Serious games at the UNHCR with ARLearn, a toolkit for mobile and virtual reality applications

This article presents experiences and lessons learned with the implementation of a serious game for simulating the management of a hostage taking scenario. The game was created with ARLearn, a toolkit for mobile and virtual reality serious games, developed at the Open University of the Netherlands. In collaboration with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), ARLearn use cases for crisis situations were developed. This manuscript covers the games that were designed with UNHCR’s Global Learning Centre (GLC) and discusses the training pilot with UNHCR staff-members. Author Keywords Serious games, mobile learning, field-trips, security simulatio

Optimal design and operation of cruise ship multi-energy systems: an MILP formulation

Regulations set by governmental and non-governmental maritime regulatory bodies are set to highly impact the cruise ship industry and put pressure on ship owners to invest in energy-efficient ships as well as improve the overall ship operation. To this end, various studies have been performed to analyze the economic and environmental impact of energy efficient technologies and ship operation strategies. These studies typically involve modelling the cruise ship energy consumers and producers as a non-linear model and analyzing the impact of the technology being studied. In this paper, we propose a formulation of the cruise ship energy system design optimization as a generic mixed integer linear program (MILP). The generic formulation of the model allows for a variety of technologies to be tested without much modification to the underlying formulation. The model is instantiated using internal combustion engines (ICEs) and solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technologies and an analysis of the optimization results is carried out for three objective functions: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, lifecycle cost, and lifecycle cost including carbon tax. The model's design and operation results were validated by experts. Results from the case studies indicated significant reductions in GHG emissions using SOFCs, consistent with the literature. However, the carbon tax analysis over a period of 15 years showed a surprisingly lower impact of carbon tax measures than expected, which could have potential consequences on the adoption of cleaner, yet cost intensive technologies in the cruise ship industry

New Insights into the Propulsion Power Prediction of Cruise Ships

International audienceShip propulsion is the largest consumer of energy -- and by extension fuel -- on cruise ships. Improving its efficiency is thus an important aspect of energy management, both for environmental and economic reasons. Various approaches have been detailed in the literature for improving propulsion efficiency, ranging from optimal voyage planning to prediction of propulsion power or fuel consumption using Machine Learning algorithms, trained on high frequency sensor data. On this latter topic, the approaches typically involve a series of data transformations and time-aggregations (windowing), followed by shuffling and separation of data points into train and validation sets. However, this approach leads to very similar data in the train and validation sets, preventing trained models to generalize well on future ship voyages. In this article we highlight methodological issues and give insights on how to tackle them to train models that focus on optimizing generalizability, especially predictive accuracy on unseen future test sets.We present a temporal approach to splitting data into train, validation and test sets. We perform our analysis using simple multilayer perceptron architectures, of distinct dimensions. Our study concludes that smaller/simpler models, trained on temporal-split data have a lower error when predicting on unseen future test data, compared to larger models and usage of shuffle-split datasets, while also providing better confidence in model accuracy, due to reduced discrepancy between obtained validation and test errors

Advancing patient care through the Consortium of Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disease Researchers (CEGIR)

Recent advances in rare disease research are accelerated by the work of consortia that have been supported by the National Institutes of Health. Development of such consortia rely on multidisciplinary relationships and engagement with patient advocacy groups, as well as the National Institutes of Health and industry and academic partners. In this rostrum we present the development of such a process that focuses on eosinophilic gastrointestinal diseases. Principal investigators, patient advocacy groups, research assistants, and trainees work together to perform natural history studies that promote clinical trial readiness tools, conduct clinical trials, train a new generation of investigators, and perform innovative pilot studies

Genetic and developmental disorders of the oral mucosa : epidemiology; molecular mechanisms; diagnostic criteria; management

A large number of disorders may affect the oral cavity, including genetic diseases, infections, cancers, blood diseases, skin diseases, endocrine and metabolic disorders, autoimmune and rheumatologic diseases, local lesions, to name a few. Oral mucosa shows a considerable variation in its normal structure and a wide range of conditions may affect it. Such conditions are often harmless or minor and could be primary or secondary to systemic disease. Several of them are quite rare and, hence, the diagnosis is not easy. Clinically, lesions may appear as ulcers, discoloration of the oral mucosa and alterations in size and configuration of oral anatomy. Genetic disorders have specific manifestations and can be caused by a derangement of one or more components of the tissue. Many of them follow the skin or systemic signs of the underlying genetic disease, but in a few cases oral signs could be the first manifestation of the disorder. Among them genodermatoses are prominent. They are inherited disorders characterized by a multisystem involvement. This review describes chondro-ectodermal dysplasia, dyskeratosis congenita, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, hereditary benign intraepithelial dyskeratosis, keratosis follicularis, lipoid proteinosis, multiple hamartoma syndrome, pachyonychia congenita, Peutz-Jeghers syndrome, tuberous sclerosis and white sponge nevus. Other genetic disorders not included in the genodermatosis group and reported in the present review are: acanthosis nigricans, angio-osteo-hypertrophic syndrome, encephalotrigeminal angiomatosis, familial adenomatous polyposis, focal dermal hypoplasia, focal palmoplantar and oral mucosa hyperkeratosis syndrome, gingival fibromatosis, Maffucci's syndrome, neurofibromatosis (type 1) and oro-facial-digital syndrome (type 1). Disorders during embryonic development might lead to a wide range of abnormalities in the oral cavity; some of them are quite common but of negligible concern, whereas others are rare but serious, affecting not only the oral mucosa, but also other structures of the oral cavity (ie palate, tongue and gingiva). Fordyce's granules, leukoedema, cysts of the oral mucosa in newborns, retrocuspid papilla, geographic tongue, fissured tongue, median rhomboid glossitis, hairy tongue, lingual varices and lingual thyroid nodule are described. This review may help dentists, dental hygienists, but also general internists and pediatricians to diagnose different disorders of the oral mucosa, to understand the pathogenesis and to schedule a treatment plan