A unifying model to estimate the effect of heat stress in the human innate immunity during physical activities

Abstract Public health is threatened by climate change and extreme temperature events worldwide. Differences in health predispositions, access to cooling infrastructure and occupation raises an issue of heat-related health inequality in those vulnerable and disadvantaged demographic groups. To address these issues, a comprehensive understanding of the effect of elevated body temperatures on human biological systems and overall health is urgently needed. In this paper we look at the inner workings of the human innate immunity under exposure to heat stress induced through exposure to environment and physical exertion. We couple two experimentally validated computational models: the innate immune system and thermal regulation of the human body. We first study the dynamics of critical indicators of innate immunity as a function of human core temperature. Next, we identify environmental and physical activity regimes that lead to core temperature levels that can potentially compromise the performance of the human innate immunity. Finally, to take into account the response of innate immunity to various intensities of physical activities, we utilise the dynamic core temperatures generated by a thermal regulation model. We compare the dynamics of all key players of the innate immunity for a variety of stresses like running a marathon, doing construction work, and leisure walking at speed of 4 km/h, all in the setting of a hot and humid tropical climate such as present in Singapore. We find that exposure to moderate heat stress leading to core temperatures within the mild febrile range (37, 38] \,^{\circ }\hbox {C} ∘ C , nudges the innate immune system into activation and improves the efficiency of its response. Overheating corresponding to core temperatures beyond 38 \,^{\circ }\hbox {C} ∘ C , however, has detrimental effects on the performance of the innate immune system, as it further induces inflammation, which causes a series of reactions that may lead to the non-resolution of the ongoing inflammation. Among the three physical activities considered in our simulated scenarios (marathon, construction work, and walking), marathon induces the highest level of inflammation that challenges the innate immune response with its resolution. Our study advances the current state of research towards understanding the implications of heat exposure for such an essential physiological system as the innate immunity. Although we find that among considered physical activities, a marathon of 2 h and 46 min induces the highest level of inflammation, it must be noted that construction work done on a daily basis under the hot and humid tropical climate, can produce a continuous level of inflammation triggering moieties stretched at a longer timeline beating the negative effects of running a marathon. Our study demonstrates that the performance of the innate immune system can be severely compromised by the exposure to heat stress and physical exertion. This poses significant risks to health especially to those with limited access to cooling infrastructures. This is due in part to having low income, or having to work on outdoor settings, which is the case for construction workers. These risks to public health should be addressed through individual and population-level measures via behavioural adaptation and provision of the cooling infrastructure in outdoor environments

Data-driven Travel Demand Modelling and Agent-based Traffic Simulation in Amsterdam Urban Area

AbstractThe goal of this project is the development of a large-scale agent-based traffic simulation system for Amsterdam urban area, validated on sensor data and adjusted for decision support in critical situations and for policy making in sustainable city development, emission control and electric car research. In this paper we briefly describe the agent-based simulation workflow and give the details of our data- driven approach for (1) modeling the road network of Amsterdam metropolitan area extended by major national roads, (2) recreating the car owners population distribution from municipality demographic data, (3) modeling the agent activity based on travel survey, and (4) modeling the inflow and outflow boundary conditions based on the traffic sensor data. The models are implemented in scientific Python and MATSim agent-based freeware. Simulation results of 46.5 thousand agents -with travel plans sampled from the model distributions- show that travel demand model is consistent, but should be improved to correspond with sensor data. The next steps in our project are: extensive validation, calibration and testing of large-scale scenarios, including critical events like the major power outage in the Netherlands (doi:10.1016/j.procs.2015.11.039), and modelling emissions and heat islands caused by traffic jams

Cosmological solutions in multidimensional model with multiple exponential potential

A family of cosmological solutions with $(n+1)$ Ricci-flat spaces in the theory with several scalar fields and multiple exponential potential is obtained when coupling vectors in exponents obey certain relations. Two subclasses of solutions with power-law and exponential behaviour of scale factors are singled out. It is proved that power-law solutions may take place only when coupling vectors are linearly independent and exponential dependence occurs for linearly dependent set of coupling vectors. A subfamily of solutions with accelerated expansion is singled out. A generalized isotropization behaviours of certain classes of general solutions are found. In quantum case exact solutions to Wheeler-DeWitt equation are obtained and special "ground state" wave functions are considered.Comment: 22 pages, 1 figur

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Search for dark matter produced in association with a hadronically decaying vector boson in pp collisions at sqrt (s) = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search is presented for dark matter produced in association with a hadronically decaying W or Z boson using 3.2 fb−1 of pp collisions at View the MathML sources=13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Events with a hadronic jet compatible with a W or Z boson and with large missing transverse momentum are analysed. The data are consistent with the Standard Model predictions and are interpreted in terms of both an effective field theory and a simplified model containing dark matter

Search for supersymmetry in events with a photon, a lepton, and missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV

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