Voices in self-driving cars should be assertive to more quickly grab a distracted driver’s attention

Automated driving will mean that people can engage in other activities and an important concern will be how to alert the driver to critical events that require their intervention. This study evaluates how various levels of assertiveness of voice command in a semi-AV and different degrees of immersion of a non-driving task may affect people's attention on the road. In a simulated set-up, 20 participants were required to execute actions on the steering wheel when a voice command was given while playing a mobile game. Regardless of how immersed the driver was in the game, a more assertive voice resulted in faster reaction time to the instructions and was perceived as more urgent than a less assertive voice. Automotive systems should use an assertive voice to effectively grab people's attention. This is effective even when they are engaged in an immersive secondary task

Microwave-assisted pyrolysis with chemical activation, an innovative method to convert orange peel into activated carbon with improved properties as dye adsorbent

Microwave-assisted pyrolysis with chemical activation was developed and optimized to transform orange peel into activated carbon (AC) desirable for use as a dye adsorbent. The orange peel was first carbonized via microwave-assisted pyrolysis to produce a biochar, which was then activated and converted into AC via chemical impregnation coupled with microwave-assisted pyrolysis. The process parameters involved was optimized to maximize the yield of AC and its adsorption efficiency on malachite green dye using response surface methodology adopting central composite design. The use of microwave-assisted pyrolysis provided a fast heating rate and short process time in converting orange peel into AC, recording a heating rate of up to 112 °C/min in a process taking about 25 min, representing a method that is potentially faster and more energy efficient compared to that shown by the method commonly performed using conventional heating source (≥1 h). The results showed that AC with the highest yield (87 wt% of biochar) and optimal adsorption efficiency (28.5 mg of dye/g of AC) can be obtained by performing chemical impregnation at an impregnation ratio of 1:1 coupled with microwave-assisted pyrolysis under microwave irradiation (heating) for 5 min using 550 W of microwave power. The addition of chemical activation with alkali metal hydroxides resulted in the production of AC with improved properties. The AC showed a highly porous structure containing high content of fixed carbon (83 wt%) and high BET surface area (1350 m 2 /g). The adsorption–desorption isotherm showed a combination of Type I and Type II isotherms, which indicates the presence of microporous-mesoporous structure, thus exhibiting a characteristic of improved pores accessibility and high adsorption capacity. Combined with the detection of low ash (3.2 wt%) and moisture content (5 wt%), the AC shows great promise as a high-grade dye adsorbent with high adsorption capacity and potentially increased durability since a low moisture content could increase the rate of adsorption of dye contaminants and a high ash content could promote undesirable catalytic reactions and reduce the adsorption capacity and reactivation efficiency of AC. The recovery of AC with improved properties and the desirable process features (fast heating rate, short process time) suggest the great potential of this method as an alternative for the treatment and recovery of fruit peel

"Watch Out!" Semi-Autonomous Vehicles Using Assertive Voices to Grab Distracted Drivers’ Attention

Semi-autonomous vehicles are gradually appearing on our roads, and have already been involved in several high-profile accidents. These accidents usually occurred because the driver did not intervene in time when the automated system failed. An important issue for the design of future semi-autonomous vehicles is identifying effective methods for alerting drivers to critical events that require their intervention. To investigate this, we report the results of a lab-based simulator study in which participants had to respond to driving events while also playing an immersive mobile game on a phone. Results show that a more assertive voice alerting the driver to driving events resulted in faster reaction times and was perceived as more urgent than a less assertive voice, regardless of how immersed the driver was in the mobile game. These results suggest that the designers of future semi-autonomous vehicles should use assertive voice commends to alert drivers to critical events that require their intervention