Modelling and observing urban climate in the Netherlands

Volgens de klimaatscenario’s van het KNMI uit 2006 zal de gemiddelde temperatuur in Nederland in de komende decennia verder stijgen. Hittegolven zullen naar verwachting vaker voorkomen en de intensiteit van met name zomerse buien kan toenemen. In steden zijn de gevolgen van de opwarming extra voelbaar, omdat de temperaturen er door het zogenoemde Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect veel hoger kunnen zijn dan in het omliggende gebied. Zulke periodes met hoge temperaturen gaan veelal gepaard met verslechterde luchtkwaliteit en droogte. Dit alles kan grote gevolgen hebben voor de leefbaarheid en de gezondheid van de bevolking in stedelijke gebieden. Veranderingen in de buienintensiteit beïnvloeden de waterhuishouding van de stad

Use of nonintrusive sensor-based information and communication technology for real-world evidence for clinical trials in dementia

Cognitive function is an important end point of treatments in dementia clinical trials. Measuring cognitive function by standardized tests, however, is biased toward highly constrained environments (such as hospitals) in selected samples. Patient-powered real-world evidence using information and communication technology devices, including environmental and wearable sensors, may help to overcome these limitations. This position paper describes current and novel information and communication technology devices and algorithms to monitor behavior and function in people with prodromal and manifest stages of dementia continuously, and discusses clinical, technological, ethical, regulatory, and user-centered requirements for collecting real-world evidence in future randomized controlled trials. Challenges of data safety, quality, and privacy and regulatory requirements need to be addressed by future smart sensor technologies. When these requirements are satisfied, these technologies will provide access to truly user relevant outcomes and broader cohorts of participants than currently sampled in clinical trials

Eye quietness and quiet eye in expert and novice golf performance: an electrooculographic analysis

Quiet eye (QE) is the final ocular fixation on the target of an action (e.g., the ball in golf putting). Camerabased eye-tracking studies have consistently found longer QE durations in experts than novices; however, mechanisms underlying QE are not known. To offer a new perspective we examined the feasibility of measuring the QE using electrooculography (EOG) and developed an index to assess ocular activity across time: eye quietness (EQ). Ten expert and ten novice golfers putted 60 balls to a 2.4 m distant hole. Horizontal EOG (2ms resolution) was recorded from two electrodes placed on the outer sides of the eyes. QE duration was measured using a EOG voltage threshold and comprised the sum of the pre-movement and post-movement initiation components. EQ was computed as the standard deviation of the EOG in 0.5 s bins from –4 to +2 s, relative to backswing initiation: lower values indicate less movement of the eyes, hence greater quietness. Finally, we measured club-ball address and swing durations. T-tests showed that total QE did not differ between groups (p = .31); however, experts had marginally shorter pre-movement QE (p = .08) and longer post-movement QE (p < .001) than novices. A group × time ANOVA revealed that experts had less EQ before backswing initiation and greater EQ after backswing initiation (p = .002). QE durations were inversely correlated with EQ from –1.5 to 1 s (rs = –.48 - –.90, ps = .03 - .001). Experts had longer swing durations than novices (p = .01) and, importantly, swing durations correlated positively with post-movement QE (r = .52, p = .02) and negatively with EQ from 0.5 to 1s (r = –.63, p = .003). This study demonstrates the feasibility of measuring ocular activity using EOG and validates EQ as an index of ocular activity. Its findings challenge the dominant perspective on QE and provide new evidence that expert-novice differences in ocular activity may reflect differences in the kinematics of how experts and novices execute skills

Deliverable 2.3-Research needs in terms of statistical methodologies and new data

The MAKSWELL project was set up to help strengthening the use of evidence and information on well-being and sustainability for policy-making in the EU, as also the political attention to well-being and sustainability indicators has been increasing in recent years. Traditionally sample surveys are the data source used for measurement frameworks for well-being and sustainability. Over the last decades more and more new, alternative data sources become available. Examples are administrative data like tax registers, or other large data sets - so called big data - that are generated as a by-product of processes not directly related to statistical production purposes. In Deliverables 2.1, 2.2 as well as 3.1, 4.1 and 4.3 it is discussed in detail how these new data sources can be used in the production of official statistics and measurement frameworks for well-being and sustainability indicators. This Deliverable extends on the experiences obtained in these preceding deliverables by pointing out the needs for new data sources and methods in this context

The Relationships Between Metacognitive Strategies and Learning Outcomes in an Adult Basic Skills Program

This study tested metacognitive strategies accounted for variance in learning acquisition and retention in an adult basic skills population. The study employed the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI) to measure metacognitive strategy use, a standardized, individually-accessed basic skills curriculum, and a valid basic skills performance measurement. The study population was young adult soldiers stationed in South Carolina, California and Hawaii. Sites selection assured uniformity in testing procedures, curriculum and delivery. Multiple sites assured a variety of soldier career fields for purposes of generalization. Performance measurements were taken at the beginning of instruction, at the end of instruction and a delayed measurement 60 days following the completion of instruction from 96 students who participated in 80 hours of reading and mathematics instruction. The LASSI was administered prior to the first hour of instruction

On the assessment of pedestrian distress in urban winds

Urban winds can cause a risk to pedestrian safety if not properly assessed. High-rise buildings produce a complex flow field at ground level, where regions of accelerated and recirculating flows are present. Gust wind speeds provide an indication of the maximal speed pedestrian might experience due to the unsteady flow. In this study, low- and high-fidelity numerical and experimental techniques to predict pedestrian level winds are tested on a realistic full-scale test-route at the University of Birmingham Campus during a storm event. Results show that it is beneficial to increase the complexity of simulations as a direct correspondence exists between the gust wind speed and the turbulent environment. While not much gain is achieved switching from Irwin Probes to hot-wire anemometry, LES greatly outperforms RANS and challenges experimental simulations in terms of reliability. The validity of the peak factor is also questioned and a general comment on the adequacy of each technique is discussed

The Eroding Artificial/Natural Distinction: Some Consequences for Ecology and Economics

Since Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), historians and philosophers of science have paid increasing attention to the implications of disciplinarity. In this chapter we consider restrictions posed to interdisciplinary exchange between ecology and economics that result from a particular kind of commitment to the ideal of disciplinary purity, that is, that each discipline is defined by an appropriate, unique set of objects, methods, theories, and aims. We argue that, when it comes to the objects of study in ecology and economics, ideas of disciplinary purity have been underwritten by the artificial-natural distinction. We then problematize this distinction, and thus disciplinary purity, both conceptually and empirically. Conceptually, the distinction is no longer tenable. Empirically, recent interdisciplinary research has shown the epistemological and policy-oriented benefits of dealing with models which explicitly link anthropogenic (i.e., “artificial”) and non-anthropogenic factors (i.e., “natural”). We conclude that, in the current age of the Anthropocene, it is to be expected that without interdisciplinary exchange, ecology and economics may relinquish global relevance because the distinct and separate systems to which each “pure” science was originally made to apply will only diminish over time

From Social Simulation to Integrative System Design

As the recent financial crisis showed, today there is a strong need to gain "ecological perspective" of all relevant interactions in socio-economic-techno-environmental systems. For this, we suggested to set-up a network of Centers for integrative systems design, which shall be able to run all potentially relevant scenarios, identify causality chains, explore feedback and cascading effects for a number of model variants, and determine the reliability of their implications (given the validity of the underlying models). They will be able to detect possible negative side effect of policy decisions, before they occur. The Centers belonging to this network of Integrative Systems Design Centers would be focused on a particular field, but they would be part of an attempt to eventually cover all relevant areas of society and economy and integrate them within a "Living Earth Simulator". The results of all research activities of such Centers would be turned into informative input for political Decision Arenas. For example, Crisis Observatories (for financial instabilities, shortages of resources, environmental change, conflict, spreading of diseases, etc.) would be connected with such Decision Arenas for the purpose of visualization, in order to make complex interdependencies understandable to scientists, decision-makers, and the general public.Comment: 34 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c