COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among Bangladeshi adults: Understanding predictors of vaccine intention to inform vaccine policy

Objectives The purpose of this study was to identify predictors of COVID-19 vaccine intention among Bangladeshi adults. Methods Secondary data from the COVID-19 Beliefs, Behaviors & Norms Survey conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Facebook were analyzed. Data were collected from 2,669 adult Facebook users in Bangladesh and was collected between February 15 and February 28, 2021. Binomial logistic regression examined the relationship between COVID-19 vaccination intent and demographic variables, risk perception, preventive behaviors, COVID-19 knowledge, and likelihood of future actions. Results Seventy-nine percent of respondents reported intent to get the COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available. Intent to get vaccinated was highest among females, adults aged 71–80, individuals with college or graduate-level degrees, city dwellers, and individuals who perceived that they were in excellent health. Results of the binomial logistic regression indicated that predictors of vaccination intent include age (OR = 1.39), high risk perception of COVID-19 (OR = 1.47), and intent to practice social distancing (OR = 1.22). Discussion Findings suggest that age, perceived COVID-19 risk, and non-pharmaceutical COVID-19 interventions may predict COVID-19 vaccination intent among Bangladeshi adults. Findings can be used to create targeted messaging to increase demand for and uptake of COVID-19 vaccines in Bangladesh.

3D object detection combining semantic and geometric features from point clouds

Background: 3D object detection based on point clouds in road scenes has attracted much attention recently. The voxel-based methods voxelize the scene to regular grids, which can be processed with the advanced feature learning frameworks based on convolutional layers for semantic feature learning. The point-based methods can extract the geometric feature of the point due to the coordinate reservations. The combination of the two is effective for 3D object detection. However, the current methods use a voxel-based detection head with anchors for classification and localization. Although the preset anchors cover the entire scene, it is not suitable for detection tasks with larger scenes and multiple categories of objects, due to the limitation of the voxel size. Additionally, the misalignment between the predicted confidence and proposals in the Regions of the Interest (ROI) selection bring obstacles to 3D object detection. Methods: We investigate the combination of voxel-based methods and point-based methods for 3D object detection. Additionally, a voxel-to-point module that captures semantic and geometric features is proposed in the paper. The voxel-to-point module is conducive to the detection of small-size objects and avoids the presets of anchors in the inference stage. Moreover, a confidence adjustment module with the center-boundary-aware confidence attention is proposed to solve the misalignment between the predicted confidence and proposals in the regions of the interest selection. Results: The proposed method has achieved state-of-the-art results for 3D object detection in the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Toyota Technological Institute (KITTI) object detection dataset. Actually, as of September 19, 2021, our method ranked 1st in the 3D and Bird Eyes View (BEV) detection of cyclists tagged with difficulty level ‘easy’, and ranked 2nd in the 3D detection of cyclists tagged with ‘moderate’. Conclusions: We propose an end-to-end two-stage 3D object detector with voxel-to-point module and confidence adjustment module.

Trends of Studies on Controlled Halogenated Gases under International Conventions during 1999–2018 Using Bibliometric Analysis: A Global Perspective

A lot of research on international convention-controlled halogenated gases (CHGs) has been carried out. However, few bibliometric analyses and literature reviews exist in this field. Based on 734 articles extracted from the Science Citation Index (SCI) Expanded database of the Web of Science, we provided the visualisation for the performance of contributors and trends in research content by using VOSviewer and Science of Science (Sci2). The results showed that the United States was the most productive country, followed by the United Kingdom and China. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had the largest number of publications, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Bristol. In terms of disciplines, environmental science and meteorological and atmospheric science have contributed the most. By using cluster analysis of all keywords, four key research topics of CHGs were identified and reviewed: (1) emissions calculation, (2) physicochemical analysis of halocarbons, (3) evaluation of replacements, and (4) environmental impact. The change in research substances is closely related to the phase-out schedule of the Montreal Protocol. In terms of environmental impact, global warming has always been the most important research hotspot, whereas research on ozone-depleting substances and biological toxicity shows a gradually rising trend.

Energy balance formation of sub-eutectoide fayalita at high pressures in particle separators

This article presents an approach to the problem of ceramic types adhesion, applying energy and matter balance to the established control volume (cyclone) with the use of mathematical formulas that are interrelated to develop mathematical calculations and establish a new mathematical model The first results are obtained by operating the energy balance considering the collision of particles, using the principle of conservation of energy, the first law of thermodynamics, in order to obtain information that allows describing the phenomena of thermoplasticity and creep, in the formation of adhesions, from a physicochemical and kinetic point of view, which will serve as the basis for understanding their effect. As a result, an energy value of 660 kJ / mol was obtained, sufficient energy to start the transformation of the solid particles to a state of thermo-flow that allows the adhesion phenomenon to be started. Keywords: Adhesion, energy balance, cyclones, elutriation, eutectoid, fayalite, thermoplasticity. References [1]O. Bustamante. “Dissipation of mechanical energy in the discharge of a hydrocyclone”. (Dyna, Ed.) The network of Scientific Journals of Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain, and Portugal, vol. 80 (181), Pages 136-143, 2013. [2]K.Petersen, P.Aldrich, and D.Van.,”Hydrocyclone underflow monitoring using image processing methods. Minerals Engineering”, pp. 301-315,1996. [3]M. Farghaly,” Controlled Wash Water Injection to the hydrocyclone underflow” [Ph.D. Thesis]. Erlangen, FAU, 2009. [4]M, Schneider, and T. Neesse. “Overflow-control system for a hydrocyclone battery. Int. J. Miner. Process". 74, pp. 339 – 343, 2004. [5]J.Bergström., “Flow field and fiber fractionation studies in hydro cyclones” [Ph.D. Thesis] Stockholm, Sweden, Royal Institute of Technology, 2006. [6]C, Liu, L. Wang, and Q. Lui., “Investigation of energy loss mechanisms in cyclone separators”. Chemical Engineering Technology 28, pp. 1182-1190, 2005. [7]O.Dam. & E.Jeffes.,.”Model for detailed assessment of chemical composition of reduced iron ores from single measurement”. Ironmaking and Steelmaking, 1987. [8]E. Ringdalen., “Softening and melting of SiO2 an important parameter for reactions with quartz in Si production” pp 43-44, 2016.

Improving Education for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Chinese Technical Universities: A Quest for Building a Sustainable Framework

The global economic trends and the winds of technological change have elevated the status of integration between industry and education for innovation and entrepreneurship to that of being a national strategic priority of China. However, for a long time prior to that, the many differences between the industrial and educational systems have caused a rift between education for innovation and entrepreneurship and professional education, a profound disconnection between professional education and the local industries, and the subsequent disinterest of entrepreneurial mentors. In this paper, we analyze the status of education for innovation and entrepreneurship in Chinese technical universities. It is pointed out that technical universities should deepen the integration between the industry and education for innovation and entrepreneurship in order to mitigate the imbalance between the supply side of the higher education talent training and the demand side of industrial development. It is also argued that technical universities should change their talent training paradigm, which includes a makeover of the organizational structure and of the curricular system, as well as make amends in the innovation ecosystem with respect to the organization of incubation platforms and of teacher–student teams, in order to promote national and regional economic development, as well as social progress. A method to evaluate the performance of the education for innovation and entrepreneurship in Chinese technical universities, based on specific performance indicators including patents filled, publications, awards in competitions, and acquired funding and on certain non-specific ones including organizational arrangements and satisfaction rates, is presented and then applied to the specific case of the Changzhou Institute of Technology.

Comprehensive simulations of boiling with a resolved microlayer: validation and sensitivity study

The dynamics of the microlayer beneath a growing bubble in nucleate boiling significantly impacts the heat-transfer characteristics of the process. The minute thickness of the microlayer motivates the use of direct numerical simulation (DNS) to model its behaviour if empirical models are to be avoided. In this work, we develop a computational strategy for utilising DNS to model nucleate boiling by resolving explicitly the microlayer, directly coupling, in a stable manner, the mass, momentum and energy conservation equations with the conjugate heat transfer between the solid and fluid domains. To this end, closure models for the treatment of interfacial heat transfer and the dynamic contact angle are introduced and substantiated. The computational procedure is validated against relevant experimental data recently measured at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; it is shown that the main observed growth features and surface heat-transfer characteristics are well reproduced using our model. We go on to perform a sensitivity study of the dependence of the initial microlayer thickness distribution on the applied superheat and fluid properties. The results indicate that an equation derived from lubrication theory captures the observed trends well. Finally, a first demonstration of DNS of boiling with an explicitly resolved microlayer in three-dimensional Cartesian coordinates is presented in one of the appendices.

The Pransky interview: Dr Raffaello D’Andrea, Founder, CEO, and Chairman of the board at Verity; Entrepreneur; Professor; Scientist and Artist

Purpose The following article is a “Q&A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot Journal as a method to impart the combined technological, business and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry PhD and inventor regarding his pioneering efforts and the commercialization of bringing a technological invention to market. This paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach The interviewee is Dr Raffaello D’Andrea, a highly successful entrepreneur and proven business leader and one of the world’s foremost leaders in robotics and machine learning. D’Andrea is Founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board at Verity, the world’s leading autonomous indoor drone company, as well as a Professor of Dynamic Systems and Control at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. D’Andrea is also one of the co-founders and advisors of Robo-Global, an index and research company focused on investments in robotics, automation and artificial intelligence. In this interview, D’Andrea shares some of his business and personal experiences of working in industry and academia and his criteria for turning his ideas into successful working systems. Findings Raffaello D’Andrea’s entire career is built on his ability to bridge theory and practice. D’Andrea combined his love for science with his need to create and received a BS degree in engineering science at the University of Toronto, where he was awarded the Wilson Medal as the top graduating student in 1991. He obtained both his MS and PhD degrees in electrical engineering at Caltech, and then he joined the Cornell faculty as an assistant professor. While on leave from Cornell, from 2003 to 2007, he co-founded the disruptive warehouse automation company Kiva Systems, where he led the systems architecture, robot design, robot navigation and coordination, and control algorithms efforts. In 2014, D’Andrea took robotics technology into the air and founded Verity, the world’s first company to deliver a fully integrated autonomous, indoor drone-based system solution. Originality/value Raffaello D’Andrea combines academia, business and the arts to reinvent autonomous systems. D’Andrea was a founding member of the Systems Engineering Program at Cornell, where he established robot soccer as the flagship, multidisciplinary team project. In addition to pioneering the use of semi-definite programming for the design of distributed control systems, he went on to lead the Cornell Robot Soccer Team to win four world international RoboCup championships. Kiva Systems, co-founded by D’Andrea and acquired by Amazon in 2012, helped the re-branded Amazon Robotics to disrupt the entire warehousing and logistics systems industry. Additionally, D’Andrea is an internationally-exhibited new media artist, best known for the Robotic Chair (Ars Electronica, ARCO, London Art Fair, National Gallery of Canada) and Flight Assembled Architecture (FRAC Centre). With his team at Verity, he created the drone design and choreography for Cirque Du Soleil’s Paramour on Broadway, Metallica’s WorldWired Tour and Céline Dion’s Courage Tour. Other D’Andrea creations include the Flying Machine Arena, where flying robots perform aerial acrobatics, juggle balls, balance poles and cooperate to build structures; the Distributed Flight Array, a flying platform consisting of multiple autonomous single propeller vehicles that are able to drive, dock with their peers and fly in a coordinated fashion; the Balancing Cube, a dynamic sculpture that can balance on any of its edges or corners and its little brother Cubli, a small cube that can jump up, balance and walk; Blind Juggling Machines that can juggle balls without seeing them, and without catching them. D’Andrea is also collaborating with scientists, engineers, and wingsuit pilots to create an actively controlled suit that will allow humans to take off and land at will, to gain altitude, even to perch, while preserving the intimacy of wingsuit flight. D’Andrea has received the IEEE Robotics and Automation Award, the Engelberger Robotics Award, the IEEE/IFR Invention and Entrepreneurship Award in Robotics and Automation and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. In 2020, he was inducted in the National Inventors Hall of Fame and elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Who Gets to Fly?

In this chapter, we posit that academics need to reduce their flying in line with the ‘Carbon Law’ if we are to attain the agreed-upon targets of the Paris agreement. This entails reducing emissions in general as well as reducing emissions from flying by at least 50 per cent every decade from 2020 and on. We present data from KTH Royal Institute of Technology regarding our flying and use two specific departments as examples. We unpack this data, using material visualisations (i.e. post-it notes and poker chips) to raise questions that are not immediately apparent when looking at top-down statistics about flying. Our material visualisations instead present data about flying patterns and habits in a format that viscerally displays the differences (‘inequalities’) that exist between and within departments. Such visualisations emphasise that reducing the frequency and the length of air trips will inevitably lead to discussions and negotiations about who gets to fly (or not), as well as discussions about exactly what constitutes ‘unnecessary’ flights. The chapter ends with a reflection about the limitations of our language and how the task of reducing carbon emission from flying necessitates a reinvention of how we think and talk about flying.

Brownian movement analyzed from psychophysiological measures associated with ischemic heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease

There are several coronary diseases that human beings can suffer from, which in themselves generate health deterioration and can lead to the development of other diseases that diminish the quality of life. Ischemic diseases are unique in that they are evidenced by blockages generated by the accumulation of fat that impedes circulation, triggering heart and brain-related problems. By means of fractional Brownian motion in relation to Hurst’s parameter, an analysis of a data of 137 patients aged between 30 and 71 years, who present some type of ischemic disease such as mixed, restricted, effort angina and angina pectoris, is performed. The data used was European, which is found in the PhysioNet open-access medical research data repository, managed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Computational Physiology Laboratory. This data shows the Hurst coefficient calculations associated with each type of ischemic heart disease.