Smart hospital emergency system via mobile-based requesting services

In recent years, the UK’s emergency call and response has shown elements of great strain as of today. The strain on emergency call systems estimated by a 9 million calls (including both landline and mobile) made in 2014 alone. Coupled with an increasing population and cuts in government funding, this has resulted in lower percentages of emergency response vehicles at hand and longer response times. In this paper, we highlight the main challenges of emergency services and overview of previous solutions. In addition, we propose a new system call Smart Hospital Emergency System (SHES). The main aim of SHES is to save lives through improving communications between patient and emergency services. Utilising the latest of technologies and algorithms within SHES is aiming to increase emergency communication throughput, while reducing emergency call systems issues and making the process of emergency response more efficient. Utilising health data held within a personal smartphone, and internal tracked data (GPU, Accelerometer, Gyroscope etc.), SHES aims to process the mentioned data efficiently, and securely, through automatic communications with emergency services, ultimately reducing communication bottlenecks. Live video-streaming through real-time video communication protocols is also a focus of SHES to improve initial communications between emergency services and patients. A prototype of this system has been developed. The system has been evaluated by a preliminary usability, reliability, and communication performance study

Explaining Subjective Risks of Hurricanes and the Role of Risks in Intended Moving and Location Choice Models

In this manuscript we report on findings from a quasi-field experiment of a small group of subjects displaced by the 2005 hurricanes, Katrina and Rita. The sampled group, though small, is remarkable in that they all were deeply and personally affected by the hurricanes. All of the people in our sample evacuated from their homes and were still away months after the hurricane. The homes of a majority of the sample were severely damaged and almost a third of the sample lost a family member in the hurricane. Our research evaluates the risk perceptions and explains stated intentions to move back to the area they left during the hurricanes, as well as location choices presented to each subject in a stated choice experiment

Norm-based and commitment-driven agentification of the Internet of Things

There are no doubts that the Internet-of-Things (IoT) has conquered the ICT industry to the extent that many governments and organizations are already rolling out many anywhere,anytime online services that IoT sustains. However, like any emerging and disruptive technology, multiple obstacles are slowing down IoT practical adoption including the passive nature and privacy invasion of things. This paper examines how to empower things with necessary capabilities that would make them proactive and responsive. This means things can, for instance reach out to collaborative peers, (un)form dynamic communities when necessary, avoid malicious peers, and be “questioned” for their actions. To achieve such empowerment, this paper presents an approach for agentifying things using norms along with commitments that operationalize these norms. Both norms and commitments are specialized into social (i.e., application independent) and business (i.e., application dependent), respectively. Being proactive, things could violate commitments at run-time, which needs to be detected through monitoring. In this paper, thing agentification is illustrated with a case study about missing children and demonstrated with a testbed that uses different IoT-related technologies such as Eclipse Mosquitto broker and Message Queuing Telemetry Transport protocol. Some experiments conducted upon this testbed are also discussed

Security-oriented cloud computing platform for critical infrastructures

The rise of virtualisation and cloud computing is one of the most significant features of computing in the last 10 years. However, despite its popularity, there are still a number of technical barriers that prevent it from becoming the truly ubiquitous service it has the potential to be. Central to this are the issues of data security and the lack of trust that users have in relying on cloud services to provide the foundation of their IT infrastructure. This is a highly complex issue, which covers multiple inter-related factors such as platform integrity, robust service guarantees, data and network security, and many others that have yet to be overcome in a meaningful way. This paper presents a concept for an innovative integrated platform to reinforce the integrity and security of cloud services and we apply this in the context of Critical Infrastructures to identify the core requirements, components and features of this infrastructure

Induction Assisted Single Point Incremental Forming of Advanced High Strength Steels

Induction Assisted Single Point Incremental Forming (IASPIF) is a die-less hot sheet metal forming. The IASPIF does not apply characteristic complex tooling like those applied in deep drawing and bending. In this thesis, induction heating was used to heat up the sheet while simultaneously forming with a tool. The research goal is to improve the formability of high strength steels by heating. The IASPIF consists of non-complicated set up that allows induction heating to be utilized through the coil inductor moved under the sheet and synchronized with the forming tool that moves on the upper side of the sheet. The advanced high strength steel alloys, DP980, DP600 and 22MnB5 steels, were investigated. The influence of induction heating on formability was evaluated by the maximum wall angle that can be achieved in a single pass. Additionally, tool diameter and tool feed rate was also varied. The most influencing parameters were tool feed rate, induction power, and the profile depth. A new forming strategy was also developed by control the heating temperature through coupling the formed profile depth with a successively increased tool feed rate. The forming forces of DP980 steel sheet, were reduced from 7 kN to 2.5 kN when forming process was performed at room and elevated temperature, respectively. Stretching stresses were developed during forming process causing a high reduction in the resulting wall part thickness. New findings in this investigation were the reverse relationship between the step-down depth and the thickness reduction percentage. The smaller the tool diameter, the better was the formability. The finite element simulation of the investigated forming process showed that the increase in heating temperature has a direct effect on rising the plastic strain from 0.2 at room temperature to 1.02 at 800 ◦ C. The maximum true strain achieved in the resulting wall part thickness was determined by FEM simulations and validated with experimental trials. The part shape accuracy was measured and the highest deflection was founded when the part was formed by the highest step-down depth. Moreover, the minimum deflection in the part shape was achieved by utilizing a high induction power in the experiments. Finally, the resulting mechanical properties of the 22MnB5 alloy sheet material were tailored during IASPIF. For this purpose, the sheets were locally heated by induction during the forming process and subsequently quenched at different rates. As a result, the produced tailored parts consist of three different regions, which consist of a ductile, transitional and hardened region. The proposed procedure allows forming and quenching at the same time without transfer and thus, process time was reduced.Die induktionsgestützte, inkrementelle Blechumformung (englisch: Induction Assisted Single-Point Incremental Forming IASPIF) ist Warmumformprozess, bei dem keine komplexen Werkzeuge wie beim Tiefziehen und Biegen benötigt werden. Inhalt dieser Arbeit ist die inkrementelle Umformung eines Bleches mit gleichzeitig ablaufender induktiver Erwärmung. Das Forschungsziel bestand in der Verbesserung der Umformbarkeit von hochfesten Stahlwerkstoffen wie DP600, DP980 und 22MnB5 durch eine gezielte partielle Erwärmung. Der prinzipielle Aufbau des Versuchsstandes besteht aus einem Spuleninduktor, der unterhalb des umzuformenden Blechs platziert ist, und der synchron mit dem Werkzeug – einem Drückdorn – während des Umformvorganges verfährt. Ein wesentlicher Untersuchungsschwerpunkt bestand in der Ermittlung der Einflussgrößen auf den untersuchten IASPIF-Prozess. Für die Bewertung der Umformbarkeit wurden hierbei der maximal erreichbare Teilwandwinkel und die Profiltiefe, die in einem Umformdurchgang herstellbar waren, ermittelt und ausgewertet. Darüber hinaus konnten im Rahmen der Arbeit die Induktionsleistung des Generators, der Werkzeugdurchmesser und die Werkzeugvorschubgeschwindigkeit als relevante Prozessparameter identifiziert werden. Im Ergebnis der durchgeführten Untersuchungen zeigten die Werkzeugvorschubgeschwindigkeit und die Induktionsleistung einen wesentlichen Einfluss auf die erreichbare Profiltiefe. Aufbauend auf den erzielten Ergebnissen konnte eine prozessangepasste Umformstrategie entwickelt werden, bei der eine konstante Erwärmungstemperatur durch das Koppeln der momentanen Profiltiefe mit einer sukzessiv steigenden Werkzeugvorschubgeschwindigkeit erreicht wird. Weiterhin ließen sich die Kräfte bei der Umformung eines Stahlbleches aus DP980 von 7 kN (bei Raumtemperatur) auf 2,5 kN (bei erhöhter Temperatur) reduzieren. Aufgrund des mit einem Streckziehvorgang vergleichbaren Spannungszustandes während des Umformprozesses war eine starke Verringerung der resultierenden Wanddicke zu beobachten. Als neue Erkenntnis in dieser Untersuchung konnte die umgekehrte Beziehung zwischen der Zustelltiefe und dem Dickenreduktionsprozentsatz abgleitet werden. Aus der Finite - Elemente - Simulation des vorgestellten Umformprozesses wurde erkennbar, dass die Erhöhung der Erwärmungstemperatur einen direkten Einfluss auf die plastische Dehnung von 0,2 (bei Raumtemperatur) auf 1,02 (bei 800 °C) hat. Mittels der numerischen Simulation und der nachfolgenden experimentellen Validierung erfolgte darüber hinaus die Bestimmung der maximalen wahren Dehnung, die in der resultierenden Wanddicke erreicht wurde. Bei den Versuchen mit der größten Zustellung ließ sich durch die Bestimmung der Teileformgenauigkeit die höchste Abweichung von der Sollgeometrie CAD Modell feststellen. Abschließend wurde nachgewiesen, dass der IASPIF Prozess auch zur Einstellung maßgeschneiderter Bauteileigenschaften wie der resultierenden mechanischen Eigenschaften des Blechmaterials aus 22MnB5 einsetzbar ist. Zu diesem Zweck wurden die Bleche während des Umformprozesses lokal induktiv erwärmt und anschließend zur Einstellung des gewünschten Gefüges bei unterschiedlichen Abkühlgeschwindigkeiten abgeschreckt

Researching the lives of disabled children and young people

Why a Special Issue of Children & Society dedicated to disabled children and young people? The simple answer to that question is ‘because disabled children are children first and foremost’. The vast majority of disabled children and young people in the western world live at home with their families, most attending mainstream schools, and disabled children and young people worldwide have rights to inclusion and equal treatment enshrined in national legislation and international conventions. Yet they often remain left out – from generic children’s research, from policy-making about children’s services and, in their everyday lives, from inclusion in friendship groups and social and sporting activities

Gas Phase Train in Upstream Oil & Gas Fields: PART-I Model Development

The prime contribution of this paper is to provide a large scale system (LSS) model for the gas phase operation in upstream oil and gas plants. The process model consists of the three main gas conditioning processes which exist in most upstream oil and gas processing plants; these are gas sweetening, gas dehydration, and hydrocarbon dew-pointing. The function of such a model is to provide a realistic process representation to test and verify different process control approaches, specifically those which deal with highly interactive control loops

Neuroprotection in a Novel Mouse Model of Multiple Sclerosis

The authors acknowledge the support of the Barts and the London Charity, the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, USA, notably the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research, and the Wellcome Trust (grant no. 092539 to ZA). The siRNA was provided by Quark Pharmaceuticals. The funders and Quark Pharmaceuticals had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Two Years Later: Journals Are Not Yet Enforcing the ARRIVE Guidelines on Reporting Standards for Pre-Clinical Animal Studies

There is growing concern that poor experimental design and lack of transparent reporting contribute to the frequent failure of pre-clinical animal studies to translate into treatments for human disease. In 2010, the Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) guidelines were introduced to help improve reporting standards. They were published in PLOS Biology and endorsed by funding agencies and publishers and their journals, including PLOS, Nature research journals, and other top-tier journals. Yet our analysis of papers published in PLOS and Nature journals indicates that there has been very little improvement in reporting standards since then. This suggests that authors, referees, and editors generally are ignoring guidelines, and the editorial endorsement is yet to be effectively implemented