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Dual Functional Mesoporous Silica Colloidal Electrolyte for Lithium-Oxygen Batteries
Full text linkDual functional mesoporous silica (mSiO2) colloidal electrolytes are promising to protect lithium anode and accelerate the reaction kinetics on cathode for lithium oxygen batteries (LOBs). In this work, we achieved a significantly extended battery life (from 55 to 328 cycles) of LOB by using mSiO2 with a concentration of 80 mg L-1 in the colloidal electrolyte, compared with the one using conventional LiClO4/DMSO electrolyte. The rate performance and full-discharge capacity are also dramatically enhanced. The as-synthesized mSiO2 has a special ordered hexagonal mesoporous structure, with a high specific surface area of 1016.30 m2 g-1, which can form a stable colloid after mixing with 1.0 M LiClO4/DMSO. The side reactions of Li stripping/plating are suppressed, thus the cycling life performance of LOB is enhanced by relieving the attack of superoxide intermediates. The co-deposition of mesoporous mSiO2 and Li2O2 also effectively accelerated the decomposition of the discharge product by promoting the mass transfer at the cathode. This investigation of suppressing side reactions using non-aqueous electrolytes will shed a new light on the design and development of novel lithium metal batteries
Pacing Behavior Development in Adolescent Swimmers: A Large-scale Longitudinal Data Analysis
Full text linkPurpose
Use a large-scale longitudinal design to investigate the development of the distribution of effort (e.g., pacing) in adolescent swimmers, specifically disentangling the effects of age and experience and differentiating between performance levels in adulthood.
Methods
Season best times and 50 m split times of 100 m and 200 m freestyle swimmers from five continents were gathered between 2000 and 2021. Included swimmers competed in a minimum of three seasons between 12-24 years old (5.3 ± 1.9 seasons) and were categorized by performance level in adulthood (elite, sub-elite, high-competitive) (100 m: n = 3498, 47% female; 200 m: n = 2230, 56% female). Multilevel models in which repeated measures (level 1) were nested within individual swimmers (level 2) were estimated to test the effects of age, race experience, and adult performance level on the percentage of total race time spent in each 50 m section (p < 0.05).
Results
In the 100 m, male swimmers develop a relatively faster first 50 m when becoming older. This behavior also distinguishes elite from high-competitive swimmers. No such effects were found for female swimmers. Conversely, more experienced male and female swimmers exhibit a slower initial 50 m. With age and race experience, swimmers develop a more even velocity distribution in the 200 m. Adolescent swimmers reaching the elite level adopt a more even behavior compared to high-competitive. This differentiation occurs at younger age in female (>13 years) compared to male (>16 years) swimmers.
Conclusions
Pacing behavior development throughout adolescence is driven by age-related factors besides race experience. Swimmers attaining a higher performance level during adulthood exhibit a pacing behavior which better fits the task demands during adolescence. Monitoring and individually optimizing the pacing behavior of young swimmers is an important step towards elite performance
Organic carbon in British lowland ponds: estimating sediment stocks, possible practical benefits and significant unknowns
Full text linkPonds are aquatic habitats defined by their small size. Although small they are found on every continent, they are disproportionately rich in aquatic biodiversity, benefit terrestrial wildlife and have important ecosystem function benefits. One of these benefits might be carbon sequestration, a possibility suggested by (1) their abundance, (2) the intensity of their biogeochemical activity. Whilst greenhouse gas fluxes from ponds have been monitored widely, quantifying the stocks of organic carbon buried in sediment is a gap in our knowledge. Here we summarise measures of organic carbon in pond sediments cores from a diverse range of lowland ponds in England. We estimate a general measure of 9.38 kg OC in a 1 m2 × 20 cm block of pond sediment and scale this up to an overall estimate for Great Britain of 2.63 million tons of OC in pond sediment, with 95% CI of 1.41 to 3.84 million tons. The relationship between sediment carbon and gas fluxes remains a significant unknown
Understanding the costs and challenges of the digital divide through UK council services
Full text linkThis study investigates the issue of digital exclusion resulting from the digitisation of government and council services within the United Kingdom. An initial analysis of customer support log data from a council in a large UK city helped identify the most commonly queried services and modes of support. The main findings are based on qualitative analysis of 10 interviews, structured around the results from the log analysis, conducted with front-line staff members at the central library of the same council. The study identifies a range of issues associated with the provision of e-government services and the subsequent under-utilisation by the public, including poor design, issues with effective access and the level of digital literacy among end users. The study also proposes the concept of the ‘digital carer’, a friend or family member who is relied upon by users unable to interact with e-government services themselves. The findings of this study have implications for the way in which these services are designed and delivered and point to the need for further work that can contribute to the UK digital economy by facilitating better access to e-government services and reduce digital exclusion, especially for elderly and marginalised users
Maximal Marginal Relevance-Based Recommendation for Product Customisation
Full text linkCustomised product design is attracting increasing attention. However, consumers can be overwhelmed by the variety of products. To confront this challenge, this paper presents a two-step recommendation approach for customised products. First, an adaptive specification process captures customer requirements in an accelerated manner by presenting the most informative attribute for a customer to specify. Then, a maximal marginal relevance-based recommendation set is presented, based on the customer’s partial specifications. This process ensures broad coverage of customers’ needs by considering not only the relevance of each product to their requirements but also redundancy in the recommendation set
Gritting One’s Way to Success – Grit Explains Skill in Elite Youth Soccer Players Beyond (Deliberate) Practice
Full text linkPractice is one of the most important predictors of skill. To become an expert, performers must engage in practice for a prolonged time to develop the psychological characteristics necessary for outstanding performance. Deliberate practice (DP), that is focused repetitive activities with corrective feedback, is particularly beneficial for skill development. The amount of accumulated DP differentiates experts and novices. However, the predictive strength of DP weakens considerably when it comes to differentiating between differently skilled experts, leaving a way clear for other non-practice related factors to exercise their influence. In this paper, we demonstrate using a large sample (388) of elite youth soccer players that one such factor, the personality trait of grit, predicts expertise level both directly and indirectly. Grittier players accumulated more time in coach-led team practice, the activity, which is arguably closest to DP in team sports, which in turn predicted the skill level. Other practice activities, such as self-led training or playing with peers, were not predictive of skill level, neither were they influenced by grit. Grit, however, continued to exert a direct positive influence on the skill level of players even after accounting for the hours of DP accumulated. Overall, a standard deviation of change in the grit score resulted in at least a third of standard deviation improvement in skill. Our findings highlight the need for the inclusion of additional factors in theoretical frameworks in situations where the predictive power of traditional expertise factors, such as practice, is limited
Stakeholder Perspectives of Clinical Artificial Intelligence Implementation: Systematic Review of Qualitative Evidence
Full text linkBackground:
The rhetoric surrounding clinical artificial intelligence (AI) often exaggerates its effect on real-world care. Limited understanding of the factors that influence its implementation can perpetuate this.
Objective:
In this qualitative systematic review, we aimed to identify key stakeholders, consolidate their perspectives on clinical AI implementation, and characterize the evidence gaps that future qualitative research should target.
Methods:
Ovid-MEDLINE, EBSCO-CINAHL, ACM Digital Library, Science Citation Index-Web of Science, and Scopus were searched for primary qualitative studies on individuals’ perspectives on any application of clinical AI worldwide (January 2014-April 2021). The definition of clinical AI includes both rule-based and machine learning–enabled or non–rule-based decision support tools. The language of the reports was not an exclusion criterion. Two independent reviewers performed title, abstract, and full-text screening with a third arbiter of disagreement. Two reviewers assigned the Joanna Briggs Institute 10-point checklist for qualitative research scores for each study. A single reviewer extracted free-text data relevant to clinical AI implementation, noting the stakeholders contributing to each excerpt. The best-fit framework synthesis used the Nonadoption, Abandonment, Scale-up, Spread, and Sustainability (NASSS) framework. To validate the data and improve accessibility, coauthors representing each emergent stakeholder group codeveloped summaries of the factors most relevant to their respective groups.
Results:
The initial search yielded 4437 deduplicated articles, with 111 (2.5%) eligible for inclusion (median Joanna Briggs Institute 10-point checklist for qualitative research score, 8/10). Five distinct stakeholder groups emerged from the data: health care professionals (HCPs), patients, carers and other members of the public, developers, health care managers and leaders, and regulators or policy makers, contributing 1204 (70%), 196 (11.4%), 133 (7.7%), 129 (7.5%), and 59 (3.4%) of 1721 eligible excerpts, respectively. All stakeholder groups independently identified a breadth of implementation factors, with each producing data that were mapped between 17 and 24 of the 27 adapted Nonadoption, Abandonment, Scale-up, Spread, and Sustainability subdomains. Most of the factors that stakeholders found influential in the implementation of rule-based clinical AI also applied to non–rule-based clinical AI, with the exception of intellectual property, regulation, and sociocultural attitudes.
Conclusions:
Clinical AI implementation is influenced by many interdependent factors, which are in turn influenced by at least 5 distinct stakeholder groups. This implies that effective research and practice of clinical AI implementation should consider multiple stakeholder perspectives. The current underrepresentation of perspectives from stakeholders other than HCPs in the literature may limit the anticipation and management of the factors that influence successful clinical AI implementation. Future research should not only widen the representation of tools and contexts in qualitative research but also specifically investigate the perspectives of all stakeholder HCPs and emerging aspects of non–rule-based clinical AI implementation.
Trial Registration:
PROSPERO (International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews) CRD42021256005; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=25600
Engendering the City: A Participatory Approach to Gender-Responsive Planning and Urban Design in Cairo
Full text linkThe city of Cairo has witnessed a considerable increase in crimes against women, compelling women to avoid or minimise their use of public spaces in recent years. The absence of consideration for women in city planning has made Egyptian women feel further excluded and threatened by the public space, in addition to the patriarchal social relations and religious conservatism. As part of the ‘gender-inclusive cities' research project, this study adopts a participatory approach as a tool for women's empowerment with the goal of promoting bottom-up models of planning, dissolving gendered norms, and improving women's status in a patriarchal society. The chapter provides an example of localised gender-inclusive design addressing women's spatial sensibilities and connecting them to the broader objectives of participation and emancipation. The findings of this study can help planners and policy makers co-create safer public spaces for local women, reduce spatial inequality, and facilitate their right to the city
Engineering integrated multimodal sensing and feedback ring system for advanced interactive metaverse platform
Full text linkStop answering centrist questions: the left can only win when it answers the questions it was founded to pose
Full text linkThis article summarises a series of findings from a programme of research on the viability of Universal Basic Income as a transformative public policy. The findings suggest that the left should stop answering liberal questions. This means no longer being preoccupied by who currently votes and their assumed ‘inherent’ values. Instead, as the left’s founding figures thought, it must consider how the vast majority of the population who would benefit from transformative material change can be persuaded of the benefit of voting for left policies. Our findings suggest that workers are keenly aware of the need for transformative material change and can be persuaded to support that change electorally through narratives that demonstrate specific benefits to specific groups. The findings ought to grant hope to progressive policymakers: change is possible and incrementalism is not an inevitable strategy