scholarly journals COVID-TRACK: world and USA SARS-COV-2 testing and COVID-19 tracking

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ye Emma Zohner ◽  
Jeffrey S. Morris
Keyword(s):  
Web Application ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Time Lags ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Major Health ◽  
Dynamic Representation ◽  
Graphical Displays ◽  
The Usa ◽  
User Friendly

Abstract Background The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major health and socio-economic disruptions worldwide. Accurate investigation of emerging data is crucial to inform policy makers as they construct viral mitigation strategies. Complications such as variable testing rates and time lags in counting cases, hospitalizations and deaths make it challenging to accurately track and identify true infectious surges from available data, and requires a multi-modal approach that simultaneously considers testing, incidence, hospitalizations, and deaths. Although many websites and applications report a subset of these data, none of them provide graphical displays capable of comparing different states or countries on all these measures as well as various useful quantities derived from them. Here we introduce a freely available dynamic representation tool, COVID-TRACK, that allows the user to simultaneously assess time trends in these measures and compare various states or countries, equipping them with a tool to investigate the potential effects of the different mitigation strategies and timelines used by various jurisdictions. Findings COVID-TRACK is a Python based web-application that provides a platform for tracking testing, incidence, hospitalizations, and deaths related to COVID-19 along with various derived quantities. Our application makes the comparison across states in the USA and countries in the world easy to explore, with useful transformation options including per capita, log scale, and/or moving averages. We illustrate its use by assessing various viral trends in the USA and Europe. Conclusion The COVID-TRACK web-application is a user-friendly analytical tool to compare data and trends related to the COVID-19 pandemic across areas in the United States and worldwide. Our tracking tool provides a unique platform where trends can be monitored across geographical areas in the coming months to watch how the pandemic waxes and wanes over time at different locations around the USA and the globe.

scholarly journals COVID-TRACK: WORLD AND USA SARS-COV-2 TESTING AND COVID-19 TRACKING

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ye Emma Mariam Zohner ◽  
Jeffrey S Morris
Keyword(s):  
Web Application ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Time Lags ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Major Health ◽  
Graphical Displays ◽  
The Usa ◽  
User Friendly ◽  
Second Wave

Abstract Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major health and socio-economic disruptions worldwide. Accurate investigation of emerging data is crucial to inform policy makers as they construct viral mitigation strategies. Complications such as variable testing rates and time lags in counting cases, hospitalizations and deaths make it challenging to accurately track and identify true infectious surges from available data, and requires a multi-modal approach that simultaneously considers testing, incidence, hospitalizations, and deaths. Although many websites and applications report a subset of these data, none of them provide graphical displays capable of comparing different states or countries on all these measures as well as various useful quantities derived from them. Here we introduce a freely available graphical application that allows the user to simultaneously assess time trends in these measures and compare various states or countries, equipping them with a tool to investigate the potential effects of the different mitigation strategies and timelines used by various jurisdictions. Findings: COVID-TRACK is a Python based web-application that provides a platform for tracking testing, incidence, hospitalizations, and deaths related to COVID-19 along with various derived quantities. Our application makes the comparison across states or countries in the world easy to explore, with useful transformation options including per capita, log scale, and/or moving averages. We illustrate its use by assessing various viral trends in the USA and Europe. Conclusion: The COVID-TRACK web-application is a user-friendly analytical tool to compare data and trends related to the COVID-19 pandemic across areas in the United States and worldwide. Our tracking tool provides a unique platform where trends can be monitored across geographical areas in the coming months to watch how the pandemic waxes and wanes throughout the summer and into a potential second wave in the fall.

scholarly journals COVID-Track: World and USA SARS-COV-2 Testing and COVID-19 Tracking

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ye Emma Mariam Zohner ◽  
Jeffrey S Morris
Keyword(s):  
Web Application ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Time Lags ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Major Health ◽  
Graphical Displays ◽  
The Usa ◽  
User Friendly ◽  
Second Wave

Abstract Background The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major health and socio-economic disruptions worldwide. Accurate investigation of emerging data is crucial to inform policy makers as they construct viral mitigation strategies. Complications such as variable testing rates and time lags in counting cases, hospitalizations and deaths make it challenging to accurately track and identify true infectious surges from available data, and requires a multi-modal approach that simultaneously considers testing, incidence, hospitalizations, and deaths. Although many websites and applications report a subset of these data, none of them provide graphical displays capable of comparing different states or countries on all these measures as well as various useful quantities derived from them. Here we introduce a freely available graphical application that allows the user to simultaneously assess time trends in these measures and compare various states or countries, equipping them with a tool to investigate the potential effects of the different mitigation strategies and timelines used by various jurisdictions. Findings COVID-TRACK is a Python based web-application that provides a platform for tracking testing, incidence, hospitalizations, and deaths related to COVID-19 along with various derived quantities. Our application makes the comparison across states or countries in the world easy to explore, with useful transformation options including per capita, log scale, and/or moving averages. We illustrate its use by assessing various viral trends in the USA and Europe. Conclusion The COVID-TRACK web-application is a user-friendly analytical tool to compare data and trends related to the COVID-19 pandemic across areas in the United States and worldwide. Our tracking tool provides a unique platform where trends can be monitored across geographical areas in the coming months to watch how the pandemic waxes and wanes throughout the summer and into a potential second wave in the fall.

scholarly journals Assessing wildland–urban interface fire risk

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. 201183
Author(s):  
Hussam Mahmoud ◽  
Akshat Chulahwat
Keyword(s):  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fire Frequency ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Wildfire Risk ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Calculated Risk ◽  
Reduce Risk ◽  
First Time

Recent wildfire events, in the United States (USA) and around the world, have resulted in thousands of homes destroyed and many lives lost, leaving communities and policy makers, once again, with the question as to how to manage wildfire risk. This is particularly important given the prevalent trend of increased fire frequency and intensity. Current approaches to managing wildfires focus on fire suppression and managing fuel build-up in wildlands. However, reliance on these strategies alone has clearly proven inadequate. As such, focus should be shifted towards minimizing potential losses to communities. Achieving this goal, however, requires detailed understanding of the factors that contribute to community vulnerability and the interplay between probability of ignition, vulnerability and calculated risk. In this study, we evaluate wildfire risk for four different communities across the USA for the duration of May to September to communicate a different perspective of risk assessment. We show, for the first time, that community risk is closely related to wind speed and direction, pattern of surrounding wildland vegetation, and buildings layout. The importance of the findings lies in the need for exploring unique viable solutions to reduce risk for every community independently as opposed to embracing a generalized approach as is currently the case.

scholarly journals Exploring the Potential Usage of Mobile Technologies Among the Hearing-Impaired Students in Learning English as a Second Language (ESL)

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (19) ◽  
pp. 48
Author(s):  
Nur Ain Mat Nasir ◽  
Harwati Hashim ◽  
Syar Meeze Mohd Rashid ◽  
Melor Md Yunus
Keyword(s):  
Special Needs ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Mobile Technologies ◽  
Special Needs Students ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Impaired People ◽  
The Usa ◽  
User Friendly ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Hearing Impaired Students

<p>With the emergence of mobile technologies in education, the special needs students are gaining the infinite benefits that could enhance their learning sessions. Numerous studies are conducted on the usage of mobile technologies    among the special needs students including their acceptance towards the technologies, its advantages as well as the obstacles on the utilisation of mobile technologies. However, fewer studies are done on the usage of mobile technologies among the hearing-impaired (HI) students. There is a need for more studies on that as the number of hearing-impaired people are increasing continuously around the globe. Hence, the aims of the study are to explore the hearing-impaired students’ perspectives on the usa of mobile technologies in learning ESL. In-depth interviews are conducted among the selected ten hearing-impaired students from four different secondary schools in Malaysia and the notable finding demonstrates the majority of them believed that mobile technologies assist them in learning. This study provides the insights for the education stakeholders, especially the policy makers and inventors to create the solutions and improvise the features of mobile technologies that are more user-friendly towards the hearing-impaired students.</p>

A Waste of Public Diplomacy? The Performance of Al-Hurra TV among Lebanon's University Students

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khaled Nasser ◽  
Yasmine Dabbous
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
Positive Attitude ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Al Jazeera ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Al Arabiya ◽  
Hearts And Minds

AbstractAs part of their 'War on Terror', Washington policy makers launched a massive public diplomacy campaign hoping to 'gain Muslim hearts and minds.' Their efforts, including the production of advertisements and documentaries, culminated with the inauguration of Al-Hurra, a commercial-free satellite station broadcasting in Arabic. Despite the substantial amount of money poured into it, Al-Hurra's success was strongly questioned among media scholars and US policy experts. And yet, Al-Hurra has generated very little academic research testing its effectiveness as an instrument of public diplomacy. This article reports the results of a survey administered in seven Lebanese universities to assess the performance of Al-Hurra among the country's college students. More specifically, it examines Al-Hurra's viewership, credibility, and trustworthiness in comparison to Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya. The paper also tests the relation between Al-Hurra's viewership and audience attitude toward the United States. Findings show that Al-Hurra's viewership is considerably lower than Al-Jazeera's and Al-Arabiya's. Its credibility is also lower than that of its two Arab counterparts. Finally, Al-Hurra viewership did not predict a positive attitude toward the USA. The study raises questions about public diplomacy tools in general and Al-Hurra in particular.

Children's Exposure to Television Advertising: Implications for Childhood Obesity

2007 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debra M. Desrochers ◽  
Debra J. Holt
Keyword(s):  
Childhood Obesity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Television Advertising ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Institute Of Medicine ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Major Health ◽  
Children’S Exposure

In 2005, the Institute of Medicine declared that the prevalence of childhood obesity in the United States ranks as a major health concern. Although the role of television advertising as a possible contributor has received considerable research attention, most previous studies have not included a detailed analysis of children's exposure on all programming or made comparisons with earlier estimates. Therefore, the Bureau of Economics staff at the Federal Trade Commission undertook a comprehensive analysis of television advertising to determine how many and what types of advertisements children are exposed to today and how the findings compare with their exposure before the rise in obesity. This article presents the major findings of the Federal Trade Commission's report and discusses several other issues that help inform the obesity debate. The article's insights will be useful to policy makers, researchers, marketers, and other constituencies involved in developing solutions to the obesity problem.

scholarly journals Retirement plans and active ageing: perspectives in three countries

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREA PRINCIPI ◽  
SARA SANTINI ◽  
MARCO SOCCI ◽  
DEBORAH SMEATON ◽  
KEVIN E. CAHILL ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States Of America ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Leisure Activities ◽  
The United States ◽  
Active Ageing ◽  
Retirement Plans ◽  
Family Carers ◽  
Freedom Of Choice ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Usa

ABSTRACTThis study explores whether the plans of older workers on the cusp of retirement are in line with the active ageing agenda set by policy makers in Europe. The study was carried out in Italy, England, and the United States of America (USA). A total of 133 older workers who planned to retire within the next 10–12 months were interviewed (55 in England, 40 in Italy and 38 in the USA) between May 2014 and early 2015 using common semi-structured questions. Active Ageing Index dimensions were used to gauge the orientation of older people towards their retirement. The results of the study suggest that, with some differences, retirement plans of interviewees were substantially consistent with the active ageing perspective. However, some challenges were highlighted, including the need for governments to do more to promote genuine freedom of choice in relation to leaving the labour market, and to provide greater support for informal family carers. Findings also pointed to the need to measure active ageing in connection with individual wellbeing,e.g.by including indicators of leisure activities and by considering the re-weighting of employment and informal care dimensions. Companies could also provide more support during the retirement transition, with opportunities for maintained social connection with former colleagues, and help in making and fulfilling retirement plans.

scholarly journals The Design and Methodology of the Ohio COVID-19 Survey

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-10
Author(s):  
Marcus E. Berzofsky ◽  
Naomi Freedner ◽  
Caroline Scruggs ◽  
Robert Ashmead ◽  
Timothy Sahr ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Care Systems ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Health Measures ◽  
High Participation ◽  
Care Systems

Background: Governments worldwide are balancing contrasting needs to curtail the toll that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) takes on lives and health care systems and to preserve their economies. To support decisions, data that simultaneously measure the health status of the population and the economic impact of COVID-19 mitigation strategies are needed. In the United States, prior to the onset of COVID-19, surveys or tracking systems usually focused on public health or economic indicators, but not both. However, tracking public health and economic measures together allow policy makers and epidemiologists to understand how policy and program decisions are associated. The Ohio COVID-19 Survey (OCS) attempts to track both measures in Ohio as one of the first statewide population surveys on COVID-19. To achieve this there are several methodological challenges which need to be overcome. Methods: The OCS utilizes a representative panel offering both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. It targets 700 to 1000 respondents per week for a total of 12 600 to 18 000 respondents over an 18-week period. Leveraging a sample of 24 000 adult Ohioans developed from a statewide population health survey conducted in fall 2019, the OCS produces weekly economic and health measures that can be compared to baseline measures obtained before the COVID-19 pandemic began. Results: The OCS was able to quickly launch and achieve high participation (45.2%) and retention across waves. Conclusion: The OCS demonstrates how it is possible to leverage an existing health-based survey in Ohio to generate a panel which can be used to quickly track fast-breaking health issues like COVID-19.

The 1980s: Developing Hostility and the Origins of the Islamic Republic’s Nuclear Programme

2018 ◽  
pp. 62-91
Author(s):  
Steven Hurst
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
Iranian Revolution ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Major Constraint ◽  
Hostage Crisis ◽  
The Usa

Chronologically, Chapter Two focuses on the 1980s, but the main theme of the chapter is the development of mutual antipathy between Iran and the United States. This development is traced through an examination of their interactions from the 1953 coup to the Iran-Iraq War. The chapter emphasizes how the experiences of the 1953 coup in Iran, the Iranian Revolution and subsequent hostage crisis and the Iran-Iraq War contributed to the development of a profound and widespread mutual hostility between the two countries that would subsequently come to act as a major constraint on policy-makers on both sides. The chapter also examines the origins of the IRI's nuclear programme and its connection to the emerging conflict with the USA.

When an Empire is not an Empire: The US Case

2006 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond King
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Us ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
The Usa

AbstractThis paper critically assesses the description ‘empire’ as applied to the United States in the twentieth century, proposing that US policy makers lack the territorial and occupation motives pre-requisite to being an imperial power. It is proposed that the USA is better described as an empire by accident than by design. Americans’ domestic experience of nation-building within the USA, since the early twentieth century, helps account for their unwillingness to permit the USA to be an imperial nation.

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