Role of opinion sharing on the emergency evacuation dynamics

Emergency evacuation is a critical research topic and any improvement to the existing evacuation models will help in improving the safety of the evacuees. Currently, there are evacuation models that have either an accurate movement model or a sophisticated decision model. Individuals in a crowd tend to share and propagate their opinion. This opinion sharing part is either implicitly modeled or entirely overlooked in most of the existing models. Thus, one of the overarching goal of this research is to the study the effect of opinion evolution through an evacuating crowd. First, the opinion evolution in a crowd was modeled mathematically. Next, the results from the analytical model were validated with a simulation model having a simple motion model. To improve the fidelity of the evacuation model, a more realistic movement and decision model were incorporated and the effect of opinion sharing on the evacuation dynamics was studied extensively. Further, individuals with strong inclination towards particular route were introduced and their effect on overall efficiency was studied. Current evacuation guidance algorithms focuses on efficient crowd evacuation. The method of guidance delivery is generally overlooked. This important gap in guidance delivery is addressed next. Additionally, a virtual reality based immersive experiment is designed to study factors affecting individuals\u27 decision making during emergency evacuation

Using Models Based on Cognitive Theory to Predict Human Behavior in Traffic: A Case Study

The development of automated vehicles has the potential to revolutionize transportation, but they are currently unable to ensure a safe and time-efficient driving style. Reliable models predicting human behavior are essential for overcoming this issue. While data-driven models are commonly used to this end, they can be vulnerable in safety-critical edge cases. This has led to an interest in models incorporating cognitive theory, but as such models are commonly developed for explanatory purposes, this approach's effectiveness in behavior prediction has remained largely untested so far. In this article, we investigate the usefulness of the \emph{Commotions} model -- a novel cognitively plausible model incorporating the latest theories of human perception, decision-making, and motor control -- for predicting human behavior in gap acceptance scenarios, which entail many important traffic interactions such as lane changes and intersections. We show that this model can compete with or even outperform well-established data-driven prediction models across several naturalistic datasets. These results demonstrate the promise of incorporating cognitive theory in behavior prediction models for automated vehicles.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Loci influencing blood pressure identified using a cardiovascular gene-centric array

Blood pressure (BP) is a heritable determinant of risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). To investigate genetic associations with systolic BP (SBP), diastolic BP (DBP), mean arterial pressure (MAP) and pulse pressure (PP), we genotyped 50 000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that capture variation in 2100 candidate genes for cardiovascular phenotypes in 61 619 individuals of European ancestry from cohort studies in the USA and Europe. We identified novel associations between rs347591 and SBP (chromosome 3p25.3, in an intron of HRH1) and between rs2169137 and DBP (chromosome1q32.1 in an intron of MDM4) and between rs2014408 and SBP (chromosome 11p15 in an intron of SOX6), previously reported to be associated with MAP. We also confirmed 10 previously known loci associated with SBP, DBP, MAP or PP (ADRB1, ATP2B1, SH2B3/ATXN2, CSK, CYP17A1, FURIN, HFE, LSP1, MTHFR, SOX6) at array-wide significance (P 2.4 10(6)). We then replicated these associations in an independent set of 65 886 individuals of European ancestry. The findings from expression QTL (eQTL) analysis showed associations of SNPs in the MDM4 region with MDM4 expression. We did not find any evidence of association of the two novel SNPs in MDM4 and HRH1 with sequelae of high BP including coronary artery disease (CAD), left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) or stroke. In summary, we identified two novel loci associated with BP and confirmed multiple previously reported associations. Our findings extend our understanding of genes involved in BP regulation, some of which may eventually provide new targets for therapeutic intervention.</p

Joint Model of Application-Based Ride Hailing Adoption, Intensity of Use, and Intermediate Public Transport Consideration among Workers in Chennai City

The introduction of mobile application-based ride hailing services represents a convergence between technologies, supply of vehicles, and demand in near real time. There is growing interest in quantifying the demand for such services from regulatory, operational, and system evaluation perspectives. Several studies model the decision to adopt ride hailing and the extent of the use of ride hailing, either separately or by bundling them into a single choice dimension, disregarding potential endogeneity between these decisions. Unlike developed countries, the literature is sparser for ride hailing in developing countries, where the demand may differ considerably because of differences in vehicle ownership, and availability and patronage of many transit and intermediate public transport (IPT) modes (the shared modes carrying 40% shares in some cases). This study aims to bridge these gaps in the literature by investigating three interrelated choice dimensions among workers in Chennai city: consideration of IPT modes, the adoption of ride hailing services and the subsequent usage intensity of ride hailing services. The main factors influencing these decisions are identified by estimating a trivariate probit model. The results indicate that sociodemographic and locational characteristics and the availability of IPT modes influence ride hailing adoption, whereas work-related constraints and perception of other modes affect its frequency. Work and non-work characteristics affect both the dimensions of ride hailing. Further, endogeneity is observed between ride hailing and IPT adoption after controlling for these variables, whereas evidence of endogeneity is absent among other dimensions. Mainly, the model separates the effect of the exogenous influences on the usage frequency level from their effect on the adoption of ride hailing services

The role of protein homochirality in shaping the energy landscape of folding

The homochirality, or isotacticity, of the natural amino acids facilitates the formation of regular secondary structures such as α-helices and β-sheets. However, many examples exist in nature where novel polypeptide topologies use both l- and d-amino acids. In this study, we explore how stereochemistry of the polypeptide backbone influences basic properties such as compactness and the size of fold space by simulating both lattice and all-atom polypeptide chains. We formulate a rectangular lattice chain model in both two and three dimensions, where monomers are chiral, having the effect of restricting local conformation. Syndiotactic chains with alternating chirality of adjacent monomers have a very large ensemble of accessible conformations characterized predominantly by extended structures. Isotactic chains on the other hand, have far fewer possible conformations and a significant fraction of these are compact. Syndiotactic chains are often unable to access maximally compact states available to their isotactic counterparts of the same length. Similar features are observed in all-atom models of isotactic versus syndiotactic polyalanine. Our results suggest that protein isotacticity has evolved to increase the enthalpy of chain collapse by facilitating compact helical states and to reduce the entropic cost of folding by restricting the size of the unfolded ensemble of competing states

Loci influencing blood pressure identified using a cardiovascular gene-centric array.

Blood pressure (BP) is a heritable determinant of risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). To investigate genetic associations with systolic BP (SBP), diastolic BP (DBP), mean arterial pressure (MAP) and pulse pressure (PP), we genotyped ∼50 000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that capture variation in ∼2100 candidate genes for cardiovascular phenotypes in 61 619 individuals of European ancestry from cohort studies in the USA and Europe. We identified novel associations between rs347591 and SBP (chromosome 3p25.3, in an intron of HRH1) and between rs2169137 and DBP (chromosome1q32.1 in an intron of MDM4) and between rs2014408 and SBP (chromosome 11p15 in an intron of SOX6), previously reported to be associated with MAP. We also confirmed 10 previously known loci associated with SBP, DBP, MAP or PP (ADRB1, ATP2B1, SH2B3/ATXN2, CSK, CYP17A1, FURIN, HFE, LSP1, MTHFR, SOX6) at array-wide significance (P &lt; 2.4 × 10(-6)). We then replicated these associations in an independent set of 65 886 individuals of European ancestry. The findings from expression QTL (eQTL) analysis showed associations of SNPs in the MDM4 region with MDM4 expression. We did not find any evidence of association of the two novel SNPs in MDM4 and HRH1 with sequelae of high BP including coronary artery disease (CAD), left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) or stroke. In summary, we identified two novel loci associated with BP and confirmed multiple previously reported associations. Our findings extend our understanding of genes involved in BP regulation, some of which may eventually provide new targets for therapeutic intervention