Impact of driver behaviour on availability of electric vehicle stored energy for STOR

As take up of low carbon vehicles increase, there is interest in using the energy stored in the vehicles to help maintain system frequency through ancillary services on the electricity grid system. Research into this area is generally classed as vehicle-to-grid research. In theory, the energy available from electric vehicles could be directly correlated to the vehicle's state of charge (SoC) and battery capacity during the time the car is parked and plugged in. However, not all the energy in the vehicle may be used, as some capacity is required by the driver for their next journey. As such, this paper uses data captured as part of a large scale electric vehicle trial to investigate the effect of three different types of driver routine on vehicle-to-grid availability. Each driver's behaviour is analysed to assess the energy that is available for STOR, with follow on journey requirements also considered

When People Lose Autonomy: The Case for Coercion and the Moral Responsibility Crisis Clinicians Have to Society

The present article explores the responsibility of mental health crisis management clinicians around the world in the context of ethical practice. Concepts of suicide, autonomy, coercion, and civil commitment are defined through the lens of crisis intervention. Historical background and development of community-based crisis management in the United States, mental health crisis assessments, interdisciplinary crisis ethics, and a continuum of coercion in crisis intervention are discussed. The authors then lay out three clinical crisis case vignettes to demonstrate three levels of risk to safety and the appropriate implementation of the three levels of the continuum of coercion. Finally, a discussion follows on the interplay of professional ethics in the crisis vignettes, the academic debate on the use of coercion, as well as moral distress and clinician burnout. We posit that crisis clinicians, like law enforcement and other professional entities involved in mental health crisis management, bear the social responsibility of making difficult and morally ambiguous decisions for individuals who have lost their autonomy to a mental health disorder

FIPS: An R Package for Biomathematical Modelling of Human Fatigue Related Impairment

In many workplace contexts, accurate predictions of a human’s fatigue state can drastically improve system safety. Biomathematical models of fatigue (BMMs) are a family of dynamic phenomenological models that predict the neurobehavioural outcomes of fatigue (e.g., sleepiness, performance impairment) based on sleep/wake history (Dawson, Darwent, & Roach, 2017). However, to-date there are no open source implementations of BMMs, and this presents a significant barrier to their broadscale adoption by researchers and industry practitioners. FIPS is an open source R package (R Core Team, 2020) to facilitate BMM research and simulation. FIPS has implementations of several published bio-mathematical models and includes functions for easily manipulating sleep history data into the required data structures. FIPS also includes default plot and summary methods to aid model interpretation. Model objects follow tidy data conventions (Wickham, 2014), enabling FIPS to be integrated into existing research workflows of R users

Improving Parking Management in Downtown Nantucket

Nantucket is a small island with a historic charm that attracts numerous tourists during the summer months. This influx of tourists combined with the historic, narrow, cobblestone roads and a limited parking supply leads to a multitude of parking problems. The goals of our project were to improve traffic flow in the downtown area, and to improve parking management. To achieve these goals our team had to determine the current on-street conditions, proposes solutions, evaluate new parking management systems, and then solicit feedback from various stakeholders. Some of the results of this project are a list of potential street redesigns with photoshopped concept pictures, an improved parking inventory process, and a decision matrix for evaluating parking management technology systems

Inhibitory cognitive control allows automated advice to improve accuracy while minimizing misuse

Humans increasingly use automated decision aids. However, environmental uncertainty means that automated advice can be incorrect, creating the potential for humans to action incorrect advice or to disregard correct advice. We present a quantitative model of the cognitive process by which humans use automation when deciding whether aircraft would violate minimum separation. The model closely fitted the performance of twenty-four participants, whom each made 2400 conflict detection decisions (conflict vs non-conflict), either manually (with no assistance) or with the assistance of 90% reliable automation. When the decision aid was correct, conflict detection accuracy improved, but when the decision aid was incorrect, accuracy and response time were impaired. The model indicated that participants integrated advice into their decision process by inhibiting evidence accumulation toward the task response incongruent with that advice, thereby ensuring that decisions could not be made solely on automated advice without first sampling information from the task environment

Occupation and workplace policies predict smoking behaviors: Analysis of national data from the current population survey

OBJECTIVE: Describe differences in smoking behaviors associated with occupation, workplace rules against smoking, and workplace smoking cessation programs. METHODS: We analyzed data from the Current Population Survey- Tobacco Use Supplement surveys from 1992 through 2007. RESULTS: After adjusting for demographic factors, blue-collar workers were at higher risk than white-collar workers for ever smoking, current smoking, and persistent smoking (current smoking among ever smokers). Construction workers were more likely to be current daily smokers than other blue-collar workers. Among ever smokers, current daily smoking was more common in the absence of both workplace rules against smoking and workplace smoking cessation programs. CONCLUSIONS: Social or cultural effects related to occupation are important determinants of smoking. More aggressive promotion of smoking cessation programs and workplace rules prohibiting smoking could have a significant public health impact

Key Principles for Scientific Publishing (International Science Council-ISC)

This paper summarises the eight principles that were laid before the General Assembly of the International Science Council in October 2021, when they were overwhelmingly endorsed

Altered inflammasome activation in neonatal encephalopathy persists in childhood

Neonatal encephalopathy (NE) is characterized by altered neurological function in term infants and inflammation plays an important pathophysiological role. Inflammatory cytokines interleukin (IL)-1 beta, IL-1ra and IL-18 are activated by the nucleotide-binding and oligomerization domain (NOD)-, leucine-rich repeat domain (LRR)- and NOD-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome; furthermore, we aimed to examine the role of the inflammasome multiprotein complex involved in proinflammatory responses from the newborn period to childhood in NE. Cytokine concentrations were measured by multiplex enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in neonates and children with NE in the absence or presence of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) endotoxin. We then investigated expression of the NLRP3 inflammasome genes, NLRP3, IL-1 beta and ASC by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Serum samples from 40 NE patients at days 1 and 3 of the first week of life and in 37 patients at age 4-7 years were analysed. An increase in serum IL-1ra and IL-18 in neonates with NE on days 1 and 3 was observed compared to neonatal controls. IL-1ra in NE was decreased to normal levels at school age, whereas serum IL-18 in NE was even higher at school age compared to school age controls and NE in the first week of life. Percentage of LPS response was higher in newborns compared to school-age NE. NLRP3 and IL-1 beta gene expression were up-regulated in the presence of LPS in NE neonates and NLRP3 gene expression remained up-regulated at school age in NE patients compared to controls. Increased inflammasome activation in the first day of life in NE persists in childhood, and may increase the window for therapeutic intervention

QCD and strongly coupled gauge theories : challenges and perspectives

We highlight the progress, current status, and open challenges of QCD-driven physics, in theory and in experiment. We discuss how the strong interaction is intimately connected to a broad sweep of physical problems, in settings ranging from astrophysics and cosmology to strongly coupled, complex systems in particle and condensed-matter physics, as well as to searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. We also discuss how success in describing the strong interaction impacts other fields, and, in turn, how such subjects can impact studies of the strong interaction. In the course of the work we offer a perspective on the many research streams which flow into and out of QCD, as well as a vision for future developments.Peer reviewe

A blood atlas of COVID-19 defines hallmarks of disease severity and specificity.

Treatment of severe COVID-19 is currently limited by clinical heterogeneity and incomplete description of specific immune biomarkers. We present here a comprehensive multi-omic blood atlas for patients with varying COVID-19 severity in an integrated comparison with influenza and sepsis patients versus healthy volunteers. We identify immune signatures and correlates of host response. Hallmarks of disease severity involved cells, their inflammatory mediators and networks, including progenitor cells and specific myeloid and lymphocyte subsets, features of the immune repertoire, acute phase response, metabolism, and coagulation. Persisting immune activation involving AP-1/p38MAPK was a specific feature of COVID-19. The plasma proteome enabled sub-phenotyping into patient clusters, predictive of severity and outcome. Systems-based integrative analyses including tensor and matrix decomposition of all modalities revealed feature groupings linked with severity and specificity compared to influenza and sepsis. Our approach and blood atlas will support future drug development, clinical trial design, and personalized medicine approaches for COVID-19