Official Counts Research Articles

Coronavirus in Brazil: The heavy weight of inequality and unsound leadership.

As of early July, Brazil had over 1.6 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and the death tool passed 65,000. The lack of testing nationally suggests the overall figures may be about six times higher than the official count [1].

Transmission Dynamics of COVID-19 in Bangladesh - A Compartmental Modeling Approach

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first identified in Bangldesh, on March 8, 2020. As of May 15, there are 20065 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 3882 patients who have recovered and 298 related deaths. The objective of this study is to examine the transmission dynamics of COVID-19 and predict the growth of the infection in Bangladesh using the publicly available data though a mathematical model. The suscected-exposed-infectious-recoverd-dead (SEIRD) model is employed to describe the dynamics based on the kinematic parameters fitted on the data for the outbreak in Bangladesh up to May 15. The expression of basic reproduction number R_0 using the next generating matrix is derived and estimated. The kinematic parameters that describe primary transmission rate (0.045), recovery rate (0.03) and death rate (0.01) seems to be lower, respective of other countries. Based on the official counts for confirmed cases, the simulations suggest that the cumulative number of active infected follows an exponential trend. The basic reproduction number is 2.85 (95% CI :2.66-3.04) and transmission trends clearly indicates the outbreak of COVID-19 in Bangladesh. There is now breakneck concern regarding the capacity to respond to needs of infected patients effectively and to prevent this pandemic from further spreading in Bangladesh, one of the densest countries in the world.

Afrodescendientes y estratificación social en México. Nueva evidencia con datos de la Encuesta Intercensal 2015

The 2015 Intercensal Survey marks the first time African descent self-identification was included on a nationally representative survey in Mexico. Before that, there were no nation-wide official counts of the Afro-Mexican population. In this paper we use ordinal logistic regression models to examine the effect of being Afro-descendant on the educational and occupational status of Mexi-cans. Contrary to expectations, our results show that, at the national level, there is no evidence that the self-identified Afro-Mexican population has a lower socioeconomic status than other Mexicans. This contradictory result may be attributed to a higher likelihood of Afro-descendant self-identification among more educated people, and lower among the most disadvantaged, par-ticularly in areas where Afro-Mexicans are less represented.

Factors associated with increased all-cause mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy

BackgroundThe number of excess deaths during February–March 2020 in Italy, in comparison with previous years, was considerably higher than the recorded COVID19-related deaths. The present study aimed to explore the association of excess mortality with some indices related to the COVID-19 pandemic and its management. MethodsData on all-cause mortality from 20 February–31 March in the years 2015–2020, and demographic, socioeconomic and healthcare organisation data of each Italian region were obtained from the Italian Institute of Statistics. Non-COVID-19-Imputed Excess Mortality (NCIEM) was calculated as the difference between the excess 2020 mortality and reported COVID-19 mortality. The association of NCIEM with the rate of COVID-19 cases, COVID-19 mortality and other potential moderators was assessed using linear regression models. ResultsThe nationwide number of excess deaths and COVID-19 deaths was 26,701 and 13,710, respectively, with a difference of 12,991. The NCIEM in different regions showed a direct correlation with COVID-19 mortality (r2 = 0.61, p < 0.001) and total cases (r2 = 0.30, p = 0.012), and an inverse correlation with cases/total tests ratio (r2 = 0.49, p = 0.001). Direct correlations were also found with the proportion of institutionalised elderly, whereas inverse correlations were observed with prevalence of diabetes, cardiovascular mortality and density of general practitioners. ConclusionsThe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on all-cause mortality was considerably greater than that indicated by official counts of victims. Limited testing capacity and causes of death other than COVID-19 could have contributed to the increase in overall mortality rates.

Development of the annual incidence rate of fracture in children 1980–2018: a population-based study of 32,375 fractures

Background and purpose — Pediatric fractures are a common cause of morbidity. So far, no larger Danish study has described the development in the incidence rates. Therefore, we describe the development in the incidence rates of pediatric fractures in the time period 1980–2018 and the frequency of the most common type of fractures.Patients and methods — This is a retrospective register study of all children aged 0–15 years with a fracture treated in the Emergency Department at Odense University Hospital, Denmark, between 1980 and 2018. For all cases, information on age, sex, date of treatment, diagnosis, and treatment was obtained from the patient registration system. Based on official public population counts we estimated age and sex-specific annual incidence rates.Results — 32,375 fractures were included. In the study period the incidence rate decreased by 12%. The incidence increased until the early 1990s. Thereafter incidence rates decreased until 2004–09, from then onward increasing towards the end of the study period. The highest age-specific incidence rate in boys of 522 per 10,000 person-years was at 13 years of age. In girls the age of the highest incidence rate decreased from 11 years in 1980 to 10 years in 2018. Fracture of the lower end of the forearm, the clavicle, and the lower end of the humerus had the highest single fracture incidence rates.Interpretation — The incidence rate of pediatric fractures decreased in the study period by 12%. The highest single fracture incidence rates were for fracture of the lower end of the forearm, the clavicle, and the lower end of the humerus. As the first longitudinal Danish study of pediatric fractures this study is a baseline for evaluating future interventions and future studies.

Data-based analysis, modelling and forecasting of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Since the first suspected case of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) on December 1st, 2019, in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, a total of 40,235 confirmed cases and 909 deaths have been reported in China up to February 10, 2020, evoking fear locally and internationally. Here, based on the publicly available epidemiological data for Hubei, China from January 11 to February 10, 2020, we provide estimates of the main epidemiological parameters. In particular, we provide an estimation of the case fatality and case recovery ratios, along with their 90% confidence intervals as the outbreak evolves. On the basis of a Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered-Dead (SIDR) model, we provide estimations of the basic reproduction number (R0), and the per day infection mortality and recovery rates. By calibrating the parameters of the SIRD model to the reported data, we also attempt to forecast the evolution of the outbreak at the epicenter three weeks ahead, i.e. until February 29. As the number of infected individuals, especially of those with asymptomatic or mild courses, is suspected to be much higher than the official numbers, which can be considered only as a subset of the actual numbers of infected and recovered cases in the total population, we have repeated the calculations under a second scenario that considers twenty times the number of confirmed infected cases and forty times the number of recovered, leaving the number of deaths unchanged. Based on the reported data, the expected value of R0 as computed considering the period from the 11th of January until the 18th of January, using the official counts of confirmed cases was found to be ∼4.6, while the one computed under the second scenario was found to be ∼3.2. Thus, based on the SIRD simulations, the estimated average value of R0 was found to be ∼2.6 based on confirmed cases and ∼2 based on the second scenario. Our forecasting flashes a note of caution for the presently unfolding outbreak in China. Based on the official counts for confirmed cases, the simulations suggest that the cumulative number of infected could reach 180,000 (with a lower bound of 45,000) by February 29. Regarding the number of deaths, simulations forecast that on the basis of the up to the 10th of February reported data, the death toll might exceed 2,700 (as a lower bound) by February 29. Our analysis further reveals a significant decline of the case fatality ratio from January 26 to which various factors may have contributed, such as the severe control measures taken in Hubei, China (e.g. quarantine and hospitalization of infected individuals), but mainly because of the fact that the actual cumulative numbers of infected and recovered cases in the population most likely are much higher than the reported ones. Thus, in a scenario where we have taken twenty times the confirmed number of infected and forty times the confirmed number of recovered cases, the case fatality ratio is around ∼0.15% in the total population. Importantly, based on this scenario, simulations suggest a slow down of the outbreak in Hubei at the end of February.

Statistics-Based Predictions of Coronavirus Epidemic Spreading in Mainland China

Background. The epidemic outbreak caused by coronavirus COVID-19 is of great interest to researches because of the high rate of the infection spread and the significant number of fatalities. A detailed scientific analysis of the phenomenon is yet to come, but the public is already interested in the questions of the epidemic duration, the expected number of patients and deaths. Long-time predictions require complicated mathematical models that need a lot of effort to identify and calculate unknown parameters. This article will present some preliminary estimates.Objective. Since the long-time data are available only for mainland China, we will try to predict the epidemic characteristics only in this area. We will estimate some of the epidemic characteristics and present the dependen­cies for victim numbers, infected and removed persons versus time.Methods. In this study we use the known SIR model for the dynamics of an epidemic, the known exact solution of the linear differential equations and statistical approach developed before for investigation of the children disease, which occurred in Chernivtsi (Ukraine) in 1988–1989. Results. The optimal values of the SIR model parameters were identified with the use of statistical approach. The numbers of infected, susceptible and removed persons versus time were predicted and compared with the new data obtained after February 10, 2020, when the calculations were completed.Conclusions. The simple mathematical model was used to predict the characteristics of the epidemic caused by coronavirus in mainland China. Unfortunately, the number of coronavirus victims is expected to be much higher than that predicted on February 10, 2020, since 12289 new cases (not previously included in official counts) have been added two days later. Further research should focus on updating the predictions with the use of up-to-date data and using more complicated mathematical models.

Youth Baseball Pitch Counts Vastly Underestimate High-effort Throws Throughout a Season.

The primary purpose of this study was to compare the number of pitches thrown by youth baseball players under the official league guidelines versus the number of "high-effort" throws recorded by a validated digital sensor worn by the players during a season. In total, 11 and 12-year-old youth baseball players from a single league were provided an elbow sleeve and sensor to wear each time they threw a baseball for an entire baseball season. The sensor tracked total throws and pitch-equivalent high-effort throws for the season. Official pitch counts were collected at each game from the official scorekeepers. A total of 19 players participated in the study. The sensor-determined mean total throw count (1666.2±642.2) and mean high-effort throw count (576.9±329.3) per player were both significantly higher, P<0.0001 and P=0.02, respectively, than the mean official pitch count (168.1±122.4). Our findings demonstrate that youth players make significantly more total throws and high-effort, or pitch-equivalent, throws, than what is recorded by the official pitch counts. Further research is needed to determine a safe annual "throw count" for young throwing athletes and to determine which types of throws, in addition to pitches, put youth throwers at risk for injury. Level IV.

Lymelight: forecasting Lyme disease risk using web search data

Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne disease in the Northern Hemisphere. Existing estimates of Lyme disease spread are delayed a year or more. We introduce Lymelight—a new method for monitoring the incidence of Lyme disease in real-time. We use a machine-learned classifier of web search sessions to estimate the number of individuals who search for possible Lyme disease symptoms in a given geographical area for two years, 2014 and 2015. We evaluate Lymelight using the official case count data from CDC and find a 92% correlation (p < 0.001) at county level. Importantly, using web search data allows us not only to assess the incidence of the disease, but also to examine the appropriateness of treatments subsequently searched for by the users. Public health implications of our work include monitoring the spread of vector-borne diseases in a timely and scalable manner, complementing existing approaches through real-time detection, which can enable more timely interventions. Our analysis of treatment searches may also help reduce misdiagnosis of the disease.

Scenario of the Corona Virus (COVID-19) in India

If the coronavirus outbreak globally stretches on longer than we anticipated, then the huge number of people will get sick and the disruptions to daily life become even more severe then the early flaws in the testing process will bear a lot of the blame. There were some early problems with testing and that they are getting better now. But those early failures will help define the entire scope of this pandemic, and there’s not much we can do now to reverse the damage. Actually, we do not know how many people globally in general and in India in particular have the coronavirus. We know the official count is too low and that the number of confirmed cases is likely to explode in the coming weeks as testing improves. Widespread, accurate testing has been a key component of other countries’ success in bringing their outbreaks under control. In what could spell real trouble for India is in the next three months, a new report from prestigious Johns Hopkins University and the Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP) has predicted that 21-day lockdown may be ineffective to stop the COVID-19 peak arriving in April-May-June - infecting few lakhs Indians in an optimistic (low) scenario. In the current lockdowns if the proper physical distancing or compliance is not properly followed, the total number of cases (asymptomatic, hospitalized and symptomatic) can even touch a massive figure. In the most likely (Medium) scenario with moderate to full compliance but no change in virulence or temperature/humidity sensitivity, the numbers of total cases can swell up to few lakhs. The optimistic (low) scenario constitutes decreased virulence and temperature/humidity sensitivity. To reach these numbers, Johns Hopkins and CDDEP - a public health research organisation - used IndiaSIM, a well-validated agent-based model of the Indian population, which has been published widely over many years and has been used for government decision-making has speculated a high number of cases for India. Therefore the real focus should be on raising the testing, procuring the N95-masks, and protective gowns of the doctors and nurses, Ventilators and quarantine places.

Editor’s Preface

Editor’s Preface Rick Bonus Our first essay in this issue, on the experiences of Arabs/Muslims as “censusless” in U.S. society, opens a conversation about what it means for a group to be considered outsiders by a state or a community. For Loubna Qutami, who writes about the racial classification of Arab Americans in official counts and social discourse, this status is perplexing and paradoxical, reflecting both the targeting of Arabs as suspect subjects especially in the aftermath of 9/11 as well as their continuing designation as “white” in census data. To be sure, Arab “whiteness”—what Qutami calls racial invisibilization—has a tendency to obscure the violence of racisms against these populations while depriving them of their right to self-determination. These are challenging conditions to be in, most remarkably because claiming due recognition in order to arrive at inclusion often leads to greater state surveillance in the service of violent exclusion. Is there any way to escape the double-edginess of exclusionary practices and inclusionary attempts? The answer may prove to be impossible, although referencing what has been done in a moment of legalized Asian exclusion from the 1900s to the 1920s might offer some viable insights. Found in our second essay, “Orientalism and the Orator,” Swati Rana carefully parses the autobiographical work of Dhan Gopal Mukerji, aptly titled Caste and Outcast, to highlight his role as a “soapbox orator” in subverting Orientalist constructs—itself a model for undermining the polarities of East and West. The process of disrupting Orientalism here is ingenious, in Rana’s reading, for it entails the deployment of rhetorical skills in “asserting” then “undoing” and in “exposing” then “undermining.” [End Page v] Fast-forward to the present, and we get a distilled variety of such a strategy of in-and-out intervention in “‘Outsiders No More?’ The Discourse of Political Incorporation of Vietnamese Refugees in the United States (1975–2020).” Here is a fresh take, through a study by Ly Thi Hai Tran, on the realities of boundary making from the perspective of a minority group. It is notable that the essay’s title is in question form, a telling reminder of the vagaries of policing the constitution and edges of any group that seeks to define who is and is not a part of it. Tran is careful not to make an impression that formal representation in conventional politicking, something that many believe Vietnamese Americans have attained already, is the culminating story here. Group interests will remain disputed within and outside of affinities as long as uneven relationships of power exist. We get that similar sense of the ebbs and flows of exclusion/inclusion within social fields of domination and resistance in Meredith Oda’s piece, “’Kikkoman, USA’: The Economic and Residential Integration of Japanese Americans and Japanese Foods.” Narrating a history of fascination with Japanese cuisine in the 1950s and 1960s, Oda is right on cue in considering “outsider” as a status that cannot simply be overturned by inclusion. Otherwise, this formula may just as well be followed with certainty. Interest and access to Japanese foods were indeed made possible through the efforts of key importers, restaurateurs, and opinion leaders. But the mainstreaming of Japanese food cultures, as Oda argues, depended on quite a narrow range of acceptance that emphasized rather than erased the status of Japanese Americans as forever foreigners. In all of these essays, we are reminded of the pains of exclusion. At the same time, we are also encouraged to consider some ways in which adversity can also generate innovative resistance, whether it be through self-generated information campaigns proposed by Qutami or by way of autobiographic troping as interpolated by Rana, representation and recognition as reported by Tran and gastronomic interventions as historicized by Oda. Such an out-of-placeness can have the capacity to produce transformative agency. And quite coincidentally, it is also a fitting refrain that strings together the essays in our reviews section that regard the lives of American Muslim women, the “unnamable” feature of Asian American art, a politics of intraracial desire, an environmental history of Japanese American incarceration, and speculative fiction in relationship to speculative finance. During such a...

School Re-Openings after Summer Breaks in Germany Did Not Increase SARS-CoV-2 Cases

This paper studies the effect of the end of school summer breaks on SARS-CoV-2 cases in Germany. We exploit variation in the staggered timing of summer breaks across federal states which allows us to implement an event study design. We base our analysis on official daily counts of confirmed coronavirus infections by age groups across all 401 German counties. We consider an event window of two weeks before and three weeks after the end of summer breaks. Over a large number of specifications, sub-group analyses and robustness checks, we do not find any evidence of a positive effect of school re-openings on case numbers.On the contrary, our preferred specification indicates that the end of summer breaks had a negative effect on the number of new confirmed cases. Three weeks after the end of summer breaks, cases have decreased by 0.55 cases per 100,000 inhabitants or 27 percent of a standard deviation. Our results are not explained by changes in mobility patterns around school re-openings arising from travel returnees. We conclude that school re-openings in Germany under strict hygiene measures combined with quarantine and containment measures have not increased the number of newly confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections.

Excess mortality in the United States during the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Deaths are frequently under-estimated during emergencies, times when accurate mortality estimates are crucial for emergency response. This study estimates excess all-cause, pneumonia and influenza mortality during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic using the 11 September 2020 release of weekly mortality data from the United States (U.S.) Mortality Surveillance System (MSS) from 27 September 2015 to 9 May 2020, using semiparametric and conventional time-series models in 13 states with high reported COVID-19 deaths and apparently complete mortality data: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Washington. We estimated greater excess mortality than official COVID-19 mortality in the U.S. (excess mortality 95% confidence interval (CI) 100 013-127 501 vs. 78 834 COVID-19 deaths) and 9 states: California (excess mortality 95% CI 3338-6344) vs. 2849 COVID-19 deaths); Connecticut (excess mortality 95% CI 3095-3952) vs. 2932 COVID-19 deaths); Illinois (95% CI 4646-6111) vs. 3525 COVID-19 deaths); Louisiana (excess mortality 95% CI 2341-3183 vs. 2267 COVID-19 deaths); Massachusetts (95% CI 5562-7201 vs. 5050 COVID-19 deaths); New Jersey (95% CI 13 170-16 058 vs. 10 465 COVID-19 deaths); New York (95% CI 32 538-39 960 vs. 26 584 COVID-19 deaths); and Pennsylvania (95% CI 5125-6560 vs. 3793 COVID-19 deaths). Conventional model results were consistent with semiparametric results but less precise. Significant excess pneumonia deaths were also found for all locations and we estimated hundreds of excess influenza deaths in New York. We find that official COVID-19 mortality substantially understates actual mortality, excess deaths cannot be explained entirely by official COVID-19 death counts. Mortality reporting lags appeared to worsen during the pandemic, when timeliness in surveillance systems was most crucial for improving pandemic response.

Evo Morales and Electoral Fraud in Bolivia: A Natural Experiment Estimate

This paper uses a unique data set and a natural experiment based on the shutdown in the official preliminary vote counting system to identify and estimate the size of electoral fraud in the 2019 Bolivian presidential elections. The 2016 Constitutional Referendum and the participation of other political parties serve as controls to estimate various difference-in-differences and difference-in-difference-in-differences specifications. The results show evidence of a statistically significant electoral case of fraud that increased the votes of the incumbent Movimiento al Socialismo and decreased the votes of the runner up Comunidad Ciudadana. We estimate that the extent of the fraud is 2.50% of valid votes, sufficient to change the outcome of the election. We report a break in trend and evidence of fraud beyond the shutdown. Our results are robust to polling-station-level shocks common across 2019 and 2016, as well as 2019 specific shocks. This controls for geography (e.g., rural vs. urban), unobserved voting preferences, voter's last names, and endogeneity in the arrival of the polling stations. We document a statistically significant discontinuous jump in the gap between the incumbent and the runner up during the shutdown.

Identifying Temporal Patterns of Visitors to National Parks through Geotagged Photographs

Visitor data is essential for decision-making, policy formulation, and monitoring of protected areas. In this context, the data on the temporal distribution of visitors is essential to characterize influx and seasonality, and even to measure the carrying capacity of a site. However, obtaining information from visitors often involves high costs and long production times. Moreover, traditional visitor data has a limited level of detail. New sources of data can provide valuable information regarding the timing of visits. In this study, we tested the use of geotagged data to infer the temporal distribution of visitors to 15 Spanish national parks, and we identified temporal patterns of the visits at three levels: monthly, weekly, and daily. By comparing official monthly visitor counts and geotagged photographs from Flickr, we observed that the number of monthly users who upload photos significantly reflects the number of monthly visitors. Furthermore, the weekly and daily distributions of the Flickr data provided additional information that could contribute to identifying the periods of highest visitor pressure, design measures to manage the concentration of visitors, and improve the overall visitor experience. The results obtained indicate the potential of new data sources for visitor monitoring in protected areas and to open opportunities for future research. Moreover, monitoring tourism in protected areas is crucial to ensure the sustainability of their resources and to protect their biodiversity.

Determination of 5-Hydroxyindole-3-Acetic Acid in Wastewater by High Performance Liquid Chromatography Coupled with Tandem Mass Spectrometric Detection

Analysis of biomarkers in wastewater is increasingly seen as an important tool for valuation of health, nutrition and use of various substances by humans. Some biomarkers are used for population estimates, since the actual values of population size in cities can differ significantly from official counts, which inevitably leads to errors in assessing the impact of various factors to people calculated per capita. 5-hydroxyindole-3-acetic acid (5-HIAA) is the main metabolite of serotonin, which is excreted by urine and can be used as a biomarker for population estimates. The determination of this metabolite is more preferred than the detection of serotonin itself in terms of correctness of the results. A technique of extraction and subsequent quantitative determination of 5-HIAA in wastewater by high-performance liquid chromatography in combination with tandem mass spectrometric detection was developed. Poroshell Hilic column was used as a stationary phase which has an alternative selectivity compared to traditional C18 columns. Developed procedure is characterized by low detection limits (0.2 μg/L) and good selectivity. The conditions for liquid–liquid extraction of 5-HIAA from wastewater were selected. This technique provides reliable estimation of the concentration of 5-HIAA in wastewater.

Fraud in the 2018 Egyptian presidential election?

ABSTRACT This research note scrutinizes official vote counts from the 2018 Egyptian presidential election. Drawing on data for 13,807 polling stations published by the Egyptian Electoral Authority, it uses the Election Forensics Toolkit to estimate a series of digit and distribution tests. The results point to statistical anomalies in voter turnout for polling stations located in Egypt’s major population centres. The findings align with journalistic accounts of very low turnout in those areas and demonstrate how tools from electoral forensics can be applied to the study of elections in the Middle East and North Africa.

Animals vs. artifacts: Which are more diverse? [Opinion

Our count of living species remains incomplete. In the 250-plus years since Carl Linnaeus set up the modern taxonomic system, we have classified about 1.25 million species, about three-quarters of them animals. Another 17 percent are plants, and the remainder are fungi and microbes. And that's the official count — the still-unrecognized number of species could be several times higher still. • The diversity of man-made objects is easily as rich. Although my comparisons involve not just those proverbial apples and oranges but apples and automobiles, they still reveal what we have wrought. • I begin constructing my parallel taxonomy with the domain of all man-made objects. This domain is equivalent to the Eukarya, all organisms having nuclei in their cells. It contains the kingdom of complex, multicomponent designs, equivalent to Animalia. Within that kingdom we have the phylum of designs powered by electricity, equivalent to the Chordata, creatures with a dorsal nerve cord. Within that phylum is a major class of portable designs, equivalent to Mammalia. Within that class is the order of communications artifacts, equivalent to Cetacea, the class of whales, dolphins, and porpoises, and it contains the family of phones, equivalent to Delphinidae, the oceanic dolphins. • Families contain genera, such as Delphinus (common dolphin), Orcinus (orcas), and Tursiops (bottlenose dolphins) in the ocean. And, according to GSM Arena, which monitors the industry, in early 2019 there were more than 110 mobile-phone genera (brands). Some genera contain a single specific species — for instance, Orcinus contains only Orcinusorca, the killer whale. Other genera are species-rich. In the mobile-phone realm none is richer than Samsung, which now includes nearly 1,200 devices. It is followed by LG, with more than 600, and Motorola and Nokia, each with nearly 500 designs. Altogether, in early 2019 there were some 9,500 different mobile “species”—and that total is considerably larger than the known diversity of mammals (fewer than 5,500 species).

Has Dongying developed to a ghost city? - Evidence from multi-temporal population estimation based on VHR remote sensing and census counts

With ongoing growth and continuous development of cities, the world is turning into an urban society. In this context, urbanization, population growth and migration towards urban areas are global trends. These processes are highly dynamic especially in China, with highest rates of urbanization worldwide. In contrast to these well-known trends, a recently emerging and rarely studied side effect is “ghost cities”, which became a notable phenomenon in China recently. A ghost city is commonly defined as a new urban development that is running at severe undercapacity with respect to population and businesses and where the availability of housing and public infrastructure significantly exceeds the practical demand. Against this background, this study presents a framework based on remote sensing for the assessment of the presence or absence of the ghost city phenomenon in a typical highly dynamic Chinese city. For this purpose, remote sensing data with very-high resolution (VHR) are employed for establishment of a 4d functional city model. Subsequently population capacity estimates are based on a statistical approach. The components of the functional 4d city model, i.e. the multi-temporal building model and the classification of building types associated with residential and non-residential function returned very high accuracies with κ of 0.73 and 0.89, respectively. The number of floors was estimated with coefficient of determination of 0.91. Compared to the numbers of official census counts, the multi-temporal population capacity estimation revealed a considerable mismatch of available living space based on VHR remote sensing data and actual population counts. According to the conceptual framework of this study, this disagreement indicates a high likelihood and significant evidence for the emergence and presence of the ghost city phenomenon for the city of Dongying. In addition, a detailed spatial assessment was conducted in terms of an index comparing the dynamics of residential developments and population numbers to provide an impression of specific regions of the urban area which are most likely to suffer from the ghost city phenomenon.

Injuries and Exposure to Time Lobstering in Northeast US Inshore Lobster Fleet

ABSTRACTObjectives: The study objective was to estimate a denominator of exposure to inshore lobstering in Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs), to count incident injury data from a sample cohort of this population, to use this count to calculate rates for incident injuries, and to use official counts of fatalities to estimate a fatality rate.Methods: Captains were randomly selected from those licensed to fish in Maine and Massachusetts. Data on work exposure and injuries that occurred on the boat were collected using a survey that was administered once per season via phone or face-to-face interview with the captain. Data included self-reports of the number of weeks worked during the season, average crew size, number of trips per week, and average trip length in hours. In addition, this survey captured relevant information (body segment affected, type of injury, and whether treatment was received) on all acute injuries occurring during the season. Only data on acute injuries were collected, and defined as having newly occurred within the last 3 months. Counts of fatalities were obtained from an official surveillance database at the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety.Results: The total occupational exposure reported for the cohort was over 2 million man-hours over 4 years, resulting in an average annual FTE of 5,847. The fatality rate averaged over 4 years was 21/100,000 FTE. The incidence rates for all injuries (51.0/100 FTE) and injuries receiving treatment (17.5/100 FTE) were much higher than those reported in other studies of fishing that used US Coast Guard data. Lobstermen presented with all categories of injuries, sprains being the most frequent (7.8/100 FTE) and amputations the least (0.2/100 FTE). Wrist/hand injuries on the right side occurred most frequently of all body locations (3.6/100 FTE).Conclusion: Non-fatal injuries occur at high rates in lobstering. The impact of interventions aimed at exposure to risk for sprains and cuts has potential to affect the most lobstermen. Fatality rate appears to have been unchanging since the year 2000.