Simulating Impacts of Extreme Weather Events on Urban Transport Infrastructure in the UK

Urban areas face many risks from future climate change and their infrastructure will be placed under more pressure due to changes in climate extremes. Using the Tyndall Centre Urban Integrated Assessment Framework, this paper describes a methodology used to assess the impacts of future climate extremes on transport infrastructure in London. Utilising high-resolution projections for future climate in the UK, alongside stochastic weather generators for downscaling, urban temperature and flooding models are used to provide information on the likelihood of future extremes. These are then coupled with spatial network models of urban transport infrastructure and, using thresholds to define the point at which systems cease to function normally, disruption to the networks can be simulated. Results are shown for both extreme heat and urban surface water flooding events and the impacts on the travelling population, in terms of both disruption time and monetary cost

New antibiotics for multidrug-resistant bacterial strains: Latest research developments and future perspectives

The present work aims to examine the worrying problem of antibiotic resistance and the emergence of multidrug-resistant bacterial strains, which have now become really common in hospitals and risk hindering the global control of infectious diseases. After a careful examination of these phenomena and multiple mechanisms that make certain bacteria resistant to specific antibiotics that were originally effective in the treatment of infections caused by the same pathogens, possible strategies to stem antibiotic resistance are analyzed. This paper, therefore, focuses on the most promising new chemical compounds in the current pipeline active against multidrug-resistant organisms that are innovative compared to traditional antibiotics: Firstly, the main antibacterial agents in clinical development (Phase III) from 2017 to 2020 are listed (with special attention on the treatment of infections caused by the pathogens Neisseria gonorrhoeae, including multidrug-resistant isolates, and Clostridium difficile), and then the paper moves on to the new agents of pharmacological interest that have been approved during the same period. They include tetracycline derivatives (eravacycline), fourth generation fluoroquinolones (delafloxacin), new combinations between one β-lactam and one β-lactamase inhibitor (meropenem and vaborbactam), siderophore cephalosporins (cefiderocol), new aminoglycosides (plazomicin), and agents in development for treating drug-resistant TB (pretomanid). It concludes with the advantages that can result from the use of these compounds, also mentioning other approaches, still poorly developed, for combating antibiotic resistance: Nanoparticles delivery systems for antibiotics

Adaptation investments for transport resilience: trends and recommendations

Climate change, extreme weather and flooding threaten to increase damage and disruption to our transport networks and the services that they provide. There is increased need for adaptation to maintain current asset conditions and services, and a strategic requirement to prioritise such investments in adaptation to reduce future risks. Physical network risks will not be evenly distributed across nations (e.g. due to geographical and climate change patterns), and some regions will require more investment and adaptive interventions than others to maintain services due their vulnerability to natural hazards. Comparatively, the distribution of investment for transport infrastructure does not have a uniform spatial distribution, and can favour schemes that reduce congestion on networks with high demand without considering the actual risk of being impacted. These two issues, if unchallenged, will present an unfavourable future for areas with high network risks and low transport demand that will widen spatial inequality or resilience, mobility and potential for economic growth. This study advances a method- ological framework to analyse the spatial distribution of flood risk on UK road and rail networks in the light of potential bias of regional investment. Using GIS mapping, network data and risk analysis, regional futures are categorised and discussed. There is a clear North/South divide in transport networks at risk from potential coastal and fluvial flooding, with southern regions having 10–30% of their network situated in known flood risk areas. Investment in transport infrastructure is also disproportionately favoured towards regions with high transport demand, and peripheral regional such as wales and the South west are at risk from increase disparity from high flood risk networks and a low potential for investment. The study provides preliminary evidence for the need to consider assessment approaches for long-term investment in resilience, drawing recommendations for future research

The impact of flooding on road transport: A depth-disruption function

\ua9 2017 Transport networks underpin economic activity by enabling the movement of goods and people. During extreme weather events transport infrastructure can be directly or indirectly damaged, posing a threat to human safety, and causing significant disruption and associated economic and social impacts. Flooding, especially as a result of intense precipitation, is the predominant cause of weather-related disruption to the transport sector. Existing approaches to assess the disruptive impact of flooding on road transport fail to capture the interactions between floodwater and the transport system, typically assuming a road is fully operational or fully blocked, which is not supported by observations. In this paper we develop a relationship between depth of standing water and vehicle speed. The function that describes this relationship has been constructed by fitting a curve to video analysis supplemented by a range of quantitative data that has be extracted from existing studies and other safety literature. The proposed relationship is a good fit to the observed data, with an R-squared of 0.95. The significance of this work is that it is simple to incorporate our function into existing transport models to produce better estimates of flood induced delays and we demonstrate this with an example from the 28th June 2012 flood in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Single-photon nonlinear optics with a quantum dot in a waveguide

Strong nonlinear interactions between photons enable logic operations for both classical and quantum-information technology. Unfortunately, nonlinear interactions are usually feeble and therefore all-optical logic gates tend to be inefficient. A quantum emitter deterministically coupled to a propagating mode fundamentally changes the situation, since each photon inevitably interacts with the emitter, and highly correlated many-photon states may be created . Here we show that a single quantum dot in a photonic-crystal waveguide can be utilized as a giant nonlinearity sensitive at the single-photon level. The nonlinear response is revealed from the intensity and quantum statistics of the scattered photons, and contains contributions from an entangled photon-photon bound state. The quantum nonlinearity will find immediate applications for deterministic Bell-state measurements and single-photon transistors and paves the way to scalable waveguide-based photonic quantum-computing architectures

Risk-based bridge scour management:a survey

Scour is one of the major causes of bridge failure worldwide and results in significant economic losses through disruption to operation. This phenomenon naturally affects bridges with underwater foundations and is exacerbated during high river and/or turbulent flows (e.g. due to extreme events). When scour reaches the bottom or undermines shallow foundations it is likely to trigger various damage mechanisms that may in-fluence the safety of the structure and force asset managers to reduce traffic capacity. Currently, assessing risk of scour is a heuristic process, heavily reliant on qualitative approaches and expert opinion (e.g. visual inspections). These types of assessments typically suffer from insufficient knowledge of influencing factors (e.g. hydraulic parameters) and the requirement to rely on several assumptions (e.g. foundation depth). As a result, current scour assessment and bridge management practices do not provide reliable solutions for ad-dressing the potential risk of bridge failures. In this paper, cross-cutting needs and challenges related to the development of decision support tools for scour-risk management are highlighted and some preliminary re-sults of a literature survey are reported. The review has been performed with several objectives: (i) identify-ing scour-risk indicators describing hydrodynamic actions and the asset condition; (ii) defining indirect and direct consequences needed to assess the risks associated to different decision alternatives related to scour management; and (iii) identifying existing approaches to scour inspections and monitoring as support tools for informed decisions. The results of this survey will serve as a base for future research aimed to develop an informed decision support tool to manage scour risk at both the bridge and at the network level

Virtual Feedback for Arm Motor Function Rehabilitation after Stroke: A Randomized Controlled Trial

A single-blind randomized controlled trial was conducted to compare whether the con-tinuous visualization of a virtual teacher, during virtual reality rehabilitation, is more effective than the same treatment provided without a virtual teacher visualization, for the recovery of arm motor function after stroke. Teacher and no-teacher groups received the same amount of virtual reality therapy (i.e., 1 h/d, 5 dd/w, 4 ww) and an additional hour of conventional therapy. In the teacher group, specific feedback (“virtual-teacher”) showing the correct kinematic to be emulated by the patient was always displayed online during exercises. In the no-teacher group patients performed the same exer-cises, without the virtual-teacher assistance. The primary outcome measure was Fugl-Meyer Upper Extremity after treatment. 124 patients were enrolled and randomized, 62 per group. No differences were observed between the groups, but the same number of patients (χ2 = 0.29, p = 0.59) responded to experimental and control interventions in each group. The results confirm that the manipulation of a single instant feedback does not provide clinical advantages over multimodal feedback for arm rehabilitation after stroke, but combining 40 h conventional therapy and virtual reality provides large effect of intervention (i.e., Cohen’s d 1.14 and 0.92 for the two groups, respectively)

Is There Light at the Ends of the Tunnel? Wireless Sensor Networks for Adaptive Lighting in Road Tunnels

Existing deployments of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are often conceived as stand-alone monitoring tools. In this paper, we report instead on a deployment where the WSN is a key component of a closed-loop control system for adaptive lighting in operational road tunnels. WSN nodes along the tunnel walls report light readings to a control station, which closes the loop by setting the intensity of lamps to match a legislated curve. The ability to match dynamically the lighting levels to the actual environmental conditions improves the tunnel safety and reduces its power consumption. The use of WSNs in a closed-loop system, combined with the real-world, harsh setting of operational road tunnels, induces tighter requirements on the quality and timeliness of sensed data, as well as on the reliability and lifetime of the network. In this work, we test to what extent mainstream WSN technology meets these challenges, using a dedicated design that however relies on wellestablished techniques. The paper describes the hw/sw architecture we devised by focusing on the WSN component, and analyzes its performance through experiments in a real, operational tunnel

Hyaluronic Acid Injections in the Treatment of Osteoarthritis Secondary to Primary Inflammatory Rheumatic Diseases: A Systematic Review and Qualitative Synthesis

The purpose of this study is to review the current literature on the use of hyaluronic acid (HA) specifically applied to the treatment of osteoarthritis (OA) secondary to primary inflammatory rheumatic diseases. Osteoarthritis should be carefully considered because it has potentially devastating effects on health-related quality of life. Locally injected HA seems to be an effective treatment for OA but it is not clear how to place this treatment in the context of inflammatory rheumatic disorders. To retrieve relevant articles, we conducted the search through MEDLINE, EMBASE and Cochrane Databases performing the PICO strategy. We finally selected four randomized clinical trials and six observational studies and grouped them in accordance with its main objective within three focuses: the clinical effect of HA therapy in joints without any signs of inflammation, the clinical effects of HA therapy in joints with active synovitis, and the involvement and changes of synovial fluid in the treatment of secondary OA. Our qualitative analysis clearly showed that the current literature is marked by high levels of heterogeneity and therefore difficult to interpret. Therefore, our hypothesis that viscosupplementation should be considered as a treatment for chronic moderate symptomatic OA secondary to inflammatory rheumatic diseases, and not for flares with joint swelling, cannot be definitely supported. Well-designed studies are necessary to definitively clarify the range of application of intra-articular HA injections in the treatment of inflammatory rheumatic disorders