922017 research outputs found
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Augmenting a Nature Documentary with a Lifelike Hologram in Virtual Reality
No full textWhile augmented reality television (ARTV) is being investigated in research labs, the high cost of AR headsets makes it difficult foraudiences to benefit from the research. However, the relative affordability of virtual reality (VR) headsets provides ARTV researcherswith opportunities to test their prototypes in VR. Additionally, as VR becomes an acceptable medium for watching conventional TV,augmenting such viewing experiences in VR creates new opportunities. We prototype a nature documentary ARTV experience inVR and conduct a remote user study (𝑛 = 10) to investigate six points on the visual display design dimension of presenting a lifelikeprogramme-related hologram. We manipulated the starting point and the movement behaviour of the hologram to gain insight intoviewer preferences. Our findings highlight the importance of personal preferences and that of the perceived role of a hologram inrelation to the underlying TV content; suggesting there may not be a single way to augment a TV programme. Instead, creators mayneed to provide the audiences with capabilities to customise ARTV content
An online data driven fault diagnosis and thermal runaway early warning for electric vehicle batteries
No full textBattery fault diagnosis is crucial for stable, reliable, and safe operation of electric vehicles, especially the thermal runaway early warning. Developing methods for early failure detection and reducing safety risks from failing high energy lithium-ion batteries has become a major challenge for industry. In this work, a real-time early fault diagnosis scheme for lithiumion batteries is proposed. By applying both the discrete Fréchet distance (DFD) and local outlier factor (LOF) to the voltage and temperature data of the battery cell/module that measured in real time, the battery cell that will have thermal runaway is detected before thermal runaway happens. Compared with the widely used single parameter based diagnosis approach, the proposed one considerably improve the reliability of the fault diagnosis and reduce the false diagnosis rate. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated with the operational data from electric vehicles with/without thermal runaway in daily use
Follow-up regimes for sick-listed employees: a comparison of nine north-western European countries
No full textThe Covid-19 pandemic has revealed the importance of social protection systems, including income security, when health problems arise. The aims of this study are to compare the follow-up regimes for sick-listed employees across nine European countries, and to conduct a qualitative assessment of the differences with respect to burden and responsibility sharing between the social protection system, employers and employees. The tendency highlighted is that countries with shorter employer periods of sick-pay typically have stricter follow-up responsibility for employers because, in practice, they become gatekeepers of the public sickness benefit scheme. In Germany and the UK, employers have few requirements for follow-up compared with the Nordic countries because they bear most of the costs of sickness absence themselves. The same applies in Iceland, where employers carry most of the costs and have no obligation to follow up sick-listed employees. The situation in the Netherlands is paradoxical: employers have strict obligations in the follow-up regime even though they cover all the costs of the sick-leave themselves. During the pandemic, the majority of countries have adjusted their sick-pay system and increased coverage to reduce the risk of spreading Covid-19 because employees are going to work sick or when they should self-quarantine, except for the Netherlands and Belgium, which considered that the current schemes were already sufficient to reduce that risk
Acceptability of reducing sedentariness using a mobile-phone application based on ‘if then’ plans for people with psychosis: a focus-group study conducted in the North West of the UK
No full textObjective: To understand the acceptability of (a) reducing sedentary-behaviour in people with psychosis using ‘if-then’ plans and (b) the proposed app content.Design: Qualitative acceptability study. Method: Three structured focus-groups and an interview were conducted with eight participants who had experience of a psychotic episode. They discussed sedentary-behaviour, being more active, critical situations in which they may be tempted to be sedentary and solutions to these (the if-then plans), and a mock-up of the mobile application. The Theoretical Framework of Acceptability (TFA) was used to analyse qualitatively the transcripts.Results: All TFA constructs were coded in each of the transcripts. The idea of reducing sedentary-behaviour was acceptable to people with psychosis, participants knew the importance of being more active, however it is not always their main priority. Likewise, the proposed content of the app was found to be acceptable, with participants already using some of the proposed solutions.Conclusion: This was the first study to use the TFA framework to assess the acceptability of an app that uses critical situations and solutions (“if-then plans”) to help reduce sedentary behaviour for people with psychosis. In this sample (male, English speaking mainly white people), participants understood the benefits of being more active. However, reducing sedentary-behaviour is not the main priority of this population and being sedentary has benefits when their mental-health is bad.<br/
A Petrological and Spectral Characterisation of the NU-LHT-2M Lunar Highlands Regolith Simulant in preparation for the PROSPECT payload ground testing campaign.
No full textIn preparation for the upcoming missions to the south polar region of the Moon, the Package for Resource Observation and in-Situ Prospecting for Exploration Commercial exploitation and Transportation (PROSPECT) underwent a series of tests to ensure its suitability for polar regolith and volatile analysis. A lunar regolith simulant, NU-LHT-2M, was used for geotechnical validation and volatile extraction testing. Therefore, the physical, chemical/mineralogical, and spectral properties of separate batches of this simulant have been characterised to better understand the results of the instrument laboratory testing phase. Here we compare measurements from two different batches of the simulant to Apollo bulk regolith samples in order to understand the suitability and representativeness of the simulant to the properties of surface highlands regolith. Based on our measurements, we recommend that the physical, mineralogical, and spectral properties of simulants be analysed both before and after space instrument testing campaigns. These bookended measurements would allow for a more detailed understanding of the test phase, including how the simulants have been altered by the test and, therefore, how the lunar surface may be affected by mission extraction and sampling processes
Nurses’ adoption and use of digital technology during the COVID-19 pandemic
No full textAim: to explore nurses’ adoption and use of digital technologies during the COVID-19 pandemicMethods: online survey to obtain nurses’ feedback and ratings of technologiesimplemented and used to support patient care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Survey questions comprised fixed response and free-text questions and a rating of system usability (quantitative and qualitative data). Participants were recruited via nursing networks and social media.Results: 55 respondents provided details on 85 separate technologies. The majority of technologies were used for patient monitoring/data sharing (n=39; 46%), online communication (n=22; 26%) virtual appointments (n=15; 18%). Other technologies included electronic patient records (n=5, 6%), e-Prescribing (n=3; 3%), and for PPE (n=1, 1%). Usability of systems varied significantly across types of technology. Barriers to successful use included accessibility to effective infrastructure.Conclusion: there was a range and breadth of digital technologies adopted and used by nurses during the pandemic. There are ongoing issues with the availability of digital infrastructure to enable effective digital working, and poor usability of some systems that have been implemente
Cancer risks by sex and variant type in PTEN Hamartoma Tumor Syndrome
No full textBACKGROUND: PTEN Hamartoma Tumor Syndrome (PHTS) is a rare syndrome with a broad phenotypic spectrum, including increased risks of breast (BC, 67-78% at age 60), endometrial (EC, 19-28%) and thyroid cancer (TC, 6-38%). Current risks are likely overestimated due to ascertainment bias. We aimed to provide more accurate and personalized cancer risks. METHODS: A European, adult PHTS cohort study with data from medical files, registries and/or questionnaires. Cancer risks and hazard ratios were assessed with Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses, and standardized incidence ratios (SIR) were calculated. Bias correction consisted of excluding cancer index cases and incident case analyses. RESULTS: 455 patients were included, including 50.5% index cases, 372 with prospective follow-up (median 6 year, IQR:3-10), and 159/281 females and 39/174 males with cancer. By age 60, PHTS-related cancer risk was higher in females (68.4% to 86.3%) than males (16.4% to 20.8%). Female BC risks ranged from 54.3% (95%CI 43.0-66.4) to 75.8% (95%CI 60.7-88.4), with two-to-three-fold increased risks for PTEN truncating and about two-fold for phosphatase domain variants. EC risks ranged from 6.4% (95%CI 2.1-18.6) to 22.1% (95%CI 11.6-39.6), and TC risks from 8.9% (95%CI 5.1-15.3) to 20.5% (95%CI 11.3-35.4). Colorectal cancer, renal cancer and melanoma risks were each below 10.0%. CONCLUSION: Females have a different breast cancer risk depending on their PTEN germline variant. PHTS patients are predominantly at risk of breast (females), endometrial and thyroid cancer. This should be the main focus of surveillance. These lower, more unbiased and personalized risks provide guidance for optimized cancer risk management
THE APPLICATION OF THE ARBITRARY-ORDER GALERKIN REDUCTION METHOD TO THE DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF A ROTOR WITH A PRELOADED SINGLE-PAD FOIL-AIR BEARING
No full textSWAT 86 evaluation: Randomised evaluation of pre-notification of trial participants before self-report outcome data collection to improve retention
No full textBackgroundRetention is considered the second highest trial methods priority in the UK after recruitment. There is limited evidence on whether notifying trial participants that a follow-up questionnaire will be sent soon (‘pre-notification’) affects retention. MethodsThis Study Within a Trial (SWAT) evaluated whether sending a pre-notification letter or email around 2 weeks before sending a self-report questionnaire increased retention, in terms of provision of the host trial primary outcome. The SWAT was a randomised, two-arm, parallel-design (1:1 allocation ratio) trial, controlled by ‘no pre-notification letter’. It was embedded within the WORKWELL host trial, which evaluated the impact of job retention vocational rehabilitation on work-related and health-related outcomes of employed people with inflammatory arthritis. The SWAT primary outcome was a valid response for the WORKWELL primary outcome.Results244 trial participants took part in the SWAT. All were included in the analysis. Among those sent a pre-reminder, 100/121 (83%) provided a valid response for the WORKWELL primary outcome, compared to 97/123 (79%) of those not sent a pre-reminder. The estimated adjusted odds ratio was 1.28 (95% confidence interval 0.67 to 2.42), with a risk difference of 3.8% (95%CI -6.1% to 13.6%), favouring the pre-reminder. The estimated intervention cost per additional participant retained was £53.42, and the total cost per additional participant retained was £46.52.ConclusionResearchers may have a small improvement in trial retention by using pre-notification. The cost per additional participant retained is relatively low. However, further evaluations are merited.<br/
Effect of Clustering in Federated Learning on Non-IID Electricity Consumption Prediction
No full textWhen applied to short-term energy consumption forecasting, the federated learning framework allows for the creation of a predictive model without sharing raw data. There is a limit to the accuracy achieved by standard federated learning due to the heterogeneity of the individual clients’ data, especially in the case of electricity data, where prediction of peak demand is a challenge. A set of clustering techniques has been explored in the literature to improve prediction quality while maintaining user privacy. These studies have mainly been conducted using sets of clients with similar attributes that may not reflect realworld consumer diversity. This paper explores, implements and compares these clustering techniques for privacy-preserving load forecasting on a representative electricity consumption dataset. The experimental results demonstrate the effects of electricity consumption heterogeneity on federated forecasting and a nonrepresentative sample’s impact on load forecasting