SiTime talks thermal gradients and MEMS TCXOs

SiTime discusses how thermal gradients impact the stability of a precision oscillator and why designers should consider replacing OCXOs with MEMS TCXOs.

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Thursday CoronaBuzz, May 21, 2020: 33 pointers to new resources, useful stuff, research news, and more.

Thursday CoronaBuzz, May 21, 2020: 33 pointers to new resources, useful stuff, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Wash your hands and stay at home as much as you can. Please be careful. I love you.

NEW RESOURCES – STATE-SPECIFIC

KCTV: ‘Shop Kansas Farms’ Facebook group creates virtual farmer’s market for entire state. ” A new Facebook group has created a virtual farmer’s market for the entire state of Kansas. More than 120,000 people have joined Shop Kansas Farms in about three weeks. Trips to a supermarket can be frustrating right now, so this is an alternative to make sure the fridge is stocked and money stays local. Shop Kansas Farms has more than just meat and dairy products. You can find seeds, freshly baked bread, herbs and honey.”

WHEC: NY Farm Bureau launches job database to help farmers, workers. “An online database is helping farms hit hard by the pandemic connect with people looking for temporary work. The New York Farm Bureau launched the Farmworker Relief Program on Tuesday. The bureau hopes it will serve as a resource to farms and farmers in order to keep staff on hand.”

NEW RESOURCES – OTHER

CNET: T-Mobile rolls out Connecting Heroes program with free service for first responder agencies. “T-Mobile is joining the likes of AT&T and Verizon with new offers for first responders. On Thursday, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert announced that the carrier announced that it is now offering free service to public and non-profit state and local fire, police and EMS departments.”

UPDATES

AIDS .gov Blog: New COVID-19 CDC Resources on PrEP and Liver Disease. “We continue to update COVID-19 and People with HIV, our HIV.gov page of resources from agencies across the federal government. We recently added two resources from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that are relevant for people with and at risk for HIV during the COVID-19 public health emergency.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

Arizona State University: ‘Carbon Cowboys’: Farmers thriving during COVID-19, thanks to regenerative grazing. “Regenerative grazing involves quickly rotating cattle from pasture to pasture, before they can damage the land — similar to how bison herds moved across the Great Plains. The practice, which does not use chemical fertilizers or pesticides, builds soils that are richer in carbon, which in turn boosts crop and livestock yields. It also makes the land better equipped to cope with drought and reduces flooding.”

Slate: What Going to the Dentist Is Like Now. “Reopened offices will need a sanitation upgrade. Until COVID-19, practices followed protocols that are largely designed to stop the spread of bloodborne illnesses, because they were developed during the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. But the way certain dental procedures can make saliva into aerosols makes dentists’ offices a prime environment for dispersing an airborne pathogen like the coronavirus.”

WTTW: Can’t Stop the Comedy: Performers Adapt to COVID-19. “It’s said laughter is the best medicine, and while that might not be part of the CDC’s official guidelines, comedians everywhere are reaching out to audiences online, hoping for a little healing, some connection and a lot of laughter. The Second City, whose stages are as dark as any in town, is doing its part to light up the internet three nights a week with ‘Improv House Party.’ Anneliese Toft co-directs Thursday night’s offering, ‘Helter Shelter.’ The 45-minute show is an interactive Zoom spectacular.”

BBC: Coronavirus: The Russian republic enduring a ‘catastrophe’. “Dr Ibragim Yevtemirov still coughs every so often as he talks. A paediatric trauma surgeon in Dagestan, in the Caucasus region of southern Russia, his ward had been full of Covid-19 cases for a couple of weeks when he got infected himself. He says seven colleagues in his town have now died, including nurses, orderlies and laboratory staff, according to a count kept by local medics themselves.”

Time: ‘We Do This for the Living.’ Inside New York’s Citywide Effort to Bury its Dead. “Much of New York City has been idle since the coronavirus lockdown was declared two months ago, but not the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, an 88-acre shipping and distribution hub built in the 1960s on the east side of the city’s inner harbor, opposite the Statue of Liberty. Day and night, trucks back up to loading bays while 130 workers scamper between three football-field-size warehouses, waving in drivers and inspecting their freight. The traffic here is no longer in goods arriving from around the world, however. It is in the dead.”

USA Today: ‘We just want to be safe’: Hate crimes, harassment of Asian Americans rise amid coronavirus pandemic. “In California’s Alameda County, a Chinese American man was screamed at while mowing his lawn. The local prosecutor said the man was told to get out of America. In neighboring Santa Clara County, a Vietnamese couple was threatened while in a grocery store. Officials said the man turned his hand into the shape of a gun. In New York City, people of Asian descent were assaulted, kicked, pushed and accosted on subway trains. The theme: This virus is your fault.”

Phys .org: COVID-19 could reduce wildfire risk this season, says expert. “COVID-19 may cause a drop in spring wildfires as people are still being asked to self-isolate throughout May, Alberta’s riskiest fire month, says a University of Alberta expert. ‘Since we’re still staying at home in May, there are fewer people recreating or working in the forests and human-caused fires will be reduced,’ said wildfire scientist Mike Flannigan. ‘Over 80 percent of Alberta’s wildfires in May are started by humans.'”

Phys .org: Pop-up bike lanes and grassroots playgrounds: How COVID-19 will change cities. “Kottbusser Damm is just one of more than a dozen streets in Berlin where authorities have installed ‘pop-up bike lanes’—or ‘corona bike lanes,’ as locals are already calling them—in the last two weeks. The idea is to give pedestrians and cyclists a way to commute and exercise safely from both cars and possible infection by SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Berlin’s far from alone. Other German cities, including Stuttgart and Essen, are setting aside space for cyclists too. In Milan, city officials announced that 22 miles of streets in the city center will be re-engineered to make them safer for cyclists and pedestrians as restrictions on movement start to lift. And in Brussels, authorities are moving quickly to transform 25 miles of car lanes into bike lanes.”

The Hill: Wilson Roosevelt Jerman, former White House butler who served through 11 presidencies, dies of COVID-19. “Wilson Roosevelt Jerman, who served as a White House butler for more than five decades, has died of COVID-19 at the age of 91, local media report. Granddaughter Jamila Garrett said in an interview with FOX 5 DC that that Jerman first began working at the White House as a cleaner under the Eisenhower administration in 1957.”

Washington Post: Coronavirus seizes São Paulo as Trump ponders Brazil travel ban. “Hospitals nearing capacity. Deaths soaring. A president urging people back to work. São Paulo, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere, is emerging as the coronavirus pandemic’s latest global hot spot. Confirmed cases in the city have soared 34 percent and at least 510 people have died in the past week as the public health infrastructure buckles and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro continues to shrug off the crisis.”

Washington Post: The pandemic upended child care. It could be devastating for women.. “The crisis has pushed the country’s fragile child-care ecosystem to the brink. Facilities in an industry with already-small profit margins struggled to access state and federal aid as first-come, first-served small-business loans ran out. They are now facing costly safety precautions, such as limiting class sizes and purchasing masks, gloves and sanitizing cleaner. Industry groups predict that one-third to half of child-care centers may not reopen at all.”

Las Vegas Review-Journal: Buffets in Las Vegas casinos might have had their day. “Casino companies have been characteristically cagey about when — and if, and in what form — they might reopen buffets in the wake of the coronavirus shutdown, but it appears most will hold off, at least for a while.”

The Scotsman: Covid-19 death notices are a reminder that nobody is really nobody – Martyn McLaughlin. “My maternal grandmother, a prying, curdled old woman, who welcomed visiting children as a driver might greet a wasp flying in through the dashboard vent, never read them in that way. She did not teach me very much about life. But I reserve a grudging gratitude for how she kindled my interest in the dead.”

INSTITUTION / CORPORATE / GOVERNMENT

The Atlantic: ‘How Could the CDC Make That Mistake?’. “The government’s disease-fighting agency is conflating viral and antibody tests, compromising a few crucial metrics that governors depend on to reopen their economies. Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, and other states are doing the same.”

Daily Beast: FEMA Tells States to Hand Public Health Data Over to Palantir. “Palantir, co-founded by key Trump ally Peter Thiel, signed government contracts last month worth approximately $24.8 million to provide the Department of Health and Human Services with data-management software to track health-infrastructure deficiencies and forecast where future needs will emerge, through a platform known as HHS Protect. The company’s tools integrate a staggering 187 data sets containing information on everything from hospital inventories, medical supply chains, diagnostic and geographic testing data, demographic stats and more. Those data sets do not include information from identifiable patients, according to HHS, which experts say keeps the arrangement from running afoul of privacy laws. But information on state capacity to meet COVID-19 hospitalization needs, particularly for the predictive purposes the FEMA administrator references and Palantir specializes in, is a potential goldmine for the secretive company. ”

BBC: K-League: FC Seoul fined 100 million won for sex dolls in stands. “A South Korean club has been fined 100 million won (£66,500) by the K-League for filling empty seats with ‘sex dolls’ at their recent home match. FC Seoul put 30 ‘premium mannequins’ in the stands, with fans unable to attend because of coronavirus restrictions.”

Washington Post: Reopening guidance for churches delayed after White House and CDC disagree. “Guidance for reopening houses of worship amid the coronavirus pandemic has been put on hold after a battle between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the White House, which was resistant to putting limits on religious institutions, according to administration officials.”

CNET: Coronavirus shut down Hollywood, but there may be a silver lining. “Last month the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that, at least for next year’s Oscars ceremony, movies no longer need to fulfill a one-week run in a Los Angeles theater to be eligible for best picture. As long as a film had a scheduled theatrical release, it qualifies for a chance at an Oscar nomination. Out of the few films trickling out during the pandemic, several of the standouts were directed by women. These films could bring long-overdue recognition for female directors at the next Oscars, where women have historically missed out on nominations in the best director category.”

Hollywood Reporter: “Germ-Zapping Robots”: How Hollywood Might Kill Coronavirus Fears on Set. “With plans for safely revving up production underway in Hollywood, the industry is looking at creative ways to make sure sets are sanitary in the age of COVID-19. One newly emerging strategy might have people wondering whether the pandemic is turning Hollywood into one of the sci-fi films it churns out: ‘germ-zapping robots.’ Yes, really. Hollywood has begun to take interest in a lab-certified disinfecting robot that uses pulses of ultraviolet (UV) light to kill SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.”

EDUCATION

The Conversation: Coronavirus: When teaching during a disaster, students need to be partners. “In addition to having experience in disaster management, my doctoral studies were in the field of educational technology. This combination of education and experience has been of great value in thinking about how to best support students’ continued education during the pandemic in the Master of Arts in Disaster and Emergency Management program at Royal Roads University where I teach. To help inform the changes we are making in our program due to coronavirus, I drew on two distinct practices respectively grounded in higher education and disaster management: working with students as partners and using impact and needs assessments to support decision-making.”

HEALTH

CNN: Coronavirus testing is ‘a mess’ in the US, report says. “Coronavirus testing in the United States is disorganized and needs coordination at the national level, infectious disease experts said in a new report released Wednesday. Right now, testing is not accurate enough to use alone to make most decisions, including who should go back to work or to school, the team at the University of Minnesota said.”

The Gazette: Detective, nurse, confidant: Virus tracers play many roles. ” Health investigator Mackenzie Bray smiles and chuckles as she chats by phone with a retired Utah man who just tested positive for the coronavirus. She’s trying to keep the mood light because she needs to find out where he’s been and who he’s been around for the past seven days. She gently peppers him with questions, including where he and his wife stopped to buy flowers on a visit to a cemetery. She encourages him to go through his bank statement to see if it reminds him of any store visits he made.”

TECHNOLOGY

The Register: COVID-19 sparks new wearables to push the pandemic away. “COVID-19 is spurring new types of wearable hardware. Exhibit A: a startup named Nodle has cooked up a ‘smart wearable’ that bakes the third-party contact-tracing the ‘Whisper tracing protocol’ and Bluetooth into a device said to be wearable as a necklace or clipped onto your garments.”

New York Times: How the ‘Plandemic’ Movie and Its Falsehoods Spread Widely Online. “Just over a week after ‘Plandemic’ was released, it had been viewed more than eight million times on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and had generated countless other posts. The New York Times focused on the video’s spread on Facebook using data from CrowdTangle, a tool to analyze interactions across the social network. (YouTube and Twitter do not make their data as readily available.) The ascent of ‘Plandemic’ was largely powered by Facebook groups and pages that shared the YouTube link.”

RESEARCH

NPR: Researchers: Nearly Half Of Accounts Tweeting About Coronavirus Are Likely Bots. “Nearly half of the Twitter accounts spreading messages on the social media platform about the coronavirus pandemic are likely bots, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University said Wednesday. Researchers culled through more than 200 million tweets discussing the virus since January and found that about 45% were sent by accounts that behave more like computerized robots than humans.”

BetaNews: Ancestry.com announces COVID-19 (coronavirus) testing. “With the current pandemic continuing to grow in some areas, and unemployment rising even faster than food prices, we need problem solvers. Help at this time comes mostly from doctors and scientists, but can also come from other surprising areas. If you’ve recently taken an AncestryDNA test, Ancestry.com is inviting you to supply some information that could assist in the fight against COVID-19.”

RadioFreeEurope: EU Monitor Sees Drop In COVID-19 Disinformation, Urges Social Media To Take More Action. “EU monitors say they have seen ‘at least a temporary decrease’ in the amount of misinformation and disinformation surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, but external actors, notably pro-Kremlin sources, are still active in spreading false information on the outbreak. In a report released on May 20, the strategic communications division of the European diplomatic corps, the European External Action Service (EEAS), said that, while social media companies continue to invest into detecting and countering misinformation and disinformation on their platforms, ‘it is clear that much more needs to be done.'”

STAT: ‘It’s something I have never seen’: How the Covid-19 virus hijacks cells. “Adeep dive into how the new coronavirus infects cells has found that it orchestrates a hostile takeover of their genes unlike any other known viruses do, producing what one leading scientist calls ‘unique’ and ‘aberrant’ changes. Recent studies show that in seizing control of genes in the human cells it invades, the virus changes how segments of DNA are read, doing so in a way that might explain why the elderly are more likely to die of Covid-19 and why antiviral drugs might not only save sick patients’ lives but also prevent severe disease if taken before infection.”

POLITICS

New York Times: G.O.P. Officials Quietly Consider Paring Back Convention. “The money to pay for the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., is mostly raised, and contracts with hotels and local vendors are signed. The delegates are set to easily anoint a party nominee who fought tooth and nail for the title four years ago. But instead of preparing to celebrate President Trump, White House and Republican officials are now quietly looking at the likelihood of a pared-down convention, with the coronavirus appearing increasingly likely to still pose a serious threat in late summer.”

CoronaBuzz is brought to you by ResearchBuzz. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment, send resource suggestions, or tag @buzz_corona on Twitter. Thanks!

May 21, 2020 at 11:29PM
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Wednesday CoronaBuzz, May 20, 2020: 30 pointers to new resources, useful stuff, research news, and more.

Wednesday CoronaBuzz, May 20, 2020: 30 pointers to new resources, useful stuff, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Wash your hands and stay at home as much as you can. Please be careful. I love you.

NEW RESOURCES – MEDICAL/HEALTH

CNET: Amid COVID-19, iFixit releases repair database for ventilators. “iFixit, the website known for tearing apart devices and making tech repair guides, has released an extensive online repair resource for medical professionals. It hopes the guide will help keep hospital equipment working throughout the coronavirus pandemic, CEO Kyle Wiens said Tuesday.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 5 Best Gardening Websites & Apps for Beginners to Garden Anywhere. “Whether you have a house or an apartment, these are some of the best gardening websites, ebooks, and apps to cultivate your own little green patch. When you have some extra time at home, seize the opportunity to add a little greenery. If you have a garden, you can use it to grow vegetables and herbs, or beautify it with flowers. Growing plants in apartments has been shown to improve mood and mental stability. These gardening websites and apps have something in them for both beginners and experienced gardeners to reap what they sow.”

UPDATES

BBC: Coronavirus: Travis McCready plays America’s first gig in months. “Country musician Travis McCready played to an audience wearing face masks in what’s been described as the first US concert since the Covid-19 lockdown. The gig, in Arkansas, offered a glimpse of how live music could resume in the UK, with compulsory temperature tests and social distancing for all present.”

NPR: Maryland Reports Largest Rise Yet In Coronavirus Cases 4 Days After Reopening. “The Maryland Department of Health reported 1,784 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, setting a new high mark four days after the state began reopening its economy. Maryland is now reporting 41,546 cases, including nearly 2,000 people who have died from the disease.”

Christian Post: Ga. church closes two weeks after reopening as families come down with coronavirus. “Catoosa Baptist Tabernacle, an independent Baptist church led by Pastor Justin Gazaway in Ringgold, Georgia, restarted in-person services on April 26. Church representative Joan Lewis told The Christian Post on Monday, however, that they decided to suspend ‘in-person worship services for the foreseeable future’ on May 11 after learning several families had contracted the virus.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

New York Times: Where Group Prayer Meets Group Fitness. “At first glance, the streaming fitness class looks like any other: blue yoga mats against a neutral background, with ambient music and candles to set the mood. Two athleisure-clad instructors, flanked by hand weights, introduce themselves. The giveaway is the flash of a wooden crucifix.”

BBC: Coronavirus: Anger grows for stranded crew on forgotten cruises. “When Caio Saldanha and his fiancée Jessica Furlan arrived in the US in early March, they were looking forward to a new life working on board a lavish cruise ship. Working on Royal Caribbean’s Celebrity Infinity was supposed to be a fresh start, the next chapter in their lives together. On 13 March, the date of the cruise’s departure, the ship became their home. Little did they know then, it would prove to be their prison.”

LBC: Inside Intensive Care during the coronavirus pandemic: LBC Exclusive. “Theo Usherwood visited an Intensive Care Unit to see the work coronavirus doctors are doing to save lives. Theo was in hospital for six days with Covid-19 and admits ‘it could have gone either way’ for a couple of days. He wanted to visit an ICU to see first-hand the remarkable work they are doing to treat patients with coronavirus. This is his documentary.”

Block Club Chicago: No Walk-ins, No Magazines, No Blowouts: Salons, Barber Shops Prepare To Reopen With New Safety Measures. “Georgia reopened salons April 24 with some social distancing restrictions. Indiana salons reopened last week at reduced capacity. New Hampshire reopened salons last week, too, but with no blow drying allowed. Across the country, similar scenes are playing out: 6 feet of distance between chairs, masks and gloves for staff and clients and jugs of hand sanitizer.”

Washington Post: Masks are changing the way we look at each other, and ourselves. “Melina Basnight looks into the camera and applies two shades of eyeshadow: a periwinkle blue, and a bright, bold ochre. It’s like any other tutorial on her YouTube channel, Makeup Menaree, except that it’s based on a new premise: that all points south of the eyes will be eclipsed by a mask.”

Washington Post: Global emissions plunged an unprecedented 17 percent during the coronavirus pandemic. “As covid-19 infections surged in March and April, nations around the globe experienced an abrupt reduction in driving, flying and industrial output, leading to a startling decline of more than a billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions. That includes a peak decline in daily emissions of 17 percent in early April, according to the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. For some nations, the drop was much steeper.”

NPR: Russian Speakers Imitate Art In A Time Of Coronavirus Confinement On Facebook. “Called Izoizolyacia — roughly meaning ‘Art Isolation’ — the Facebook group says it’s for people with “limited movement and unlimited fantasy.” It invites members to re-create masterworks but with one important restriction of its own: Use only what you have at home. In little over a month, the community has grown to more than a half-million members. Using household items, food, raided wardrobes and a familiar Russian-inflected sense of irony, members have produced dizzyingly creative remakes of everything from European masterpieces to Soviet agitprop and coronavirus-influenced memes.”

Washington Post: ‘He gave his life for that hospital’: A doctor put off retirement to fight covid-19, only to die of the virus. “Before it came for him, [Dr. James “Charlie”] Mahoney witnessed the toll of the virus in his patients in the ICU — not just at SUNY Downstate but also across the street at Kings County Hospital Center, where he also took on shifts. Sometimes he slept there, his brother said. Mahoney had new coronavirus patients needing critical care every hour, an onslaught of suffering that was unlike anything he and his team had ever seen, Foronjy said. He worked on his patients until he couldn’t anymore, in mid-April, when the telltale fever crept up on him. It never got better.”

Seattle Times: Is now the time to switch to a yearlong school calendar? Districts consider coronavirus reset. “With Washington students out of school since mid-March, some say it’s time to consider a move to year-round schooling, even if it comes with added costs. Such an extended period away from classroom learning is raising the specter that all students — but especially those who benefit from more support like children in special education and low-income students — will face an unprecedented loss of knowledge.”

San Francisco Chronicle: For Death Angel drummer, coming out of coronavirus coma was like escaping ‘hell’. “Being the drummer for thrash metal legends Death Angel, Will Carroll was used to crowds cheering after a show. But inside the California Pacific Medical Center on March 30, the Bay Area rocker received a standing ovation just for opening his eyes. He had woken up from a 12-day coma after testing positive for coronavirus.”

New York Times: Beach Towns Ask: Will There Be Summer?. “In summer resort towns across the United States, livelihoods for the year are built in the 15 weeks between Memorial Day and Labor Day. It is during those 15 weeks that tourists from around the country and the world arrive to bask on the beach and gather for festivals and weddings. And it is during those three months that tour operators, hoteliers, innkeepers, restaurant employees and others earn the bulk of their income. But this year, with Memorial Day — the kickoff for summer — approaching, there will be fewer guests to welcome and likely no sizable weddings or festivals to host.”

Los Angeles Times: One-fifth of Americans fear they can’t pay June rent or mortgage, federal survey finds. “More than half of California households have seen a loss of income due to the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Census Bureau said Wednesday, based on a newly launched weekly survey. Since March 13, 54.5% of California adults surveyed said they or another adult in their home had lost income, and an additional 40.8% expected their households to earn less from work over the next four weeks. Nationally, more than a fifth of adults surveyed reported they had slight or no confidence in their ability to pay their rent or mortgage in June.”

INSTITUTION / CORPORATE / GOVERNMENT

Task & Purpose: Leaked Pentagon memo warns of ‘real possibility’ of COVID-19 resurgence, vaccine not coming until summer 2021. “The Defense Department should prepare to operate in a “globally-persistent” novel coronavirus (COVID-19) environment without an effective vaccine until “at least the summer of 2021,” according to a draft Pentagon memo obtained by Task & Purpose. ‘We have a long path ahead, with the real possibility of a resurgence of COVID-19,’ reads the memo, authored for Secretary of Defense Mark Esper but not yet bearing his signature.”

BuzzFeed News: Scientists Studying The Coronavirus Say Some States Are Censoring Them. “Disputes over coronavirus case counts in reopening states like Georgia, Arizona, and Florida are worrying public health experts, who fear public trust in health agencies is being destroyed by moves to silence or obscure unwelcome data. ‘Ultimately this is going to kill people,’ said biostatistics professor Ruth Etzioni of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. ‘People are going to see low numbers from these reports with manipulated numbers, go outside when they should stay in, get ill, and die.'”

New York Times: Cambridge University Will Hold Its Lectures Online Next Year. “Cambridge on Tuesday became the first British university to move all student lectures online for the coming academic year, underscoring the far-reaching changes the coronavirus is forcing on higher education institutions around the world.”

HEALTH

CNN: Staying safe isn’t just about hygiene and distance. It’s about time, too.. “By now, you’ve likely heard the main pieces of advice to avoid the coronavirus. Wear a mask. Wash your hands with soap. Stay at least 6 feet from others. If you do gather with others, go outside rather than inside. Still, there’s one more aspect to infection that has received less attention. Growing evidence suggests that Covid-19 infection, like with other illnesses, is related to prolonged time exposed to the virus. The longer you stay in an environment that may contain the virus, the higher the risk of getting sick.”

KHN: Fewer Traffic Collisions During Shutdown Means Longer Waits For Organ Donations. “On Day Two of the San Francisco Bay Area’s stay-at-home orders in March, Nohemi Jimenez got into her car in San Pablo, California, waved goodbye to her 3-year-old son and drove to her regular Wednesday dialysis appointment. The roads were deserted. No traffic. Jimenez, 30, said it is hard to admit what she thought next: No traffic meant no car accidents. And that meant she’d be on the waiting list for a kidney transplant even longer.”

WTVC (Tennessee): Rhea Co. Executive: COVID-19 cases in county to rise “from 13 to close to 180” by May 21. “Rhea County Executive George Thacker is telling residents to be careful this Memorial Day weekend, as he says the county will soon see a drastic increase in the number of reported COVID-19 cases.”

RESEARCH

CNBC: Wearing a mask can significantly reduce coronavirus transmission, study on hamsters claims. “As the debate over the effectiveness of wearing masks during a pandemic continues, a new study gives weight to arguments by medical professionals and government leaders that wearing a mask does indeed reduce virus transmission — and dramatically so. Experiments by a team in Hong Kong found that the coronavirus’ transmission rate via respiratory droplets or airborne particles dropped by as much as 75% when surgical masks were used.”

CNET: Your face mask selfies could be training the next facial recognition tool. “Your face mask selfies aren’t just getting seen by your friends and family — they’re also getting collected by researchers looking to use them to improve facial recognition algorithms. CNET found thousands of face-masked selfies up for grabs in public data sets, with pictures taken directly from Instagram.”

Scientific American: How COVID-19 Deaths Are Counted. “In Colorado, for example, a Republican state legislator has accused the state’s public health department of falsely inflating COVID-19 deaths; in Florida, local media have objected to the State Department of Health’s refusal to release medical examiner data to the public, alleging that the state may be underreporting deaths. The reality is that assigning a cause of death is not always straightforward, even pre-pandemic, and a patchwork of local rules and regulations makes getting valid national data challenging. However, data on excess deaths in the United States over the past several months suggest that COVID-19 deaths are probably being undercounted rather than overcounted.”

Wired: Metaphors Matter in a Time of Pandemic. “The virus has upset the human microbiome in an epochal act of strategic surprise. Almost instantly, that shock generated a set of metaphors drawn from warfare. This may be inevitable in a time of great fear. But more useful models for confronting a pandemic may come from the microbiome itself—and from the mechanisms, from human care to life-extending machines, used to give our immune systems time to learn the signatures of a new virus.”

CRIME

CNET: FTC warns of COVID-19 contact tracing text message scams. “The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday warned the public about scammers taking advantage of contact tracing to steal your information. Contact tracers are generally hired by a state’s department of public health. If a tracer contacts you, they won’t ask for personal information. If the person contacting you is asking for money or sensitive information like your Social Security number, bank account or credit card number, it’s a scam.”

POLITICS

CNN: ‘We’ve been muzzled’: CDC sources say White House putting politics ahead of science. “In interviews with CNN, CDC officials say their agency’s efforts to mount a coordinated response to the Covid-19 pandemic have been hamstrung by a White House whose decisions are driven by politics rather than science. The result has worsened the effects of the crisis, sources inside the CDC say, relegating the 73-year-old agency that has traditionally led the nation’s response to infectious disease to a supporting role.”

Mother Jones: Jared Kushner Had One Job: Solve America’s Supply Crisis. He Helped Private Companies Instead.. “The origins of Project Airbridge lie with MIT experts, who originally proposed a government led and funded airlift of supplies, according to the Washington Post. But it was seized upon by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who ran a volunteer shadow coronavirus task force that included his former roommate and people from private-equity companies and consulting firms like McKinsey. (‘Young geniuses’ Trump called them.) Unhappy employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) dubbed them ‘the children.’ Yet less than two months later, after many glowing PR hits, the administration decided to put an end to Project Airbridge as members of Congress and the media started demanding answers about how the supplies were being distributed, who received them, and whether the White House was making distribution decisions based on politics rather than public health.”

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May 21, 2020 at 07:35AM
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Nahuatl Folktales, Video Game Packaging, San Francisco Pride, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, May 19, 2020

Nahuatl Folktales, Video Game Packaging, San Francisco Pride, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, May 19, 2020
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Language Magazine: Nahuatl Folktales Translated into English. “The Latino Book Review has released a free online archive of English translations of Nahuatl folktales. The stories were translated to English from the native Nahuatl folktales collected by Pablo González Casanova in Cuentos Indígenas, which was published by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Cuentos Indígenas, which was originally published in 1946, features Nahuatl folktales translated into Spanish.”

TechSpot: Take a trip down memory lane with this virtual collection of big box PC games. “Video game box illustration is a bit of a lost art. Years ago, the physical retail package that a game came in was arguably just as important as the title itself. Quality box art could help a game stand out among the sea of otherwise mundane choices and even influence purchasing or rental decisions on the spot….With that in mind, we have to give a huge nod to the curator over at Big Box Collection. A lifelong gamer, Benjamin Wimmer has set about collecting all of the big box PC games he has enjoyed since the late 80s, scanning them into a 3D database and sharing them with the Internet at large. The result is a digital collection of more than 600 titles for your perusing.”

KPIX: Photo Tribute To 50 Years Of San Francisco Pride Celebrations Goes Online. “The exhibition features photojournalism, portraits, posters and magazine covers from prior Prides. Many images came from the GLBT Historical Society’s archives but others are from other institutions and more than a dozen independent queer photographers.”

SE7EN: New web site creates one-stop store for locating streamers throughout platforms. “Popdog brings collectively streamers from all completely different platforms into one easy-to-find area. On Popdog, you could find standard streamers, type by games, or search for esports competitions which can be dwell. The web site even features a trending part that exhibits which streamers are outperforming their traditional view counts, one thing that would assist smaller streamers who’re on the rise.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechHive: Spotify rolls out curated podcast playlists for true crime fanatics, foodies, and more. “Spotify’s new podcast playlists feature categories ranging from celebrity interviews and climate change to dating advice and true crime, with playlist selections updated on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis.”

State of Maryland: Appellate court case information now available on Maryland Judiciary Case Search. “The Maryland Judiciary has expanded its public access database, Maryland Judiciary Case Search, to include remote access to case information from the Court of Appeals (COA) and the Court of Special Appeals (COSA), in addition to existing access to cases in the trial courts. The appellate case information is now available online. Case Search now contains COA case information from term year 2015 to present and COSA case information from term year 2016 to present.”

Mashable: Facebook launches Messenger Kids in 70 more countries, adds new friending features. “In Dec. 2017, Facebook launched Messenger Kids, a special version of its messaging app aimed at kids under 13 years of age, in the United States. Now, the company is expanding the app’s presence in a big way by launching it in more than 70 new countries. The full list of locations where Messenger Kids is available can be found here.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

My Ballard: Bop Street Records collection bought by nonprofit digital library. “As we reported last month, Voorhees announced his plan to close his store this summer after taking an enormous hit from the pandemic closures. If he hadn’t found a buyer, [Dave] Voorhees was considering giving away part of his collection. But now, a digital media library will be giving his collection a new home. Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, will be buying the entire collection.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Make Tech Easier: New Ransomware Tactic Called “Double Extortion” Discovered . “As you may guess from the name, “double extortion” works by attacking the business twice over. It still uses a database-encryption attack to extort money, but it adds an extra initial attack to ensure a backup doesn’t render the attack useless. First, before the malware developer attacks with ransomware, they breach in the company’s database. They extract as much data as they can and store it on their servers. After that, they conduct the ransomware attack as normal.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Phys .org: High five! It’s possible to create proximity online . “Touching a beloved family member, or even making eye contact, is impossible online. Still, it’s possible to feel close to them. Anna Martín Bylund and Linnéa Stenliden have studied the social and emotional challenges that geographical distance can create among family members who are spread out in different countries, and how longing is expressed in video calls. Their study has been published in the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development.”

Rice University: Early Bird uses 10 times less energy to train deep neural networks. “Researchers from Rice and Texas A&M University unveiled Early Bird April 29 in a spotlight paper at ICLR 2020, the International Conference on Learning Representations. A study by lead authors Haoran You and Chaojian Li of Rice’s Efficient and Intelligent Computing (EIC) Lab showed Early Bird could use 10.7 times less energy to train a DNN to the same level of accuracy or better than typical training. EIC Lab director Yingyan Lin led the research along with Rice’s Richard Baraniuk and Texas A&M’s Zhangyang Wang.”

EurekAlert: Who’s a bot and who’s not. “A new study in Frontiers in Physics has revealed the presence of short-term behavioral trends in humans that are absent in social media bots, providing an example of a ‘human signature’ on social media which could be leveraged to develop more sophisticated bot detection strategies. The research is the first study of its kind to apply user behavior over a social media session to the problem of bot detection.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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May 19, 2020 at 10:03PM
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Tuesday CoronaBuzz, May 19, 2020: 24 pointers to new resources, useful stuff, research news, and more.

Tuesday CoronaBuzz, May 19, 2020: 24 pointers to new resources, useful stuff, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Wash your hands and stay at home as much as you can. Please be careful. I love you.

NEW RESOURCES – MEDICAL/HEALTH

ScienceAlert: First ‘Map’ of Vaccine Battlegrounds on Social Media Shows How Dire Things Have Become. “This opinions of nearly 100 million Facebook users across 37 countries has been turned into a colour-coded map of relationships between proponents of vaccines, its opponents, and those whose views lie somewhere in between. Researchers from across the US applied data analysis techniques commonly used in theoretical physics to create the visualisation, intended to give a virtual bird’s eye view of the social media landscape of opinions over vaccinations – and things aren’t looking good.”

NEW RESOURCES – EDUCATION/ENTERTAINMENT

UConn Today: New Online Exhibit Highlights Asian American Student Narratives. “While students have answered the call to stay at home and help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, they are confronted with unprecedented challenges to both them and their friends, families, and neighbors. For Asian American students, the threat of racism, targeted discrimination, and social isolation can take an additional toll. To provide students with a creative outlet, and to bring light to the experiences of Asian American students in isolation, UConn’s Asian and Asian American Studies Institute (AAASI) has launched Illustrated Resilience – an ongoing online exhibit of student narratives and work from professional artists intended to document student experiences and raise awareness about the personal and societal impacts of the lack of medical preparation, access to testing, imbalanced relief, and deepening inequality while providing a creative outlet through the use of visual arts.”

NEW RESOURCES – LEGAL / SECURITY / PRIVACY / FINANCIAL

PR Newswire: Nav Releases Free Tool to Help Self-Employed Business Owners Estimate PPP Loan Forgiveness (PRESS RELEASE). “Today Nav, a free service that provides business owners the fastest, easiest and most trusted path to financing, launched a Self-Employed Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Loan Forgiveness Calculator to help the self employed estimate how much PPP loan forgiveness they may qualify for. Nav’s Self-Employed PPP Loan Forgiveness Calculator walks self-employed individuals, including most sole proprietors and independent contractors, through the calculations used to apply for PPP loan forgiveness.” The tool is free to use.

Vulture: Patriot Act Returns to Terrify You About an Eviction Crisis . “The show has set up a website… where you can find out whether your building is covered in the federal moratorium and get access to other tenant resources. It’s not exactly a happy ending or solution, but it’s certainly more help and guidance than the housing court will give you.”

NEW RESOURCES – STATE-SPECIFIC

AM NY: New website aims to empower New York City’s food scene amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “A new digital initiative has launched to help empower New York City’s restaurants and bars during the COVID-19 pandemic. #SaveNYCEats is an online platform where participating businesses can feature take-home chef kits, future unique dining experiences, gift cards, merchandise and other special offers. Those who visit the #SaveNYCEats website can view aggregated offers and each of the offers links directly through to the chosen restaurant’s website for fulfillment and payment.”

NEW RESOURCES – OTHER

University of Kentucky: WUKY Partners With StoryCorps to Launch StoryCorps Connect. “WUKY is partnering with StoryCorps, the national nonprofit organization dedicated to recording, preserving and sharing the stories of people of all backgrounds and beliefs, to launch StoryCorps Connect. The platform is free and allows people to conduct and record StoryCorps interviews with loved ones across generations remotely. ”

USEFUL STUFF

CNET: All the best online games to play with your friends during quarantine. “Whether you’re looking for old-school favorites, party games, escape rooms or hard-core board games, there’s likely a virtual option of a multiplayer game for you, as people have turned to tech for creative socializing during social distancing. (Watching movies and shows together through extensions like Netflix Party and Airtime for YouTube have also become popular ways to hang out virtually.) Here are some of the best online games to play with friends that are available, no matter what type of experience you’re seeking.”

UPDATES

CNET: Instagram’s new guide feature will help you find wellness content. “Instagram debuted a new Guides feature on Monday with the goal of making new wellness content a little easier to find. The guide lets Instagram users discover recommendations, tips and other content from creators, public figures, organizations and publishers.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

NBC News: It’s hard to flee from your domestic abuser during a coronavirus lockdown. “Thirty-five local domestic violence organizations in 19 states shared with NBC News how their work has changed since the start of the crisis. Most saw major disruptions in requests for services. Hotline calls became shorter and callers more frantic. In some areas, calls more than doubled, in others, lines went eerily silent as victims trapped at home with abusers had limited privacy to call. Several providers said that while reports of abuse went down under their local stay-at-home orders, those that did come in described more violent incidents.”

SF Gate: Coming to an SF street near you: A photo of what it looked like 100 years ago. “OpenSFHistory, an online archive of over 50,000 historic images of San Francisco and the Bay Area, recently launched a project to integrate modern-day S.F. with its historic past. With walking tours halted and most historic sites closed, the folks behind the site are hoping their ‘guerilla history posters’ will give residents a little entertainment and education.”

Chattanooga Times Free Press: Historically black colleges work to help students amid coronavirus. “It is a perilous time for the nation’s historically black colleges and universities, which have long struggled with less funding and smaller endowments than their predominantly white peers and are now dealing with the financial challenges of the coronavirus. HBCUs have the added challenge of educating a large population of low-income and first-generation students who now need more help than ever.”

The Atlantic: Never Go Back to the Office. “Many people in a variety of industries—manufacturing, retail, transportation, health care, and more—cannot work from home, of course. Yet the pandemic has shown just how many companies can function adequately, even successfully, without placing all their employees in the same office. If you run an organization whose employees are more or less getting their work done at home, listen to that little voice in your head. Return to the office now? That’s crazy talk. I’m only telling you what you already know.”

INSTITUTION / CORPORATE / GOVERNMENT

Florida Today: As Florida re-opens, COVID-19 data chief gets sidelined and researchers cry foul. “Late last Friday, the architect and manager of Florida’s COVID-19 dashboard — praised by White House officials for its accessibility — announced that she had been removed from her post, causing outcry from independent researchers now worried about government censorship.”

Newshub New Zealand: Coronavirus: Government releases COVID-19 ‘digital diary’ app early. “The Government has launched its COVID-19 ‘digital diary’ app a day early and it is now available on the Google Play and Apple stores. The app is designed to help Kiwis keep track of where they’ve been and assist with contact tracing if needed.”

BBC: Coronavirus: Call for action over refunds for cancelled flights. “Like many others across the UK, Emily Liddle and George Ridley are struggling to secure a refund for a holiday which was cancelled amid the coronavirus pandemic. The couple, who lived in Edinburgh for years, were due to fly to Japan in March and spend three months travelling around Asia. They say they are about £2,000 out of pocket for flights from two airlines who have refused to refund in cash, instead offering vouchers for future flights.”

Politico: ‘Hard stop’: States could lose National Guard virus workers. “More than 40,000 National Guard members currently helping states test residents for the coronavirus and trace the spread of infections will face a ‘hard stop’ on their deployments on June 24 — just one day shy of many members becoming eligible for key federal benefits, according to a senior FEMA official.”

New York Times: ‘Way Too Late’: Inside Amazon’s Biggest Outbreak. “Local lawmakers believe that more than 100 workers have contracted the disease, but the exact number is unknown. At first, Amazon told workers about each new case. But when the total reached about 60, the announcements stopped giving specific numbers. The disclosures also stopped at other Amazon warehouses. The best estimate is that more than 900 of the company’s 400,000 blue-collar workers have had the disease. But that number, crowdsourced by Jana Jumpp, an Amazon worker, almost certainly understates the spread of the illness among Amazon’s employees.”

RESEARCH

Phys .org: Women are getting less research done than men during this coronavirus pandemic. “Before COVID-19, I used to spend a lot of time feeling like the Cat in The Cat in the Hat. I was holding a cup, the milk, the cake and a little toy ship, while bouncing up and down on a ball. I am a tenured professor and a scientist. I have a lab, grants and grad students. I write academic articles and I teach, and I’m in the midst of writing a book. I am also a mom. So, I cook, clean and nurture.”

Johns Hopkins University: JHU researchers to use machine learning to predict heart damage in COVID-19 victims. “Johns Hopkins researchers recently received a $195,000 Rapid Response Research grant from the National Science Foundation to, using machine learning, identify which COVID-19 patients are at risk of adverse cardiac events such as heart failure, sustained abnormal heartbeats, heart attacks, cardiogenic shock and death. Increasing evidence of COVID-19’s negative impacts on the cardiovascular system highlights a great need for identifying COVID-19 patients at risk for heart problems, the researchers say. However, no such predictive capabilities currently exist.”

SECURITY

BBC: Dark web scammers exploit Covid-19 fear and doubt. “‘They’re exploiting the fear, uncertainty and doubt people are experiencing during the pandemic, and using the anxiety and desperation to get people to buy things or click on things they wouldn’t have otherwise,’ says Morgan Wright, a former senior adviser to the US Department of State anti-terrorism assistance programme. He’s talking about the scammers and criminals that inhabit the “dark web” who have found a new angle – anxiety over Covid-19.”

Click Orlando: COVID-19 data sharing with law enforcement sparks concern. “Public health officials in at least two-thirds of U.S. states are sharing the addresses of people who have the coronavirus with first responders. Supporters say the measure is designed to protect those on the front line, but it’s sparked concerns of profiling in minority communities already mistrustful of law enforcement. An Associated Press review of those states found that at least 10 states also share the names of everyone who tests positive.”

POLITICS

CNET: Trump says he’s taking controversial COVID-19 drug hydroxychloroquine. “US President Donald Trump says he’s been taking hydroxychloroquine, a controversial anti-malarial drug touted as a potential COVID-19 treatment, for “about a week and a half,” despite a lack of evidence it can prevent coronavirus infection.”

ProPublica: Wedding Planner, Caterer, “Brand Builder”: Trump’s Food Aid Program Is Paying $100+ Million to Unlicensed Dealers. “The contractors on Friday began delivering boxes containing fresh produce to food banks and other nonprofits. Forty-nine out of the 159 contractors picked by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to deliver boxes containing produce don’t have a requisite license from the same agency, according to a search of the USDA’s database using the information released about the contractors. Some of the contractors are established companies, and many food banks told ProPublica they’re successfully and gratefully receiving shipments. But other contractors have eclectic backgrounds with little track record in food distribution, such as a wedding planner, a caterer and a ‘brand builder.’ As a result, some food banks are left scrambling for shipments or even callbacks.”

BBC: Coronavirus: Trump gives WHO ultimatum over Covid-19 handling. “US President Donald Trump has sent a letter to the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) threatening to pull US funding permanently over Covid-19. The letter outlines a 30-day deadline for the body to commit to ‘substantive improvements’ or risk losing millions and US membership altogether.”

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May 19, 2020 at 08:41PM
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Waterproof automotive connector operates up to 125°C

Hirose has launched a waterproof wire-to-wire connector with an operating temperature up to 125°C, targeting demanding automotive, agricultural, and construction vehicle applications.

from Electronic Products Technology Center Articles https://ift.tt/3cXs5SI

Backshells offer up to 20% weight savings

TE Connectivity’s swept elbow backshells for electrical and optic cables offer up to a 20% weight savings in a variety of military and aerospace applications.

from Electronic Products Technology Center Articles https://ift.tt/2ZiKYMc