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This study will identify the investment climate of tourism in CALABARZON. More specifically: it will assess the quality of investment climate of tourism industry in CALABARZON in terms of macro fundamental, governance and infrastructure; to test if there is significant difference on the assessment of the respondents to quality of investment climate when grouped according to LGU, residents and tourists; to propose a business operations initiative based on the results. The researcher used descriptive method to determine the investment climate and attractiveness of tourism industry in CALABARZON. The questionnaire is one of the major instruments used by the researcher to gather and collect the needed data. Results showed that majority of the respondents belonged to the young age group, female, single, college graduate and has an average income. The tourists, local residents and local government unit all agreed that CALABARZON region is moderately favorable for investment among investors since the climate is good and the competition is healthy. There is significant relationship on the assessment of the respondents to quality of investment with regard to governance. The researcher proposed business operations initiative win order for the tourism industry in CALABARZON region more competitive.

This study will identify the attractiveness of tourism in CALABARZON. More specifically: it will to evaluate the level of attractiveness of tourism industry in CALABARZON in terms of cultural proximity, destination environment, price, destination image, risk and reward, and geographical proximity; to test if investment climate significantly affects attractiveness of tourism industry in CALABARZON; to propose a tourism development plan based on the results. The researcher used descriptive method to determine the investment climate and attractiveness of tourism industry in CALABARZON. The questionnaire is one of the major instruments used by the researcher to gather and collect the needed data. Results showed that majority of the respondents belonged to the young age group, female, single, college graduate and has an average income. The tourists, local residents and local government unit all agreed that CALABARZON region is moderately attractive to tourists due to competitors of tourist destination on the good services provided among them. Investment climate has an effect on the attractiveness of the tourism industry in CALABARZON region. The researcher proposed business operations initiative win order for the tourism industry in CALABARZON region more competitive.

Inspired by the benefits of human prosocial behavior, we explore whether prosocial behavior can be extended to a Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) context. More specifically, we study whether robots can induce prosocial behavior in humans through a 1x2 between-subjects user study (N = 30) in which a confederate abused a robot. Through this study, we investigated whether the emotional reactions of a group of bystander robots could motivate a human to intervene in response to robot abuse. Our results show that participants were more likely to prosocially intervene when the bystander robots expressed sadness in response to the abuse as opposed to when they ignored these events, despite participants reporting similar perception of robot mistreatment and levels of empathy for the abused robot. Our findings demonstrate possible effects of group social influence through emotional cues by robots in human-robot interaction. They reveal a need for further research regarding human prosocial behavior within HRI. CCS Concepts •Human-centered computing→ Empirical studies in HCI; Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing ACM Reference Format: Joe Connolly, Viola Mocz, Nicole Salomons, Joseph Valdez, Nathan Tsoi, Brian Scassellati, and Marynel Vazquez. 2020. Prompting Prosocial Human Interventions in Response to Robot Mistreatment. In Proceedings of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI ’20), March 23–26, 2020, Cambridge, United Kingdom. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 10 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3319502.3374781

Soybean oil consumption has increased greatly in the past half-century and is linked to obesity and diabetes. To test the hypothesis that soybean oil diet alters hypothalamic gene expression in conjunction with metabolic phenotype, we performed RNA sequencing analysis using male mice fed isocaloric, high-fat diets based on conventional soybean oil (high in linoleic acid, LA), a genetically modified, low-LA soybean oil (Plenish), and coconut oil (high in saturated fat, containing no LA). The 2 soybean oil diets had similar but nonidentical effects on the hypothalamic transcriptome, whereas the coconut oil diet had a negligible effect compared to a low-fat control diet. Dysregulated genes were associated with inflammation, neuroendocrine, neurochemical, and insulin signaling. Oxt was the only gene with metabolic, inflammation, and neurological relevance upregulated by both soybean oil diets compared to both control diets. Oxytocin immunoreactivity in the supraoptic and paraventricular nuclei of the hypothalamus was reduced, whereas plasma oxytocin and hypothalamic Oxt were increased. These central and peripheral effects of soybean oil diets were correlated with glucose intolerance but not body weight. Alterations in hypothalamic Oxt and plasma oxytocin were not observed in the coconut oil diet enriched in stigmasterol, a phytosterol found in soybean oil. We postulate that neither stigmasterol nor LA is responsible for effects of soybean oil diets on oxytocin and that Oxt messenger RNA levels could be associated with the diabetic state. Given the ubiquitous presence of soybean oil in the American diet, its observed effects on hypothalamic gene expression could have important public health ramifications.

In 2013 Typhoon Haiyan dealt strong winds and storm surges to Tacloban City, Philippines. After that, the standard public school buildings were designed using the load provisions of the updated 2015 National Structural Code of the Philippines. However, it is important to analyze if the school buildings can resist failure against another Haiyan storm surge event. Haiyan was simulated using the the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model, and the storm surge was simulated using the Finite Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM). The wind and flood loads were then calculated and applied on a two-story school building model in STAAD.Pro, and the maximum shear forces and bending moments in the 300 beams and columns were compared to its capacity.Recorded Presentation from the vICCE (YouTube Link): https://youtu.be/P3E1_aizbnE

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization and has caused over 550,000 deaths worldwide as of July 2020. Accurate and scalable point-of-care devices would increase screening, diagnosis, and monitoring of COVID-19 patients. Here, we demonstrate rapid label-free electrochemical detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies using a commercially available impedance sensing platform. A 16-well plate containing sensing electrodes was pre-coated with receptor binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, and subsequently tested with samples of anti-SARS-CoV-2 monoclonal antibody CR3022 (0.1 μg/ml, 1.0 μg/ml, 10 μg/ml). Subsequent blinded testing was performed on six serum specimens taken from COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients (1:100 dilution factor). The platform was able to differentiate spikes in impedance measurements from a negative control (1% milk solution) for all CR3022 samples. Further, successful differentiation and detection of all positive clinical samples from negative control was achieved. Measured impedance values were consistent when compared to standard ELISA test results showing a strong correlation between them (R2=0.9). Detection occurs in less than five minutes and the well-based platform provides a simplified and familiar testing interface that can be readily adaptable for use in clinical settings., Highlights • Capacitive immunosensing of clinically relevant concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. • Antigen/antibody association and dissociation occurs within few seconds. • Rapid, label free detection using commercially available equipment. • Impedance peaks correlated with CR3022 concentration levels and ELISA measurements.

Typhoon Jebi struck Japan on the 4 September 2018, damaging and inundating many coastal areas along Osaka Bay due to the high winds, a storm surge, and wind driven waves. In order to understand the various damage mechanisms, the authors conducted a field survey two days after the typhoon made landfall, measuring inundation heights and depths at several locations in Hyogo Prefecture. The survey results showed that 0.18&ndash, 1.27 m inundation depths were caused by Typhoon Jebi. As parts of the survey, local residents were interviewed about the flooding, and a questionnaire survey regarding awareness of typhoons and storm surges, and their response to the typhoon was distributed. The authors also mapped the location of some of the containers that were displaced by the storm surge, aiming to provide information to validate future simulation models of container displacement. Finally, some interesting characteristics of the storm surge are summarized, such as possible overtopping at what had initially been thought to be a low risk area (Suzukaze town), and lessons learnt in terms of disaster risk management are discussed.

This study aims to provide an ergonomic assessment of a church to validate the concerns from its churchgoers regarding its overall conditions, and to provide recommendations to address such concerns. The researchers looked into five factors– illumination level, temperature level, noise level, pew dimensions, and kneeler dimensions – that may affect the churchgoers’ overall experience while attending mass. Each factor was measured and compared to researched ergonomic standards to assess whether such standards were met. The results showed that majority of the factors were not compliant to ergonomic standards.

Malicious Software/programs (Malware) have grown to be quite sophisticated in their design causing significant levels of damage and for prolonged periods of time. Their capabilities encompass a wide range of activities; from simple monitoring/spying programs to more complex, highly destructive tools. Moreover, they typically aim to hide their own existence through a large number of techniques. To that end, this paper demonstrates that the full malicious potentials of malware have not been realized yet. In particular, we present a novel framework - which we term Burn Before Reading (BBR) - that actively aims to detect potential live forensics investigations and adapts the behavior of the malware online. In a nutshell, the BBR framework registers for a set of triggers that typically occur in live forensics investigations. Once a trigger fires, BBR executes actions as dictated by the malware to destroy any evidence. To remain stealthy during the execution of those actions, BBR utilizes control-theoretic actuators that dynamically adjust the timing information for the executing modules, at a very fine time scale (in the order of micro seconds). We study the stability regions for those actuators under different parameters. We believe that this framework can be used by malware to destroy incriminating evidence, their own signatures and their own existence and thus its capabilities should be brought to the attention of the forensics and security communities. We also discuss potential defense mechanisms against BBR.