Integrated Design of a Custom Steering System in Cars and Verification of Its Correct Functioning

The subject of this article is the design of a nonstandard steering system in cars. The applied methodology takes into account universal design, ensuring the greatest possible adaptation of the steering system to potential users, and at the same time, thanks to the specific nature of the designed steering device, it also assumes a special approach allowing for individual adjustment of the steering system to the needs and limitations of drivers with lower-limb disabilities. It is implemented through the “custom design” methodology. This article presents the impact of the design features of the multifunction steering wheel on the correctness of driving, as well as the level of load on selected muscles of the upper limbs responsible for operating the steering wheel. The tests were carried out on a dynamic simulator of a motor vehicle using the electromyography (EMG) technique, which enables the measurement of muscle load. A systemic approach to training and verifying the skills of drivers using new HMI solutions is proposed.

Adjustment of Couples to the Transition to Retirement: The Interplay of Intra- and Interpersonal Emotion Regulation in Daily Life

Background: Retirement is a central transition in late adulthood and requires adjustment. These processes not only affect the retired individuals but also their romantic partners. The aim of this study is to investigate the interplay of intrapersonal emotion regulation (rumination) with interpersonal regulation processes (disclosure quality). Furthermore, the associations of daily retirement-related disclosure with adjustment symptoms in disclosing and the listening partner will be investigated. It is expected that the effects of disclosure alter after providing the couples with a self-applied solitary written disclosure task in order to support their intrapersonal emotion regulation.Methods: In this dyadic online-diary study, 45 couples (N = 45) with one partner perceiving the adjustment to a recent retirement as challenging reported rumination, perceived disclosure quality (repetitive, focused on negative content, hard to follow, disclosing partner open for common/authentic), retirement-related disclosure, and ICD-11 adjustment symptoms preoccupation and failure to adapt were assessed at the end of the day over 14 days. In the middle of this assessment period, couples performed a modified online-expressive writing about their thoughts and feelings regarding the transition to retirement.Results: The double-intercept multilevel Actor–Partner Interdependence Models (APIM) reveal that on days with more daily rumination, the spouse perceived that disclosure of the retiree is more difficult to follow, more negative, and repetitive. In contrast, the retiree perceived less authenticity and openness to comments during disclosure on days when the spouse reports more rumination. Retirement-related disclosure showed no within-couple association with failure to adapt but actor effects on preoccupation. Moreover, a partner effect of disclosure of the retirees on the preoccupation of spouses could be observed. This contagious effect of the retiree disclosure, however, disappeared during the week after writing.Conclusion: Our results support the notion that disclosure processes are altered during maladaptive intrapersonal emotion regulation processes. This in turn seems to lead to less effective interpersonal regulation and contagious spilling over of symptoms.Supporting intrapersonal emotion regulation seems to have the potential to allow more favorable interpersonal regulation processes and to free interpersonal resources for an individual adjustment. This has implications for further planning of support for couples facing life transitions and aging-related changes.

Spatio-Temporal Segmented Traffic Flow Prediction with ANPRS Data Based on Improved XGBoost

Traffic prediction is highly significant for intelligent traffic systems and traffic management. eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), a scalable tree lifting algorithm, is proposed and improved to predict more high-resolution traffic state by utilizing origin-destination (OD) relationship of segment flow data between upstream and downstream on the highway. In order to achieve fine prediction, a generalized extended-segment data acquirement mode is added by incorporating information of Automatic Number Plate Recognition System (ANPRS) from exits and entrances of toll stations and acquired by mathematical OD calculation indirectly without cameras. Abnormal data preprocessing and spatio-temporal relationship matching are conducted to ensure the effectiveness of prediction. Pearson analysis of spatial correlation is performed to find the relevance between adjacent roads, and the relative importance of input modes can be verified by spatial lag input and ordinary input. Two improved models, independent XGBoost (XGBoost-I) with individual adjustment parameters of different sections and static XGBoost (XGBoost-S) with overall adjustment of parameters, are conducted and combined with temporal relevant intervals and spatial staggered sectional lag. The early_stopping_rounds adjustment mechanism (EAM) is introduced to improve the effect of the XGBoost model. The prediction accuracy of XGBoost-I-lag is generally higher than XGBoost-I, XGBoost-S-lag, XGBoost-S, and other baseline methods for short-term and long-term multistep ahead. Additionally, the accuracy of the XGBoost-I-lag is evaluated well in nonrecurrent conditions and missing cases with considerable running time. The experiment results indicate that the proposed framework is convincing, satisfactory, and computationally reasonable.

Individual Adjustment of Contraction Parameters for Effective Swing Assist Using a Pneumatic Artificial Muscle in the Elderly

Leg swing during walking is controlled by hip and knee flexion motions. This study examined the effect of swing assist using a pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM) driver system on hip and knee motions and gait performance in the elderly. The participants consisted of 10 healthy elderly individuals. Two PAMs were attached to each participant’s left hip joint, and a pressure sensor was inserted under the right heel as the trigger. PAM contraction parameters could be controlled through a smartphone, i.e., the delay from trigger to contraction and the contraction duration. These parameters were randomly changed to 0, 100, or 200 ms for the delay and 100, 200, or 300 ms for the contraction. Four combination patterns of delay and contraction duration were observed as the parameter settings for maximizing the hip flexion angle. During walking with the PAM assistance, the hip and knee flexion angles in the swing phase and hip angular excursion of the elderly were significantly increased without altering the gait performance. The findings show that our PAM driver system can realize effective swing assist through changing temporal parameter settings for the PAM contraction in the elderly.

Improvement Proposal of Bottom-Up Approach for the Energy Characterization of Buildings in the Tropical Climate

The energy characterization of buildings can be done by bottom-up methods such as energy simulation models (samples or archetypes). A sample consists of the selection of real buildings and an archetype is a theoretical building that represents them. Nevertheless, both approaches have shortcomings for the creation of energy models. This work proposes to improve the sampling approach from the validation of input data, and calibration of models by individual adjustment processes. The studied category corresponds to multi-family buildings of median incomes from the Metropolitan Area of Bucaramanga (Colombia). This study presents the energy model of five existing buildings and an archetype, calibration results, energy characterization, and comparative analysis between both approaches. The sampling approach indicates that housing units and general services demand an average of 76.9% and 23.1% of consumed energy, respectively. The average energy consumption by housing units is 22.38 kWh/m2·year caused by appliances (85.3%), lighting (11.2%), and air conditioning (3.5%). The archetype presents similar results for the energy consumption of housing units (kWh/m2·year), but notable differences concerning a specific behavior of inner spaces, being the sampling approach more accurate to characterize to a building category.

State of lipid metabolism in patients receiving androgen replacement therapy

Objective. To assess the state of lipid metabolism indicators and predict cardiovascular risk in patients with secondary (acquired) hypogonadism on the background of androgen replacement therapy. Testosterone replacement therapy is often used in modern medicine for diagnosed androgen deficiency in patients of any age group. There are quite a lot of publications devoted to diagnosis and treatment, but the effectiveness and safety of any therapy is determined by several factors, of which two were considered in the presented study dose-dependent effect and compliance. Material and methods. Sixty two patients aged 30 to 52 years with androgen deficiency and a low risk of developing cardiovascular diseases were examined according to the Princeton Consensus criteria. Patients were divided into groups depending on the severity of androgen deficiency and the duration of therapy. Complaints, objective status, muscle strength, daily blood pressure and heart rate monitoring data, lipidogram and sex hormone indicators were evaluated. Results. The obtained data suggest that androgen replacement therapy in doses that lead to an increase in the level of testosterone in the blood above the upper limit of reference values had a negative impact on the lipid spectrum and increased cardiovascular risk for this group of patients. Conclusions. The analyzed approach to therapy of androgen deficiency should provide an individual adjustment of dosage on the background of determining the target blood testosterone level.

Sound reduction in heat exchanger modules by integrating plate absorbers with sub-millimeter openings

In air conditioning systems heat exchangers are frequently installed upstream of ventilators. These modules are part of the daily life of humans and should therefore create an environment that is as quiet as possible. The heat exchanger generates increased turbulence, which leads to increased sound emissions of the ventilator. Due to installation space limitations, it is not possible to connect silencers to the heat exchanger module. A novel concept is presented, which allows to reduce the sound emissions of heat exchanger due to plate absorbers without the need of additional installation room. The plates contain sub-millimeter openings. They are integrated into the heat exchanger housing together with back volumes. This arrangement guarantees compactness and generates no additional flow resistance. The emitted sound could be reduced by up to 2.9 dB in the partial load range. The main advantages of the concept presented are individual adjustment, cost-effective design and simple installation.

Individual optimization of risky decisions in duration and distance estimations

Many everyday decisions require an accurate perception of how much time has passed since a previous event. Although humans estimate time intervals with a high degree of mean accuracy, the precision of estimations varies greatly between individuals. In situations in which accurate timing is rewarded but responding too early is punished, the optimal amount of risk is directly dependent on the precision of the timer. Previously, it was found that humans and rodents displayed near-optimal adjustment of their mean response time based on their individual precision and the level of punishment. It is as of yet unknown whether these strategies of optimality in interval timing are specific to the timing domain, or instead reflect an ability that generalizes to other sensorimotor modalities of decision making. Here, we address this by combining a temporal reproduction experiment and a distance estimation experiment with an identical reward scheme. We found that participants approached optimality in both tasks, but generally underadjusted their responses in the face of high risk. As this individual adjustment was consistent over modalities, these results can best be explained by assuming that the adjustment of behavior towards optimal performance is driven by a modality independent mechanism.