and customers value VC use and expect its continuation in communication with the publics. The intention of future use of VC is positive for communication with the publics, regardless of whether the pandemic continues. © 2022 Universidade da Beira Interior. All rights reserved.

Informative cartographic communication: a framework to evaluate the effects of map types on users' interpretation of COVID-19 geovisualizations

The dynamic and rapid spread of COVID-19 presented a challenge in explaining complex issues to uninformed members of society. Although the conveying of this information was dependent on web maps, few studies have focused on the effectiveness of these maps for informing the general public. This study employs the map usability literature to define three map design dimensions: (1) clarity, (2) understanding, and (3) accuracy. Using these dimensions, we developed a framework for categorizing geovisualizations into scientific, rhetorical, and informative maps based on their purpose. We analyzed four examples of COVID-19 geovisualizations under this framework and conducted an online survey to evaluate their interpretation by users. Only 10% to 60% of users understood each map correctly and poor design practices significantly affected the user interpretation of the maps. The degrees of understanding conformed to our framework. Scientific maps were ambiguous owing to their complexity and the over-emphasis on map cartographic accuracy, whereas informative maps that balance accuracy, clarity, and understanding were more interpretable. Meanwhile, no rhetorical COVID-19 dashboards were included in our sample. We demonstrated that one map cannot provide a complete and comprehensive overview. Therefore, our framework calls for the conscious design of different types of maps to convey the different shades of cartographic reality. © 2023 Cartography and Geographic Information Society.

A Cultural Approach to Understanding Publics and their Information Behaviors during COVID-19: Self-Construal and Identity Salience

Integrating the situational and cross-situational approaches to understanding publics, this study examined cultural antecedents (self-construal and political identity salience) to situational perceptions (problem recognition, involvement recognition, constraint recognition), situational motivation, and key information behavior regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Results from an online survey (N = 556) showed that political identity salience and interdependent self-construal triggered publics' situational perceptions, which in turn activated their situational motivation and information forwarding behaviors. The study contributed to public research through examining important cultural influences on value-laden and polarized issues and revealing additional nuances in communicative activeness. © 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

A systematic survey on multimodal emotion recognition using learning algorithms

Emotion recognition is the process to detect, evaluate, interpret, and respond to people's emotional states and emotions, ranging from happiness to fear to humiliation. The COVID- 19 epidemic has provided new and essential impetus for emotion recognition research. The numerous feelings and thoughts shared and posted on social networking sites throughout the COVID-19 outbreak mirrored the general public's mental health. To better comprehend the existing ecology of applied emotion recognition, this work presents an overview of different emotion acquisition tools that are readily available and provide high recognition accuracy. It also compares the most widely used emotion recognition datasets. Finally, it discusses various machine and deep learning classifiers that can be employed to acquire high level features for classification. Different data fusion methods are also explained in detail highlighting their benefits and limitations. © 2022 The Author(s)

CoviCare: Tracking Covid-19 using PowerBI

In late 2019, the world witnessed the emergence of one of the most alarming pandemics recorded in the Contemporary Age, Covid-19. The new coronavirus is responsible for causing the disease Covid-19 and it has since spread to over 180 countries. As the disease spreads over the world, it has become a global pandemic, threatening global public health, and presenting a huge threat to global civilization. To oppose and prevent the spread of COVID-19, everyone should be well informed on the disease's constantly changing status. To accomplish this purpose, a COVID-19 analytical tracker was developed using PowerBI to provide the most up-to-date sickness status as well as critical analytical insights. The Covid tracker is intended for the general public who lack specialized statistical knowledge. It tries to express insights using a variety of basic and succinct data visualizations backed up by reputable data sources. The purpose of this paper is to describe the key strategies used to create the insights presented on the tracker, which include data retrieval, normalization techniques, and ML/DL models. In addition to explaining the facts and justifications for the approaches used, the paper includes several major discoveries made in relation to COVID-19 utilizing the methodologies. © 2022 IEEE.

Gesture Control System: Using CNN based Hand Gesture Recognition for Touch-less Operation of Kiosk Machine

Kiosk machines have gained good popularity among the general public as they are easy to operate and provide a good interactive interface. As a result, multiple users use the kiosk machine throughout the day to find the information they are looking for. Users interact with the kiosk machine by the means of touching its screen or using the buttons. Due to this, it is observed that throughout the day hundreds or even thousands of people end up touching the surface of the kiosk machine. Because of this hygiene cannot be maintained as it is not possible to sanitize the kiosk machine after each use. This has become a serious issue considering the effects that the Covid-19 pandemic had on the world. Multiple people touching the same surface is one of the most common ways through which the virus can spread. To help deal with this problem we have designed a gesture control system using deep learning techniques through which kiosk machines can be operated in a touch-less way. © 2022 IEEE.

The Growth of Populism and Populist Publics: Globalization Under the Gun?

Populism, as a political strategy, has resurfaced in the twenty-first century. With the United Kingdom's European Union exit election (BREXIT) as the first clue to manipulating "little people” and changing the course of history, Donald Trump defeating the most qualified contender in U.S. history, Hilary Clinton, in the 2016 election, confirmed how we have entered a new populist age. However, the nature of this populism arguably and fundamentally differs from twentieth century populism. Populist leaders no longer consider limits to manipulating the "little people”, but the discernible rise of "populist publics” as well as those who discard scientific knowledge, and thereby strengthen the hands of the populist leaders, poses a disturbing new threat. Shifting from a leader-public one-way relationship to the current complex two-way process, populism eliminates knowledge and science as a part and parcel of the game, thus opening a new can of worms. Although the COVID pandemic shows that we have no other options but to rely on scientific data, by also strengthening populist leaders, it may leave us at a major ideological crossroads. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Communicating About Mental Health During a Pandemic: An Examination of Active and Aware Publics on Twitter

With the arrival of COVID-19, several U.S. states enacted stay-at-home orders to mitigate spread, but the isolation of quarantine and the uncertainty surrounding the virus were likely to have a detrimental influence on mental health. This study investigates how people discussed COVID-19 in relation to mental health on Twitter. Using Crimson Hexagon, this research examines tweets (N = 2,199,625) for three months following the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States and includes a quantitative analysis of the public's concern about the disease as well as a qualitative thematic analysis of conversations on the topic (n = 800). Results indicate that those who discuss mental health online behave as an active and aware public that recognizes how mental health can be affected during a health crisis. The quantitative analysis shows that when cases of the disease increased, mentions of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and psychologists also increased. Additionally, as deaths related to the disease increased, so did mentions of psychologists. Qualitative statistics indicate that this public makes a concerted effort to provide social support and solidarity for others. © 2023 (Jesse King, Audrey Halversen, Olivia Morrow, Whitney Westhoff, and Pamela Brubaker). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). Available at http://ijoc.org.

Pandemic policing and the construction of publics: an analysis of COVID-19 lockdowns in public housing.

COVID-19 responses have cast a spotlight on the uneven impacts of public health policy with particular populations or sites targeted for intervention. Perhaps the starkest example in Australia was the 'hard' lockdown of nine public housing complexes in inner-city Melbourne from 4 to 18 July 2020, where residents were fully confined to their homes. These complexes are home to diverse migrant communities and the lockdown drew public criticism for unfairly stigmatising ethnic minorities. This article draws on media articles published during the lockdown and the Victorian Ombudsman's subsequent investigation to explore the implications of broad, top-down public health measures for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities. Drawing on Lea's (2020) conceptualisation of policy ecology, we analyse the lockdown measures and community responses to explore the normative assumptions underpinning health policy mechanisms, constituting 'target populations' in narrow, exclusionary terms. We argue that the lockdown measures and use of police as compliance officers positioned tower residents as risky subjects in risky places. Tracing how such subject positions are produced, and resisted at the grassroots level, we highlight how policy instruments are not neutral interventions, but rather instantiate classed and racialised patterns of exclusion, reinforcing pervasive social inequalities in the name of public health.

On losing the "dispensable” sense: TikTok imitation publics and COVID-19 smell loss challenges

The enduring effects of COVID-19 have called into question many of the assumptions upon which media and cultural studies rest, including a fundamental mode of perception: the sense of smell. In dialog with the field of sensory studies, this paper traces digital smell loss (anosmia) communities from pre-pandemic Facebook groups to mid-pandemic TikTok challenges. This article considers digital smell loss communities on TikTok as imitation publics characterized by repetition. Via replicable TikTok challenges, digital smell-loss communities reckoned with the unmooring effects of a seemingly mild symptom. By exploring how formulaic smell-loss challenges generated support and facilitated community-building, this article demands greater attention to a sense often considered ‘disposable'. [ FROM AUTHOR]