Developing and Evaluating a Musical Attention Control Training Game Application

Musical attention control training (MACT) is a Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT) technique to strengthen attention skills for people who may have attention defi-cits, for instance related to ADHD or Parkinson Disease (PD), activating different parts of the brain and stimulating neural connectivity. While multiple interventions per week would enhance the effect of MACT, attending sev-eral sessions a week with a therapist can be challenging. Applied game interventions implementing MACT, which can be played at home, could offer complementary training to the limited number of therapy sessions. While applied games have been shown to facilitate successful interventions for cognitive impairments, to date no game exists based on MACT. We propose a novel approach to research the plausibility of applied games to support NMT, conclude game requirements for the specific needs of People with PD (PwPD), and introduce a game that emulates a MACT session. We carried out a pilot experiment to gauge how users interact with the game and its efficacy in attention control training with non-PD participants, letting them play 10 game intervention sessions within two weeks. Although no significant short-term attention effects were observed in this timeframe, user evaluations and metrics of game performance suggest that gamified MACT could be a promising supplement to conventional MACT for improving attention skills to optimize quality of life of PwPD

Hydrogen in grid balancing: the european market potential for pressurized alkaline electrolyzers

Summarization: To limit the global temperature change to no more than 2 °C by reducing global emissions, the European Union (EU) set up a goal of a 20% improvement on energy efficiency, a 20% cut of greenhouse gas emissions, and a 20% share of energy from renewable sources by 2020 (10% share of renewable energy (RE), specifically in the transport sector). By 2030, the goal is a 27% improvement in energy efficiency, a 40% cut of greenhouse gas emissions, and a 27% share of RE. However, the integration of RE in energy system faces multiple challenges. The geographical distribution of energy supply changes significantly the availability of the primary energy source (wind, solar, water) and is the determining factor, rather than where the consumers are. This leads to an increasing demand to match supply and demand for power. Especially intermittent RE like wind and solar power face the issue of energy production unrelated to demand (issue of excess energy production beyond demand and/or grid capacity) and forecast errors leading to an increasing demand for grid services like balancing power. Megawatt electrolyzer units (beyond 3 MW) can provide a technical solution to convert large amounts of excess electricity into hydrogen for industrial applications, substitute for natural gas, or the decarbonization of the mobility sector. The demonstration of successful MW electrolyzer operation providing grid services under dynamic conditions as request by the grid can broaden the opportunities of new business models that demonstrate the profitability of an electrolyzer in these market conditions. The aim of this work is the demonstration of a technical solution utilizing Pressurized Alkaline Electrolyzer (PAE) technology for providing grid balancing services and harvesting Renewable Energy Sources (RES) under realistic circumstances. In order to identify any differences between local market and grid requirements, the work focused on a demonstration site located in Austria, deemed as a viable business case for the operation of a large-scale electrolyzer. The site is adapted to specific local conditions commonly found throughout Europe. To achieve this, this study uses a market-based solution that aims at providing value-adding services and cash inflows, stemming from the grid balancing services it provides. Moreover, the work assesses the viability of various business cases by analyzing (qualitatively and quantitatively) additional business models (in terms of business opportunities/energy source, potential grid service provision, and hydrogen demand) and analyzing the value and size of the markets developing recommendations for relevant stakeholder to decrease market barriers.Presented on: Energie