Introduction Rumors and conspiracy theories, can contribute to vaccine hesitancy. Monitoring online data related to COVID-19 vaccine candidates can track vaccine misinformation in real-time and assist in negating its impact. This study aimed to examine COVID-19 vaccine rumors and conspiracy theories circulating on online platforms, understand their context, and then review interventions to manage this misinformation and increase vaccine acceptance. Method In June 2020, a multi-disciplinary team was formed to review and collect online rumors and conspiracy theories between 31 December 2019–30 November 2020. Sources included Google, Google Fact Check, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, fact-checking agency websites, and television and newspaper websites. Quantitative data were extracted, entered in an Excel spreadsheet, and analyzed descriptively using the statistical package R version 4.0.3. We conducted a content analysis of the qualitative information from news articles, online reports and blogs and compared with findings from quantitative data. Based on the fact-checking agency ratings, information was categorized as true, false, misleading, or exaggerated. Results We identified 637 COVID-19 vaccine-related items: 91% were rumors and 9% were conspiracy theories from 52 countries. Of the 578 rumors, 36% were related to vaccine development, availability, and access, 20% related to morbidity and mortality, 8% to safety, efficacy, and acceptance, and the rest were other categories. Of the 637 items, 5% (30/) were true, 83% (528/637) were false, 10% (66/637) were misleading, and 2% (13/637) were exaggerated. Conclusions Rumors and conspiracy theories may lead to mistrust contributing to vaccine hesitancy. Tracking COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in real-time and engaging with social media to disseminate correct information could help safeguard the public against misinformation.

The use of fibers in concrete at relatively low volume fraction has been gaining rising popularity among researchers for the recent years due to its availability, ability to enhance overall performance and cost effectiveness. Fibers are mainly classified according to their origin. Numerous researches have been carried out with natural and artificial fibers separately to elucidate its effect on the various parameters of concrete. However, a little finding is available about the comparative study among these three distinct types of fibers affecting concrete properties. In this study coconut coir, nylon thread and low-cost galvanized iron wire have been selected as natural, synthetic and steel fibers respectively. Coconut coir and nylon thread were mixed at three different percentage of 1.5%, 2.5% and 3.5% respectively by weight of cement. Steel fibre contents 1.5%, 2.5% and 3.5% respectively by weight of concrete. The results were obtained through an experimental investigation that shows the influence of natural, synthetic and steel fibers on rheological and mechanical properties of concrete. Optimum fibre content was 2.5% where steel fibre shows a maximum 17% and 30% rise in compressive and flexure strength respectively. On the other hand, fibres play a great role with its combining effect on the post cracking ductility and energy absorption of concrete.

Malaria is one of the deadliest diseases ever exists in this planet

Establishing eye contact is the fundamental key to begin any interaction between human-human and robot-human. Two approaches are available to develop an eye contact mechanism for robot-human interaction, such as simplex and duplex. The two most critical tasks: gaze crossing and gaze awareness, are prerequisite to implementing an active eye contact mechanism in any approach. However, most past robot-human interaction studies implemented a gaze crossing function to develop eye contact in the simplex mode where a robot holds for the human to initiate the communication. However, implementing gaze crossing alone is inadequate to create an active eye contact episode; the gaze awareness function also essential to achieve. This paper aims to develop a mechanism of duplex eye contact for robot-human inter-communication satisfying both functions. This work proposes a conceptual model of a duplex eye contact mechanism considering two cases: human initiative (where the human starts communication with the robot) and robot initiative (where the robot starts the communication with the participant) to achieve a duplex eye contact mechanism. Moreover, a simple robotic system is developed consisting of four software constituents: face detection module, gaze detection and tracking module, gaze awareness module, and robot response and control module to implement the conceptual model of duplex eye contact. Several preliminary experiments are performed to extract necessary cues for designing the duplex eye contact mechanism's behavioural protocol and present their results to show the usefulness of extracted cues. Moreover, the robotic framework results in a scenario (e.g., reading the book) with the proposed duplex eye contact mechanism are presented. The results show that the proposed scheme achieved 92% and 86% accuracy for human initiative case and robot initiative case, respectively in making eye contact.

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