Simulation of Fluid Flow During Direct Synthesis of H2_{2}O2_{2} in a Microstructured Membrane Reactor

A microstructured membrane reactor has been developed to overcome the safety and productivity challenge of the direct synthesis of hydrogen peroxide. A single membrane is employed for separate, continuous dosage of the gaseous reactants hydrogen and oxygen to the solid catalyst present in the aqueous solvent. Using a custom OpenFOAM® model, the impact of catalyst‐coated static mixers with different mixer geometries is studied. It is demonstrated that the custom fluid guiding elements outperform the investigated commercial static mixer under the flow conditions relevant to this application

White matter changes and confrontation naming in retired aging national football league athletes

Using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), we assessed the relationship of white matter integrity and performance on the Boston Naming Test (BNT) in a group of retired professional football players and a control group. We examined correlations between fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) with BNT T-scores in an unbiased voxelwise analysis processed with tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS). We also analyzed the DTI data by grouping voxels together as white matter tracts and testing each tract's association with BNT T-scores. Significant voxelwise correlations between FA and BNT performance were only seen in the retired football players (p < 0.02). Two tracts had mean FA values that significantly correlated with BNT performance: forceps minor and forceps major. White matter integrity is important for distributed cognitive processes, and disruption correlates with diminished performance in athletes exposed to concussive and subconcussive brain injuries, but not in controls without such exposure

Influential factors of aligning Spotify squads in mission-critical and offshore projects – a longitudinal embedded case study

Changing the development process of an organization is one of the toughest and riskiest decisions. This is particularly true if the known experiences and practices of the new considered ways of working are relative and subject to contextual assumptions. Spotify engineering culture is deemed as a new agile software development method which increasingly attracts large-scale organizations. The method relies on several small cross-functional self-organized teams (i.e., squads). The squad autonomy is a key driver in Spotify method, where a squad decides what to do and how to do it. To enable effective squad autonomy, each squad shall be aligned with a mission, strategy, short-term goals and other squads. Since a little known about Spotify method, there is a need to answer the question of: How can organizations work out and maintain the alignment to enable loosely coupled and tightly aligned squads? In this paper, we identify factors to support the alignment that is actually performed in practice but have never been discussed before in terms of Spotify method. We also present Spotify Tailoring by highlighting the modified and newly introduced processes to the method. Our work is based on a longitudinal embedded case study which was conducted in a real-world large-scale offshore software intensive organization that maintains mission-critical systems. According to the confidentiality agreement by the organization in question, we are not allowed to reveal a detailed description of the features of the explored project

The importance of plume rise on the concentrations and atmospheric impacts of biomass burning aerosol

We quantified the effects of the plume rise of biomass burning aerosol and gases for the forest fires that occurred in Saskatchewan, Canada, in July 2010. For this purpose, simulations with different assumptions regarding the plume rise and the vertical distribution of the emissions were conducted. Based on comparisons with observations, applying a one-dimensional plume rise model to predict the injection layer in combination with a parametrization of the vertical distribution of the emissions outperforms approaches in which the plume heights are initially predefined. Approximately 30 % of the fires exceed the height of 2 km with a maximum height of 8.6 km. Using this plume rise model, comparisons with satellite images in the visible spectral range show a very good agreement between the simulated and observed spatial distributions of the biomass burning plume. The simulated aerosol optical depth (AOD) with data of an AERONET station is in good agreement with respect to the absolute values and the timing of the maximum. Comparison of the vertical distribution of the biomass burning aerosol with CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation) retrievals also showed the best agreement when the plume rise model was applied. We found that downwelling surface short-wave radiation below the forest fire plume is reduced by up to 50 % and that the 2 m temperature is decreased by up to 6 K. In addition, we simulated a strong change in atmospheric stability within the biomass burning plume

Lie experts' beliefs about non-verbal indicators of deception

ABSTRACT.. Beliefs about behavioral clues to deception were investigated in 212 people, consisting of prisoners, police detectives, patrol police officers, prison guards, customs officers, and college students. Previous studies, mainly conducted with college students as subjects, showed that people have some incorrect beliefs about behavioral clues to deception. It was hypothesized that prisoners would have the best notion about clues of deception, due to the fact that they receive the most adequate feedback about successful deception strategies. The results supported this hypothesis

Does oral sodium bicarbonate therapy improve function and quality of life in older patients with chronic kidney disease and low-grade acidosis (the BiCARB trial)? Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Date of acceptance: 01/07/2015 © 2015 Witham et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Acknowledgements UK NIHR HTA grant 10/71/01. We acknowledge the financial support of NHS Research Scotland in conducting this trial.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A field study of team working in a new human supervisory control system

This paper presents a case study of an investigation into team behaviour in an energy distribution company. The main aim was to investigate the impact of major changes in the company on system performance, comprising human and technical elements. A socio-technical systems approach was adopted. There were main differences between the teams investigated in the study: the time of year each control room was studied (i.e. summer or winter),the stage of development each team was in (i.e. 10 months), and the team structure (i.e. hierarchical or heterarchical). In all other respects the control rooms were the same: employing the same technology and within the same organization. The main findings were: the teams studied in the winter months were engaged in more `planning’ and `awareness’ type of activities than those studies in the summer months. Newer teams seem to be engaged in more sharing of information than older teams, which maybe indicative of the development process. One of the hierarchical teams was engaged in more `system-driven’ activities than the heterarchical team studied at the same time of year. Finally, in general, the heterarchical team perceived a greater degree of team working culture than its hierarchical counterparts. This applied research project confirms findings from laboratory research and emphasizes the importance of involving ergonomics in the design of team working in human supervisory control

Psychology

The Internet explosion and broad interest in collaborative technology have driven increased interest in the field of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). Historically, behavioral research on CSCW applications has reflected a strong influence from ethnomethodology. This article argues that the CSCW community should adopt a stronger orientation to other social science disciplines, particularly psychology. Greater attention to the psychological literature provides three benefits. First, psychologists offer well-validated principles about human behavior in group and organizational contexts that are relevant to CSCW research. Second, psychologists offer reliable and proven measures of human behavior that, if adopted by CSCW researchers, can provide a uniform basis for comparison across studies. Finally, psychologists offer data collection and analysis methods that identify salient and generalizable features of human behavior, which may lead to the development of universal principles of CSCW design.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68835/2/10.1177_089443939801600106.pd