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Abstract Cities throughout the world have increasingly promoted walking and cycling as healthy and sustainable modes of travel. However, collisions between pedestrians and cyclists have remained largely unstudied, and existing accident statistics suffer from underreporting. This study aimed to explore near accidents and collisions between pedestrians and cyclists, assess the frequency of near accidents, and evaluate pedestrians’ and cyclists’ sense of safety in traffic. An online survey was directed to inhabitants of Finnish cities with populations greater than 100,000, and the resulting data included 1046 respondents who walk and/or cycle regularly. The main results show that near accidents between pedestrians and cyclists are around 50 times more frequent than collisions. Only 16 survey respondents had been involved in a collision during the 3-year period, whereas roughly a third had experienced at least one near accident. For both near accidents and collisions, the involved parties were usually travelling in the same direction. Most incidents occurred on pedestrian paths and shared pedestrian and bicycle paths. On shared pedestrian and bicycle paths separated by mode of transport, incidents were much rarer. Furthermore, sense of safety and willingness to walk and cycle were lower in environments where near accidents were more frequent. These findings tentatively suggest that spatially separating modes of transport could improve people’s sense of safety and prevent near accidents and collisions. Prevention of near accidents could increase the willingness to walk and cycle.

Firefighters are exposed via multi-route exposure to a multitude of chemicals (PAHs, VOCs, flame retardants, dioxins, etc.) that may cause acute and long-term health effects. The dermal absorption of contaminants is a major contributor to the overall exposure and can be reduced by wearing appropriate personal protective equipment. As leather firefighters’ gloves cannot be decontaminated regularly by wet cleaning, many Belgian firefighters wear supplementary undergloves made of nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) to protect against the accumulation of toxicants. However, the safety of this practice has been questioned. In this commentary, the current practice and risks are outlined for the first time, assessed by an interdisciplinary working group of the Belgian Superior Health Council. As NBR sticks to the skin more at high temperatures, the contact time on removal will be prolonged, posing an additional risk for deeper burns. However, based on the physicochemical properties of NBR and the existing experience of firefighters and burn centers, it is estimated that such incidents occur relatively rarely in practice. On the other hand, the risk of repeated exposure to contaminated gloves if no undergloves are worn is unacceptable. Despite the slightly increased risk for deeper burns, it is concluded that wearing disposable NBR gloves under regular firefighters’ gloves is an appropriate and effective preventive measure against toxic contamination. The nitrile butadiene rubber must always be fully covered to avoid any contact with the heat.

Logistics of roundwood and biomass comprise a high number of operations, machinery, storage sites and transportable roundwood and biomass assortments. Moreover, complex and highly varying operational environment through the year poses logistics challenges incurring additional costs. An extensive review of studies was conducted in Sweden and Finland concerning roundwood and biomass logistics, starting from roadside landings and ending with delivery to a mill or a conversion facility. The main aim of the review was to describe trends in roundwood and biomass logistics since the start of the century. Papers were classified to categories of truck transports and roads, terminals, multimodal transports, storage and supply chain logistics. Slightly over 50% of reviewed articles were constrained to biomass only, 31% to roundwood only and 14% to both. Rapid technology development, amendments concerning road transports, increasing environmental concerns and forestry sector’s push to decrease the logistics costs can be seen as the biggest drivers for the reviewed studies and their study objectives. These aspects will also drive and increase the demand for research and development in roundwood and biomass logistics in the future.

Abstract Introduction The number of people with memory disorders is increasing worldwide. Changing certain lifestyle factors can prevent the development of those disorders. Diet is a central factor that can be changed. Methods A systematic literature search was conducted to identify peer‐reviewed articles that examined the relationship between a plant‐based diet and Alzheimer's disease or SVD. Results Whole‐food, plant‐based diets also seem to be a healthy choice for the brain. Berries, vegetables and fibre seem to be especially important. The amounts of saturated fat, refined carbohydrates and alcohol should be minimised. Single components (dietary supplements) are not beneficial if one has no deficiencies. Conclusions A plant‐based diet containing plenty of fibre, vitamins, and polyphenols seems to be a good choice for our memory and brain health.

Inventories and inventory management are integral in supply chain and logistics activities. This study analyses supplies inventory management in a corporation and the unique challenges in this context. The study is qualitative, and a case study of an organisation’s inventory management practices is conducted. The findings highlight the importance of reliable inventory data, documented inventory management practices and unified inventory management organisation. They also illustrate the issues and development needs in supplies inventory management in a corporation. Despite the single case study generalisability limitations, managers can utilise the findings as a reference for inventory management development projects in corporations.

This study utilised static triaxial and dynamic cone penetration tests to examine the identification of changes in strength in soil materials as a result of an increase in moisture content. The applicability of a light dynamic cone penetrometer device in railway environments was also studied. On a broader scale, the aim was to find an investigation method suited to field locations that identify low-quality or persistently moist materials directly from the structure. The triaxial tests found an apparent increase in shear strength when the water content dropped below 7%. Based on the series of laboratory tests, the dynamic cone penetrometer reacted strongly to material density, but the impact of moisture content was also evident. Furthermore, the results showed that dynamic cone resistance is a reasonably unfeasible metric for assessing the structural quality of materials consisting primarily of sand, due to the number of factors affecting the resistance. In the laboratory tests, the lowest dynamic cone resistances were measured in the material with the highest structural quality.

Extreme ultraviolet (XUV) capillary-discharge lasers (CDLs) are a suitable source for the efficient, clean ablation of ionic crystals, which are obviously difficult to ablate with conventional, long-wavelength lasers. In the present study, a single crystal of cesium iodide (CsI) was irradiated by multiple, focused 1.5-ns pulses of 46.9-nm radiation delivered from a compact XUV-CDL device operated at either 2-Hz or 3-Hz repetition rates. The ablation rates were determined from the depth of the craters produced by the accumulation of laser pulses. Langmuir probes were used to diagnose the plasma plume produced by the focused XUV-CDL beam. Both the electron density and electron temperature were sufficiently high to confirm that ablation was the key process in the observed CsI removal. Moreover, a CsI thin film on MgO substrate was prepared by XUV pulsed laser deposition; a fraction of the film was detected by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.

Abstract Introduction Widespread use of ten-valent (Synflorix™, GSK) or 13-valent (Prevenar 13™; Pfizer) conjugate vaccination programs has effectively reduced invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) globally. However, IPD caused by serotypes not contained within the respective vaccines continues to increase, notably serotypes 3, 6A, and 19A in countries using lower-valent vaccines. Our objective was to estimate the clinical and economic benefit of replacing PCV10 with PCV13 in Colombia, Finland, and The Netherlands. Methods Country-specific databases, supplemented with published and unpublished data, informed the historical incidence of pneumococcal disease as well as direct and indirect medical costs. A decision-analytic forecasting model was applied, and both costs and outcomes were discounted. The observed invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) trends from each country were used to forecast the future number of IPD cases given a PCV13 or PCV10 program. Results Over a 5-year time horizon, a switch to a PCV13 program was estimated to reduce overall IPD among 0–2 year olds by an incremental − 37.6% in Colombia, − 32.9% in Finland, and − 26% in The Netherlands, respectively, over PCV10. Adults > 65 years experienced a comparable incremental decrease in overall IPD in Colombia (− 32.2%), Finland (− 15%), and The Netherlands (− 3.7%). Serotypes 3, 6A, and 19A drove the incremental decrease in disease for PCV13 over PCV10 in both age groups. A PCV13 program was dominant in Colombia and Finland and cost-effective in The Netherlands at 1 × GDP per capita (€34,054/QALY). Conclusion In Colombia, Finland, and The Netherlands, countries with diverse epidemiologic and population distributions, switching from a PCV10 to PCV13 program would significantly reduce the burden of IPD in all three countries in as few as 5 years.

Hurricane Ophelia was a category 3 hurricane which underwent extratropical transition and made landfall in Europe as an exceptionally strong post-tropical cyclone in October 2017. In Ireland, Ophelia was the worst storm in 50 years and resulted in significant damage and even loss of life. In this study, the different physical processes affecting Ophelia’s transformation from a hurricane to a mid-latitude cyclone are studied. For this purpose, we have developed software that uses OpenIFS model output and a system consisting of a generalized omega equation and vorticity equation. By using these two equations, the atmospheric vertical motion and vorticity tendency are separated into the contributions from different physical processes: vorticity advection, thermal advection, friction, diabatic heating, and the imbalance between the temperature and vorticity tendencies. Vorticity advection, which is often considered an important forcing for the development of mid-latitude cyclones, is shown to play a small role in the re-intensification of the low-level cyclone. Instead, our results show that the adiabatic upper-level forcing was strongly amplified by moist processes, and thus, the diabatic heating was the dominant forcing in both the tropical and extratropical phases of Ophelia. Furthermore, we calculated in more detail the diabatic heating contributions from different model parameterizations. We find that the temperature tendency due to the convection scheme was the dominant forcing for the vorticity tendency during the hurricane phase, but as Ophelia transformed into a mid-latitude cyclone, the microphysics temperature tendency, presumably dominated by large-scale condensation, gradually increased becoming the dominant forcing once the transition was complete. Temperature tendencies caused by other diabatic processes, such as radiation, surface processes, vertical diffusion, and gravity wave drag, were found to be negligible in the development of the storm.

Forest transmissivity is a key parameter for understanding spaceborne and airborne observations of the Earth's land surface because not only does it influences the proportion of subcanopy upwelling microwave emission penetrating through the forest canopy, it also controls the forest thermal emission. In frozen winter conditions, our previous study has indicated that observed microwave transmissivity of trees is also strongly influenced by temperature. This follow-on study uses ground-based radiometer observations, advanced microwave scanning radiometer 2 (AMSR2) observations, and model simulation to evaluate how this temperature-transmissivity relationship affects spaceborne passive microwave (PM) snow observations. A model is developed to simulate the relationship between tree transmissivity and air temperature. The R2 of the model is 0.85 (0.81) with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.03 (0.03) at the 18.7 (36.5) GHz channels, respectively. We find that this temperature-transmissivity relationship has a significant influence on the Tb of the tree, which influences both ground-based radiometer and spaceborne AMSR2 observations. The influence of the temperature-transmissivity relationship on upwelling ground emission is frequency dependent, demonstrating that the findings have implications for frequency difference based approaches for PM snow depth and snow water equivalent retrievals which observe snow-covered landscapes, including boreal forests, at air temperatures below freezing. This effect should therefore be accounted for in frequency difference or ratio approaches of snow accumulation retrievals.

BackgroundMany weight loss programs show short-term effectiveness, but subsequent weight loss maintenance is difficult to achieve. Digital technologies offer a promising means of delivering behavior change approaches at low costs and on a wide scale. The Navigating to a Healthy Weight (NoHoW) project, which was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, aimed to develop, test, and evaluate a digital toolkit designed to promote successful long-term weight management. The toolkit was tested in an 18-month, large-scale, international, 2×2 factorial (motivation and self-regulation vs emotion regulation) randomized controlled trial that was conducted on adults with overweight or obesity who lost ≥5% of their body weight in the preceding 12 months before enrollment into the intervention. ObjectiveThis paper aims to describe the development of the NoHoW Toolkit, focusing on the logic models, content, and specifications, as well as the results from user testing. MethodsThe toolkit was developed by using a systematic approach, which included the development of the theory-based logic models, the selection of behavior change techniques, the translation of these techniques into a web-based app (NoHoW Toolkit components), technical development, and the user evaluation and refinement of the toolkit. ResultsThe toolkit included a set of web-based tools and inputs from digital tracking devices (smart scales and activity trackers) and modules that targeted weight, physical activity, and dietary behaviors. The final toolkit comprised 34 sessions that were distributed through 15 modules and provided active content over a 4-month period. The motivation and self-regulation arm consisted of 8 modules (17 sessions), the emotion regulation arm was presented with 7 modules (17 sessions), and the combined arm received the full toolkit (15 modules; 34 sessions). The sessions included a range of implementations, such as videos, testimonies, and questionnaires. Furthermore, the toolkit contained 5 specific data tiles for monitoring weight, steps, healthy eating, mood, and sleep. ConclusionsA systematic approach to the development of digital solutions based on theory, evidence, and user testing may significantly contribute to the advancement of the science of behavior change and improve current solutions for sustained weight management. Testing the toolkit by using a 2×2 design provided a unique opportunity to examine the effect of motivation and self-regulation and emotion regulation separately, as well as the effect of their interaction in weight loss maintenance.

Laser powder bed fusion is an additive manufacturing method that is based on melting and solidification of powder material. Due to the local heating above the melting point, thermal stresses are usually formed in the final part. Mitigation of residual stresses is usually assessed by laser scan strategies and not by alloy tailoring. In this paper a segregation-based residual stress formation mechanism is proposed and assessed computationally. Additionally, an experimental setup for rapid screening of residual stress formation in various alloys is proposed. The results should ease material development of metal alloys tailored for additive manufacturing by allowing the comparison of residual stress formation tendency (e.g., solid state shrinkage) between alloys. The proposed computational method is comparative in nature and forecasting absolute residual stress values would require known temperature dependent elastoplastic properties for the alloys as well as exact thermal history. The proposed experimental method is quantitative but its reliability depends on material properties such as yield strength.