Do employer preferences contribute to sticky floors?

We investigate the importance of employer preferences in explaining Sticky Floors, the pattern that women are, compared to men, less likely to start to climb the job ladder. To this end we perform a randomised field experiment in the Belgian labour market and test whether hiring discrimination based on gender is heterogeneous by whether or not jobs imply a promotion (in comparison with employees’ current position). We find that women get 33% less interview invitations when they apply for jobs implying a first promotion in functional level. On the other hand, their hiring chances are not significantly affected by the job authority level of the job

SILVR: A Synthetic Immersive Large-Volume Plenoptic Dataset

In six-degrees-of-freedom light-field (LF) experiences, the viewer's freedom is limited by the extent to which the plenoptic function was sampled. Existing LF datasets represent only small portions of the plenoptic function, such that they either cover a small volume, or they have limited field of view. Therefore, we propose a new LF image dataset "SILVR" that allows for six-degrees-of-freedom navigation in much larger volumes while maintaining full panoramic field of view. We rendered three different virtual scenes in various configurations, where the number of views ranges from 642 to 2226. One of these scenes (called Zen Garden) is a novel scene, and is made publicly available. We chose to position the virtual cameras closely together in large cuboid and spherical organisations ($2.2m^3$ to $48m^3$), equipped with 180{\deg} fish-eye lenses. Every view is rendered to a color image and depth map of 2048px $\times$ 2048px. Additionally, we present the software used to automate the multi-view rendering process, as well as a lens-reprojection tool that converts between images with panoramic or fish-eye projection to a standard rectilinear (i.e., perspective) projection. Finally, we demonstrate how the proposed dataset and software can be used to evaluate LF coding/rendering techniques(in this case for training NeRFs with instant-ngp). As such, we provide the first publicly-available LF dataset for large volumes of light with full panoramic field of viewComment: In 13th ACM Multimedia Systems Conference (MMSys '22), June 14-17, 2022, Athlone, Ireland. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 6 page

The effect of wind turbines alongside motorways on drivers’ behaviour

This paper presents the results of a first study aimed at investigating whether the presence of wind turbines in close proximity to motorways leads to behavioural adaptations among passing drivers. Empirical data from loop detectors and temporary video cameras were analysed in a study employing a before-and-after design at a site near Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Analyses of driving speed and standard deviation of speed (corrected for trend effects through the use of control sites) were performed as well as analyses of the lateral position and standard deviation of the lateral position and an observation of serious traffic conflicts. The results showed that constructing wind turbines alongside a motorway led to some clearly observable effects on drivers’ behaviour. The analyses of the speed data showed that the mean speed was lowered by 2.24km/h (corrected for trend effects) after the construction of the wind turbines while the standard deviation of the speed significantly increased. After the construction of the wind turbines, drivers took a lateral position somewhat more to the left-hand side in their driving lane. There was an indication close to the 0.05 significance level (p=0.057) that the standard deviation of the lateral position slightly increased when the rotor blades were in transversal position. In the before period as well as in the after period, no serious traffic conflicts were registered. The increase in standard deviation of speed and in lateral position are two factors that intrinsically can have an unfavourable effect on road safety. However, the observed order of magnitude of the change was shown to be quite limited. Earlier research suggests that negative effects on road safety are only expected for changes substantially greater than the ones that were observed in this study. On the other hand, there was a significant reduction in driving speed, which might have a favourable effect on the expected number and severity of crashes, although it could also be a compensatory mechanism that indirectly indicates a reduced driving performance. From these findings, it can be concluded that, based on the observed variables, no substantial negative effects for road safety were found in the present study. The authors recommend continuous monitoring and further research on the topic

Projection moire measurement of glass specimens retrofitted with safety film

Protection of buildings and critical public infrastructure against blast load has been recently improved by retrofitting glass windows with a safety film. As the exact physical mechanisms of the interaction between glass and safety film are not quite well understood, intensive research is conducted on the properties of this assembly. The loadings on the glass/film assembly are typically dynamic (blast, wind pressure, impact), so the lab tests are done on a drop weight set-up, where a mass is falling on a retrofitted glass plate. In this work, the drop weight setup was combined with pattern projection (moire) technique to study the time history of the out-of-plane deformations of the glass/film assembly. The fringe pattern, projected on the back side of the specimen, was generated by means of a sinusoidal phase grating under divergent high intensity infrared illumination. The whole process was recorded with a high speed camera. Local routines based on fast Fourier transform were used to process the captured images, and to extract the phase. The exact out-of-plane displacements were calculated by means of calibration based on previous shape measurements of several different objects with known dimensions

Low velocity axial impact crushing performance of empty recyclable metal beverage cans

International audienceThis paper focuses on the axial impact crushing behaviour of recyclable empty metal beverage cans available in the market. The idea is to make a macro-foam (sacrificial cladding structure) out of these cans to protect the main load bearing members of civil engineering structures from the air blast load. Axial drop weight tests have been conducted to understand the crushing characteristics and the corresponding energy absorption of a single empty beverage can in detail. To conduct such tests a small-scale drop weight test set-up has been designed and manufactured. The deformation mechanisms and the corresponding energy absorption of the beverage cans were studied in detail for different initial impact velocities (1.4 m/s, 2.2 m/s, 3.1 m/s. 3.8 m/s, 4.4 m/s and 4.9 m/s). Furthermore, an analytical model is proposed to calculate the crushing parameters of empty metal beverage cans. The results from the analytical model are compared and validated with the experimental result