Freeway lane-changing: some empirical findings

Lane changing activity is thought to play an important role in the capacity degradation of congested freeways. However, proofs of this negative impact are scarce due to the difficulties in obtaining suitable data. In this paper, the lane changing activity in the B-23 freeway accessing the city of Barcelona is analyzed. Lane changes (LC) were video recorded in six different stretches from where loop detector measurements were also available. The obtained database allowed finding a consistent relationship between LC activity and congestion. LC peaks in all analyzed sections when they become congested. This is particularly intense at the traffic breakdown, between congested and free flowing conditions. As an example, it is observed that LC activity peaks just downstream of a fixed bottleneck where free-flowing conditions are recovered. In addition, data show that the larger the lane changing rates, the smaller the maximum observable flows, supporting the hypothesis that LC is a key contributor to a capacity drop. In spite of all these findings, this research highlights the difficulty in obtaining a suitable database to definitively answer most of the research questions regarding freeway lane-changing. The spatial coverage of measurements is one of the major drawbacks. To this end, a careful planning of the data collection is necessary in order to obtain meaningful conclusions.Postprint (published version

Deep Learning and Implementations in Banking

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Data-driven technologies have been changing every aspect of human life and the fast-developing banking sector with its data-rich nature has become the implementation field of these fast-evolving technologies. Deep learning, as one of the emerging technologies in recent years, has also been inevitably adopted for various improvements in banking. To the best of our knowledge, there is no comprehensive literature review, which focuses on specifically deep learning and its implementations in banking. Therefore, this paper investigates the deep learning technology in-depth and summarizes the relevant applications in banking so to contribute to the existing literature. Moreover, by providing a reliable and up-to-date review, it is also aimed to serve as the one-stop repository for banks and researchers who are interested in embracing deep learning, whilst bringing insights for the directions of future research and implementation

Effect of two behavioural 'nudging' interventions on management decisions for low back pain: A randomised vignette-based study in general practitioners

Objective €Nudges' are subtle cognitive cues thought to influence behaviour. We investigated whether embedding nudges in a general practitioner (GP) clinical decision support display can reduce low-value management decisions. Methods Australian GPs completed four clinical vignettes of patients with low back pain. Participants chose from three guideline-concordant and three guideline-discordant (low-value) management options for each vignette, on a computer screen. A 2×2 factorial design randomised participants to two possible nudge interventions: €partition display' nudge (low-value options presented horizontally, high-value options listed vertically) or €default option' nudge (high-value options presented as the default, low-value options presented only after clicking for more). The primary outcome was the proportion of scenarios where practitioners chose at least one of the low-value care options. Results 120 GPs (72% male, 28% female) completed the trial (n=480 vignettes). Participants using a conventional menu display without nudges chose at least one low-value care option in 42% of scenarios. Participants exposed to the default option nudge were 44% less likely to choose at least one low-value care option (OR 0.56, 95%CI 0.37 to 0.85; p=0.006) compared with those not exposed. The partition display nudge had no effect on choice of low-value care (OR 1.08, 95%CI 0.72 to 1.64; p=0.7). There was no interaction between the nudges (OR 0.94, 95% CI 0.41 to 2.15; p=0.89). Interpretation A default option nudge reduced the odds of choosing low-value options for low back pain in clinical vignettes. Embedding high value options as defaults in clinical decision support tools could improve quality of care. More research is needed into how nudges impact clinical decision-making in different contexts

Citation and peer review of data: moving towards formal data publication

This paper discusses many of the issues associated with formally publishing data in academia, focusing primarily on the structures that need to be put in place for peer review and formal citation of datasets. Data publication is becoming increasingly important to the scientific community, as it will provide a mechanism for those who create data to receive academic credit for their work and will allow the conclusions arising from an analysis to be more readily verifiable, thus promoting transparency in the scientific process. Peer review of data will also provide a mechanism for ensuring the quality of datasets, and we provide suggestions on the types of activities one expects to see in the peer review of data. A simple taxonomy of data publication methodologies is presented and evaluated, and the paper concludes with a discussion of dataset granularity, transience and semantics, along with a recommended human-readable citation syntax

The evolving scholarly record

This report presents a framework to help organize and drive discussions about the evolving scholarly record. The framework provides a high-level view of the categories of material the scholarly record potentially encompasses, as well as the key stakeholder roles associated with the creation, management, and use of the scholarly record. Key highlights: A confluence of trends is accelerating changes to the scholarly record\u27s content and stakeholder roles. Scholarly outcomes are contextualized by materials generated in the process and aftermath of scholarly inquiry. The research process generates materials covering methods employed, evidence used, and formative discussion. The research aftermath generates materials covering discussion, revision, and reuse of scholarly outcomes. The scholarly record is evolving to have greater emphasis on collecting and curating context of scholarly inquiry. The scholarly record’s stakeholder ecosystem encompasses four key roles: create, fix, collect, and use. The stakeholder ecosystem supports thinking about how roles are reconfigured as the scholarly record evolves. The ways and means of scholarly inquiry are experiencing fundamental change, with consequences for scholarly communication and ultimately, the scholarly record. The boundaries of the scholarly record are both expanding and blurring, driven by changes in research practices, as well as changing perceptions of the long-term value of certain forms of scholarly materials. Understanding the nature, scope, and evolutionary trends of the scholarly record is an important concern in many quarters—for libraries, for publishers, for funders, and of course for scholars themselves. Many issues are intrinsic to the scholarly record, such as preservation, citation, replicability, provenance, and data curation. The conceptualization of the scholarly record and its stakeholder ecosystem provided in the report can serve as a common point of reference in discussions within and across domains, and help cultivate the shared understanding and collaborative relationships needed to identify, collect, and make accessible the wide range of materials the scholarly record is evolving to include

Infrared Thermography for Weld Inspection: Feasibility and Application

Traditional ultrasonic testing (UT) techniques have been widely used to detect surface and sub-surface defects of welds. UT inspection is a contact method which burdens the manufacturer by storing hot specimens for inspection when the material is cool. Additionally, UT is only valid for 5 mm specimens or thicker and requires a highly skilled operator to perform the inspections and interpret the signals. Infrared thermography (IRT) has the potential to be implemented for weld inspections due to its non-contact nature. In this study, the feasibility of using IRT to overcome the limitations of UT inspection is investigated to detect inclusion, porosity, cracking, and lack of fusion in 38 weld specimens with thicknesses of 3, 8 and 13 mm. UT inspection was also performed to locate regions containing defects in the 8 mm and 13 mm specimens. Results showed that regions diagnosed with defects by the UT inspection lost heat faster than the sound weld. The IRT method was applied to six 3 mm specimens to detect their defects and successfully detected lack of fusion in one of them. All specimens were cut at the locations indicated by UT and IRT methods which proved the presence of a defect in 86% of the specimens. Despite the agreement with the UT inspection, the proposed IRT method had limited success in locating the defects in the 8 mm specimens. To fully implement in-line IRT-based weld inspections more investigations are required