A CCTV-based analysis of target selection by guardians intervening in interpersonal conflicts

Guardians are a potential resource of conflict de-escalation but we still know little about their actual behaviour. In this article we investigate whom among the antagonists a guardian selects as a target when they intervene in an interpersonal conflict. We investigate this using CCTV footage from Amsterdam (the Netherlands) of 46 interpersonal conflicts in public spaces involving 641 interventions by 176 individuals. We find that guardians are more likely to target antagonists: (1) who have performed the most aggressive behaviours, (2) who are not simultaneously targeted by other guardians, (3) who are from their own social group, (4) who are men. The analysis shows that the behaviour of intervening guardians is shaped by multiple aspects of the complex and often ambiguous conflict situations

Exact steady state solution of the Boltzmann equation: A driven 1-D inelastic Maxwell gas

The exact nonequilibrium steady state solution of the nonlinear Boltzmann equation for a driven inelastic Maxwell model was obtained by Ben-Naim and Krapivsky [Phys. Rev. E 61, R5 (2000)] in the form of an infinite product for the Fourier transform of the distribution function $f(c)$. In this paper we have inverted the Fourier transform to express $f(c)$ in the form of an infinite series of exponentially decaying terms. The dominant high energy tail is exponential, $f(c)\simeq A_0\exp(-a|c|)$, where $a\equiv 2/\sqrt{1-\alpha^2}$ and the amplitude $A_0$ is given in terms of a converging sum. This is explicitly shown in the totally inelastic limit ($\alpha\to 0$) and in the quasi-elastic limit ($\alpha\to 1$). In the latter case, the distribution is dominated by a Maxwellian for a very wide range of velocities, but a crossover from a Maxwellian to an exponential high energy tail exists for velocities $|c-c_0|\sim 1/\sqrt{q}$ around a crossover velocity $c_0\simeq \ln q^{-1}/\sqrt{q}$, where $q\equiv (1-\alpha)/2\ll 1$. In this crossover region the distribution function is extremely small, $\ln f(c_0)\simeq q^{-1}\ln q$.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures; a table and a few references added; to be published in PR

Genetic partitioning of interleukin-6 signalling in mice dissociates Stat3 from Smad3-mediated lung fibrosis

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a fatal disease that is unresponsive to current therapies and characterized by excessive collagen deposition and subsequent fibrosis. While inflammatory cytokines, including interleukin (IL)-6, are elevated in IPF, the molecular mechanisms that underlie this disease are incompletely understood, although the development of fibrosis is believed to depend on canonical transforming growth factor (TGF)-β signalling. We examined bleomycin-induced inflammation and fibrosis in mice carrying a mutation in the shared IL-6 family receptor gp130. Using genetic complementation, we directly correlate the extent of IL-6-mediated, excessive Stat3 activity with inflammatory infiltrates in the lung and the severity of fibrosis in corresponding gp130757F mice. The extent of fibrosis was attenuated in B lymphocyte-deficient gp130757F;µMT−/− compound mutant mice, but fibrosis still occurred in their Smad3−/− counterparts consistent with the capacity of excessive Stat3 activity to induce collagen 1α1 gene transcription independently of canonical TGF-β/Smad3 signalling. These findings are of therapeutic relevance, since we confirmed abundant STAT3 activation in fibrotic lungs from IPF patients and showed that genetic reduction of Stat3 protected mice from bleomycin-induced lung fibrosis

Deceleration and trapping of heavy diatomic molecules using a ring-decelerator

We present an analysis of the deceleration and trapping of heavy diatomic molecules in low-field seeking states by a moving electric potential. This moving potential is created by a 'ring-decelerator', which consists of a series of ring-shaped electrodes to which oscillating high voltages are applied. Particle trajectory simulations have been used to analyze the deceleration and trapping efficiency for a group of molecules that is of special interest for precision measurements of fundamental discrete symmetries. For the typical case of the SrF molecule in the (N,M) = (2, 0) state, the ring-decelerator is shown to outperform traditional and alternate-gradient Stark decelerators by at least an order of magnitude. If further cooled by a stage of laser cooling, the decelerated molecules allow for a sensitivity gain in a parity violation measurement, compared to a cryogenic molecular beam experiment, of almost two orders of magnitude

Volumetric Changes of Mud on Mars: Evidence from Laboratory Simulations

International audienc

Overcoming challenges to data quality in the ASPREE clinical trial

© 2019 The Author(s). Background: Large-scale studies risk generating inaccurate and missing data due to the complexity of data collection. Technology has the potential to improve data quality by providing operational support to data collectors. However, this potential is under-explored in community-based trials. The Aspirin in reducing events in the elderly (ASPREE) trial developed a data suite that was specifically designed to support data collectors: the ASPREE Web Accessible Relational Database (AWARD). This paper describes AWARD and the impact of system design on data quality. Methods: AWARD's operational requirements, conceptual design, key challenges and design solutions for data quality are presented. Impact of design features is assessed through comparison of baseline data collected prior to implementation of key functionality (n = 1000) with data collected post implementation (n = 18,114). Overall data quality is assessed according to data category. Results: At baseline, implementation of user-driven functionality reduced staff error (from 0.3% to 0.01%), out-of-range data entry (from 0.14% to 0.04%) and protocol deviations (from 0.4% to 0.08%). In the longitudinal data set, which contained more than 39 million data values collected within AWARD, 96.6% of data values were entered within specified query range or found to be accurate upon querying. The remaining data were missing (3.4%). Participant non-attendance at scheduled study activity was the most common cause of missing data. Costs associated with cleaning data in ASPREE were lower than expected compared with reports from other trials. Conclusions: Clinical trials undertake complex operational activity in order to collect data, but technology rarely provides sufficient support. We find the AWARD suite provides proof of principle that designing technology to support data collectors can mitigate known causes of poor data quality and produce higher-quality data. Health information technology (IT) products that support the conduct of scheduled activity in addition to traditional data entry will enhance community-based clinical trials. A standardised framework for reporting data quality would aid comparisons across clinical trials