Feedback About a Person’s Social Context - Personal Networks and Daily Social Interactions

The social context of a person, meaning their social relationships and daily social interactions, is an important factor for understanding their mental health. However, personalised feedback approaches to psychotherapy do not consider this factor sufficiently yet. Therefore, we developed an interactive feedback prototype focusing specifically on a person’s social relationships as captured with personal social networks (PSN) and daily social interactions as captured with experience sampling methodology (ESM). We describe the development of the prototype as well as two evaluation studies: Semi-structured interviews with students (N = 23) and a focus group discussion with five psychotherapy patients. Participants from both studies considered the prototype useful. The students considered participation in our study, which included social context assessment via PSN and ESM as well as a feedback session, insightful. However, it remains unclear how much insight the feedback procedure generated for the students beyond the insights they already gained from the assessments. The focus group patients indicated that in a clinical context, (social context) feedback may be especially useful to generate insight for the clinician and facilitate collaboration between patient and clinician. Furthermore, it became clear that the current feedback prototype requires explanations by a researcher or trained clinician and cannot function as a stand-alone intervention. As such, we discuss our feedback prototype as a starting point for future research and clinical implementation

Life-Cycle Cost Estimation for High-Speed Vehicles: from the engineers’ to the airline’s perspective

This paper aims at upgrading the holistic Cost Estimation methodology for High-Speed Vehicles already developed by Politecnico di Torino and the European Space Agency (ESA) to encompass different stakeholders’ perspectives. In details, the presented methodology combines International Air Transport Association (IATA) best practices with a detailed Life- Cycle Cost (LCC) assessment, which includes the evaluation of Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDTE) Costs, Production costs and of Direct and Indirect Operating Costs (DOC and IOC). The integrated approach allows to further extend the capabilities of the inhouse developed HyCost tool to support all the actors of the product value-chain (including engineers, manufacturers, airlines and customers) in assessing the economic sustainability of a newly under-development high-speed vehicle. However, considering the need of providing all these cost analyses perspectives since the early design stages, the derived Cost Estimation Relationships are mainly derived on statistical bases. To cope with the uncertainties that affect the initial statistical population and consequently, the CERs, this paper presents each cost item together with the estimation of related prediction intervals. Finally, results of the application of the upgraded cost estimation methodology and of the upgraded tool to the LAPCAT MR2.4 high-speed civil transport are reported and discussed

Fuel pyrolysis through porous media: Coke formation and coupled effect on permeability

International audienceThe development of hypersonic vehicles (up to Mach 10) leads to an important heating of the whole structure. The fuel is thus used as a coolant. It presents an endothermic decomposition with possible coke formation. Its additional permeation through the porous structure involves internal convection. This implies very complex phenomena (heat and mass transfers with chemistry). In this paper, the n-dodecane pyrolysis is studied through stainless steel porous medium up to 820 K and 35 bar (supercritical state). The longitudinal profiles of chemical compositions inside the porous medium are given thanks to a specific sampling technique with off-line Gas Chromatograph and Mass Spectrometer analysis. By comparison with previous experiments under plug flow reactor, the conversion of dodecane is higher for the present experimental configuration. The pyrolysis produces preferentially light gaseous species, which results in a higher gasification rate for a similar pyrolysis rate. The effects of the residence time and of the contact surface area are demonstrated. The transient changes of Darcy's permeability are related to the coke formation thanks to previous experimental relationship with methane production. A time shift is observed between coke chemistry and permeability change. This work is quite unique to the author's knowledge because of the complex chemistry of heavy hydrocarbon fuels pyrolysis, particularly in porous medium

Free Flight Testing of a Scramjet Engine in a Large Scale Shock Tunnel

The free flight force measurement technique is a very attractive tool to determine forces and moments in particular in short duration ground based test facilities. With test times in the order of a few milliseconds, conventional force balances cannot be applied here. The technique has been applied in a number of shock tunnels utilizing models up to approximately 300 mm in length and looking at external aerodynamics. In the present study the technique is applied using a complex 1.5 m long hypersonic integrated supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet) engine consisting of intake, combustor and thrust nozzle. For scramjet engines the design objective is a combustor with efficient mixing and combustion within the shortest possible length, but still robust enough to operate in various operational conditions. In the framework of the EU co-funded project LAPCAT II, a M=7.4 scramjet powered small scale flight experiment (SSFE) configuration was designed. Since free jet testing of the complete combustion flow path is a mandatory step within the design roadmap of future engines, ground based testing of the SSFE engine was conducted in the High Enthalpy Shock Tunnel Göttingen (HEG) of the German Aerospace Center, DLR. This type of facility allows duplication of flight conditions in excess of M=8. Here tests were performed simulating Mach 7.4 flight conditions in approximately 28 km altitude. The numerically predicted thrust of the engine could be confirmed in HEG utilizing optical tracking of the free flight wind tunnel model. Combining these experimental results with computed aerodynamic data of the complete SSFE showed that for a selected flight condition a positive aero propulsive balance of the complete configuration could be achieved

6DoF Aerodynamic Measurements of an Air-Breathing Hypersonic Vehicle

Aerodynamic stability is very important for high-speed aircraft configurations, where reaction times to disturbances can become quite short. Six-degree-of freedom measurements have been performed with a wind tunnel model of an air-breathing hypersonic vehicle. Mach numbers ranged between Mach 3.5 and Mach 8, utilizing two different wind tunnels. The angle of attack was varied between α = -3° and α = 3°, and the sideslip angle between β = 0° and β = 2°. Further on, the modular design of the model allowed for examining the influence of control surface deflections by canards, rudders and ailerons. Additional numerical calculations have been performed for certain test points. The tests gave insight into the aerodynamic properties of the configuration and helped to determine flight conditions with critical or unstable longitudinal and lateral stability, respectively. Further on, the influence on the aerodynamics of the vehicles that is caused by changes in the flow state at the engine intake was shown

Capturing the dynamics of the social environment through experience sampling methods, passive sensing, and egocentric networks: Scoping Review

BACKGROUND: Social interactions are important for well-being, and therefore, researchers are increasingly attempting to capture people's social environment. Many different disciplines have developed tools to measure the social environment, which can be highly variable over time. The experience sampling method (ESM) is often used in psychology to study the dynamics within a person and the social environment. In addition, passive sensing is often used to capture social behavior via sensors from smartphones or other wearable devices. Furthermore, sociologists use egocentric networks to track how social relationships are changing. Each of these methods is likely to tap into different but important parts of people's social environment. Thus far, the development and implementation of these methods have occurred mostly separately from each other. OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to synthesize the literature on how these methods are currently used to capture the changing social environment in relation to well-being and assess how to best combine these methods to study well-being. METHODS: We conducted a scoping review according to the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines. RESULTS: We included 275 studies. In total, 3 important points follow from our review. First, each method captures a different but important part of the social environment at a different temporal resolution. Second, measures are rarely validated (>70% of ESM studies and 50% of passive sensing studies were not validated), which undermines the robustness of the conclusions drawn. Third, a combination of methods is currently lacking (only 15/275, 5.5% of the studies combined ESM and passive sensing, and no studies combined all 3 methods) but is essential in understanding well-being. CONCLUSIONS: We highlight that the practice of using poorly validated measures hampers progress in understanding the relationship between the changing social environment and well-being. We conclude that different methods should be combined more often to reduce the participants' burden and form a holistic perspective on the social environment

Experimental and Numerical Analysis of the small Scale LAPCAT II Scramjet

status: publishe