skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: Engineering photonics solutions for COVID-19
As the impact of COVID-19 on society became apparent, the engineering and scientific community recognized the need for innovative solutions. Two potential roadmaps emerged: developing short-term solutions to address the immediate needs of the healthcare communities and developing mid/long-term solutions to eliminate the over-arching threat. However, in a truly global effort, researchers from all backgrounds came together in tackling this challenge. Short-term efforts have focused on re-purposing existing technologies and leveraging additive manufacturing techniques to address shortages in personal protective equipment and disinfection. More basic research efforts with mid-term and long-term impact have emphasized developing novel diagnostics and accelerating vaccines. As a foundational technology, photonics has contributed directly and indirectly to all efforts. This perspective will provide an overview of the critical role that the photonics field has played in efforts to combat the immediate COVID-19 pandemic as well as how the photonics community could anticipate contributing to future pandemics of this nature.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2028445
PAR ID:
10594405
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
American Institute of Physics
Date Published:
Journal Name:
APL Photonics
Volume:
5
Issue:
9
ISSN:
2378-0967
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al (, Global Sustainability)
    null (Ed.)
    Non-technical summary We summarize some of the past year's most important findings within climate change-related research. New research has improved our understanding of Earth's sensitivity to carbon dioxide, finds that permafrost thaw could release more carbon emissions than expected and that the uptake of carbon in tropical ecosystems is weakening. Adverse impacts on human society include increasing water shortages and impacts on mental health. Options for solutions emerge from rethinking economic models, rights-based litigation, strengthened governance systems and a new social contract. The disruption caused by COVID-19 could be seized as an opportunity for positive change, directing economic stimulus towards sustainable investments. Technical summary A synthesis is made of ten fields within climate science where there have been significant advances since mid-2019, through an expert elicitation process with broad disciplinary scope. Findings include: (1) a better understanding of equilibrium climate sensitivity; (2) abrupt thaw as an accelerator of carbon release from permafrost; (3) changes to global and regional land carbon sinks; (4) impacts of climate change on water crises, including equity perspectives; (5) adverse effects on mental health from climate change; (6) immediate effects on climate of the COVID-19 pandemic and requirements for recovery packages to deliver on the Paris Agreement; (7) suggested long-term changes to governance and a social contract to address climate change, learning from the current pandemic, (8) updated positive cost–benefit ratio and new perspectives on the potential for green growth in the short- and long-term perspective; (9) urban electrification as a strategy to move towards low-carbon energy systems and (10) rights-based litigation as an increasingly important method to address climate change, with recent clarifications on the legal standing and representation of future generations. Social media summary Stronger permafrost thaw, COVID-19 effects and growing mental health impacts among highlights of latest climate science. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; (, The Journal of Higher Education)
    In this study, we interrogated the efforts adopted by community and technical colleges in a Midwestern state to address racial inequities since the onset of COVID-19. We analyzed such efforts reported in institutional newsletters and associated media through critical content analysis supported by text-mining techniques. Our findings demonstrate a notable reckoning with racial inequities on the part of institutional leaders and stakeholders. However, many initiatives remain short-term solutions and are detached from a holistic equity focus. This study challenges community and technical college leadership to reimagine their policies, structures, and practices toward advancing racial equity. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al (, BMC Public Health)
    Abstract BackgroundAs an illustrative example of COVID-19 pandemic community-based participatory research (CBPR), we describe a community-academic partnership to prioritize future research most important to people experiencing high occupational exposure to COVID-19 – food service workers. Food service workers face key challenges surrounding (1) health and safety precautions, (2) stress and mental health, and (3) the long-term pandemic impact. MethodUsing CBPR methodologies, academic scientists partnered with community stakeholders to develop the research aims, methods, and measures, and interpret and disseminate results. We conducted a survey, three focus groups, and a rapid qualitative assessment to understand the three areas of concern and prioritize future research. ResultsThe survey showed that food service employers mainly supported basic droplet protections (soap, hand sanitizer, gloves), rather than comprehensive airborne protections (high-quality masks, air quality monitoring, air cleaning). Food service workers faced challenging decisions surrounding isolation, quarantine, testing, masking, vaccines, and in-home transmission, described anxiety, depression, and substance use as top mental health concerns, and described long-term physical and financial concerns. Focus groups provided qualitative examples of concerns experienced by food service workers and narrowed topic prioritization. The rapid qualitative assessment identified key needs and opportunities, with help reducing in-home COVID-19 transmission identified as a top priority. COVID-19 mitigation scientists offered recommendations for reducing in-home transmission. ConclusionsThe COVID-19 pandemic has forced food service workers to experience complex decisions about health and safety, stress and mental health concerns, and longer-term concerns. Challenging health decisions included attempting to avoid an airborne infectious illness when employers were mainly only concerned with droplet precautions and trying to decide protocols for testing and isolation without clear guidance, free tests, or paid sick leave. Key mental health concerns were anxiety, depression, and substance use. Longer-term challenges included Long COVID, lack of mental healthcare access, and financial instability. Food service workers suggest the need for more research aimed at reducing in-home COVID-19 transmission and supporting long-term mental health, physical health, and financial concerns. This research provides an illustrative example of how to cultivate community-based partnerships to respond to immediate and critical issues affecting populations most burdened by public health crises. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; (, Journal of Extreme Events)
    null (Ed.)
    We examine the uneven social and spatial distributions of COVID-19 and their relationships with indicators of social vulnerability in the U.S. epicenter, New York City (NYC). As of July 17th, 2020, NYC, despite having only 2.5% of the U.S. population, has [Formula: see text]6% of all confirmed cases, and [Formula: see text]16% of all deaths, making it a key learning ground for the social dynamics of the disease. Our analysis focuses on the multiple potential social, economic, and demographic drivers of disproportionate impacts in COVID-19 cases and deaths, as well as population rates of testing. Findings show that immediate impacts of COVID-19 largely fall along lines of race and class. Indicators of poverty, race, disability, language isolation, rent burden, unemployment, lack of health insurance, and housing crowding all significantly drive spatial patterns in prevalence of COVID-19 testing, confirmed cases, death rates, and severity. Income in particular has a consistent negative relationship with rates of death and disease severity. The largest differences in social vulnerability indicators are also driven by populations of people of color, poverty, housing crowding, and rates of disability. Results highlight the need for targeted responses to address injustice of COVID-19 cases and deaths, importance of recovery strategies that account for differential vulnerability, and provide an analytical approach for advancing research to examine potential similar injustice of COVID-19 in other U.S. cities. Significance Statement Communities around the world have variable success in mitigating the social impacts of COVID-19, with many urban areas being hit particularly hard. Analysis of social vulnerability to COVID-19 in the NYC, the U.S. national epicenter, shows strongly disproportionate impacts of the pandemic on low income populations and communities of color. Results highlight the class and racial inequities of the coronavirus pandemic in NYC, and the need to unpack the drivers of social vulnerability. To that aim, we provide a replicable framework for examining patterns of uneven social vulnerability to COVID-19- using publicly available data which can be readily applied in other study regions, especially within the U.S.A. This study is important to inform public and policy debate over strategies for short- and long-term responses that address the injustice of disproportionate impacts of COVID-19. Although similar studies examining social vulnerability and equity dimensions of the COVID-19 outbreak in cities across the U.S. have been conducted (Cordes and Castro 2020, Kim and Bostwick 2002, Gaynor and Wilson 2020; Wang et al. 2020; Choi and Unwin 2020), this study provides a more comprehensive analysis in NYC that extends previous contributions to use the highest resolution spatial units for data aggregation (ZCTAs). We also include mortality and severity rates as key indicators and provide a replicable framework that draws from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Social Vulnerability indicators for communities in NYC. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; (, Scientific Reports)
    Abstract The global spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has casted a significant threat to mankind. As the COVID-19 situation continues to evolve, predicting localized disease severity is crucial for advanced resource allocation. This paper proposes a method named COURAGE (COUnty aggRegation mixup AuGmEntation) to generate a short-term prediction of 2-week-ahead COVID-19 related deaths for each county in the United States, leveraging modern deep learning techniques. Specifically, our method adopts a self-attention model from Natural Language Processing, known as the transformer model, to capture both short-term and long-term dependencies within the time series while enjoying computational efficiency. Our model solely utilizes publicly available information for COVID-19 related confirmed cases, deaths, community mobility trends and demographic information, and can produce state-level predictions as an aggregation of the corresponding county-level predictions. Our numerical experiments demonstrate that our model achieves the state-of-the-art performance among the publicly available benchmark models. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email