Decision Making Effectiveness in Wildfire Incident Management Teams

During large scale wildfires, suppression activities are carried out under the direction of an Incident Management Team (IMT). The aim of the research was to increase understanding of decision processes potentially related to IMT effectiveness. An IMT comprises four major functions: Command, Operations, Planning, and Logistics. Four methodologies were used to study IMT processes: computer simulation experiments; analyses of wildfire reports; interviews with IMT members; and cognitive ethnographic studies of IMTs. Three processes were important determinants of IMT effectiveness: information management and cognitive overload; matching component function goals to overall goals; and team metacognition to detect and counter task‐disruptive developments. These processes appear to be complex multi‐person analogues of individual Incident Command processes identified previously. The findings have implications for issues such as: creating IMTs; training IMTs; managing IMTs; and providing decision support to IMTs.     

A One-Dimensional Nonlocal Damage-Plasticity Model for Ductile Materials

This paper presents a new 1-D non-local damage-plasticity deformation model for ductile materials. It uses the thermodynamic framework described in Houlsby and Puzrin (2000) and holds, nevertheless, some similarities with Lemaitre’s (1971) approach. A 1D finite element (FE) model of a bar fixed at one end and loaded in tension at the other end is introduced. This simple model demonstrates how the approach can be implemented within the finite element framework, and that it is capable of capturing both the pre-peak hardening and post-peak softening (generally responsible for models instability) due to damage-induced stiffness and strength reduction characteristic of ductile materials. It is also shown that the approach has further advantages of achieving some degree of mesh independence, and of being able to capture deformation size effects. Finally, it is illustrated how the model permits the calculation of essential work of rupture (EWR), i.e. the specific energy per unit cross-sectional area that is needed to cause tensile failure of a specimen.     

Optimized hydrogen positions for aluminium and iron containing hydroxide minerals

The structures of a number of hydroxide and oxyhydroxide minerals have previously been reported without the hydrogen positions explicitly defined. Here we use two atomic scale computer simulation techniques, one based on classical ionic potentials, the other on density functional theory (DFT), to predict these positions. The aim is not only to provide data that can be used as the basis for future experimental structure optimizations but also model parameters that can be used to predict complex hydroxide structures. The efficacy of the approach is demonstrated through the comparison of predicted and experimental data for minerals whose hydrogen positions are known.     

Modeling of precipitation hardening in Mg-based alloys

This work deals with the development of Mg-based alloys with enhanced properties at elevated temperatures. This is achieved by precipitation of binary phases such as MgZn₂ and Mg₂Sn during the aging of these alloys. The aim of the present work is to develop and calibrate a model for precipitation hardening in Mg-based alloys, as different types of precipitates form simultaneously. The modified Langer-Schwartz approach, while taking into account nucleation, growth and coarsening of the new phase precipitations, was used for the analysis of precipitates’ evolution and precipitation hardening during aging of Mg-based alloys. Two strengthening mechanisms associated with particle-dislocation interaction (shearing and bypassing) were considered to be operating simultaneously due to particle size-distribution. Parameters of the model, R _N i and k _{σ i} , were found by fitting of calculated densities and average sizes of precipitates with ones estimated from experiments. The effective diffusion coefficients of phase formation processes, which determine the strengthening kinetics, were estimated from the hardness maximum positions on the aging curves.     

Ugtracold Alkali Atoms in Optical Lattices: A New Type of Quantum Crystals?

Similarities between alkali gases in optical lattices with non-integer occupation of the lattice sites and quantum crystals are explored. The analogy with the vacancy liquid provides an agternative explanation to the Mott transition for the recent experiment on the phase transition in the lattice. The vacancy liquid can undergo BEC with T _c within experimental reach. Direct and vacancy-assisted mechanisms of the band motion for hyperfine impurities are discussed. The presence of vacancies can resugt in the spatial decomposition of the system into pure hyperfine components. Below BEC for the vacancies, the impurity component resembles ³He in ³He-Hell mixtures.     

Conference diary

A variational higher-order theory for bending and stretching of linearly elastic orthotropic beams including the deformations due to transverse shearing and stretching of the transverse normal fibre is presented. The theory assumes a linear distribution for the longitudinal displacement and a parabolic variation of the transverse displacement across the thickness. Additionally, independent expansions are introduced for the through-thickness displacement gradients with the requirement of a least-square compatibility for the transverse strains and the satisfaction of exact stress boundary conditions at the top/bottom beam surfaces. The theory is shown to be well suited for finite element development requiring simple C⁰- and C^?1- continuous displacement interpolation fields. To demonstrate the computational utility of the theory, a simple two-node stretching-bending finite element is formulated. The analytic and finite element results are obtained for a simple bending problem for which an exact elasticity solution is available. It is shown that the inclusion of the transverse normal deformation in the present theory enables improved displacement, strain and stress predictions, particularly, in the analysis of deep beams.     

Game AI is Dead. Long Live Game AI!

This paper discusses how the recent advances in game AI technology can help benefit industry and the academia. Some of these advances include large-scale automated art and content generation, automated storytelling, goal-driven virtual actors, and the ability to adapt to the player's preferences and mental state     

Conformational disease

Several diverse disorders, including the prevalent dementias and encephalopathies, are now believed to arise from the same general disease mechanism. In each, there is abnormal unfolding and then aggregation of an underlying protein. The gradual accumulation of these aggregates and the acceleration of their formation by stress explain the characteristic late or episodic onset of the clinical disease. The understanding of these processes at the molecular level is opening prospects of more rational approaches to investigation and therapy.     

Interleukin-2 enhancement of cytotoxicity by humanized monoclonal antibody M195 (anti-CD33) in myelogenous leukemia

The mass childhood immunization programme has traditionally been viewed as a safe and effective preventative measure by health promoters, primary health care professionals and governments. This consensus has meant that immunization has rarely been viewed as ethically problematic. A number of recent changes in the context of the delivery of health care, particularly the emphasis on consumerism and the effect of the marketization of services, makes timely an examination of ethical, social and political issues. This article examines four main grounds for problematizing the mass childhood immunization programme. These are: clinical research evidence about the safety and efficacy of vaccines; the masking of wider social and political determinants of ill health; the contradictory strictures about collective and individual rights in relation to immunization; and the uniqueness of childhood immunization as a physical intrusion into a healthy body. The implications of these ethical issues are discussed in relation to informed consent and the need for a 'greenfield' review that includes the views of dissenting parents, lawyers and moral philosophers, as well as health professionals.