Citizens\u27 Opinions Regarding a Checkout Bag Tax Proposal

The need to address single-use plastic bag damage to our environment has grown exponentially across the globe. States and communities are taking legislative action to address the harm produced through the form of taxation and/or plastic bag bans. This paper provides insight into the contradictory evidence that is cited in favor or opposition to such legislation across the globe. Further, this paper seeks to determine the positions of Illinois citizens on their willingness to support a state-wide tax or ban on all plastic shopping bags received from retail establishments through the use of public opinion polling. Finally, the impacts of such legislation on key demographic groups of citizens are provided along with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on plastic bag usage. This research provides a foundation for which environmental public policy can utilize citizens’ opinions to inform the decision-making process

Analyses of temporary, semi-permanent, and permanent construction standards on expeditionary US air bases

Temporary, semi-permanent, and permanent military assets are constructed for intended lifetimes to support personnel operating at bases around the world. The prolonged use and repurposing of assets leads to physical, social, and economic issues. These issues may be mitigated through risk-based asset management investments, including initially constructing assets with consideration of realistic intended operation durations or replacing and transitioning assets to support an enduring presence throughout each asset’s lifecycle. As bases become more developed, as population increases, or as missions change, upgraded construction standards may warranted. There is limited research regarding the factors that impact the decisions for the various constructions standards. This study seeks to understand how the US Air Force applies construction standards to assets at two overseas bases classified as transitioning from expeditionary to enduring; and the extent application aligns with policy. The sources of sample data were real property spreadsheets and sustainment management system facility reports. This research uses Chi-Square and ANOVA hypothesis testing to explore the relationships between construction standards by category, location, and individual base. Identifying differences between bases and between asset management planning and execution could help drive behavior changes and inform investment decisions. The test results indicate that Base A, where there is more overlapping of construction standard characteristics and more distinct asset prioritization, may be further in its transition to enduring than Base B, where construction standard characteristics overlap less and different facility categories on average share similar importance levels. Inconsistencies between variable relationships (e.g., building category and condition index are related for Base A but not for Base B) between the bases highlight differences in how each base prioritizes and maintains facilities and how long facilities are used. Evidence shows semi-permanent and temporary facilities are operated past their intended lives at both bases; in some instances for over twice as long as intended. However, less than 25% of facilities exceed their intended age by more than five years and of those, a majority have high building condition indexes. The test results for both bases mostly support the policy to primarily construct permanent structures and use temporary facilities as interim solutions.Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineerin

Safety, immunogenicity, and reactogenicity of BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 COVID-19 vaccines given as fourth-dose boosters following two doses of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 or BNT162b2 and a third dose of BNT162b2 (COV-BOOST): a multicentre, blinded, phase 2, randomised trial

Background Some high-income countries have deployed fourth doses of COVID-19 vaccines, but the clinical need, effectiveness, timing, and dose of a fourth dose remain uncertain. We aimed to investigate the safety, reactogenicity, and immunogenicity of fourth-dose boosters against COVID-19.Methods The COV-BOOST trial is a multicentre, blinded, phase 2, randomised controlled trial of seven COVID-19 vaccines given as third-dose boosters at 18 sites in the UK. This sub-study enrolled participants who had received BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) as their third dose in COV-BOOST and randomly assigned them (1:1) to receive a fourth dose of either BNT162b2 (30 µg in 0·30 mL; full dose) or mRNA-1273 (Moderna; 50 µg in 0·25 mL; half dose) via intramuscular injection into the upper arm. The computer-generated randomisation list was created by the study statisticians with random block sizes of two or four. Participants and all study staff not delivering the vaccines were masked to treatment allocation. The coprimary outcomes were safety and reactogenicity, and immunogenicity (antispike protein IgG titres by ELISA and cellular immune response by ELISpot). We compared immunogenicity at 28 days after the third dose versus 14 days after the fourth dose and at day 0 versus day 14 relative to the fourth dose. Safety and reactogenicity were assessed in the per-protocol population, which comprised all participants who received a fourth-dose booster regardless of their SARS-CoV-2 serostatus. Immunogenicity was primarily analysed in a modified intention-to-treat population comprising seronegative participants who had received a fourth-dose booster and had available endpoint data. This trial is registered with ISRCTN, 73765130, and is ongoing.Findings Between Jan 11 and Jan 25, 2022, 166 participants were screened, randomly assigned, and received either full-dose BNT162b2 (n=83) or half-dose mRNA-1273 (n=83) as a fourth dose. The median age of these participants was 70·1 years (IQR 51·6–77·5) and 86 (52%) of 166 participants were female and 80 (48%) were male. The median interval between the third and fourth doses was 208·5 days (IQR 203·3–214·8). Pain was the most common local solicited adverse event and fatigue was the most common systemic solicited adverse event after BNT162b2 or mRNA-1273 booster doses. None of three serious adverse events reported after a fourth dose with BNT162b2 were related to the study vaccine. In the BNT162b2 group, geometric mean anti-spike protein IgG concentration at day 28 after the third dose was 23 325 ELISA laboratory units (ELU)/mL (95% CI 20 030–27 162), which increased to 37 460 ELU/mL (31 996–43 857) at day 14 after the fourth dose, representing a significant fold change (geometric mean 1·59, 95% CI 1·41–1·78). There was a significant increase in geometric mean anti-spike protein IgG concentration from 28 days after the third dose (25 317 ELU/mL, 95% CI 20 996–30 528) to 14 days after a fourth dose of mRNA-1273 (54 936 ELU/mL, 46 826–64 452), with a geometric mean fold change of 2·19 (1·90–2·52). The fold changes in anti-spike protein IgG titres from before (day 0) to after (day 14) the fourth dose were 12·19 (95% CI 10·37–14·32) and 15·90 (12·92–19·58) in the BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 groups, respectively. T-cell responses were also boosted after the fourth dose (eg, the fold changes for the wild-type variant from before to after the fourth dose were 7·32 [95% CI 3·24–16·54] in the BNT162b2 group and 6·22 [3·90–9·92] in the mRNA-1273 group).Interpretation Fourth-dose COVID-19 mRNA booster vaccines are well tolerated and boost cellular and humoral immunity. Peak responses after the fourth dose were similar to, and possibly better than, peak responses after the third dose

Photon counting silicon X-ray pixel detector modules

Modules of a photon counting pixelated silicon X-ray detector have been built and tested, The modules have a uniform pixel size of 150 x 150 mum over a silicon detector of 448 x 64 pixels. The detector is solder bump bonded to readout chips and then onto a molybdenum cooling substrate. Several modules have been built and images obtained with X-rays sources. The detectors work at 200 k photons per second per pixel giving a module counting rate of 6 x 10(9) photons per second. The modules are designed to be tiled to create larger arrays, The paper shows images obtained from the modules and describes a detector problem caused by adjacent pixels being shorted together

Photon counting hybrid pixel detector for X-ray imaging

We have designed and built prototype modules of a large area photon counting hybrid pixel detector. The detector consists of modules each with seven Aladin readout chips solder bump bonded to a silicon pixel detector. Each Aladin chip has 64 x 64 pixels together with logic to readout the whole array in 400 mus. It is intended to tile an area of 2000 x 2000 pixels, each of 150 mum x 150 mum and capable of up to 1 MHz count rate per pixel. This paper describes the design and operation of the detector and the performance of the existing modules. The measurements demonstrate that the detector can image 19 keV photons at 200 kHz photons per pixel with 3 keV FWHM noise. The detector is intended for X-ray diffraction studies with data capture speeds up to 1000 images per second, independent of the image size