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The Nordic Council has a vision to create the most integrated region globally by 2030. Nevertheless, Nordic cross-border infrastructure projects are generally developed by each nation individually. Joint Nordic infrastructure planning is thus fragmented. An example of this, as reported herein, is how road projects are assessed by the infrastructure planning authorities in Norway, Sweden, and Finland, the latter to which is included in the comparison for the first time. In each country, cost/benefit analyses (CBAs) are used. In each nation, the monetary values of changes in travel time, accidents, and environmental externalities are estimated. We then apply those values to the three national CBA models to assess an illustrative hypothetical road project. Theoretically, the models should provide similar outcomes when using a common set of parameters. Instead, we show that the choice of national model is crucial to the outcome. The Swedish model, for example, generates a higher cost of travel time than the other models irrespective of the nation from which we choose the parameters. Consequently, CBA-based assessments in the Nordic area depend strongly on the model applied and peculiarities in its coding. Finally, we discuss the policy implications of our findings for appraising national and Nordic projects.

The anterior insular cortex is hypothesized to represent interoceptive effects of drug reward in the service of goal-directed behavior. The insula is richly connected, but the insula circuitry in addiction remains poorly characterized. We examined the involvement of the anterior insula, amygdala, and nucleus accumbens, as well as the projections of the anterior insula to the central amygdala, basolateral amygdala (BLA), and nucleus accumbens core in voluntary alcohol drinking. We trained alcohol-preferring Alko Alcohol (AA) rats to drink alcohol during intermittent 2-h sessions. We then expressed excitatory or inhibitory designer receptors [designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs (DREADDs)] in the anterior insula, nucleus accumbens, or amygdala by means of adenovirus-mediated gene transfer and activated the DREADDs with clozapine-N-oxide (CNO) prior to the drinking sessions. Next, to examine the role of specific insula projections, we expressed FLEX-DREADDs in the efferent insula → nucleus accumbens core, insula → central amygdala, and insula → BLA projections by means of a retrograde AAV-Cre vector injected into the insula projection areas. In the anterior insula and amygdala, excitatory Gq-DREADDs significantly attenuated alcohol consumption. In contrast, in the nucleus accumbens, the Gq-DREADD stimulation increased alcohol drinking, and the inhibitory Gi-DREADDs suppressed it. The Gq-DREADDs expressed in the insula → nucleus accumbens core and insula → central amygdala projections increased alcohol intake, whereas inhibition of these projections had no effect. These data demonstrate that the anterior insula, along with the amygdala and nucleus accumbens, has a key role in controlling alcohol drinking by providing excitatory input to the central amygdala and nucleus accumbens to enhance alcohol reward.

With the fourth industrial revolution, Industry 4.0, many work tasks are becoming knowledge intensive. At the forefront of the change are workers that are already mobile, working in the field with customers. We describe the human-centred design process that resulted in the Mobile Service Technician 4.0 concept. The concept illustrates how industrial field maintenance work could benefit from knowledge-sharing solutions based on Industry 4.0. The solutions utilize industrial internet, virtual and augmented reality as well as wearable technologies to improve mobile service technicians’ daily work performance and work satisfaction. The Mobile Service Technician 4.0 concept illustrates the user experience of future maintenance work: feeling competent, feeling connected to the work community, and feeling of success and achievement by being better prepared for maintenance visits, getting situationally relevant support in maintenance operations, sharing knowledge with peers, and making maintenance reports effortless.

Abstract Grain boundary triple junctions are a key structural element in polycrystalline materials. They are involved in the formation of microstructures and can influence the mechanical and electronic properties of materials. In this work we study the structure and energetics of triple junctions in graphene using a multiscale modelling approach based on combining the phase field crystal approach with classical molecular dynamics simulations and quantum-mechanical density functional theory calculations. We focus on the atomic structure and formation energy of the triple junctions as a function of the misorientation between the adjacent grains. We find that the triple junctions in graphene consist mostly of five-fold and seven-fold carbon rings. Most importantly, in addition to positive triple junction formation energies we also find a significant number of orientations for which the formation energy is negative.

In the future, an increasing number of devices will be utilized in concert to support human activities, but little is known about how these interacting multidevice settings should be designed optimally in a human-centered manner. We report on a study in which we took two visions created by the Microsoft Corporation as a starting point. The aim of the paper is to describe a method for user-centered design that extends the ideas of a choreographic approach to interaction design and to demonstrate how micromovement analysis can be conducted in practice. We utilized a structural reorganization of movement continua originally presented in the videos for a first-person enactment of that choreography as a means to understand the kinesthetic quality and the potential of the implied choreographies. The approach underscores the influence of interaction designs on the moving and experiencing body, as well as the potential that the moving and experiencing body has for interaction design.

This article examines the role of dance of the Skolt Sámi in Finland in negotiating their history, identity and agency. The Skolt Sámi are a culturally and linguistically distinct group of the Eastern Sámi. Originally, they lived in a wide area, from Lake Inari eastward to the Russian city of Murmansk. Today, most Skolts live near Lake Inari in Finnish Lapland, where they were relocated after World War II. The multiple identities of the Skolts are actualized in many ways, in language, music, religion, but perhaps most distinctively in their dancing. Their dancing traditions, especially the quadrille, separate them from other Sámi in Finland and connect them to Northern Russian culture. Despite their dramatic past, the Skolts have preserved their culture and distinctive, yet ever-changing ethnic identities. Their identities are characterized by many points in their social and personal histories, and dancing is a part of the routes they have traveled within these experiences.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate how many blood pressure measurements are necessary in diagnosing mild to moderate hypertension.Methods: The subjects were 99 outpatients who were included on the basis of elevated diastolic (95 < or = DBP < or = 115 mmHg) and/or systolic (160 < or = SBP < or = 200 mmHg) blood pressure. After the initial measurement all patients underwent nine subsequent blood pressure measurements over a period of 7 months. None of the patients received anti-hypertensive drug treatment during the study.Results: Between the first (initial) and second measurements, there was a significant reduction in systolic (161.0 to 152.5 mmHg) and diastolic (101.5 to 97.1 mmHg) blood pressures (P < 0.01). The differences between pairs of subsequent measurements were not statistically significant. The average of the last five assessment sessions (two readings per session) was regarded as the "conceptual average blood pressure'. Comparing the blood pressure at repeat measurement with the conceptual average blood pressure revealed misclassification in 19% of cases, even after four repeat measurements (threshold value 95 mmHg). Analysis of the subgroups (95 < or = DBP < 105 mmHg and 105 < or = DBP < or = 115 mmHg) revealed that the proportion of misclassification greatly depended on the initial value and the accepted threshold value. At a threshold value of 95 mmHg, patients with "high' initial diastolic blood pressure (105 < or = DBP < or = 115 mmHg) required only two repeat measurements (misclassification in 7% of cases after four repeat measurements). Of those with initial diastolic blood pressure values between 95 and 105 mmHg, 24% were misclassified after four repeat measurements.Conclusions: For these "borderline' diastolic values, we propose larger numbers of measurements than are recommended in international guidelines. Our advice for values in this borderline region is to be reticent in starting antihypertensive drug treatment. The presence or absence of other cardiovascular risk factors should be taken into account when deciding whether treatment is required or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]