COVIDiSTRESS Global Survey dataset on psychological and behavioural consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak

This N = 173,426 social science dataset was collected through the collaborative COVIDiSTRESS Global Survey – an open science effort to improve understanding of the human experiences of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic between 30th March and 30th May, 2020. The dataset allows a cross-cultural study of psychological and behavioural responses to the Coronavirus pandemic and associated government measures like cancellation of public functions and stay at home orders implemented in many countries. The dataset contains demographic background variables as well as measures of Asian Disease Problem, perceived stress (PSS-10), availability of social provisions (SPS-10), trust in various authorities, trust in governmental measures to contain the virus (OECD trust), personality traits (BFF-15), information behaviours, agreement with the level of government intervention, and compliance with preventive measures, along with a rich pool of exploratory variables and written experiences. A global consortium from 39 countries and regions worked together to build and translate a survey with variables of shared interests, and recruited participants in 47 languages and dialects. Raw plus cleaned data and dynamic visualizations are available

Stress and worry in the 2020 coronavirus pandemic: relationships to trust and compliance with preventive measures across 48 countries in the COVIDiSTRESS global survey.

The COVIDiSTRESS global survey collects data on early human responses to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic from 173 429 respondents in 48 countries. The open science study was co-designed by an international consortium of researchers to investigate how psychological responses differ across countries and cultures, and how this has impacted behaviour, coping and trust in government efforts to slow the spread of the virus. Starting in March 2020, COVIDiSTRESS leveraged the convenience of unpaid online recruitment to generate public data. The objective of the present analysis is to understand relationships between psychological responses in the early months of global coronavirus restrictions and help understand how different government measures succeed or fail in changing public behaviour. There were variations between and within countries. Although Western Europeans registered as more concerned over COVID-19, more stressed, and having slightly more trust in the governments' efforts, there was no clear geographical pattern in compliance with behavioural measures. Detailed plots illustrating between-countries differences are provided. Using both traditional and Bayesian analyses, we found that individuals who worried about getting sick worked harder to protect themselves and others. However, concern about the coronavirus itself did not account for all of the variances in experienced stress during the early months of COVID-19 restrictions. More alarmingly, such stress was associated with less compliance. Further, those most concerned over the coronavirus trusted in government measures primarily where policies were strict. While concern over a disease is a source of mental distress, other factors including strictness of protective measures, social support and personal lockdown conditions must also be taken into consideration to fully appreciate the psychological impact of COVID-19 and to understand why some people fail to follow behavioural guidelines intended to protect themselves and others from infection. The Stage 1 manuscript associated with this submission received in-principle acceptance (IPA) on 18 May 2020. Following IPA, the accepted Stage 1 version of the manuscript was preregistered on the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/g2t3b. This preregistration was performed prior to data analysis

Incorporação de lodo da estação de tratamento de esgoto (ETE) em cerâmica vermelha

Resumo Este trabalho teve por objetivo avaliar a incorporação de resíduo de estação de tratamento de esgoto (ETE) na produção de cerâmica vermelha. As matérias-primas utilizadas foram: massa cerâmica argilosa e resíduo de ETE provenientes do município de Campos dos Goytacazes - RJ. As matérias-primas foram caracterizadas pelas técnicas de fluorescência de raios X e difração de raios X; além disso, foi determinada a área de superfície específica das mesmas por meio das técnicas de BET e azul de metileno. O comportamento térmico do resíduo de ETE foi avaliado por meio de análise termogravimétrica. Formulações foram preparadas com 0, 2,5, 10 e 15% em massa de resíduo de ETE incorporados à massa argilosa. Corpos de prova foram confeccionados por prensagem uniaxial a 20 MPa com 8% de umidade para calcinação a 950 °C. As propriedades físicas e mecânicas avaliadas das cerâmicas calcinadas foram retração linear, absorção de água e resistência à compressão. A microestrutura destas peças foi investigada com auxílio de microscopia eletrônica de varredura. Os resultados indicaram que este tipo de resíduo deve ser incorporado em pequenas quantidades (até 2,5%) para não prejudicar as propriedades físicas e mecânicas da cerâmica

Finite element modeling of quasi-brittle cracks in 2D and 3D with enhanced strain accuracy

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00466-017-1438-8This paper discusses the finite element modeling of cracking in quasi-brittle materials. The problem is addressed via a mixed strain/displacement finite element formulation and an isotropic damage constitutive model. The proposed mixed formulation is fully general and is applied in 2D and 3D. Also, it is independent of the specific finite element discretization considered; it can be equally used with triangles/tetrahedra, quadrilaterals/hexahedra and prisms. The feasibility and accuracy of the method is assessed through extensive comparison with experimental evidence. The correlation with the experimental tests shows the capacity of the mixed formulation to reproduce the experimental crack path and the force–displacement curves with remarkable accuracy. Both 2D and 3D examples produce results consistent with the documented data. Aspects related to the discrete solution, such as convergence regarding mesh resolution and mesh bias, as well as other related to the physical model, like structural size effect and the influence of Poisson’s ratio, are also investigated. The enhanced accuracy of the computed strain field leads to accurate results in terms of crack paths, failure mechanisms and force displacement curves. Spurious mesh dependency suffered by both continuous and discontinuous irreducible formulations is avoided by the mixed FE, without the need of auxiliary tracking techniques or other computational schemes that alter the continuum mechanical problem.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft