UBCO researchers light the way to cleaner water

Fluorescence lighting helps detect impurities in water

UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA OKANAGAN CAMPUS

Research News

IMAGE: UBC RESEARCHERS NICOLAS PELEATO AND LI ZIYU EXAMINE THE DATA AFTER TESTING A WATER SAMPLE WITH A FLORESCENCE SPECTROMETER. view more 

CREDIT: UBC OKANAGAN

Shining a beam of light into potentially contaminated water samples may hold the key to real-time detection of hydrocarbons and pesticides in water.

UBC Okanagan researchers are testing the use of fluorescence to monitor water quality. The results, they say, show great promise.

When a beam of light is shone into the water, it excites the electrons in molecules of certain compounds and causes them to emit light. The characteristics of the emitted light are like a fingerprint and can be used to identify certain contaminants, explains Nicolas Peleato, an assistant professor at UBCO's School of Engineering.

"The challenge with using this fluorescence approach is that they are typically source-specific; meaning we have to calibrate for a particular water source and anticipate what specific contaminants we want to look for," says Peleato. "In our latest work, we have developed a data processing technique that expands the effectiveness from one water source to others."

This means their new technique removes a lot of the guesswork at the beginning of the process. As Peleato points out, every water source has a slightly different composition of organic compounds, which can hide the contaminant signals, so calibrating for each source is crucial for detection accuracy.

Using machine learning algorithms, Peleato and his graduate student Ziyu Li have devised an approach that addresses the challenge of source-specific models through mapping their similarities.

According to Li, it isn't quite a one-size-fits-all method but it is close.

"By establishing a process that identifies similar patterns between water sources, the fluorescence detection becomes a viable option for real-time, accurate detection of hydrocarbons and pesticides," explains Li.

During the testing process, the researchers look for unique shapes of fluorescence signals. Each unique shape indicates the presence of impurities and helps researchers determine what the impurity is and distinguish it from other compounds.

Water contaminated with hydrocarbons is known to be carcinogenic and can be dangerous, or toxic, to flora and fauna.

The researchers are now turning their attention to using this new approach to detect and monitor chemicals, such as the major toxic contaminants in oil sand tailings ponds that may impact surface water and groundwater.

"Building a comprehensive model that seamlessly transitions from one water source to another will speed up monitoring, and has the potential to be a game changer," says Peleato.

CAPTION

Using a new method, UBCO researchers look for unique shapes of fluorescence signals in water. Each unique shape indicates the presence of impurities and helps researchers determine what the impurity is and distinguish it from other compounds.

CREDIT

UBC Okanagan

This work was published in the journal Chemosphere, and funded in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

 

Melting High Mountain Asia glaciers are revealed as a potential source of greenhouse gases

KEAI COMMUNICATIONS CO., LTD.

Research News

IMAGE: CONCEPTUAL DIAGRAM OF THE CARBON CYCLE WITHIN A GLACIAL BASIN IN THE TIBETAN PLATEAU. view more 

CREDIT: DR. YULAN ZHANG

The cryosphere, a term used to describe the areas of the Earth's surface where water exists in solid form, plays an important role in regulating the Earth's climate. Due to cryospheric retreat; for example, the melting Greenland ice sheet in the Arctic, greenhouse gases that were formerly in "frozen storage" are now being released. High Mountain Asia, also known as the Tibetan Plateau, hosts the largest volume of glaciers outside the polar regions. However, Tibetan glaciers are currently excluded from global greenhouse gas budgets.

According to Shichang Kang, leader of a group of researchers who recently became the first team to measure the flux variations of greenhouse gases (CO2 and CH4) in typical glacial basins in High Mountain Asia, it's important that Tibetan glaciers are not only included in budget calculations, but are subject to more thorough investigation.

In a paper published in the KeAi journal Fundamental Research, he and his colleagues report that cryoconite holes on the glacier surface in southern and southeastern regions of the Tibetan Plateau are strong sources of carbon with positive CH4 and CO2 fluxes. However, this is mitigated to some extent by the fact that proglacial river runoff can be a significant sink of atmospheric CO2; a fact not identified in previous studies.

Kang, who is a Professor at the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, explains: "Glaciers in High Mountain Asia contain large reservoirs of organic carbon that can influence glacial ecosystems under rapid melting. We have estimated the lateral export of carbon from glaciers to the downstream. However, no systematic data exist on the current footprint of greenhouse gases from glacial basins, which limits our understanding of the carbon cycle."

He adds: "Given the current climate change problems we are facing, the impact of glacier shrinking on CH4 and CO2 fluxes in this region needs to be further investigated and understood. Specifically, the CH4 and CO2 fluxes from the cryoconite holes, subglacial sediments and proglacial rivers."

According to Dr. Yulan Zhang, the investigator who led the study: "Until now, there were no estimates on the potential climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions from cryosphere melting in High Mountain Asia. Determining how these data are coupled with biogeochemical models, including feedback between the glacial cryosphere and atmosphere, is required to test the sensitivity of carbon sinks or sources to changes in the terrestrial cryosphere." She adds: "Our results provide new insight about the projections in the cryospheric regions. It's clear that how the climate responds to carbon and nitrogen cycles in High Mountain Asia should be thoroughly studied in the future."

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Contact the corresponding author: Shichang Kang, email: shichang.kang@lzb.ac.cn, ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2115-9005, personal website: http://shichang-kang.sklcs.ac.cn/

The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 100 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

 

Data privacy -- are you sure you want a cookie?

COPENHAGEN BUSINESS SCHOOL

Research News

Data privacy is an important topic in the digitalised economy. Recent policy changes have aimed to strengthen users' control over their own data. Yet new research from Copenhagen Business School finds designers of cookie banners can affect users' privacy choices by manipulating the choice architecture and with simple changes can increase absolute consent by 17%.

A website cookie banner is the consent management tool that allows users to give their consent to process their personal data. Given the current legal framework, users need to actively provide consent.

The manipulations of the banner can therefore affect the user decision about whether to make an active choice at all and what the outcome of this choice would be, accept or decline consent. The research findings provide empirical evidence that shows people's data privacy decisions can be easily manipulated.

"Choice architecture should be designed to benefit the user to make more informed decisions, which are essential for free markets to work efficiently. Exploiting psychological mechanisms in design, to manipulate users to the benefit of the website owner is problematic," says Associate Professor Jan Michael Bauer from the department of Management, Society and Communication, Copenhagen Business School.

"Detailed user data has become valuable as it allows to better understand customer behaviour and improve the targeting of advertisements. Users and customers deserve and should demand a choice environment that allows their own need satisfaction and not one that benefits the website owner," adds Bauer.

The research highlights that the ability of website owners to manipulate the outcome of user privacy decisions is at odds with the ideals of the ePrivacy Directive and GDPR.

The research paper is published in the Computers in Human Behavior journal.

Privacy manipulation

When the researchers started the project in 2019, there was very little academic research about the impact of cookie banner design elements on acceptance rates. And few guides and rules were available beyond a case ruling about the use of pre-ticked boxes in cookie banners.

The empirical evidence supporting the study's conclusions was gathered through an experiment testing different banner designs on a public website. The researchers analysed how their manipulations affected 1493 user interactions with the cookie banner and the resulting privacy choice, i.e., whether to give or decline consent.

While several official guides on banner design have been published since the experiment was conducted, the researchers argue that website owners remain in a privileged position.

"If they would use their expertise and design skills to elicit their user's privacy preferences in a neutral way, we would potentially welcome this and not have a problem. Nudging users to make a privacy choice is potentially a good thing, manipulating them into providing consent is not and should be opposed," states Bauer.

Protecting user data

Initially, the researchers wanted to create awareness and action by policy makers and acknowledge that the problems of manipulative choice architecture in the digital space - also called dark patterns - remain important topics for debate. They introduce a conceptual distinction between choice-making architecture and choice outcome architecture that might help to have a more structured debate.

"We see this analysis of the choice-making architecture and a choice outcome architecture as a helpful deconstruction of this privacy decision when it comes to protecting user data," says Jan Michael Bauer.

The choice-making architecture captures all elements of the choice environment that might deter or encourage people from/to make a decision - e.g., the complexity of the choice or required effort. The researchers argue there are many cases in which it might be beneficial to nudge people to decide without affecting the outcome (e.g., organ donation and elections). Increasing choice-making is however not the same as nudging people towards one choice outcome.

"In some cases, we might be more confident that selecting one specific option is likely to make users better off and target the choice outcome itself (e.g., cigarettes unhealthy foods). However, interventions that favour a specific outcome is suspect to manipulation and warrants more scrutiny," says Bauer.

Learning about dark patterns

While regulators hopefully catch up with the digital world, the researchers conclude that it will be up to the consumer to detect, avoid and resist manipulative choice architecture. "One way forward for users and consumers could be to learn about the broader issues surrounding dark patterns and the tricks used in websites and apps to hopefully become less responsive to these manipulations. Even though these manipulations are often subtle, they should be called out," adds Bauer.

"One helpful approach can be to treat aggressive prompts and design element that favour a specific choice outcome as a warning sign to pause and reflect: do I really want to share my data? An issue not limited to data privacy as many websites and online shops gear up with dark patterns in the fight for user attention and to increase sales," concludes Bauer.

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Taking the brain out for a walk

A recent study shows that spending time outdoors has a positive effect on our brains

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Research News

If you're regularly out in the fresh air, you're doing something good for both your brain and your well-being. This is the conclusion reached by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE). The longitudinal study recently appeared in The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry.

During the Corona pandemic, walks became a popular and regular pastime. A neuroscientific study suggests that this habit has a good effect not only on our general well-being but also on our brain structure. It shows that the human brain benefits from even short stays outdoors. Until now, it was assumed that environments affect us only over longer periods of time.

The researchers regularly examined six healthy, middle-aged city dwellers for six months. In total, more than 280 scans were taken of their brains using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The focus of the study was on self-reported behavior during the last 24 hours and in particular on the hours that participants spent outdoors prior to imaging. In addition, they were asked about their fluid intake, consumption of caffeinated beverages, the amount of time spent outside, and physical activity, in order to see if these factors altered the association between time spent outside and the brain. In order to be able to include seasonal differences, the duration of sunshine in the study period was also taken into account.

Brain scans show that the time spent outdoors by the participants was positively related to gray matter in the right dorsolateral-prefrontal cortex, which is the superior (dorsal) and lateral part of the frontal lobe in the cerebral cortex. This part of the cortex is involved in the planning and regulation of actions as well as what is referred to as cognitive control. In addition, many psychiatric disorders are known to be associated with a reduction in gray matter in the prefrontal area of the brain.

The results persisted even when the other factors that could also explain the relationship between time spent outdoors and brain structure were kept constant. The researchers performed statistical calculations in order to examine the influence of sunshine duration, number of hours of free time, physical activity, and fluid intake on the results. The calculations revealed that time spent outdoors had a positive effect on the brain regardless of the other influencing factors.

"Our results show that our brain structure and mood improve when we spend time outdoors. This most likely also affects concentration, working memory, and the psyche as a whole. We are investigating this in an ongoing study. The subjects are asked to also solve cognitively challenging tasks and wear numerous sensors that measure the amount of light they are exposed to during the day, among other environmental indicators," says Simone Kühn, head of the Lise Meitner Group for Environmental Neuroscience at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and lead author of the study.

The results therefore, support the previously assumed positive effects of walking on health and extend them by the concrete positive effects on the brain. Because most psychiatric disorders are associated with deficits in the prefrontal cortex, this is of particular importance to the field of psychiatry.

"These findings provide neuroscientific support for the treatment of mental disorders. Doctors could prescribe a walk in the fresh air as part of the therapy - similar to what is customary for health cures," says Anna Mascherek, post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) and co-author of the study.

In the ongoing studies, the researchers also want to directly compare the effects of green environments vs urban spaces on the brain. In order to understand where exactly the study participants spend their time outdoors, the researchers plan to use GPS (Global Positioning System) data and include other factors that may play a role such as traffic noise and air pollution.

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Human waste contaminating urban water leads to 'superbug' spread -- study

UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM

Research News

Contamination of urban lakes, rivers and surface water by human waste is creating pools of 'superbugs' in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC) - but improving access to clean water, sanitation and sewerage infrastructure could help to protect people's health, a new study reveals.

Researchers studied bodies of water in urban and rural sites in three areas of Bangladesh - Mymensingh, Shariatpur and Dhaka. They found more antibiotic resistant faecal coliforms in urban surface water compared to rural settings, consistent with reports of such bacteria in rivers across Asia.

Publishing their findings in mSystems today, researchers from the University of Birmingham and the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh call for further research to quantify the drivers of antibiotic resistance in surface waters in Bangladesh.

Lead author Willem van Schaik, Professor of Microbiology and Infection at the University of Birmingham, commented: "The rivers and lakes of Dhaka are surrounded by highly-populated slums in which human waste is directly released into the water. The presence of human gut bacteria links to high levels of antibiotic resistance genes, suggesting that such contamination is driving the presence of these 'superbugs' in surface water.

"Interventions aimed at improving access to clean water, sanitation and sewerage infrastructure may thus be important to reduce the risk of antimicrobial resistance spreading in Bangladesh and other LMICs. While levels of antibiotic resistance genes are considerably lower in rural than in urban settings, we found that antibiotics are commonly used in fish farming and further policies need to be developed to reduce their use."

The prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria causing infections is increasing globally, but the clinical issues, including significant morbidity and mortality, posed by these bacteria are particularly alarming in LMICs. The prevalence multidrug-resistant E. coli among healthy humans is relatively high in Bangladesh, as it is in other LMICs.

Dhaka, has a population of around 16 million people, with a population density that ranks among the highest of any megacity, but less than 20% of households are directly connected to sewerage infrastructure.

The research team found that urban surface waters in Bangladesh are particularly rich in antibiotic resistance genes, with a higher number of them associated with plasmids indicating that they are more likely to spread through the population.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria that colonize the human gut can be passed into rivers, lakes and coastal areas through the release of untreated wastewater, the overflow of pit latrines during monsoon season or by practices such as open defecation.

These contaminated environments are often used for bathing, for the washing of clothes and food preparation equipment, thus increasing the risk of human gut colonisation by antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

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For more information, please contact Tony Moran, International Communications Manager, on +44 (0)782 783 2312. For out-of-hours enquiries, please call +44 (0) 7789 921 165.

Notes for editors

* The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world's top 100 institutions, its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers and teachers and more than 6,500 international students from over 150 countries

* 'Metagenome-wide analysis of rural and urban surface waters and sediments in Bangladesh identifies human waste as driver of antibiotic resistance' - Ross Stuart McInnes, Md. Hassan uz-Zaman, Imam Taskin Alam, Siu Fung Stanley Ho, Robert A. Moran, John D. Clemens, Md. Sirajul Islam, Willem van Schaik is published in mSystems.

 

New research at ESMT Berlin shows potential variance in academic research

ESMT BERLIN

Research News

The research seeks to understand what drives decisions in data analyses and the process through which academics test a hypothesis by comparing the analyses of different researchers who tested the same hypotheses on the same dataset. Analysts reported radically different analyses and dispersed empirical outcomes, including, in some cases, significant effects in opposite directions from each other. Decisions about variable operationalizations explained the lack of consistency in results beyond statistical choices (i.e., which analysis or covariates to use).

"Our findings illustrate the importance of analytical choices and how different statistical methods can lead to different conclusions," says Martin Schweinsberg. "An academic research question can sometimes be investigated in different ways, even if the answers are derived from the same dataset and by analysts without any incentives to find a particular result, and this research highlights this."

To conduct the research, Professor Schweinsberg recruited a crowd of analysts from all over the world to test two hypotheses regarding the effects of scientists' gender and professional status on active participation in group conversations. Using the online academic forum Edge, researchers analyzed group discussion data of scientific discussions from more than two decades (1996-2014). The dataset contained more than 3 million words from 728 contributors and 150 variables related to the conversation, its contributors, or the textual level of the transcript. Then, using the new platform DataExplained, developed by co-authors Michael Feldman, Nicola Staub, and Abraham Bernstein, researchers analyzed the data in R to identify whether there was a link between a scientist's gender or professional status with their levels of verbosity.

Analysts utilized various sets of sample sizes, statistical approaches, and covariates, which led to several different results in relation to the hypotheses. This, therefore, resulted in various, yet defensible findings from the various analysts. By using Data Explained, Professor Schweinsberg and colleagues were able to understand precisely how these analytical choices differed, despite the data and hypotheses being the same. A qualitative study of the R-code used by analysts revealed a process model for the psychology behind data analyses.

Professor Schweinsberg says, "Our study illustrates the benefits of transparent and open science practices. Subjective analytical choices are unavoidable, and we should embrace them because a collection of diverse analytical backgrounds and approaches can reveal the true consistency of an empirical claim."

This research shows the critical role subjective researcher decisions play in influencing reported empirical results. According to the researchers, these findings stress the importance of open data, which is publicly available, systematic robustness checks in academic research, and as much transparency as possible regarding both analytic paths taken and not taken, in order to ensure research is as accurate as possible. They also suggest humility when communicating research findings and caution in applying them to organizational decision-making.

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Revealing the values in mathematics education through a variety of cultural lenses

Mathematics educators, mathematicians, teachers, and students come together to discuss the values that are espoused and developed through mathematics education today in different cultures

CACTUS COMMUNICATIONS

Research News

IMAGE: THE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION CAN OFTEN BE ASSOCIATED WITH ONLY NUMERACY SKILLS. BUT VIEWING THE DISCIPLINE AS A CULTURAL PRODUCT--WHOSE VALUES DIFFER ACROSS CULTURES--REVEALS ITS SIGNIFICANCE BEYOND NUMBERS CRUNCHING. view more 

CREDIT: ECNU REVIEW OF EDUCATION

If you ask an adult what their least favorite subject at school was, they are likely to say mathematics. This response has less to do with mathematics per se than it is about how well it was taught or whether students were supported in their endeavor to learn numbers, master algebra, understand trigonometry, and handle data. To grasp the values of mathematics and how the discipline is viewed by society, we need to see it as a cultural phenomenon first.

It is commonly known that mathematics is the foundation of technology, be it primitive tools or the supercomputers in the 21st century. In turn, this technology shapes our modes of social connection. Thus, learning mathematics is inseparable from the connection with the external environment, and teaching mathematics is also inseparable from the interaction between people. Seen this way, it is hard not to categorize mathematics as a cultural product. Philosophers, educators, and mathematicians who have written about the discipline's cultural contours have noted how intrinsically enmeshed it is with other fields such as anthropology, sociology, education, philosophy, and psychology.

"While people may readily understand the significance of anthropology to our lives and histories, it is often felt that the objective and the scientific nature of mathematics masks its value relevance," says Dr. Qiaoping Zhang from the Education University of Hong Kong. "Because research on values in mathematics education is limited and considered unimportant."

To correct this notion and explore the values that are considered important in teaching and learning mathematics according to various cultures, ECNU Review of Education is putting out a Special Issue this month with Dr. Qiaoping Zhang and Dr. Wee Tiong Seah as its guest editors. Teachers and students in Australia, Pasifika learners in New Zealand, and primary and secondary students in Korea and the Chinese mainland are just some of the participants who will be sharing their stories and ideas about the values they hold dear in mathematics education. This special issue of the journal is being launched as a tribute to the 14th International Congress on Mathematical Education, which is being held from July 14 to 18 in Shanghai, China.

Among the plethora of articles and commentaries in the Special Issue, some of the highlights include:

• Wee Tiong Seah (University of Melbourne), Qiaoping Zhang, and Alan J. Bishop (Monash University) discussing the role that individuals such as teachers and parents play in affecting the development of students' values in mathematics education through their views, decisions, and behavior, and emphasizing the importance of bringing humanity back into mathematics education;

• Yüksel Dede (Gazi University), Veysel Akçakın (Uşak University), and Gürcan Kaya (Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University) exploring the intersection of mathematical values, educational values, and the educational values involved in mathematical modeling tasks in Brazil, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America;

• Jodie Hunter from Massey University examining the understanding of mathematics educational values and the reasons for rating values at different levels of importance, according to Pasifika students in New Zealand; and

• Hengjun Tang (Zhejiang Normal University), Wee Tiong Seah, Qiaoping Zhang and Weizhong Zhang (Zhejiang Normal University) using the 'What I Find Important' [WIFI] questionnaire to investigate Chinese mainland students' value structures in mathematics learning across primary, junior secondary, and senior secondary levels.

It must be noted that the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 has given greater weight to these discussions. "Prior to the scramble of teachers and students joining online lectures and tutorials last year, it was felt that information and communication technology would have a fundamental influence on mathematics education and could reduce the differences between cultural traditions", Dr. Seah says. "However, after a year of learning online, might digital learning technology have widened the learning opportunity gaps within and amongst cultural traditions instead?"

Examining whether and how teachers and students have changed their values in mathematics learning as a result of online teaching, and how these values are maintained and sustained alongside the wellbeing of everybody involved, remain as the open-ended questions whose answers are of critical importance as we move forward in a world which is (still) suffering from a pandemic.

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Reference

Authors: Qiaoping Zhang, Wee Tiong Seah

Title of original paper: Thematic Issue on Values and Valuing in Mathematics Education: Revisiting Mathematics Education from Cultural Perspectives

Journal: ECNU Review of Education

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/20965311211011628

Affiliations: The Education University of Hong Kong, The University of Melbourne

About ECNU Review of Education

The ECNU Review of Education (ROE) is an international peer review and platinum open access scholarly journal initiated by the East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai, China. It is a peer-reviewed journal that aims to publish impactful research and innovative articles related to current educational issues in China and abroad. The journal encourages articles that use interdisciplinary perspectives and embrace contextual sensitivity. It seeks to build a global community of scholars interested in advancing knowledge, generating big ideas, inducing deep changes, and bringing about a real impact in education.

About Dr. Qiaoping Zhang

Dr. Qiaoping Zhang is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Mathematics and Information Technology at the Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). Prior to joining EdUHK he worked in Hubei University, East China Normal University, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He received his PhD from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2010. His research interests are mainly on affects in mathematics education, mathematics teacher education, students' mathematical problem solving, and cross-cultural comparison in mathematics education.

About Dr. Wee Tiong Seah

Dr. Wee Tiong Seah is Professor in Mathematics Education at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at The University of Melbourne, Australia. He is best known for utilizing conative and motivational variables such as values to support research and development projects in mathematics education, which often focus on cognitive and affective variables only. One of the applications of this field of knowledge and expertise is in the fostering of positive or enabling mathematical wellbeing, which address issues such as mathematics anxiety and disengagement.

 

Tracking COVID-19 across Europe

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

Research News

IMAGE: COVID-19 CUMULATIVE CASES PER 10,000 POP (15 JAN 2020-26 APR 2021) view more 

CREDIT: A. NAQVI (2021)

According to the World Health Organization, a third wave of COVID infections is now all but inevitable in Europe. A COVID tracker developed by IIASA researcher Asjad Naqvi, aims to identify, collect, and collate various official regional datasets for European countries, while also combining and homogenizing the data to help researchers and policymakers explore how the virus spreads.

While many comparisons have been made between the COVID-19 pandemic and similar events in history, one thing sets this pandemic apart from others: the unprecedented amount of knowledge and data that is constantly being generated to understand how the pandemic is unfolding. For a high-income region like Europe, the quality of information made available on a daily basis is exceptionally high compared to the rest of the world. Using this information to make comparisons between different European countries is however not a simple task.

Almost all European countries make COVID-19 data available in the form of maps and trend graphs, but access to data behind these visualizations varies from country to country, with most allowing some form of access to regional data, while others do not release this information publicly. European countries also tend to define regions differently. The European Commission and Eurostat - the statistical office of the European Union - for instance, use homogenous units known as Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS), where NUTS 0 denotes countries, NUTS 1 are typically provinces, NUTS 2 are districts, and NUTS 3 are sub-districts. In addition, differences in testing practices and how COVID-19 related hospital admissions and deaths are recorded, further complicate the comparison of data. Lastly, not all European countries are part of the European Union, and therefore are not subject to Eurostat reporting or data sharing requirements.

To overcome some of these challenges, IIASA researcher Asjad Naqvi has developed a COVID-19 tracker that presents data on daily COVID-19 cases at the sub-national level for 26 European countries from January 2020 until the present. Although several innovative datasets that collect unique COVID-19 related information, such as the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker and the Complexity Science Hub (CSH) Tracker have come onto the scene since the start of the pandemic, Naqvi's tracker aims to identify, collect, and collate various official regional datasets for European countries, while also combining and homogenizing the data at the NUTS 3 or NUTS 2 level. This homogenized dataset makes it possible to explore how the virus spreads in terms of cumulative cases, daily cases, and cases per capita in Europe at a daily resolution.

"One of my aims in developing this tracker was to ensure data transparency, while also making the data consistent and ready for analysis. The paper identifies sources of COVID-19 datasets for 26 European countries and how to access each of them. The data set currently contains over 0.5 million data points at the NUTS 3 or NUTS 2 level," Naqvi explains.

The tracker's data, which is discussed in a new paper published in the journal Scientific Data, can be merged with country or continent-level datasets, such as primary surveys, data from national statistical offices, or data from Eurostat, to conduct comprehensive analyses on the causes and implications of COVID-19. The paper contains a detailed discussion of data sources in each country, including their strengths and weaknesses, and the raw country-level files are provided in an online repository. According to Naqvi, this is one of the very few datasets that has been continuously updated since August 2020 to provide consistent daily information on a regional level for Europe.

The map, for example, clearly illustrates that Germany, on the whole, insulated itself well against the virus and that Sweden and Czechia were particularly hard hit since the start of the pandemic.

Naqvi notes that the tracker can be used for a host of different research questions. It can, for instance, be mapped onto NUTS-level regional data including various economic, demographic, health, tourism, and labor related indicators, some of which also have a monthly or even a weekly frequency. Since data for individual countries are provided, a detailed country-specific analysis can also be done if regional or micro data are available for analysis. Other datasets catalogued on platforms such as the Oxford COVID-19 Supertracker, provides a range of interesting information on various policies put in place by countries during the pandemic. The tracker data can be combined with several innovative global datasets containing NUTS-level information for European countries. As the data for the tracker has a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY), anyone can access it at any time. The data base will continue to be updated regularly until countries stop publishing regional COVID-19 data.

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Reference

Naqvi, A. (2021). COVID-19 European regional tracker. Scientific Data DOI: 10.1038/s41597-021-00950-7

Further information

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4244878

 

Study highlights how resilience is dynamic, not a static character trait

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

A new study finds that resilience is a dynamic process, rather than a fixed trait - and suggests this may have significant ramifications for the business world.

"Organizations are interested in cultivating a resilient workforce, because they want people who are able to remain committed to an organization and its goals over time," says Patrick Flynn, corresponding author of the study and an assistant professor of human resources management at North Carolina State University's Poole College of Management.

"Our work here does a couple things," Flynn says. "First it finds that resilience is more of a process than a characteristic. Second, it identifies some of the characteristics that can contribute to that process in a meaningful way. Taken together, we think the findings can inform recruitment, hiring, operations and training practices."

At the heart of the study is the idea that resilience fluctuates, because it encompasses the way that an individual responds to a variety of circumstances over time.

"It's impossible to assess dynamic resilience at any given moment," Flynn says. "Dynamic resilience is demonstrated across time. How does people's behavior change over time? What influences that? Those are the sorts of questions we wanted to answer with this study."

To that end, researchers worked with 314 members of a university marching band. Study participants were surveyed weekly for 12 weeks. The surveys were designed to collect data on individual participants and their emotional and personal characteristics. To assess how resilience is functioning in individuals over time, the researchers also asked study participants about their commitment to the marching band as an organization, as well as their feelings of "burnout" - specifically, emotional exhaustion related to their work in the organization.

"Tracking the trajectories of commitment and burnout helped us see how resilience played out in real world terms," Flynn says.

The researchers found that, on average, emotional exhaustion increased over time and commitment decreased over time. However, there were factors that influenced those effects.

For example, experience within the organization exacerbated the effects of emotional exhaustion and decreased commitment. In other words, newcomers appeared to be more resilient over the study period.

The researchers also found that people who scored higher on assessments of emotional stability were better able to maintain higher levels of commitment.

Lastly, the researchers also looked at the trajectory of each individual's commitment to the organization to see if it predicted "retention." They found that positive commitment trajectories were associated with a greater likelihood of both planning to return to the organization for another year and then subsequently doing so.

"One takeaway here is that annual employee surveys may not be the best way to assess employee resilience and commitment to an organization," Flynn says.

That's because annual surveys provide snapshots, while resilience is a dynamic process that fluctuates.

"Since resilience affects things like employee retention, which are important to a company's bottom line, we really need to be touching base with employees more often," Flynn says.

The work also shows that resilience can wear down over time, even if people are only exposed to mild stressors.

"Chronic stress can wear down resilience, with ramifications for employee retention and, in all likelihood, job performance," Flynn says.

"However, we also feel that thinking about resilience as a dynamic process creates opportunities to foster resilience in employees not only through recruitment, but through training, and even job design. In short, it's not as simple as hiring the right person and assuming things will work out. Fostering resilience is going to be an ongoing task for management and human resources professionals."

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The paper, "Tracking the Process of Resilience: How Emotional Stability and Experience Influence Exhaustion and Commitment Trajectories," is published in the journal Group & Organization Management. The paper was co-authored by Paul Bliese, Audrey Korsgaard and Cormac Cannon of the University of South Carolina. The work was done with support from the Riegel and Emory HR Center at USC's Darla Moore School of Business.

 

The virus trap

Hollow nano-objects made of DNA could trap viruses and render them harmless

TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH (TUM)

VIDEO: FOR THE DNA PLATES TO ASSEMBLE INTO LARGER GEOMETRICAL STRUCTURES, THE EDGES MUST BE SLIGHTLY BEVELED. THE CORRECT CHOICE AND POSITIONING OF BINDING POINTS ON THE EDGES ENSURE THAT THE... view more 

CREDIT: CHRISTIAN SIGL / DIETZLAB / TUM

To date, there are no effective antidotes against most virus infections. An interdisciplinary research team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now developed a new approach: they engulf and neutralize viruses with nano-capsules tailored from genetic material using the DNA origami method. The strategy has already been tested against hepatitis and adeno-associated viruses in cell cultures. It may also prove successful against corona viruses.

There are antibiotics against dangerous bacteria, but few antidotes to treat acute viral infections. Some infections can be prevented by vaccination but developing new vaccines is a long and laborious process.

Now an interdisciplinary research team from the Technical University of Munich, the Helmholtz Zentrum München and the Brandeis University (USA) is proposing a novel strategy for the treatment of acute viral infections: The team has developed nanostructures made of DNA, the substance that makes up our genetic material, that can trap viruses and render them harmless.

DNA nanostructures

Even before the new variant of the corona virus put the world on hold, Hendrik Dietz, Professor of Biomolecular Nanotechnology at the Physics Department of the Technical University of Munich, and his team were working on the construction of virus-sized objects that assemble themselves.

In 1962, the biologist Donald Caspar and the biophysicist Aaron Klug discovered the geometrical principles according to which the protein envelopes of viruses are built. Based on these geometric specifications, the team around Hendrik Dietz at the Technical University of Munich, supported by Seth Fraden and Michael Hagan from Brandeis University in the USA, developed a concept that made it possible to produce artificial hollow bodies the size of a virus.

In the summer of 2019, the team asked whether such hollow bodies could also be used as a kind of "virus trap". If they were to be lined with virus-binding molecules on the inside, they should be able to bind viruses tightly and thus be able to take them out of circulation. For this, however, the hollow bodies would also have to have sufficiently large openings through which viruses can get into the shells.

"None of the objects that we had built using DNA origami technology at that time would have been able to engulf a whole virus - they were simply too small," says Hendrik Dietz in retrospect. "Building stable hollow bodies of this size was a huge challenge."

The kit for a virus trap

Starting from the basic geometric shape of the icosahedron, an object made up of 20 triangular surfaces, the team decided to build the hollow bodies for the virus trap from three-dimensional, triangular plates.

For the DNA plates to assemble into larger geometrical structures, the edges must be slightly beveled. The correct choice and positioning of binding points on the edges ensure that the panels self-assemble to the desired objects.

"In this way, we can now program the shape and size of the desired objects using the exact shape of the triangular plates," says Hendrik Dietz. "We can now produce objects with up to 180 subunits and achieve yields of up to 95 percent. The route there was, however, quite rocky, with many iterations."

Viruses are reliably blocked

By varying the binding points on the edges of the triangles, the team's scientists can not only create closed hollow spheres, but also spheres with openings or half-shells. These can then be used as virus traps.

In cooperation with the team of Prof. Ulrike Protzer, head of the Institute for Virology at TUM and director of the Institute for Virology at the Helmholtz Zentrum München, the team tested the virus traps on adeno-associated viruses and hepatitis B virus cores.

"Even a simple half-shell of the right size shows a measurable reduction in virus activity," says Hendrik Dietz. "If we put five binding sites for the virus on the inside, for example suitable antibodies, we can already block the virus by 80 percent, if we incorporate more, we achieve complete blocking."

To prevent the DNA particles from being immediately degraded in body fluids, the team irradiated the finished building blocks with UV light and treated the outside with polyethylene glycol and oligolysine. The particles were thus stable in mouse serum for 24 hours.

CAPTION

Lined on the inside with virus-binding molecules, nano-shells made of DNA material bind viruses tightly and thus render them harmless.

CREDIT

Elena-Marie Willner / DietzLab / TUM

A universal construction principle

Now the next step is to test the building blocks on living mice. "We are very confident that this material will also be well tolerated by the human body," says Dietz.

"Bacteria have a metabolism. We can attack them in different ways, " says Prof. Ulrike Protzer. "Viruses, on the other hand, do not have their own metabolism, which is why antiviral drugs are almost always targeted against a specific enzyme in a single virus. Such a development takes time. If the idea of simply mechanically eliminating viruses can be realized, this would be widely applicable and thus an important breakthrough, especially for newly emerging viruses.

The starting materials for the virus traps can be mass-produced biotechnologically at a reasonable cost. "In addition to the proposed application as a virus trap, our programmable system also creates other opportunities," says Hendrik Dietz. "It would also be conceivable to use it as a multivalent antigen carrier for vaccinations, as a DNA or RNA carrier for gene therapy or as a transport vehicle for drugs."

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The research was funded by the European Community's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under the FET-Open project VIROFIGHT (grant no. 899619), the European Research Council (ERC) under a Consolidator Grant, the German Research Foundation (DFG) through SFB863 and TRR179, and by grants of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Program, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) through the StabVacB project and the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), the National Science Foundation of the USA via the Brandeis University Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) of the USA, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH).