A game prototype for understanding the safety issues of a lifeboat launch

© 2018 The Author(s) Novel, advanced game techniques provide us with new possibilities to mimic a complicated training process, with the added benefit of enhanced safety. In this paper, we design and implement a 3D game with the support of virtual reality equipment which imitates the process of a lifeboat launch, involving both tractor manoeuvres and boat operations. It is a complex but vital process which can save lives at sea but also has many potential hazards. The primary objective of the game is to allow novices to better understand the sequence of the operations and manage the potential risks which may occur during the launch process. Additionally, the game has been promoted to the general public for educational purposes and to raise awareness of the safety issues involved. The key modules of the game are designed based on physical simulations to give the players enhanced plausible cognition and enjoyable interaction. We conducted two case studies for the two purposes of the games: one for training with volunteers without launching experience and the other for public awareness of the potential hazards with young children. The game is proven to be very promising for future professional training, and it serves the educational purpose of awareness of the safety issues for general public while being entertaining

MUC1 expression and anti-MUC1 serum immune response in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC): a multivariate analysis

BACKGROUND: HNSCC progression to adjacent tissue and nodes may be mediated by altered glycoproteins and glycolipids such as MUC1 mucin. This report constitutes a detailed statistical study about MUC1 expression and anti-MUC1 immune responses in relation to different clinical and pathological parameters which may be useful to develop new anti HNSCC therapeutic strategies. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Fifty three pre treatment HNSCC patients were included: 26 (49.1%) bearing oral cavity tumors, 17 (32.1%) localized in the larynx and 10 (18.8%) in the pharynx. Three patients (5.7%) were at stage I, 5 (9.4%) stage II, 15 (28.3%) stage III and 30 (56.6%) at stage IV. MUC1 tumor expression was studied by immunohistochemistry employing two anti-MUC1 antibodies: CT33, anti cytoplasmic tail MUC1 polyclonal antibody (Ab) and C595 anti-peptidic core MUC1 monoclonal antibody. Serum levels of MUC1 and free anti-MUC1 antibodies were detected by ELISA and circulating immune complexes (CIC) by precipitation in polyethylene glycol (PEG) 3.5%; MUC1 isolation from circulating immune complexes was performed by protein A-sepharose CL-4B affinity chromatography followed by SDS-PAGE and Western blot. Statistical analysis consisted in Multivariate Principal Component Analysis (PCA); ANOVA test (Tukey's test) was employed to find differences among groups; nonparametrical correlations (Kendall's Tau) were applied when necessary. Statistical significance was set to p < 0.05 in all cases. RESULTS: MUC1 cytoplasmic tail was detected in 40/50 (80%) and MUC1 protein core in 9/50 (18%) samples while serum MUC1 levels were elevated in 8/53 (15%) patients. A significant statistical correlation was found between MUC1 serum levels and anti-MUC1 IgG free antibodies, while a negative correlation between MUC1 serum levels and anti-MUC1 IgM free antibodies was found. Circulating immune complexes were elevated in 16/53 (30%) samples and were also statistically associated with advanced tumor stage. MUC1 was identified as an antigenic component of IgG circulating immune complexes. Moreover, poorly differentiated tumors were inversely correlated with tumor and serum MUC1 detection and positively correlated with node involvement and tumor mass. CONCLUSION: Possibly, tumor cells produce MUC1 mucin which is liberated to the circulation and captured by IgG antibodies forming MUC1-IgG-CIC. Another interesting conclusion is that poorly differentiated tumors are inversely correlated with tumor and serum MUC1 detection

VideoAcM: a transitive and temporal access control mechanism for collaborative video database production applications

Access control models play an important role in database management systems. In general, there are three basic access control models: Discretionary Access Control (DAC), Mandatory Access Control (MAC), and Non-Discretionary Access Control (NAC). Currently, the majority of commercial DBMSs provide only DAC, and some temporal access control models have been derived based on either DAC or NAC. In the context of video database applications, since the structure of video data is complex in nature, it requires a specific and tailor-made access control mechanism which should include MAC as well as DAC and NAC. However, only few efforts have been put on access control models for video database systems. In this paper, a transitive and temporal access control mechanism for collaborative video database production applications has been proposed, which subsumes the properties of DAC, MAC, and NAC. Moreover, our proposed mechanism is integrated with the intellectual property concerns by constructing an access control hierarchy of video data with authorization rules. In particular, our mechanism can derive novel authorization rules not only on conventional client-data access control, but also on data-data access control. Besides video data, the proposed model is applicable to other data types which exhibit a hierarchical data structure

Social capital and cigarette smoking: New empirics featuring the Norwegian HUNT data

Using a rich Norwegian longitudinal data set, this study explores the effects of different social capital variables on the probability of cigarette smoking. There are four social capital variables available in two waves of our data set. Our results based on probit (and OLS) analyses (with municipality fixed-effects) show that the likelihood of smoking participation is negatively and significantly associated with social capital attributes, namely, community trust (–0.017), participation in organizational activities (–0.032), and cohabitation (–0.045). Significant negative associations were also observed in panel data, pooled OLS, and random effects models for community trust (–0.024; −0.010) and cohabitation (–0.040; −0.032). Fixed-effects models also showed significant negative effects for cohabitation (–0.018). Estimates of alternative instrumental variables (IV) based on recursive bivariate probit and IV-GMM models also confirmed negative and significant effects for three of its characteristics: cohabitation (–0.030; −0.046), community trust (–0.065; −0.075), and participation in organizational activities (–0.035; −0.046). The limitations of our conclusions are discussed, and the significance of our study for the field of social capital and health is described, along with suggested avenues for future research

The contribution of crop-rotation organization in farms to crop-mosaic patterning at local landscape scales

International audienceFarming activities are major drivers of the landscape-related ecological patterning because of their multiple influences on both non-arable and arable landscape elements and mosaics. Uncertainties still remain about the way individual farmer decisions and the aggregation of their activities in space contribute to these mosaics at local landscape scales, therefore about possible levers of action in farms for ensuring sustainable landscapes. The general objective of the present study was to give an assessment of the way farms contribute to crop-mosaic patterning at local landscape scales. We developed a method for comparing five contrasted local study cases of agriculture (five farm sets), by combining a statistical modeling of crop-rotation organization in farms, from empirical data, and a crop- mosaic simulation approach, applied in each case. Statistical rules of crop rotation allocation to fields in farms were defined from tests involving the following potential allocation factors: (1) farmhousehold– enterprise, (2) field physical environment and (3) farm territory configuration. The statistical rules set up from each set of factors were implemented in rule-based simulations separately for each of the five local study cases.Weused a raster representation of fields (one pixel by field), to concentrate on crop-rotation management-related effects, independently from the shape of fields and of diverse perennial landscape elements. An index of connectedness was measured for each mosaic, and was used as an indicator of crop-clustering effects due to crop-rotation organization in farms. The results showed that crop- clustering effects at local landscape scales differed according to the following factors of crop-mosaic patterning: (a) the spatial distribution of crop-rotation allocation factors over the field mosaic, (b) the specialization of crop rotations to their allocation factors, and (c) the development of crop rotations over time. These results also demonstrated that crop rotations, even if run as regular crop sequences over time, lead to significant year to year crop-mosaic variability. The results finally made explicit the differences between local study cases. We conclude from these results by pinpointing trade-offs to find between farm and landscape management