Vibrotactile pedals : provision of haptic feedback to support economical driving

The use of haptic feedback is currently an underused modality in the driving environment, especially with respect to vehicle manufacturers. This exploratory study evaluates the effects of a vibrotactile (or haptic) accelerator pedal on car driving performance and perceived workload using a driving simulator. A stimulus was triggered when the driver exceeded a 50% throttle threshold, past which is deemed excessive for economical driving. Results showed significant decreases in mean acceleration values, and maximum and excess throttle use when the haptic pedal was active as compared to a baseline condition. As well as the positive changes to driver behaviour, subjective workload decreased when driving with the haptic pedal as compared to when drivers were simply asked to drive economically. The literature suggests that the haptic processing channel offers a largely untapped resource in the driving environment, and could provide information without overloading the other attentional resource pools used in driving

Right ventricular function declines after cardiac surgery in adult patients with congenital heart disease

Right ventricular function (RVF) is often selectively declined after coronary artery bypass graft surgery. In adult patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) the incidence and persistence of declined RVF after cardiac surgery is unknown. The current study aimed to describe RVF after cardiac surgery in these patients. Adult CHD patients operated between January 2008 and December 2009 in the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam were studied. Clinical characteristics, laboratory tests, surgical data and intensive care unit outcome were obtained from medical records. RVF was measured by trans-thoracic echocardiography (TTE) and expressed by tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (TAPSE), tissue Doppler imaging (RV S’) and myocardial performance index (MPI) pre-operatively and direct, at intermediate and late follow up. Of a total of 185 operated, 86 patients (mean age 39 ± 13 years, 54% male) had echo data available. There was a significant fall in RVF after cardiac surgery. TAPSE and RV S’ were significantly higher and MPI was significantly lower pre-operatively compared to direct post-operative values (TAPSE 22 ± 5 versus 13 ± 3 mm (P < 0.01), RV S’ 11 ± 4 versus 8 ± 2 cm/s (P < 0.01) and MPI 0.36 ± 0.14 vs 0.62 ± 0.25; P < 0.01). There were no significant differences in left ventricular function pre-operatively compared to post-operative values. Right-sided surgery was performed in 33, left-sided surgery in 37 and both sided surgery in 16 patients. Decline in RVF was equal for those groups. Patients with severe decline in RVF, were patients who underwent tricuspid valve surgery. Decline in RVF was associated with post-operative myocardial creatine kinase level and maximal troponin T level. There was no association between decline in RVF and clinical outcome on the intensive care unit. 18 months post-operatively, most RVF parameters had recovered to pre-operative values, but TAPSE which remained still lower (P < 0.01). CHD patients have a decline in RVF directly after cardiac surgery, regardless the side of surgery. Although a gradual improvement was observed, complete recovery was not seen 18 months post-operatively

Blood-Based Immune Profiling Combined with Machine Learning Discriminates Psoriatic Arthritis from Psoriasis Patients

Psoriasis (Pso) is a chronic inflammatory skin disease, and up to 30% of Pso patients develop psoriatic arthritis (PsA), which can lead to irreversible joint damage. Early detection of PsA in Pso patients is crucial for timely treatment but difficult for dermatologists to implement. We, therefore, aimed to find disease-specific immune profiles, discriminating Pso from PsA patients, possibly facilitating the correct identification of Pso patients in need of referral to a rheumatology clinic. The phenotypes of peripheral blood immune cells of consecutive Pso and PsA patients were analyzed, and disease-specific immune profiles were identified via a machine learning approach. This approach resulted in a random forest classification model capable of distinguishing PsA from Pso (mean AUC = 0.95). Key PsA-classifying cell subsets selected included increased proportions of differentiated CD4+CD196+CD183-CD194+ and CD4+CD196-CD183-CD194+ T-cells and reduced proportions of CD196+ and CD197+ monocytes, memory CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell subsets and CD4+ regulatory T-cells. Within PsA, joint scores showed an association with memory CD8+CD45RA-CD197- effector T-cells and CD197+ monocytes. To conclude, through the integration of in-depth flow cytometry and machine learning, we identified an immune cell profile discriminating PsA from Pso. This immune profile may aid in timely diagnosing PsA in Pso

The rate of telomere loss is related to maximum lifespan in birds

Telomeres are highly conserved regions of DNA that protect the ends of linear chromosomes. The loss of telomeres can signal an irreversible change to a cell's state, including cellular senescence. Senescent cells no longer divide and can damage nearby healthy cells, thus potentially placing them at the crossroads of cancer and ageing. While the epidemiology, cellular and molecular biology of telomeres are well studied, a newer field exploring telomere biology in the context of ecology and evolution is just emerging. With work to date focusing on how telomere shortening relates to individual mortality, less is known about how telomeres relate to ageing rates across species. Here, we investigated telomere length in cross-sectional samples from 19 bird species to determine how rates of telomere loss relate to interspecific variation in maximum lifespan. We found that bird species with longer lifespans lose fewer telomeric repeats each year compared with species with shorter lifespans. In addition, phylogenetic analysis revealed that the rate of telomere loss is evolutionarily conserved within bird families. This suggests that the physiological causes of telomere shortening, or the ability to maintain telomeres, are features that may be responsible for, or co-evolved with, different lifespans observed across species.This article is part of the theme issue 'Understanding diversity in telomere dynamics'

Chromatic periodic activity down to 120 MHz in a Fast Radio Burst

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are extragalactic astrophysical transients whose brightness requires emitters that are highly energetic, yet compact enough to produce the short, millisecond-duration bursts. FRBs have thus far been detected between 300 MHz and 8 GHz, but lower-frequency emission has remained elusive. A subset of FRBs is known to repeat, and one of those sources, FRB 20180916B, does so with a 16.3 day activity period. Using simultaneous Apertif and LOFAR data, we show that FRB 20180916B emits down to 120 MHz, and that its activity window is both narrower and earlier at higher frequencies. Binary wind interaction models predict a narrower periodic activity window at lower frequencies, which is the opposite of our observations. Our detections establish that low-frequency FRB emission can escape the local medium. For bursts of the same fluence, FRB 20180916B is more active below 200 MHz than at 1.4 GHz. Combining our results with previous upper-limits on the all-sky FRB rate at 150 MHz, we find that there are 3-450 FRBs/sky/day above 50 Jy ms at 90% confidence. We are able to rule out the scenario in which companion winds cause FRB periodicity. We also demonstrate that some FRBs live in clean environments that do not absorb or scatter low-frequency radiation.Comment: 50 pages, 14 figures, 3 tables, submitte

Drug use and nightlife: more than just dance music

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Research over the last decade has focused almost exclusively on the association between electronic music and MDMA (3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine or "ecstasy") or other stimulant drug use in clubs. Less attention has been given to other nightlife venues and music preferences, such as rock music or southern/funky music. This study aims to examine a broader spectrum of nightlife, beyond dance music. It looks at whether certain factors influence the frequency of illegal drug and alcohol use: the frequency of going to certain nightlife venues in the previous month (such as, pubs, clubs or goa parties); listening to rock music, dance music or southern and funky music; or sampling venues (such as, clubs, dance events or rock festivals). The question of how these nightlife variables influence the use of popular drugs like alcohol, MDMA, cannabis, cocaine and amphetamines is addressed.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study sample consisted of 775 visitors of dance events, clubs and rock festivals in Belgium. Study participants answered a survey on patterns of going out, music preferences and drug use. Odds ratios were used to determine whether the odds of being an illegal substance user are higher for certain nightlife-related variables. Furthermore, five separate ordinal regression analyses were used to investigate drug use in relation to music preference, venues visited during the last month and sampling venue.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Respondents who used illegal drugs were 2.5 times more likely to report that they prefer dance music. Goa party visitors were nearly 5 times more likely to use illegal drugs. For those who reported visiting clubs, the odds of using illegal drugs were nearly 2 times higher. Having gone to a pub in the last month was associated with both more frequent alcohol use and more frequent illegal substance use. People who reported liking rock music and attendees of rock festivals used drugs less frequently.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>It was concluded that a more extended recreational environment, beyond dance clubs, is associated with frequent drug use. This stresses the importance of targeted prevention in various recreational venues tailored to the specific needs of the setting and its visitors.</p

Radial variation of attenuation and star formation in the largest late-type disks observed with GALEX

For a sample of 43 nearby, late-type galaxies, we have investigated the radial variation of both the current star formation rate and the dust-induced UV light attenuation. To do this we have cross-correlated IRAS images and GALEX observations for each of these galaxies, and compiled observations of the gas (CO and HI) and metal-abundance gradients found in the literature. We find that attenuation correlates with metallicity. We then use the UV profiles, corrected for attenuation, to study several variants of the Schmidt law and conclude that our results are compatible with a simple law similar to the one of Kennicutt but extending smoothly to lower surface densities, but with considerable scatter. We do not detect an abrupt break in the UV light at the threshold radius derived from H-alpha data (at which the H-alpha profile shows a break and beyond which only a few HII regions are usually found). We interpret the H-alpha sudden break not as a change in the star formation regime (as often suggested) but as the vanishingly small number of ionizing stars corresponding to low levels of star formation.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figures, accepted for the GALEX special issue of ApJS. For a version with high-resolution figures, see http://www.oamp.fr/boissier/preprint/preprint.htm

Modeling denitrification in aquatic sediments

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2008. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Biogeochemistry 93 (2009): 159-178, doi:10.1007/s10533-008-9270-z.Sediment denitrification is a major pathway of fixed nitrogen loss from aquatic systems. Due to technical difficulties in measuring this process and its spatial and temporal variability, estimates of local, regional and global denitrification have to rely on a combination of measurements and models. Here we review approaches to describing denitrification in aquatic sediments, ranging from mechanistic diagenetic models to empirical parameterizations of nitrogen fluxes across the sediment-water interface. We also present a compilation of denitrification measurements and ancillary data for different aquatic systems, ranging from freshwater to marine. Based on this data compilation we reevaluate published parameterizations of denitrification. We recommend that future models of denitrification use (1) a combination of mechanistic diagenetic models and measurements where bottom waters are temporally hypoxic or anoxic, and (2) the much simpler correlations between denitrification and sediment oxygen consumption for oxic bottom waters. For our data set, inclusion of bottom water oxygen and nitrate concentrations in a multivariate regression did not improve the statistical fit.Financial support for AEG to work on the manuscript came from NSF NSF-DEB-0423565. KF, DB and DDT acknowledge support from NOAA CHRP grant NA07NOS4780191