Pandemic Robot

Robot-based service platforms are currently establishing themselves as new and affordable variants for supporting care in elderly, retirement and nursing homes. Many are open multifunctional platforms, which can potentially be integrated into such environments, if the necessary infrastructure is available. Furthermore, many services can be realized on these platforms, which can be used to foster distant interactions between inhabitants and care-providers, while simultaneously keeping up the quality of life of the inhabitants. Open mobile robotic platforms allow the extension with adequate new sensors. To detect infectious diseases of residents and healthcare-professionals, optical sensors can be used for the assessment of vital data such as heartrate and heartrate variability, respiratory rate, SpO2 or temperature. Additionally, you can consider demographic data (age, gender, constitution) of the observed person for the optical assessment, i.e. obtained by facial image analysis. As these mobile platforms are also equipped for telepresence, in case of detecting an infected person, these systems support video conferencing with their built-in cameras and microphones. Finally, the interaction with the electronic care record is necessary to upload all acquired vital data and further relevant information. All the named technologies have been under investigation in the past years and are currently moving from laboratory settings to real-world scenarios. Nevertheless, the smooth integration of all components into one system architecture in combination with (AI-based) data analysis are still open issues.

Socioeconomic and environmental effects of soybean production in metacoupled systems

Human–environment interactions within and across borders are now more influential than ever, posing unprecedented sustainability challenges. The framework of metacoupling (interactions within and across adjacent and distant coupled human–environment systems) provides a useful tool to evaluate them at diverse temporal and spatial scales. While most metacoupling studies have so far addressed the impacts of distant interactions (telecouplings), few have addressed the complementary and interdependent effects of the interactions within coupled systems (intracouplings) and between adjacent systems (pericouplings). Using the production and trade of a major commodity (soybean) as a demonstration, this paper empirically evaluates the complex effects on deforestation and economic growth across a globally important soybean producing region (Mato Grosso in Brazil). Although this region is influenced by a strong telecoupling process (i.e., soybean trade with national and international markets), intracouplings pose significant effects on deforestation and economic growth within focal municipalities. Furthermore, it generates pericoupling effects (e.g., deforestation) on adjacent municipalities, which precede economic benefits on adjacent systems, and may occur during and after the soybean production takes place. These results show that while economic benefits of the production of agricultural commodities for global markets tend to be localized, their environmental costs tend to be spatially widespread. As deforestation also occurred in adjacent areas beyond focal areas with economic development, this study has significant implications for sustainability in an increasingly metacoupled world.

Self-rotation of emitting galaxies without dark matter

Temporal derivatives of the attracting mass in Newton’s law of distant interactions can balance the centripetal and centrifugal accelerations for the rotating periphery of a spiral galaxy. Thermal losses of the mass-energy integral inside the circle of rotation are the cause of the mega-vortex organization of the emitting galaxy. To reject dark matter in cosmic distributions, a conceptual modification of the Euler/Navier–Stokes hydrodynamics is required using adaptive tensor responses with metric waves but not gravimagnetic corrections from General Relativity.

Dynamics of aqueous “liquid marbles” in three dimensional biphasic systems

This work sheds light on the dynamics of aqueous droplets in hydrophobic environment as well as their distant interactions, reasoned by well-studied Cheerios effect.<br>

Dynamics of aqueous “liquid marbles” in three dimensional biphasic systems

This work sheds light on the dynamics of aqueous droplets in hydrophobic environment as well as their distant interactions, reasoned by well-studied Cheerios effect.<br>

Worlds Apart

This chapter brings readers further into the workplace by examining how coworker dynamics reinforce the extant social organization of higher-end restaurants, and ultimately how workers themselves understand their differences. The author details how educated white servers and working-class Latino cooks enact symbolic boundaries against the other that close off two distinct worlds of work by race, class, and gender. The racialized and classed boundaries that employees enact lead to strained and distant interactions, and can disrupt the flow of service in very real ways. More importantly, symbolic barriers decrease the likelihood that workers themselves feel they are able to access jobs for which they do not fit. This disproportionately affects Latino workers by further miring them in the lowest-paying and least visible jobs in the workplace.