Development of electric scooter alerting sounds using psychoacoustical metrics

In recent years electric micromobility transportation, including electric scooters, has seen a surge in popularity due to technological advances and the move to lower emission transport. Although offering a range of societal benefits, such as reduced pollution and increased personal mobility, concerns have been raised regarding the implications for pedestrian safety, most notably within the blind and partially sighted community. The issue of pedestrian safety is well studied in the context of larger electric vehicles (EVs), and indeed regulations are now in place that specify mandatory Acoustic Vehicle Alerting Systems (AVAS) for such vehicles. However, limited research has been done on the development of acoustic alerting systems for micromobility. In this paper, the development of an electric scooter (e-scooter) AVAS is considered by taking a perception-influenced design approach to designing alert sounds that optimise detectability and annoyance. A listening experiment has been conducted using ambisonic soundscapes and simulated auralisations of e-scooter passes at 20 km/h, in which a detection-based task and annoyance rating task were conducted. Objective metrics for detectability and annoyance were subsequently evaluated in relation to the subjective responses, so as to enable a more focused approach to the development of alert sounds. Results show that without additional alert sounds, the rate of detection for e-scooters in a soundscape of 60 dBA is as low as 23%. Regression analysis showed that the objective metric of Zwicker’s psychoacoustic annoyance is a useful predictor of subjective annoyance for AVAS sounds, with a coefficient of determination of R^2 = 0.96, and explains more variance than other metrics previously reported in the literature. Partial loudness was also studied as a predictor of detectability, with strong positive association seen (R^2 = 0.9). Of the alert sounds evaluated, those comprising pure tones with frequency content in the 800 Hz - 1 kHz range, and with amplitude modulation or impulsive characteristics, offered the greatest balance between detectability and annoyance. This study offers much needed research into detectability of electric micromobility transport in a range of environmental noise conditions, and furthermore provides objective metrics for the development of micromobility AVAS sounds going forward

Can transplanting enhance mobile marine invertebrates in ecologically engineered rock pools?

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd The field of eco-engineering has burgeoned in recent years in response to the proliferation of artificial structures. Adding water-retaining features to seawalls has been successful in increasing biodiversity relative to the surrounding structure. Artificial rock pools may not, however, completely mimic natural rock pools. Here, we compared natural colonisation, through dispersal and recruitment, of intertidal mobile species to water-retaining flowerpots on seawalls with that into rock pools. This represents the more usual ‘passive’ approach to eco-engineering where features are built to enhance biodiversity and are allowed to colonise naturally, as opposed to seeding or transplanting organisms to features. While flowerpots supported some mobile species not found on the seawall, other species common on natural shores did not recruit to flowerpots. Thus, in a second experiment we tested the effectiveness of an ‘active’ approach through transplanting mobile organisms to flowerpots to expedite the colonisation process. For the species examined, however, most individuals did not stay in the flowerpots for more than 24 h after being transplanted. Further understanding of the processes (e.g. dispersal distances, recruitment) influencing colonisation of eco-engineered habitats is needed to effectively inform management of marine infrastructure, particularly for projects targeted at restoration rather than enhancement

Associations between cardiorespiratory fitness, physical activity and clustered cardiometabolic risk in children and adolescents: the HAPPY study

Clustering of cardiometabolic risk factors can occur during childhood and predisposes individuals to cardiometabolic disease. This study calculated clustered cardiometabolic risk in 100 children and adolescents aged 10-14 years (59 girls) and explored differences according to cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) levels and time spent at different physical activity (PA) intensities. CRF was determined using a maximal cycle ergometer test, and PA was assessed using accelerometry. A cardiometabolic risk score was computed as the sum of the standardised scores for waist circumference, blood pressure, total cholesterol/high-density lipoprotein ratio, triglycerides and glucose. Differences in clustered cardiometabolic risk between fit and unfit participants, according to previously proposed health-related threshold values, and between tertiles for PA subcomponents were assessed using ANCOVA. Clustered risk was significantly lower (p < 0.001) in the fit group (mean 1.21 ± 3.42) compared to the unfit group (mean -0.74 ± 2.22), while no differences existed between tertiles for any subcomponent of PA. Conclusion These findings suggest that CRF may have an important cardioprotective role in children and adolescents and highlights the importance of promoting CRF in youth

Virological outcomes in ARV-naïve patients switching or not from a first successful boosted PI-regimen to efavirenz, nevirapine or abacavir regimens

International audiencen.

Characterization of Burkholderia rhizoxinica and B. endofungorum Isolated from Clinical Specimens

Eight isolates submitted to CDC from 1989 to 2006 from clinical specimens were initially identified as members of the genus Burkholderia based on preliminary cellular fatty acid analysis and/or 16S rRNA gene sequencing. With the recent descriptions of the new species B. rhizoxinica and B. endofungorum, which are considered endosymbiotic bacteria in Rhizopus microsporus fungi, we now identify seven of these clinical isolates as B. rhizoxinica and one as B. endofungorum based on biochemical testing, 16s rRNA, and DNA-DNA hybridization results. We also further characterize these isolates by assessing toxin production and/or by multiple locus sequence typing

Rapid Assembly of Multiple-Exon cDNA Directly from Genomic DNA

Backgrouud. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is extensively applied in gene cloning. But due to the existence of introns, low copy number of particular genes and high complexity of the eukaryotic genome, it is usually impossible to amplify and clone a gene as a full-length sequence directly from the genome by ordinary PCR based techniques. Cloning of cDNA instead of genomic DNA involves multiple steps: harvest of tissues that express the gene of interest, RNA isolation, cDNA synthesis (reverse transcription), and PCR amplification. To simplify the cloning procedures and avoid the problems caused by ubiquitously distributed durable RNases, we have developed a novel strategy allowing the cloning of any cDNA or open reading frame (ORF) with wild type sequence in any spliced form from a single genomic DNA preparation. Methodology. Our Genomic DNA Splicing technique contains the following steps: first, all exons of the gene are amplified from a genomic DNA preparation, using software-optimized, highly efficient primers residing in flanking introns. Next, the tissue-specific exon sequences are assembled into one full-length sequence by overlapping PCR with deliberately designed primers located at the splicing sites. Finally, software-optimized outmost primers are exploited for efficient amplification of the assembled full-length products. Conclusions. The Genomic DNA Splicing protocol avoids RNA preparation and reverse transcription steps, and the entire assembly process can be finished within hours, Since genamic DNA is more stable than RNA, it may be a more practical cloning strategy for many genes, especially the ones that are very large and difficult to generate a full length cDNA using oligo-dT primed reverse transcription. With this technique, we successfully doned the full-length wild type coding sequence of human polymeric immunoglobulin receptor, which is 2295 bp in length and composed of 10 exons. © 2007 An et al.published_or_final_versio