The COVID-19 Community Research Partnership (CCRP) is a multisite surveillance platform designed to characterize the epidemiology of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. This manuscript describes the CCRP study design and methodology. The CCRP includes two prospective cohorts, one with six health systems in the mid-Atlantic and southern United States, and the other with six health systems in North Carolina. With enrollment beginning April 2020, sites invited persons within their healthcare systems as well as community members to participate in daily surveillance for symptoms of COVID-like illnesses, testing and risk behaviors. Participants with electronic health records were also asked to volunteer data access. Subsets of participants, representative of the general population and including oversampling of populations of interest, were selected for repeated at home serology testing. By October 2021, 65,739 participants (62,261 adult and 3,478 pediatric) were enrolled, with 89% providing syndromic data, 74% providing EHR data, and 70% participating in one of two serology sub-studies. An average of 62% of participants completed a daily survey at least once a week, and 55% of serology kits were returned. The CCRP provides rich regional epidemiologic data and the opportunity to more fully characterize the risks and sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Today people spend about 4.8 billion hours every year in congestion which could be used productively. The traffic control system currently being used is outdated and heavily dependent on humans. Thus, there is a dire need to upgrade and automate these systems. Using combination of computer vision, big data and machine learning it is possible to design a reliable and scalable system which will help to resolve these traditional problems. This paper provides an insight of how these technologies can be used and the challenges which we will have to face.

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The Three Gorges Dam Project (TGDP) on the Yangtze River in Hubei Province is touted as the long term solution to China’s increasing energy and agricultural needs. TGDP, with a 1084 km2 reservoir of 39.3 billion m3 capacity, will be the largest multipurpose water conservancy project ever built in the world. The main structures of the project are dam, hydropower stations and navigation facilities. After studying fifteen alternative sites and approval of Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in February 1992, the construction of the dam began in 1994 with an expected duration of 17 years. Annual reduction of 40-50 million tons of coal consumption by providing 85 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, protection of 1.6 million hectares of agricultural land from floods and considerable improvement of navigation and tourism sector are the major anticipated benefits of TGDP. However, the proposed benefits put significant pressure on ecological and socio-cultural environment of the TGDP area. Relocation and resettlement of over 1.3 million local populations, inundation of several sites of historical importance, deforestation and loss of biodiversity including several endangered species of flora and fauna across a region of 58,000 km2, increased sedimentation, water pollution and potential earthquake risks are the major adverse consequences of TGDP. Key words: Three Gorges Dam Project (TGDP), environmental impacts, alternatives, resettlement, biodiversity, ecology, China Hydro Nepal: Journal of Water, Energy and Environment Vol. I, Issue No. 1 (2007) pp. 54-56