Wolfgang Dahmen, Felix Gruber and Olga Mula
Math. Comp. 89 (2020), 1605-1646.
Abstract, references and article information

Startups moving to the scale-up phase will naturally experience growing pains, here's how to manage your team through that period with as little disruption as possible

Cédric Arhancet
Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 148 (2020), 2551-2563.
Abstract, references and article information

Alberto Arenas, Óscar Ciaurri and Edgar Labarga
Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 148 (2020), 2539-2550.
Abstract, references and article information

Ştefan O. Tohǎneanu and Yu Xie
Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 148 (2020), 2411-2419.
Abstract, references and article information

The Judiciary today announced all court proceedings will resume as safely as circumstances permit from May 4.

Court and tribunal registries will reopen in stages from May 6, including the registries of the Court of Final Appeal and the High Court.

Having regard to the public health situation and the need for social distancing, court business will initially be conducted under a reduced capacity.

The Judiciary will continue to put in place appropriate preventive and crowd management measures.

The measures include requiring all people entering judiciary premises to undergo temperature checks and wear face masks.

They also include putting in place queuing, ticketing and triage systems, designated entry and exit points as well as admission control to limit the number of court users entering and remaining on judiciary premises.

To maintain social distancing, chessboard seating arrangements will continue to be adopted in courtrooms and court lobbies will reduce seating capacity by half.

Additionally, capacity limits will be set for areas such as court registries and accounts offices to avoid crowding.

petrapetruta posted a reply:

jacquesjacobs:


Hello there and welcome!We hope to see some catchy contribution from you too! :-)

Rémi de Valenciennes posted a reply:

Hello,
I'm Rémi from Lille (North of France). I think we need color nowadays !

petrapetruta posted a reply:

Rémi de Valenciennes:


I absolutely agree with you!
And welcome! :-)

Cigaleto posted a reply:

Hello, je suis Agnès de France. J habite en Provence, le pays des cigales et de la lavande. Un région pleine de couleurs.

Alex Borbely posted a reply:

Alex Borbely from the north shore of Lake Ontario, Canada! I have been doing mostly nature photography for just over a decade. Self taught and focus mainly on freezing movement! Be well and safe!
Alex

The Office of the Communications Authority (OFCA) today announced the launch of the Subsidy Scheme for Encouraging Early Deployment of the fifth-generation mobile technology.

Launched under the second round of the Anti-epidemic Fund, the scheme is open for applications until November 30 on a first come, first served basis.

It encourages various sectors to deploy 5G technology early to foster innovation and smart city applications and to improve the efficiency of their operations and the quality of their services that enhance Hong Kong's competitiveness.

The scheme will subsidise 50% of the actual cost directly relevant to the deployment of 5G technology in an approved project, subject to a cap of $500,000.

About 100 qualified projects will be subsidised.

Click here for more details.

For enquiries, call 2961 6333 or send an email to the OFCA.

The Government said it will continue to spare no effort in improving workers' benefits and protection and enhance occupational safety and health in various industries at a pace commensurate with Hong Kong's overall socio-economic development.

The Government made the statement today in response to the demands of different labour groups, noting that it would take into account both employees' interests and employers' abilities to afford the benefits, despite the severe blow dealt by the COVID-19 epidemic to the local economy.

"The seasonally adjusted unemployment and underemployment rates for January to March this year have soared to their highest levels in recent years. The labour market will continue to face significant pressure in the near term.

“The Government has rolled out relief measures of unprecedented scale, including the one-off measures in the 2020-21 Budget and two rounds of measures under the Anti-epidemic Fund (AEF) totalling $287.5 billion, with a view to preserving the vitality of the economy and relieving people's financial burden.

“The Government will launch as soon as possible the Employment Support Scheme under the second round of the AEF, with a total commitment of $81 billion, to provide time-limited financial support to employers to help them retain employees who will otherwise be made redundant.”

Moreover, the Government explained that it has earmarked $6 billion to create around 30,000 time-limited jobs in the public and private sectors in the coming two years for people with different skills and academic qualifications.

It emphasised that the Labour Department will raise the ceiling of on-the-job training allowance payable to employers under the Employment Programme for the Elderly & Middle-aged, the Youth Employment & Training Programme and the Work Orientation & Placement Scheme in the second half of this year.

It will also launch a pilot scheme to encourage eligible participants of these programmes to undergo and complete the training by offering a retention allowance.

On improvements to other labour benefits, the Government pointed out that it is working at full steam on the preparatory work to abolish the arrangement of 'offsetting' severance payments and long service payments with employers' mandatory contributions under the Mandatory Provident Fund System.

It stressed that it will strive to introduce the enabling bill into the Legislative Council by the end of this year, aiming to secure its passage by 2022.

Meanwhile, the Government introduced the Employment (Amendment) Bill 2019 into LegCo on January 8 this year. The bill, which proposes to extend statutory maternity leave by four weeks, is now being handled by the LegCo Panel on Manpower.

The Chief Executive announced on January 14 this year 10 new initiatives on improving people's livelihood, one of which is to increase progressively the number of statutory holidays so that it will be on par with that of general holidays.

The Government stated that it will work out the relevant proposal, invite the Labour Advisory Board to discuss, and will facilitate and support its work.

The Minimum Wage Commission is conducting a new round of review on the Statutory Minimum Wage rate and will submit a report on its recommendation to the Chief Executive in Council by end-October.

The Government added that it attaches great importance to employees' occupational safety and health.

It said the Labour Department has been adjusting its strategies of inspection and enforcement, publicity and promotion, education and training according to the occupational safety and health risk levels of different industries as well as taking sufficient precautionary measures to prevent accidents by driving employers and employees to work together.

Betsy B. Dokken
Jul 1, 2007; 20:166-170
Articles

Secretary for the Civil Service Patrick Nip today visited the Inland Revenue Department and the Labour Department to inspect the resumption of public services.

The Government had earlier announced that public services will be resumed under a phased approach.

Counter services of most government departments have returned to normal.

Mr Nip first visited the Inland Revenue Department in Revenue Tower and was briefed on counter services at the Central Enquiry Counter, the Business Registration Office and the Stamp Office.

He learnt that the department has implemented various infection control and crowd management measures, such as a ticketing system, to safeguard the health of colleagues and the public.

Later Mr Nip visited the Hong Kong East Job Centre and a recruitment centre for the catering and retail industries and was briefed on the resumption of normal services at the Labour Department's job and recruitment centres.

He said: “While maintaining a high degree of vigilance and adopting all necessary precautionary measures, the Government gradually resumed public services today in a smooth and orderly manner.

“Various infection control measures have been put in place at government buildings and offices. These include checking the body temperature of persons at entrances, providing alcohol-based hand sanitiser and enhancing the cleaning of public facilities.

“The Government will closely monitor the situation to determine when to embark on full resumption of normal business.”

The 2020 honours and awards selection and appointment of Justices of the Peace (JPs) exercise will be postponed, as well as the announcement of the list of honours and awards and JP appointments, the Government announced today.

It decided to defer the exercise to accord top priority to the ongoing anti-epidemic work and implementation of measures to retain employment, support businesses and ease people's livelihood in the face of challenges arising from the COVID-19 epidemic.

The Honours List and JP appointments will be announced on October 1 instead of July 1 as in previous years, the Government added.

The partnership will join hands with four UK startups as it hopes to reduce plastic waste as part of its retail tech initiative, JLAB

A group of technologists has led crowdsourcing efforts to create a single repository of information for specialists fighting the Coronavirus outbreak. Techworld speaks with founder Edward Saperia to hear more about how collaboration tools can help the efforts

The virtual-based office hours is to connect female founders with early-stage VC investors who will provide business advice and investments

Companies with large numbers of furloughed workers are offering staff an introductory course in JavaScript coding, thanks to the European coding bootcamp, Codeworks.

(Rice University) Rice University researchers have integrated high-efficiency solar cells and electrode catalysts into an efficient, low-cost device that splits water to produce hydrogen fuel.

β-1,3-d-Glucan is a ubiquitous glucose polymer produced by plants, bacteria, and most fungi. It has been used as a diagnostic tool in patients with invasive mycoses via a highly-sensitive reagent consisting of the blood coagulation system of horseshoe crab. However, no method is currently available for measuring β-1,6-glucan, another primary β-glucan structure of fungal polysaccharides. Herein, we describe the development of an economical and highly-sensitive and specific assay for β-1,6-glucan using a modified recombinant endo-β-1,6-glucanase having diminished glucan hydrolase activity. The purified β-1,6-glucanase derivative bound to the β-1,6-glucan pustulan with a KD of 16.4 nm. We validated the specificity of this β-1,6-glucan probe by demonstrating its ability to detect cell wall β-1,6-glucan from both yeast and hyphal forms of the opportunistic fungal pathogen Candida albicans, without any detectable binding to glucan lacking the long β-1,6-glucan branch. We developed a sandwich ELISA-like assay with a low limit of quantification for pustulan (1.5 pg/ml), and we successfully employed this assay in the quantification of extracellular β-1,6-glucan released by >250 patient-derived strains of different Candida species (including Candida auris) in culture supernatant in vitro. We also used this assay to measure β-1,6-glucan in vivo in the serum and in several organs in a mouse model of systemic candidiasis. Our work describes a reliable method for β-1,6-glucan detection, which may prove useful for the diagnosis of invasive fungal infections.

(American Association for the Advancement of Science) A one-hour exercise designed to increase feelings of social belonging administered during the first year of college appears to significantly improve the lives and careers of black students up to 11 years later, psychologists report.

(University of Bath) For the first time, labs around the world can 3D print their own precision microscopes, thanks to an open-source design created at Bath.

The "Online Video Course on Weather Observation" will explain concisely the basic weather observation methods and techniques, such...

(U.S. Army Research Laboratory) A US Army-funded project is identifying how officials at different levels of government can work together to encourage protective behaviors to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

(Northumbria University ) Researchers from Northumbria University have been awarded £1.2m to help advance our understanding of the Sun and its impact on the planets within our solar system.

(Florida Museum of Natural History) More than a thousand years ago, people from across the Southeast regularly traveled to a small island on Florida's Gulf Coast to bond over oysters, likely as a means of coping with climate change and social upheaval.

(Arizona State University) Hydrogen is an essential commodity with over 60 million tons produced globally every year. However over 95 percent of it is made by steam reformation of fossil fuels, a process that is energy intensive and produces carbon dioxide. If we could replace even a part of that with algal biohydrogen that is made via light and water, it would have a substantial impact.

(University of Hawaii at Manoa) In a study published in Scientific Reports, researchers at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, found in the next few decades, sea level rise will likely cause large and increasing percentages of land area to be impacted simultaneously by the three flood mechanisms. Further, they found direct marine inundation represents the least extensive--only three percent of the predicted flooding, while groundwater inundation represents the most extensive flood source.

(American Geriatrics Society) The COVID-19 pandemic has placed unprecedented pressure on societies worldwide, given the pandemic's rapid, often deadly spread. In health care, the pandemic has raised the pressing question of how society should allocate scarce resources during a crisis. This is the question experts addressed today in a new position statement published by the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (DOI: 10.1111/jgs.16537).

Lawrence Fisher
Oct 1, 2004; 17:215-219
Articles

Omar D. Fernandes
Jul 1, 2010; 23:194-198
Care Innovations

T. Chas Skinner
Apr 1, 2003; 16:
Lifestyle and Behavior

Retail giants like Yoox Net-a-Porter Group and Brooks Brothers quickly pivoted to offer life-saving services.

Your job search doesn't have to stop during the COVID-19 crisis.