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IntroductionExperiences during development help to explain behavior expression in adulthood.AimsIn this study, we explored how unpredictability and harshness experienced during childhood may have impacted the occurrence of reproductive milestones in adulthood and the expression of fundamental motives related to self-protection, disease avoidance, mate seeking, mate retention, and kin care (children/family) during the pandemic.MethodsThis was an exploratory study with 438 participants. Through the administration of online questionnaires, participants were assessed and categorized based on their childhood experiences, resulting in three groups: low unpredictability, high unpredictability with family support, and high unpredictability without family support.ResultsWe found that family support experienced during childhood predicts a slow life-history strategy. This involves an emphasis on growth and parenting efforts at the expense reproduction and was relevant even for participants who faced financial unpredictability. During the pandemic, we also observed that mate retention and kin care (family) motives were predominant among individuals who had greater family support during childhood.DiscussionOverall, the findings suggest that unpredictability experienced during childhood is crucial for the development of life-history strategies and the manifestation of fundamental motives in adulthood.

Iris Haimov,1 Ohad Szepsenwol,2,* Ami Cohen1,* 1The Center for Psychobiological Research and The Department of Psychology, The Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, Yezreel Valley, Israel; 2The Center for Psychobiological Research and The Department of Education and Educational Counseling, The Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, Yezreel Valley, Israel*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Iris Haimov, The Center for Psychobiological Research and The Department of Psychology, The Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, Yezreel Valley, Israel, Email i_haimov@yvc.ac.ilPurpose: Studies point to a persistent effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on sleep quality and mental health, including anxiety. Exposure to stressors during childhood increases the susceptibility to anxiety in later life. Given the negative effects of anxiety on sleep quality, the present study aimed to examine the associations between various childhood stressors and poor sleep quality of adults during the COVID-19 pandemic, and whether these associations are mediated by COVID-19-related anxiety.Participants and Methods: A total of 586 participants aged 18– 40 (mean age 27.53± 6.48 years, 301 females) were recruited to take part in an online survey conducted in Israel between February 7 and 15, 2021, during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants completed questionnaires assessing retrospectively adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), childhood harshness (indexed separately by exposure to morbidity and mortality and low socioeconomic status, SES), and childhood unpredictability. COVID-19-related anxiety was assessed using two items. Sleep quality was measured using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and insomnia symptoms with the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI). Participants were asked to complete the ISI concerning two time points: (a) retrospectively, before the COVID-19 outbreak, and (b) currently, during the pandemic.Results: Path analysis indicated that poor sleep quality (PSQI) was directly and indirectly (through COVID-19-related anxiety) predicted by the number of ACEs and childhood morbidity-mortality exposure, directly predicted by childhood low SES, and indirectly predicted by childhood unpredictability. Insomnia symptoms increase (ISI) was indirectly predicted by the number of ACEs, childhood morbidity-mortality exposure, and childhood unpredictability.Conclusion: ACEs as well as harsh and unpredictable childhood environments are predictive of poorer sleep during the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19-related anxiety mediates the effects of childhood stressors (other than low SES) on sleep. These findings may have clinical implications relevant to stressful periods in general.Keywords: childhood environments, harshness, unpredictability, stressful periods, sleep efficiency

Driving over rising and falling edges on roads and pavements, rails, manhole covers, or transverse joints can influence the driving impression regarding the driver’s perception of vibrations and acoustics. To be able to describe this, objective parameters are used to make the subjective ride comfort measurable and scalable. Previous studies have already contributed to the investigation of the subjective perception regarding the interaction of vibrations and acoustics. However, the results were individual. Aimed at improving the quality of objective analysis methods, driving maneuvers were performed in a real vehicle to investigate the interaction of vibrations and acoustics due to transient road excitations. For this purpose, a sound reproduction system was used, which could provide the acoustic environment for the driver to adapt to while driving. With this method, subjective ratings by varying vibrations and acoustics were collected and with reference to objective parameters statistically evaluated. The results showed that both tactile and audible vibrations under transient influences had no significant interactive effects on the driver’s perception.

This paper presents certain considerations related to noise, vibration and harshness issues on modern motor vehicles. The first, practical aspect was used toward structuring of the acquired knowledge and relationships, required for proper problem diagnosis. On the other hand, advanced signal analyses are considered. The influence on human body is processed and certain noise and vibration analyzers are presented. This synergy of scientific and applicative approach represents a basis for further research related to this important automotive branch.

Steadily increasing power demands are linked with the ongoing process of electrifying the powertrain for dominant and pure electric vehicles. Fulfilling those requirements can be achieved by a multiphase approach which is implemented with a six-phase machine with buried permanent magnets. Besides the new modelling aspects, new control possibilities arise such as controlling the current harmonics individually using vector space decomposition (VSD) methods. Here, this method is used to influence the noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) maintaining the working point in torque and speed. A reduction up to 22 dB of the main acoustic order in the significant speed range was achieved.

This paper addresses the cascading design method of NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) performance between an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and suppliers. The increasing trend toward electric vehicles requires the exploring of cascading design method, because of the easiness of the assembly of the electric vehicles. However, there are difficulties for the cascading design of NVH performance to overcome the coupling problem among each subsystem. It is generally difficult to divide key evaluation characteristics of a whole structure to individual characteristics of each subsystem because of the coupling resonance. In this paper, cascading design method which utilizes the MMC (Mutual Mean Compliance) was proposed. The MMC is used as an index to meet the final NVH target levels of a whole structure. Then, the MMC is cascaded to each subsystem or component. Finally, the cascaded MMC is achieved by improving individual MMCs of each separate subsystem, while being careful about the resonance of a whole structure caused by strong coupling. In the paper, it is shown that the recalculation of MMCs after subsystem’s structural modification is feasible using FBS (Frequency response function Based Sub-structuring). In addition, MMC based cascading design method using FBS was defined and organized as a procedure. The method was also verified by a numerical case study.

High altitude glacier-fed streams are harsh environments inhabiting specialized invertebrate communities. Most research on biotic aspects in glacier-fed streams have focused on the simple relationship between presence/absence of species and prevailing environmental conditions, whereas functional strategies and potentials of glacial stream specialists have been hardly investigated so far. Using new and recent datasets from our investigations in the European Alps, we now demonstrate distinct functional properties of invertebrates that typically dominate glacier-fed streams and show significant relationships with declining glacier cover in alpine stream catchments. In particular, we present and argue about cause-effect relationships between glacier cover in the catchment and temperature, community structure, diversity, feeding strategies, early life development, body mass, and growth of invertebrates. By concentrating on key taxa in glacial and non-glacial alpine streams, the relevance of distinct adaptations in these functional components becomes evident. This clearly demonstrates that further studies of functional characteristics are essential for the understanding of peculiar diversity patterns, successful traits and their plasticity, evolutionary triggered species adaptions, and flexibilities.