Predicting practical fitness to drive in drivers with visual field defects caused by ocular pathology

Vision, viewing efficiency, visual attention, and on-road driving performance were assessed in 100 participants with central and/or peripheral visual field defects caused by ocular pathology. Driving was evaluated by the Dutch driving license authority making use of the protocol for investigating practical fitness to drive. A smaller percentage of participants with central visual field defects passed the on-road driving test, in comparison with participants with peripheral or mild field defects. The predictive power of a model based on the current vision requirements for driving significantly increased when taking compensatory viewing efficiency into account. The results of the latter model were comparable to those of a model based on tests of visual attention and contrast sensitivity. Despite the increased explained variance of practical fitness to drive when taking higher-order visual functions into account, sensitivity and specificity remained quite low, limiting the use of these tests in identifying unfit drivers. Actual or potential applications of this research include the development of training programs to improve practical fitness to drive in drivers with visual field defects.     

Differential impact of unguided versus guided use of a multimedia introduction to equine obstetrics in veterinary education

In view of supporting the study of the complex domain of equine obstetrics, a FoalinMare multimedia package with 3D designs has been developed. The present study centers on questions as to the most optimal implementation of the multimedia package in veterinary education. In a pretest-posttest cross-over design, students were randomly assigned to one of four conditions. Experimental conditions varied - next to a traditional lecture based introduction to equine obstetrics - from independent exploration of the FoalinMare DVD, to independent guided DVD usage, to guided classroom usage of the DVD. As dependent measures, student mastery of knowledge and skills, cognitive load and self-efficacy were measured. Results point at the significant superior impact of studying with the FoalinMare DVD on skills acquisition and higher levels of self-efficacy. In addition, experimental conditions that build on guided usage of the multimedia application, result in superior performance. Building on the cross-over design, the guided classroom usage boosts in a significant way the knowledge acquisition in the subsequent learning phase in the control condition. Building on these results, implications and directions for future research are presented.     

Multiscale flow patterns within an intracranial aneurysm phantom

Straightforward quantification of variations of flow patterns within aneurysms fails to accurately describe flow patterns of interest. We applied a multiscale decomposition of the flow in well-defined patterns to detect and quantify flow patterns in an aneurysm phantom that was studied with three different modalities: MRI, computational fluid dynamics, and particle image velocimetry. The method intuitively visualizes main patterns such as locally uniform flow, in- and outflow, and vortices. It is shown that this method is a valuable tool to quantitatively compare scale-dependent complex flow patterns in aneurysms.     

Carbon nanoparticles as detection labels in antibody microarrays. Detection of genes encoding virulence factors in Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli

The present study demonstrates that carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) can be used as labels in microarrays. CNPs were used in nucleic acid microarray immunoassays (NAMIAs) for the detection of different Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) virulence factors: four genes specific for STEC (vt1, vt2, eae, and ehxA) and the gene for E. coli 16S (hui). Optimization was performed using a Box-Behnken design, and the limit of detection for each virulence factor was established. Finally, this NAMIA using CNPs was tested with DNA from 48 field strains originating from cattle feces, and its performance was evaluated by comparing results with those achieved by the reference method q-PCR. All factors tested gave sensitivity and specificity values higher than 0.80 and efficiency values higher than 0.92. Kappa coefficients showed an almost perfect agreement (k > 0.8) between NAMIA and the reference method used for vt1, eae, and ehxA, and a perfect agreement (k = 1) for vt2 and hui. The excellent agreement between the developed NAMIA and q-PCR demonstrates that the proposed analytical procedure is indeed fit for purpose, i.e., it is valuable for fast screening of amplified genetic material such as E. coli virulence factors. This also proves the applicability of CNPs in microarrays.     

Graphical input: Can computers understand people?

Computer graphics provides a primary means of interaction between architects and CAD systems. It is argued that existing graphical input procedures to CAD systems are universally bad. Conventional drawing operations are described in order to identify required properties of good input systems. Inadequacies of current systems are traced to choice of computing technology and the study discusses opportunities offered by new technology, as in the example of Prolog.     

Automatic Intra-Register Vectorization for the Intel® Architecture

Recent extensions to the Intel^® Architecture feature the SIMD technique to enhance the performance of computational intensive applications that perform the same operation on different elements in a data set. To date, much of the code that exploits these extensions has been hand-coded. The task of the programmer is substantially simplified, however, if a compiler does this exploitation automatically. The high-performance Intel^® C++/Fortran compiler supports automatic translation of serial loops into code that uses the SIMD extensions to the Intel^® Architecture. This paper provides a detailed overview of the automatic vectorization methods used by this compiler together with an experimental validation of their effectiveness.     

Decreasing Diagrams and Relative Termination

In this article we use the decreasing diagrams technique to show that a left-linear and locally confluent term rewrite system R\mathcal{R} is confluent if the critical pair steps are relatively terminating with respect to R\mathcal{R}. We further show how to encode the rule-labeling heuristic for decreasing diagrams as a satisfiability problem. Experimental data for both methods are presented.     

Increasing interpretations

The article at hand introduces a refinement of interpretation-based termination criteria for term rewrite systems in the dependency pair setting. Traditional methods share the property that—in order to be successful—all rewrite rules must (weakly) decrease with respect to some measure. One novelty of our approach is that we allow some rules to increase the interpreted value. These rules are found by simultaneously searching for adequate polynomial interpretations while considering the information of the dependency graph. We prove that our method extends the termination proving power of linear interpretations. Furthermore, this generalization perfectly fits the dependency pair framework which is implemented in virtually every termination prover dealing with term rewrite systems. We present two dependency pair processors for increasing interpretations. The novelty of the second one is that it can be used to eliminate single edges from the dependency graph.     

Towards a more effective and efficient governance and regulation of nanomaterials

The uncertainty regarding the effects and risks of nanomaterials on human health and the environment, and how they should be tested and assessed in the context of current regulations, is clearly holding back the full exploitation of the innovative potential of nanomaterials. To reduce this uncertainty, the European Union funded NANoREG and ProSafe projects (jointly referred to as N1P) have made a critical evaluation of methods to test and assess these risks in the context of the current registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals (REACH) regulation. Where essential methods were lacking, new ones have been developed. For several existing methods, adjustments have been proposed. Possible improvements to the REACH regulation have also been identified in these projects. The results of N1P have been translated into recommendations for (European) policy makers and regulators. Part of them have a “no regret” character, meaning that the proposed actions can be considered as necessary, feasible, effective and cost efficient. The recommended measures proposed for data quality and data management will create a more solid information basis for risk assessment of nanomaterials. When implemented, the recommendations regarding REACH will improve the application of REACH in both a legal and scientific sense. In practical terms however, the application of REACH will remain complex, time-consuming and costly. Besides that, adapting and specifying the information requirements and test methods in REACH for nanomaterials that are now on the market, will not solve the regulatory hurdles for next generation (nano) materials. To better align the dynamic character of developing new materials and the static character of regulations, it is recommended to explore possibilities of a more future proof approach for securing the safety of new (nano) materials.