A questionnaire survey of drivers (n = 903) was conducted covering musculoskeletal symptoms, the vehicle seat, access to specific vehicle features, ingress/egress, driving performance and driving ...behaviours. Significantly, more discomfort was reported by older drivers (aged 65+) in the hips/thighs/buttocks and knees. Older drivers reported more difficulty parallel parking (p ≤ 0.01), driving on a foggy day (p ≤ 0.01), and turning their head and body to reverse (p ≤ 0.001). They also reported that their reactions were slower than they used to be (p ≤ 0.01). Dissatisfaction was found by all drivers with adjusting the headrest (height and distance), seat belt height and opening/closing the boot. There is a growing population of older people globally, and the number of older drivers is showing a parallel increase. Clearly, efforts are needed to ensure car design of the future is more inclusive of older drivers.
Practitioner Summary: This paper describes a questionnaire survey of drivers on their driving experience - the vehicle seat, access to specific vehicle features, ingress/egress, driving performance and driving behaviours. Comparisons are made by age and gender. Issues with driving and vehicle design particularly for older drivers in the UK are identified.
Recent and future changes in temperature and precipitation climate extremes are estimated using the Hadley Centre PRECIS ("Providing REgional Climates for Impacts Studies") climate model for the ...eastern Mediterranean and Middle East region. The area of interest is considered vulnerable to extreme climate events as there is evidence for a temperature rise while precipitation tends to decline, suggesting likely effects on vital socioeconomic sectors in the region. Observations have been obtained for the recent period (1961–1990) and used to evaluate the model output. The spatial distribution of recent temporal trends in temperature indicates strong increasing in minimum temperature over the eastern Balkan Peninsula, Turkey and the Arabian Peninsula. The rate of warming reaches 0.4–0.5 °C decade−1 in a large part of the domain, while warming is expected to be strongest in summer (0.6–0.7 °C decade−1) in the eastern Balkans and western Turkey. The trends in annual and summer maximum temperature are estimated at approximately 0.5 and 0.6 °C decade−1 respectively. Recent estimates do not indicate statistically significant trends in precipitation except for individual sub-regions. Results indicate a future warming trend for the study area over the last 30 years of the 21st century. Trends are estimated to be positive and statistically significant in nearly the entire region. The annual trend patterns for both minimum and maximum temperature show warming rates of approximately 0.4–0.6 °C decade−1, with pronounced warming over the Middle Eastern countries. Summer temperatures reveal a gradual warming (0.5–0.9 °C decade−1) over much of the region. The model projects drying trends by 5–30% in annual precipitation towards the end of the 21st century, with the number of wet days decreasing at the rate of 10–30 days year−1, while heavy precipitation is likely to decrease in the high-elevation areas by 15 days year−1.
Abstract
In this study, the condition of school buildings throughout the Greek territory was analysed, with reference to the typology of the buildings and consequently to the date and the method of ...construction. Emphasis was placed on the importance of the schoolyard both for the educational process and for the psychology of the students and the contribution to the improvement of thermal comfort conditions in the school premises and in the wider area. The purpose of this study is to investigate the energy status of school buildings that have been energy upgraded in all 4 Climate Zones of Greece by collecting data on energy consumption, construction date, construction method, educational level, and interventions. The research was based on questionnaires completed by users of school buildings to capture the reality of thermal comfort, air quality and energy efficiency after the interventions. Thus, considering the specific climatic conditions of each region, useful conclusions are drawn regarding the efficiency of the interventions and the actions required achieving real energy efficiency. After all, according to an EU directive, public buildings must be converted into zero-energy buildings.
The objective of this work is to characterize the heat transfer and temperature generation into the workpiece during micro-slot grinding. A numerical model for predicting micro-grinding temperature ...is established based on the finite difference method (FDM). Workpiece volume is divided into small elementary sections and temperature in small sections near and away from the machining zone is calculated using thermo-physical model as well as validated by experimentally measured temperature using infrared technique. Temperature in micro-slot grinding increases during vertical insertion of the tool and becomes stable when the tool transverse in the feed direction. Simulation results show that transient heat transfer becomes dominant on increased feed rate values that result in an overall lowering of heat supply into the surface. Results also reveal that modification in the tool design has a significant impact on the reduction of workpiece temperature due to reduced contact length, reduced cutting forces, friction, and rubbing at the tool-workpiece interface. The proposed model is capable of solving transient problems in micro-slot grinding and is flexible to deal with different boundary conditions. This analysis will help in temperature prediction and establishing temperature reduction strategies that could potentially increase machining precision.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
OPCML, a tumor suppressor gene, is frequently silenced epigenetically in ovarian and other cancers. Here we report, by analysis of databases of tumor sequences, the observation of OPCML somatic ...missense mutations from various tumor types and the impact of these mutations on OPCML function, by solving the X-ray crystal structure of this glycoprotein to 2.65 Å resolution. OPCML consists of an extended arrangement of three immunoglobulin-like domains and homodimerizes via a network of contacts between membrane-distal domains. We report the generation of a panel of OPCML variants with representative clinical mutations and demonstrate clear phenotypic effects in vitro and in vivo including changes to anchorage-independent growth, interaction with activated cognate receptor tyrosine kinases, cellular migration, invasion in vitro and tumor growth in vivo. Our results suggest that clinically occurring somatic missense mutations in OPCML have the potential to contribute to tumorigenesis in a variety of cancers.
In this study, manganese (Mn) doped Calcium Tetraborate (CaB4O7) samples were prepared by the wet chemical method. Under beta irradiated, CaB4O7:Mn showed thermally stimulated luminescence (TSL) glow ...peaks at approximately 85 °C and 220 °C with a heating rate of 5 °C/s. Peak shape (PS) and various heating rates (VHR) methods were applied for determining the trap parameters such as order of kinetic (b), activation energy (E) and frequency factor (s). The results indicate that the main dosimetric peak of CaB4O7:Mn follows the second-order kinetic model. The thermal fading ratio of the material is around 15% at the end of one month period of storage. The results of the TL studies carried out on the CaB4O7:Mn dosimeter revealed that it has high sensitivity, which makes it very valuable in various dosimetric applications like space, medical, personal dosimetry and dating. Radioluminescence (RL) of CaB4O7:Mn was also studied. It is shown that the RL spectrum contains a wide band centered at 530 nm assigned to Mn2+ ion emission. A broad band emission feature peaked at 350 nm assigned to the non-bridging oxygen hole center (NBOHC) is also discussed and a model is proposed to explain this broad band feature.
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•TSL characterization of CaB4O7:Mn was reported.•CaB4O7:Mn exhibited simple glow curve, good reproducibility and high sensitivity.•A model is proposed to explain broad band centered at 350 nm assigned to NBOHC.
In this work, numerical simulation has been done to study the cooling enhancement of electronic components of cubical shapes including dummy elements inside a rectangular duct. The 12 electronic ...chips (3 ? 4 array) of dimensions (50 mm ? 50 mm ? 10 mm) are tested in an air duct of dimensions (350 mm ? 3500 mm ? 60 mm). The aim of the simulation is to study the influence of changing positions of the hot components on the overall cooling performance at different Reynolds numbers. Moreover, the effect of spacing between electronic components is studied. This is achieved by changing the position of the heat sources while keeping other elements as dummies to keep the flow characteristics. The Reynolds number is in the range (500-19000). The standard k-?, model is used and validated with experimental work showing good agreement. The 37 cases per Reynolds are considered, resulting in an overall 259 studied cases. It is concluded in terms of the large resulting data from this study that, increasing the spacing between elements in the cooling fluid-flow direction influences the cooling rate. Moreover, designers should be interested to operate such systems at optimized higher Reynolds values.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The objective of this study is to investigate the contribution of biomass burning emissions to O3 production during small-scale dry-grass fires over Western Russia (24 April–10 May 2006) as well as ...to quantify the effect of biogenic emissions in this environment. By using the Factor Separation methodology, we evaluate the pure contribution of each one of these two sources and we appoint the significance of their synergistic effect on O3 production. The total (actual) contribution of each source is also estimated. Sensitivity simulations assess the effect of various fire emission parameters, such as chemical composition, emissions magnitude and injection height. The model results are compared with O3 and isoprene observations from 117 and 9 stations of the EMEP network, respectively. Model computations show that the fire episode determines the sensitivity of O3 chemistry in the area. The reference run which represents grass fires with high NOx/CO emission ratio (0.06) is characterized by VOC-sensitive O3 production. In that case, the pure impact of fire emissions on surface O3 is up to 40–45 ppb, while their synergistic effect with the biogenic emissions is proven significant (up to 8 ppb). Under a lower NOx/CO molar ratio (0.025, representative of agricultural residues), the area is characterized by NOx-sensitive chemistry and the maximum surface O3 predictions are almost doubled due to higher O3 production at the fire spots and lower fires' NO emissions.
Neutrophils are crucial innate immune cells which protect the host by killing infectious pathogens. Single cell RNA-sequencing analyses have previously described transcriptional heterogeneity of ...neutrophils and precursors, however the genome regulatory events underlying the transcriptional changes are less well characterised. Understanding this is important as neutropenia can be caused by dysregulation of the genome regulatory events that orchestrate neutrophil maturation. A good example is the use of immunomodulatory drugs (IMiDs, lenalidomide LEN & pomalidomide POM) for the treatment of multiple myeloma (MM) which are now standard-of-care, but their use is frequently complicated by neutropenia because of neutrophil maturation impairment. This is due to Cereblon (CRBN)-driven substrate ubiquitination and Ikaros degradation, causing PU.1 downregulation. However, restoration of Ikaros levels cannot fully alleviate the IMiD-induced myeloid differentiation block suggesting other mechanisms might also contribute. Our aim was to build a multiomic atlas of human myelopoiesis and use this to interrogate the molecular drivers of IMiD-induced neutropenia. We developed an ex vivo myeloid cell differentiation assay using human mobilized peripheral blood CD34 + cells from healthy donors and optimised methods for single cell multiomic (combined RNA-seq & ATAC-seq) analysis. This platform was validated orthogonally (immunophenotype, morphology & functional) and employed to construct a multi-omic single-cell landscape of normal human neutrophil differentiation and it's perturbation by IMiDs. Single cell transcriptomes from >110,000 cells from untreated and IMiD-treated samples were analyzed, capturing the full spectrum of human myelopoiesis spanning from early myeloid progenitors through to neutrophil populations (band, segmented, mature) (Fig.1A-left). Ex vivo differentiated neutrophils retained transcriptional signatures reflective of effector functions (granule biogenesis, chemotactic activity, respiratory burst) and mapped to previously described human neutrophil populations in vivo. Ex vivo generated neutrophils showed expected functional properties of phagocytosis and neutrophil extracellular trap formation upon stimulation. Exposure to IMiDs caused a maturation arrest with a 40-50% (p<0.001) decrease in abundance of differentiating metamyelocytes, and neutrophil populations. Crucially, this maturation arrest was due to an accumulation of transcriptionally distinct myeloid precursors that differentiated though an aberrant pathway (population 6, Fig 1A). Furthermore, immature erythroid clusters representing 10% of live cells accumulated specifically in IMiD-treated samples (p<0.001) in absence of erythropoiesis-stimulating cytokines. Simultaneous profiling of gene expression and chromatin accessibility in individual cells confirmed the presence of distinct phenotypes for untreated and IMiD-treated myeloid cells (Fig.1A) enabling the characterisation of the genome landscape of myelopoiesis, which has previously proven challenging. As expected, we observed dysregulation of Ikaros targets including PU.1 upon IMiD treatment (Fig. 1B-frame). The ability to study distinct and aberrant cellular populations at transcriptional and genome regulation level in parallel allowed us to identify several novel regulators of normal and perturbed neutrophil development. For example, we observed perturbed activation patterns of the transcription factors (TFs) zinc finger protein (ZNF467) and interferon regulatory factor 5 (IRF5) and the expression of their downstream targets as illustrated in Fig.1B. ZNF467 orchestrates a transcriptional program supporting terminal neutrophil differentiation in untreated cells (Fig.1B-top right), whilst the regulatory repertoire of IRF5, a hallmark of neutrophil activation is confined primarily to treatment-specific immature populations (Fig.1B-bottom right). We present a multiomic atlas of normal myelopoiesis which we believe will provide an important resource for the study or normal and perturbed neutrophil development. We use this platform to study IMiD-induced neutropenia and identify two aberrant cellular progenitor populations (aberrant myeloid precursors & erythroid progenitors) with distinct molecular properties as the likely cause of myelosuppression.
•Numerical simulation for the cooling process in brick tunnel kiln are presented.•Four lattice bricks settings are simulated.•New lattice setting is presented using CFD simulation.•As brick spacing ...increased an augmentation of 15.3% is founded in longitudinal brick.
The flow characteristics and heat transfer around brick model settings are very important fields of investigation to get over the problem of energy consumption and production process. The present paper introduces a numerical investigation of convective heat transfer for lattice settings in brick tunnel kiln. A numerical CFD analysis using the ANSYS-FLUENT package is used to simulate convective heat and fluid flow inside the cooling zone of the tunnel kiln. Three different settings are simulated and validated with published data. In addition, a fourth new setting is designed and simulated numerically. The results reveal that using CFD k-ω BSL turbulent model gives a good agreement with the published experimental data compared to the other turbulence models. Therefore, a new design of bricks used in buildings could be produced by examining it firstly using CFD. It can be used in study new settings and give acceptable results. Moreover, the longitudinal and transversal average Nusselt number are improved by increasing the space between bricks and columns. As the brick spacing increased from 5 to 16 mm a maximum augmentation of about 15.3% is founded in longitudinal brick at wall column in setting 11 at Re = 14,674. While, as column spacing increased from 19 to 58 mm a maximum augmentation of about 15.66% is gained for a longitudinal brick at the middle column in setting 11 at Re = 14,674.
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