A follow-up study on the quality of alcohol dependence-related information on the web

In order to evaluate the one-year evolution of web-based information on alcohol dependence, we re-assessed alcohol-related sites in July 2007 with the same evaluating tool that had been used to assess these sites in June 2006. Websites were assessed with a standardized form designed to rate sites on the basis of accountability, presentation, interactivity, readability, and content quality. The DISCERN scale was also used, which aimed to assist persons without content expertise in assessing the quality of written health publications. Scores were highly stable for all components of the form one year later (r = .77 to .95, p < .01). Analysis of variance for repeated measures showed no time effect, no interaction between time and scale, no interaction between time and group (affiliation categories), and no interaction between time, group, and scale. The study highlights lack of change of alcohol-dependence-related web pages across one year

Aerodynamics of MAV rotors in ground and corner effect

The work presented in this paper is part of a project called ARChEaN (Aerodynamic of Rotors in Confined ENvironment) whose objective is to study the interactions of a micro drone rotor with its surroundings in the case of flight in enclosed environments such as those encountered, for example, in archeological exploration of caves. To do so the influence of the environment (walls, ground, ceiling, etc) on the rotor’s aerodynamic performance as well as on the flow field between the rotor and the surroundings is studied. This paper focuses on two different configurations, flight near the ground and flight near a corner (wall and ground), and the results are analyzed and compared to a general free flight case (i.e. far away from any obstacle). In order to carry out this analysis both numerical and experimental approaches are conducted. The objective is to validate the numerical model with the results obtained experimentally and to benefit from the advantages of both approaches in terms of flow analysis. This research work will provide knowledge on how to operate these systems as to minimize the possible negative environment disturbances, reduce power consumption and predict the micro drone’s behaviour during enclosed flights

FORGE: An eLearning Framework for Remote Laboratory Experimentation on FIRE Testbed Infrastructure

The Forging Online Education through FIRE (FORGE) initiative provides educators and learners in higher education with access to world-class FIRE testbed infrastructure. FORGE supports experimentally driven research in an eLearning environment by complementing traditional classroom and online courses with interactive remote laboratory experiments. The project has achieved its objectives by defining and implementing a framework called FORGEBox. This framework offers the methodology, environment, tools and resources to support the creation of HTML-based online educational material capable accessing virtualized and physical FIRE testbed infrastruc- ture easily. FORGEBox also captures valuable quantitative and qualitative learning analytic information using questionnaires and Learning Analytics that can help optimise and support student learning. To date, FORGE has produced courses covering a wide range of networking and communication domains. These are freely available from FORGEBox.eu and have resulted in over 24,000 experiments undertaken by more than 1,800 students across 10 countries worldwide. This work has shown that the use of remote high- performance testbed facilities for hands-on remote experimentation can have a valuable impact on the learning experience for both educators and learners. Additionally, certain challenges in developing FIRE-based courseware have been identified, which has led to a set of recommendations in order to support the use of FIRE facilities for teaching and learning purposes

Morphology-preserving Autoregressive 3D Generative Modelling of the Brain

Human anatomy, morphology, and associated diseases can be studied using medical imaging data. However, access to medical imaging data is restricted by governance and privacy concerns, data ownership, and the cost of acquisition, thus limiting our ability to understand the human body. A possible solution to this issue is the creation of a model able to learn and then generate synthetic images of the human body conditioned on specific characteristics of relevance (e.g., age, sex, and disease status). Deep generative models, in the form of neural networks, have been recently used to create synthetic 2D images of natural scenes. Still, the ability to produce high-resolution 3D volumetric imaging data with correct anatomical morphology has been hampered by data scarcity and algorithmic and computational limitations. This work proposes a generative model that can be scaled to produce anatomically correct, high-resolution, and realistic images of the human brain, with the necessary quality to allow further downstream analyses. The ability to generate a potentially unlimited amount of data not only enables large-scale studies of human anatomy and pathology without jeopardizing patient privacy, but also significantly advances research in the field of anomaly detection, modality synthesis, learning under limited data, and fair and ethical AI. Code and trained models are available at: https://github.com/AmigoLab/SynthAnatomy.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, accepted at SASHIMI MICCAI 202

Sooting Behaviour Dynamics of a Non-Bouyant Laminar Diffusion Flame

Local soot concentrations in non-buoyant laminar diffusion flames have been demonstrated to be the outcome of two competitive processes, soot formation and soot oxidation. It was first believed that soot formation was the controlling mechanism and thus soot volume fractions could be scaled with a global residence time. Later studies showed that this is not necessarily the case and the local ratio of the soot formation and oxidation residence times is the prime variable controlling the ultimate local soot volume fractions. This ratio is a strong function of geometry and flow field, thus a very difficult variable to properly quantify. This study presents a series of microgravity, low oxidizer flow velocity, experiments where soot volume fraction measurements have been conducted on a laminar, flat plate boundary layer type diffusion flame. The objective of the study is to determine if the above observations apply to this type of diffusion flames. The fuel is ethylene and is injected through a flat plate porous burner into an oxidizer flowing parallel to the burner surface. The oxidizer consists of different mixtures of oxygen and nitrogen, flowing at different velocities. These experiments have been complemented with numerical simulations that emphasize resolution of the flow field to simulate the trajectory of soot particles and to track their history from inception to oxidation. The results validate that local soot volume fractions are a function of the local formation and oxidation residence times and are not necessarily a function of the global residence time. For this particular geometry, an increase in oxidizer velocity leads to local acceleration that reduce the oxidation residence time leading to higher soot concentrations. It was also observed that the flames become longer as the flow velocity is increased in contrast with the reversed trend observed in flames at higher flow velocities. This result is important because it seems to indicate the presence of a maximum in the flame length and luminosity below those encountered in natural convection. The result would have implications for fire safety in spacecrafts since the ambient gas velocities are below those observed in natural convection, and longer and more luminous flames represent a higher hazard

Large-scale Spacecraft Fire Safety Tests

An international collaborative program is underway to address open issues in spacecraft fire safety. Because of limited access to long-term low-gravity conditions and the small volume generally allotted for these experiments, there have been relatively few experiments that directly study spacecraft fire safety under low-gravity conditions. Furthermore, none of these experiments have studied sample sizes and environment conditions typical of those expected in a spacecraft fire. The major constraint has been the size of the sample, with prior experiments limited to samples of the order of 10 cm in length and width or smaller. This lack of experimental data forces spacecraft designers to base their designs and safety precautions on 1-g understanding of flame spread, fire detection, and suppression. However, low-gravity combustion research has demonstrated substantial differences in flame behavior in low-gravity. This, combined with the differences caused by the confined spacecraft environment, necessitates practical scale spacecraft fire safety research to mitigate risks for future space missions. To address this issue, a large-scale spacecraft fire experiment is under development by NASA and an international team of investigators. This poster presents the objectives, status, and concept of this collaborative international project (Saffire). The project plan is to conduct fire safety experiments on three sequential flights of an unmanned ISS re-supply spacecraft (the Orbital Cygnus vehicle) after they have completed their delivery of cargo to the ISS and have begun their return journeys to earth. On two flights (Saffire-1 and Saffire-3), the experiment will consist of a flame spread test involving a meter-scale sample ignited in the pressurized volume of the spacecraft and allowed to burn to completion while measurements are made. On one of the flights (Saffire-2), 9 smaller (5 x 30 cm) samples will be tested to evaluate NASAs material flammability screening tests. The first flight (Saffire-1) is scheduled for July 2015 with the other two following at six-month intervals. A computer modeling effort will complement the experimental effort. Although the experiment will need to meet rigorous safety requirements to ensure the carrier vehicle does not sustain damage, the absence of a crew removes the need for strict containment of combustion products. This will facilitate the first examination of fire behavior on a scale that is relevant to spacecraft fire safety and will provide unique data for fire model validation

Interspecific Genetic Differences and Historical Demography in South American Arowanas (Osteoglossiformes, Osteoglossidae, Osteoglossum)

The South American arowanas (Osteoglossiformes, Osteoglossidae, Osteoglossum) are emblematic species widely distributed in the Amazon and surrounding basins. Arowana species are under strong anthropogenic pressure as they are extensively exploited for ornamental and food purposes. Until now, limited genetic and cytogenetic information has been available, with only a few studies reporting to their genetic diversity and population structure. In the present study, cytogenetic and DArTseq-derived single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data were used to investigate the genetic diversity of the two Osteoglossum species, the silver arowana O. bicirrhosum, and the black arowana O. ferreirai. Both species differ in their 2n (with 2n = 54 and 56 for O. ferreirai and O. bicirrhosum, respectively) and in the composition and distribution of their repetitive DNA content, consistent with their taxonomic status as different species. Our genetic dataset was coupled with contemporary and paleogeographic niche modeling, to develop concurrent demographic models that were tested against each other with a deep learning approach in O. bicirrhosum. Our genetic results reveal that O. bicirrhosum colonized the Tocantins-Araguaia basin from the Amazon basin about one million years ago. In addition, we highlighted a higher genetic diversity of O. bicirrhosum in the Amazon populations in comparison to those from the Tocantins-Araguaia basin. © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Improving children and young people’s mental health services

Across the UK, the number of children and young people experiencing mental health problems is growing. Mental health services are expanding, but not fast enough to meet rising needs, leaving many children and young people with limited or no support. Too little is known about who receives care and crucially, who doesn’t. This briefing presents analysis from the Health Foundation’s Networked Data Lab (NDL) about children and young people’s mental health. The analysis from local teams across England, Scotland and Wales has highlighted three key areas for urgent investigation, to help ensure children and young people get the care they need. These are: rapid increases in mental health prescribing and support provided by GPs the prevalence of mental health problems among adolescent girls and young women stark socioeconomic inequalities across the UK. To inform national policy decisions and local service planning and delivery, the quality of data collection, analysis and the linkage of datasets across services and sectors need to be improved and used more effectively

A structural study of hcp and liquid iron under shock compression up to 275 GPa

We combine nanosecond laser shock compression with \emph{in-situ} picosecond X-ray diffraction to provide structural data on iron up to 275 GPa. We constrain the extent of hcp-liquid coexistence, the onset of total melt, and the structure within the liquid phase. Our results indicate that iron, under shock compression, melts completely by 258(8) GPa. A coordination number analysis indicates that iron is a simple liquid at these pressure-temperature conditions. We also perform texture analysis between the ambient body-centered-cubic (bcc) $\alpha$, and the hexagonal-closed-packed (hcp) high-pressure $\epsilon-$phase. We rule out the Rong-Dunlop orientation relationship (OR) between the $\alpha$ and $\epsilon-$phases. However, we cannot distinguish between three other closely related ORs: Burger's, Mao-Bassett-Takahashi, and Potter's OR. The solid-liquid coexistence region is constrained from a melt onset pressure of 225(3) GPa from previously published sound speed measurements and full melt (246.5(1.8)-258(8) GPa) from X-ray diffraction measurements, with an associated maximum latent heat of melting of 623 J/g. This value is lower than recently reported theoretical estimates and suggests that the contribution to the earth's geodynamo energy budget from heat release due to freezing of the inner core is smaller than previously thought. Melt pressures for these nanosecond shock experiments are consistent with gas gun shock experiments that last for microseconds, indicating that the melt transition occurs rapidly