Role of rain as perception aid in assessing wind speeds and associated personal risks

Extreme event perception drives personal risks and, consequently, dictates household decision-making before, during, and after extreme events. Given this, increasing the extreme event perception accuracy of the public is important to improving decision-making in extreme event scenarios; however, limited research has been done on this subject. Results of a laboratory experiment, in which 76 human participants were exposed to hurricane-strength weather conditions, and asked to estimate their intensities and associated personal risks, is presented in this article. Participants were exposed to a range of identical wind speeds (20, 40, 60 mph) with (8 in/hr) and without rain. They then provided estimates of the perceived wind and rain (when present) speeds, and associated personal risks on a nominal scale of 0 to 10. Improvements in the accuracy of wind-speed perception at higher speeds were observed when rain was present in the wind field (41.5 and 69.1 mph) than when it was not (45.2 and 75.8 mph) for 40 and 60 mph wind speed exposures respectively. In contrast, risk perceptions were similar for both rain and non-rain conditions. This is particularly interesting because participants failed to estimate rain intensities (both horizontal and wind-driven rain) by a significant margin. We discuss the possible implications of rain as a perception aid to wind and the viability of using perception aids to better convey extreme weather risks. The article is concluded with revisiting discussions about the implications of past hurricane experience on wind intensity perception, personal risk assessment, and future directions in extreme weather risk perception research

Energy use assessment of educational buildings: Toward a campus-wide sustainable energy policy

The purpose of this article is to assess the viability of blanket sustainability policies, such as Building Rating Systems in achieving energy efficiency in university campus buildings. We analyzed the energy consumption trends of 10 LEED-certified buildings and 14 non-LEED certified buildings at a major university in the US. Energy Use Intensity (EUI) of the LEED buildings was significantly higher (EUILEED= 331.20 kBtu/sf/yr) than non-LEED buildings (EUInon-LEED=222.70 kBtu/sf/yr); however, the median EUI values were comparable (EUILEED= 172.64 and EUInon-LEED= 178.16). Because the distributions of EUI values were non-symmetrical in this dataset, both measures can be used for energy comparisons—this was also evident when EUI computations exclude outliers, EUILEED=171.82 and EUInon-LEED=195.41. Additional analyses were conducted to further explore the impact of LEED certification on university campus buildings energy performance. No statistically significant differences were observed between certified and non-certified buildings through a range of robust comparison criteria. These findings were then leveraged to devise strategies to achieve sustainable energy policies for university campus buildings and to identify potential issues with portfolio level building energy performance comparisons

Predicting Roof Pressures on a Low-Rise Structure From Freestream Turbulence Using Artificial Neural Networks

This paper presents a generalized approach for predicting (i.e., interpolating) the magnitude and distribution of roof pressures near separated flow regions on a low-rise structure based on freestream turbulent flow conditions. A feed-forward multilayer artificial neural network (ANN) using a backpropagation (BP) training algorithm is employed to predict the mean, root-mean-square (RMS), and peak pressure coefficients on three geometrically scaled (1:50, 1:30, and 1:20) low-rise building models for a family of upwind approach flow conditions. A comprehensive dataset of recently published boundary layer wind tunnel (BLWT) pressure measurements was utilized for training, validation, and evaluation of the ANN model. On average, predicted ANN peak pressure coefficients for a group of pressure taps located near the roof corner were within 5.1, 6.9, and 7.7% of BLWT observations for the 1:50, 1:30, and 1:20 models, respectively. Further, very good agreement was found between predicted ANN mean and RMS pressure coefficients and BLWT data

British Valued Life Activities Scale [British VLAs]

Background The Valued Life Activities Scale (VLAs) measures difficulty in daily activities and social participation. With various versions involving a different number of items, we have linguistically and culturally adopted the full VLAs (33-items) and psychometrically tested it in adults with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases in the United Kingdom. Methods Participants with Rheumatoid Arthritis, Ankylosing Spondylitis, Chronic Pain/ Fibromyalgia, Chronic Hand/ Upper Limb Conditions, Osteoarthritis, Systemic Lupus, Systemic Sclerosis and Primary Sjogren’s Syndrome were recruited from out-patient clinics in National Health Service Hospitals, General Practice and patient organisations in the UK. Phase1 involved linguistic and cultural adaptation: forward translation to British English; synthesis; expert panel review and cognitive debriefing interviews. In Phase2 participants completed postal questionnaires to assess internal construct validity using (i) Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) (ii) Mokken scaling and (iii) Rasch model. Results Responders (n = 1544) had mean age of 59 years (SD13.3) and 77.2% women. A CFA failed to support a total score from the 33-items (Chi Square 3552:df 464: p < 0.0001). Mokken scaling indicated a strong non-parametric association between items. Fit to the Rasch model indicated that the VLAs was characterised by multidimensionality and item misfit, which may have been influenced by clusters of residual item correlations. An item banking approach resolved a 25-item calibrated set whose application could accommodate the ‘does not apply to me’ response option. Conclusions The UK version of the VLAs failed to satisfy classical and modern psychometric standards for complete item sets. However, as the scale is not usually applied in complete format, an item bank approach calibrated 25 items with fit to the Rasch model. Suitable Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT) software could implement the item set, giving patients the choice of whether an item applies to them, or not

Sound Signalling in Orthoptera

The sounds produced by orthopteran insects are very diverse. They are widely studied for the insight they give into acoustic behaviour and the biophysical aspects of sound production and hearing, as well as the transduction of sound to neural signals in the ear and the subsequent processing of information in the central nervous system. The study of sound signalling is a multidisciplinary area of research, with a strong physiological contribution. This review considers recent research in physiology and the links with related areas of acoustic work on the Orthoptera

Lawson criterion for ignition exceeded in an inertial fusion experiment

For more than half a century, researchers around the world have been engaged in attempts to achieve fusion ignition as a proof of principle of various fusion concepts. Following the Lawson criterion, an ignited plasma is one where the fusion heating power is high enough to overcome all the physical processes that cool the fusion plasma, creating a positive thermodynamic feedback loop with rapidly increasing temperature. In inertially confined fusion, ignition is a state where the fusion plasma can begin "burn propagation" into surrounding cold fuel, enabling the possibility of high energy gain. While "scientific breakeven" (i.e., unity target gain) has not yet been achieved (here target gain is 0.72, 1.37 MJ of fusion for 1.92 MJ of laser energy), this Letter reports the first controlled fusion experiment, using laser indirect drive, on the National Ignition Facility to produce capsule gain (here 5.8) and reach ignition by nine different formulations of the Lawson criterion

Genomic reconstruction of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in England.

The evolution of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus leads to new variants that warrant timely epidemiological characterization. Here we use the dense genomic surveillance data generated by the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium to reconstruct the dynamics of 71 different lineages in each of 315 English local authorities between September 2020 and June 2021. This analysis reveals a series of subepidemics that peaked in early autumn 2020, followed by a jump in transmissibility of the B.1.1.7/Alpha lineage. The Alpha variant grew when other lineages declined during the second national lockdown and regionally tiered restrictions between November and December 2020. A third more stringent national lockdown suppressed the Alpha variant and eliminated nearly all other lineages in early 2021. Yet a series of variants (most of which contained the spike E484K mutation) defied these trends and persisted at moderately increasing proportions. However, by accounting for sustained introductions, we found that the transmissibility of these variants is unlikely to have exceeded the transmissibility of the Alpha variant. Finally, B.1.617.2/Delta was repeatedly introduced in England and grew rapidly in early summer 2021, constituting approximately 98% of sampled SARS-CoV-2 genomes on 26 June 2021