Detecting COVID-19 spreading phases with time series analysis

Piecewise linear regression (PLR) method is applied to study cumulative cases of COVID-19 evolving everyday in England up to 6th February 2022 just before travel restrictions are removed and people started not to get tested anymore in the UK and factors e.g. the lockdowns behind the spread COVID-19 are also investigated. It is clear that different periods exhibit distinct patterns depending on variants and government-imposed restriction. Therefore, the effectiveness of lockdown measures is evaluated by comparing the rate of increase after a certain period (delay effect of measures) and that of time before as well as how new variants take over as a dominant variant. In addition, autoregression function is studied to show strong effect of cases in the past on today's cases since the disease is highly infectious. Most of work is carried out thorough python built-in libraries such as pandas for preprocessing data and matplotlib which allows us to gain more insight and better visualization into the real scenario. Visualization is conducted by Geoda showing the regional level of infections. © 2023 SPIE.

Changes in the intertemporal choice of people in or close to Chinese culture can predict their self-rated surviving achievement in the fight against COVID-19: A cross-national study in 18 Asian, African, European, American, and Oceanian countries

Humans are facing an unprecedented historical crisis and challenge. To identify the strategies that we can use to cope with historical crisis and challenge, we should investigate two well-studied strategies: "slow strategy, ” which is essentially an investment in the future, and "fast strategy” or "live fast, die young.” According to "The Ant and the Grasshopper, ” Aesop's fable, which is under the pretext of intertemporal choice of social insects, the "slow” rather than the "fast” strategy is recommended for those who want to survive the environmental crisis. Intertemporal choice requires tradeoffs among outcomes whose effects occur at different times. In the commonly accepted language of intertemporal choice, the Ant, whose choice is the "larger but later” (LL) option, is more likely to survive the harsh winter than the Grasshopper, whose choice is the "smaller but sooner” (SS) option. To determine the optimal intertemporal choice strategy that can help us to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, we included 26, 355 participants from 18 Asian, African, European, American, and Oceanian countries in the present study. We investigated the participants' preferences in intertemporal choice with double-dated mixed outcomes, evaluated the degree of change in their intertemporal choice by differentiating the common currency in peacetime and epidemic time (i.e., two kinds of change indicators used for differentiating currencies and stages, respectively). We then asked them to rate their self-rated surviving achievement in the fight against COVID-19. Considering that individuals' surviving achievements were affected by individual-and religious-level factors, we analyzed all data by using multilevel linear analysis to reflect the data's hierarchical structure. After considering individual differences in personal factors and religious factors, we constructed two-level models to explore the effects of the change in intertemporal choice on self-rated surviving achievement, and measured the moderating role of cultural orientation in terms of Hofstede's six culture dimensions. The findings of the cross-national survey revealed that Change Indicator 1 (∆ currency) and Change Indicator 2 (∆ stage) of Chinese/Singaporeans could jointly predict their self-rated surviving achievement. Meanwhile, only Change Indicator 2 (∆ stage) alone could predict the self-rated surviving achievement of people in the cultural circle that included the India, Malaysia, Philippines, and Nigeria. Neither Change Indicator 1 (∆ currency) nor Change Indicator 2 (∆ stage) of the people in other cultures could significantly predict their self-rated surviving achievement. On the basis of the gist of The Book of Change and the resulting findings, we suggested that 1) how you differentially (flexibly) made an intertemporal choice in peacetime and epidemic time would reflect the extent to which you would survive the war against COVID-19. In addition, 2) the mindset of change might shape the competitive advantage of a nation, such as China, in response to the historical crisis. The closer the cultural distance of a country or nation from China, the greater the possibility of benefitting from a similar competitive advantage. It is our hope that our findings would contribute to answer the question of what are "Psychological Characteristics and Behaviors of Chinese People in Response to Historical Crisis?”. © 2023, Science Press. All rights reserved.

Changes in the intertemporal choice of people in or close to Chinese culture can predict their self-rated surviving achievement in the fight against COVID-19: A cross-national study in 18 Asian, African, European, American, and Oceanian countries

Humans are facing an unprecedented historical crisis and challenge. To identify the strategies that we can use to cope with historical crisis and challenge, we should investigate two well-studied strategies: "slow strategy, ” which is essentially an investment in the future, and "fast strategy” or "live fast, die young.” According to "The Ant and the Grasshopper, ” Aesop's fable, which is under the pretext of intertemporal choice of social insects, the "slow” rather than the "fast” strategy is recommended for those who want to survive the environmental crisis. Intertemporal choice requires tradeoffs among outcomes whose effects occur at different times. In the commonly accepted language of intertemporal choice, the Ant, whose choice is the "larger but later” (LL) option, is more likely to survive the harsh winter than the Grasshopper, whose choice is the "smaller but sooner” (SS) option. To determine the optimal intertemporal choice strategy that can help us to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, we included 26, 355 participants from 18 Asian, African, European, American, and Oceanian countries in the present study. We investigated the participants' preferences in intertemporal choice with double-dated mixed outcomes, evaluated the degree of change in their intertemporal choice by differentiating the common currency in peacetime and epidemic time (i.e., two kinds of change indicators used for differentiating currencies and stages, respectively). We then asked them to rate their self-rated surviving achievement in the fight against COVID-19. Considering that individuals' surviving achievements were affected by individual-and religious-level factors, we analyzed all data by using multilevel linear analysis to reflect the data's hierarchical structure. After considering individual differences in personal factors and religious factors, we constructed two-level models to explore the effects of the change in intertemporal choice on self-rated surviving achievement, and measured the moderating role of cultural orientation in terms of Hofstede's six culture dimensions. The findings of the cross-national survey revealed that Change Indicator 1 (∆ currency) and Change Indicator 2 (∆ stage) of Chinese/Singaporeans could jointly predict their self-rated surviving achievement. Meanwhile, only Change Indicator 2 (∆ stage) alone could predict the self-rated surviving achievement of people in the cultural circle that included the India, Malaysia, Philippines, and Nigeria. Neither Change Indicator 1 (∆ currency) nor Change Indicator 2 (∆ stage) of the people in other cultures could significantly predict their self-rated surviving achievement. On the basis of the gist of The Book of Change and the resulting findings, we suggested that 1) how you differentially (flexibly) made an intertemporal choice in peacetime and epidemic time would reflect the extent to which you would survive the war against COVID-19. In addition, 2) the mindset of change might shape the competitive advantage of a nation, such as China, in response to the historical crisis. The closer the cultural distance of a country or nation from China, the greater the possibility of benefitting from a similar competitive advantage. It is our hope that our findings would contribute to answer the question of what are "Psychological Characteristics and Behaviors of Chinese People in Response to Historical Crisis?”. © 2023, Science Press. All rights reserved.

Exploring spatially heterogeneous associations between COVID-19 cases and the influencing factors in England

Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, has spread expeditiously around the world since early 2020 and led to a tremendous number of deaths, severely impacting overall human well-being. The pandemic largely affected economic and social activities. The beneficial way to slow down or prevent the transmission is to be well informed about the disease and how the virus spreads. Therefore, analyzing factors that affect the COVID-19 transmission was of great importance in disease control and policy decisions. Socio-demographic factors show considerable impacts on the rate of COVID-19 infection, but the correlations would vary both temporally and spatially. Generally, the global correlation coefficients of all variables rocketed at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak and plateaued at a high level eventually. Then localized correlations were also calculated to map the spatial distribution of correlation coefficients. Results show that in the north of England, all socio-demographic factors are highly related to the COVID-19 cases with figures above 0.75, arising from the climatic, cultural and economic differences. As time flowed for both 55+ age structure and GDP, the southern part experienced sustainable increases in correlation values, which eventually rose above 0.5 at most locations. This finding confirmed our expectation that the higher GDP was, the more COVID-19 cases were, since high GDP always accompanies by more entertainment activities and more chances for face-To-face human contact. However, the interesting point was that around London, the GDP maintained uncorrelated and even negatively correlated with the cumulative cases as time went by. As for the number of pubs, the overall spatial distribution of correlation coefficients experienced unremarkable changes at three-Time points. The variable was significantly correlated with COVID-19 cases in the north. In contrast, in the south values kept below 0.5. Overall, this study provides an interesting view on investigating the relative factors of the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2022 IEEE.

Obtaining the effective gripper dimensions for a kiwifruit harvesting robot using kinematic calibration procedures

Purpose A harvesting robot is developed as part of kiwifruit industry automation in New Zealand. This kiwifruit harvester is currently not economically viable, as it drops and damages too many kiwifruit in the harvesting task due to the positional inaccuracy of the gripper. This is due to the difficulties in measuring the exact effective dimensions of the gripper from the manipulator. The purpose of this study is to obtain the effective gripper dimensions using kinematic calibration procedures. Design/methodology/approach A setup of a constraint plate with a dial gauge is proposed to acquire the calibration data. The constraint plate is positioned above the robot. The data is obtained by using a dial gauge and a permanent marker. The effective dimensions of the gripper are used as error parameters in the calibration process. Calibration is exercised by minimizing the difference between target positions and measured positions iteratively. Findings The robot with the obtained effective dimensions is tested in the field. It is found that the fruit drops due to positional inaccuracy of the gripper are greatly reduced after calibration. Practical implications The kiwifruit industry in New Zealand is growing rapidly and announced plans in 2017 to double global sales by 2025. This growth will put extra pressure on the labour supply for harvesting. Furthermore, the Covid pandemic and resulting border restrictions have dramatically reduced seasonal imported labour availability. A robotic system is a potential solution to address the labour shortages for harvesting kiwifruit. Originality/value For kiwifruit harvesting, the picking envelope is well above the robot;the experimental data points obtained by placing a constraint plate above the robot are at similar positions to the target positions of kiwifruit. Using this set of data points for calibration yields a good effect of obtaining the effective dimension of the gripper, which reduces the positional inaccuracy as shown in the field test results.

Spatial-temporal responses of atmospheric pollutants to the COVID-19 lockdown across the Yangtze River Delta region

From January 1 to February 29, 2020, using hourly monitoring data of criteria pollutants in Shanghai, Nanjing, Hefei and Hangzhou, combined with the vertical columns of SO2 and NO2 from satellite inversions, we explore the pollution levels and response characteristics of urban atmospheric pollutants in the Yangtze River Delta region to the COVID-19 lockdown. The results show that, except O3, the average concentrations of air pollutants during the lockdown (from January 24 to February 10) were lower than that before the lockdown but higher than that after the lockdown, indicating that emission reduction was not the only factor in terms of governing air quality. The ratio of PM2.5/PM10 during the lockdown period was higher than before and after the lockdown, indicating that the secondary generation of aerosols has an important contribution to the fine particle pollution that still occurs during the lockdown period. We observed a significant increase of Ox levels (p <0.01) during the lockdown, suggesting that atmospheric oxidation capacity may be substantially enhanced in the context of NO2 reduction. Spatially, the O3 typically centered in individual city as hotspots, indicating its nature of local emission and formation. However, other pollutants (including PM2.5, PM10, CO, SO2, and NO2) demonstrated a gradual decrease gradient from north to south, satellite observations pinpointed that North China Plain was the major source of regional transport, which can be further validated by back-trajectory analysis. © 2021, Science Press. All right reserved.