Genomic surveillance reveals the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 Lineage A from Islamabad Pakistan

The lineage A of SARS-CoV-2 has been around the world since the start of the pandemic. In Pakistan the last case of lineage A was reported in April, 2021 since then no case has been reported. In November, 2021 during routine genomic surveillance at National Institute of Health we have found 07 cases of lineage A from Islamabad, Pakistan. The study reports two novel deletions in the spike glycoprotein. One 09 amino acid deletion (68-76 a.a) is found in the S1 subunit while another 10 amino acid deletion (679-688 a.a) observed at the junction of S1/S2 referred as furin cleavage site. The removal of furin cleavage site may result in impaired virus replication thus decreasing its pathogenesis. The actual impact of these two deletions on the virus replication and disease dynamics needs to be studied in detail. Moreover, the enhanced genomic surveillance will be required to track the spread of this lineage in other parts of the country.

Experimental and Numerical Simulation of Coal Rock Impact Energy Index Based on Peridynamics

In response to the increasing severity of the rock burst phenomenon and its relatively difficult prediction, peridynamics and indoor uniaxial compression experiments were used to calculate the changes of the internal elastic energy (t) and impact energy (c) for different rock masses during a loading process from an energy perspective. Two traditional indices for judging rock burst tendency—the rock elastic deformation energy index (WET) and the rock impact energy index (WCF)—were combined to define a new actual impact energy index (W) to more accurately determine the occurrence tendency of rock bursts. The LAMMPS software was used to simulate the internal energy changes of rock materials under pressure, and the results were compared with experimental results for verification. The results were as follows: (1) in the uniaxial compression experiments of different specimens, fine sandstone had the strongest impact resistance, followed by coarse sandstone, mudstone, bottom coal seam, and top coal seam, and the obtained material properties provide a reference for predicting the rock bursts of various rock types in practical engineering. (2) The values calculated using the actual impact energy index (W) and the simulation value were 1.75 and 1.77, respectively, which corresponded to a lower error than when the rock impact energy index (WCF) and the rock elastic deformation energy index (WET) were used individually. Thus, this index can better predict the rock burst. (3) The simulated specimen was subjected to a gradual increase in the internal stored elastic energy during compression, which gradually decreased after the ultimate compressive strength was exceeded. The degree of impact damage formed after macroscopic crushing occurred depended on its residual energy.

Assessing Motivations and Barriers to Science Outreach within Academia: A Mixed-Methods Survey

The practice of science outreach is more necessary than ever. However, a disconnect exists between the stated goals for science outreach and its actual impact. In order to examine one potential source of this disconnect, we undertook a survey-based study to explore whether barriers to participation (either intrinsic or extrinsic) in science outreach exist within the academic community. We received responses to our survey from 530 individuals, the vast majority of whom engage in some type of science outreach activity on an annual basis. Those who engage in outreach report doing so for both personal and altruistic reasons, and having high (yet varied) levels of comfort with performing outreach activities. Respondents also report the existence of several significant yet surmountable barriers to participation, including lack of time and funding. Our findings demonstrate that both levels of participation in, and attitudes toward, science outreach within the academic community are generally favorable, suggesting that the general ineffectiveness of science outreach is due to other causes. We place our findings within the context of the broader science outreach, science communication and public engagement literature. We make recommendations on how existing approaches and infrastructure can, and must, be changed in order to improve the practice.

Malicious uses of social media bots will rise

Significance In particular, bots are used to increase the speed and scale of misinformation campaigns and foreign propaganda. They make attribution of such activities to specific actors harder, while disorientating users and degrading public debate. With advances in text-generation methods and deepfake technologies, they are also becoming more human-like, making users more susceptible to manipulation. Impacts Artificial amplification of political messages via bots will remain a major problem, although its actual impact is difficult to measure. Legislative reform to ensure tighter content regulation would curb malicious bot activity on social media. Current foreign influencer campaigns rely on human-controlled accounts on social media.

FEATURES OF THE WORK OF INDUSTRIAL FENCES IN THE CONDITIONS OF THE FAR NORTH AND ANALYSIS OF TECHNOLOGIES FOR STRENGTHENING EXISTING

The paper focuses on the work of steel industrial fences in the conditions of the Far North, based on the results of the actual impact of snow masses. A computational model is developed for estimating the resulting stresses in the structure. Methods for assessing the impact of snow masses are proposed. The technologies of strengthening the existing fences are analyzed.

Effect of Job Fulfillment Over Employee Performance Execution at the Workplace

Workplace performance is an outcome of workplace satisfaction. It is essential to comprehend how workers can be held through making their job-related needs fulfilled to let them spurred towards delivering an exemplary performance in turn. As the work competitiveness relies upon the worker job fulfillment at the workplace, it contributes allot to their career growth too. It improves their work efficiency as well as builds the worker's nature of work. Target and accomplishment relies on upon job fulfillment and thus contribute for hierarchical achievement and development, improves the efficiency, and builds the nature of work. The terms satisfaction and fulfillment can be used interchangeably. Various job satisfaction factors when clubbed together help in securing the employee's ultimate job fulfillment. This study is an attempt to relate the term job-fulfillment with job-satisfaction, reveal the various demographic factors that are associated with the job-fulfillment, and identify its actual impact over employee performance execution at the workplace.

Events and Festivals Contribution for Local Sustainability

Festivals can improve the image of host communities, making them an appealing destination and boosting local economy. However, it is hard to measure their actual impact, which is a key factor to justify governments’ initiatives. This study aims to verify how accurate direct expenditure analysis can be. First, the impact of new visitors’ expenditure is calculated based on a survey. Then, consumption indicators are used to forecast the actual economic impact of the festival. Finally, both results are compared. Even though the values gathered with consumption indicators are only a lower bound of the festival’s impact, this study found that assessing expenditure intentions during the festival leads to impact estimates that can be three times higher. The theoretical contribution of this study is to identify direct expenditure analysis weaknesses and how to reduce their effects.

Comedy and the Politics of (Global) Resistance

This Introduction situates the approach of the book within existing debates on comedy and politics. Section 1 addresses two broad and popular frameworks, which are labeled ‘Instrumental’ and ‘Critical’. They each provide good reasons to be sceptical of the role of comedy in politics by questioning the actual impact it can have. Section 2 outlines the approach of this book, to think about comedy as an everyday practice of global resistance.

The Impact of Agile Transformations on Organizational Performance: A Survey of Teams, Programs and Portfolios

While many organizations embark on agile transformations, they can lack insight into the actual impact of these transformations across organizational layers. In this paper, we collect new and study existing evidence on the impact of agile transformations on organizational performance across teams, programs and portfolios. We conducted an international survey collecting the perceptions of agile coaches, transformation leads and other relevant roles, and we correlated levels of agile maturity to the perceptions on dimensions of organizational performance. Based on 134 responses from 29 countries across 16 industries, (1) we consolidated understanding of the benefits of agile transformations based on prior evidence and our data from a more diverse and larger sample, (2) we identified the dimensions impacted by agile transformations as being productivity, responsiveness, quality, workflow health and employee satisfaction & engagement and (3) we traced specific benefits on those dimensions to individual organizational layers of teams, programs and portfolios, showing the magnitude of impact of each dimension per layer. Overall, we can conclude that agile transformations have a variety of strong organizational benefits. This aggregated evidence allows reflection on transformation trends, but also enables organizations to optimize their agile transformation efforts.