Comparison of Royal Canadian Navy Watchstanding Schedules

ABSTRACT Introduction Life on board a naval vessel is exceptionally demanding. Workdays for naval sailors can quite easily become 18+ hours long when watch schedules, training, and drills/evolutions are taken into account. Rotating watches and short off-watch periods can force sailors into a biphasic sleep pattern that is not sufficiently restful or a rotating pattern that is impossible to adapt to. Materials and Methods Six different watch systems were evaluated over four separate at-sea trials. Engineering and tactical/combat departments have had different watch systems in the past because of constraints related to the specific environment in which they work. Therefore, two of the watch systems were engineering-specific watch evaluations, three of the systems were specific to tactical/combat departments, and one watch system was evaluated with the entire company of the naval vessel. Results Both two-section (1-in-2) watch systems and three-section (1-in-3) watch systems were evaluated, which involve two or three shifts of sailors rotating through a full continuous 24-h day, respectively. Moving beyond three rotations of sailors is impossible on Canadian naval vessels due to bunk space and other limitations. The best watch system that we evaluated with respect to fatigue and quality of life at sea was the 1-in-3 straight 8-h shift system that was tested for the entire ships’ company. The system has a single 8-h daily watch obligation (red watch, 4:00 am-12:00 pm; white watch 12:00 pm-8:00 pm; and blue watch, 8:00 pm-4:00 am). The best 1-in-2 system was the 8-4-4-8 system in which sailors are on-watch for 8 h, off-watch for 4 h, on-watch for 4 h, and then rest for 8 h. Both of these two systems have the advantage of equitably sharing the Window of Circadian Low (from about midnight to about 8:00 am), especially when melatonin concentration in the body is usually at its peak, between 2:00 am and 6:00 am. Conclusions The goal of this work was to comprehensively evaluate both submarine and surface fleet watch systems. We were able to develop alternative watch systems that increased Royal Canadian Navy operational readiness and improved the quality of life of our sailors at sea.

Defying the Burglar in Post-War London

Burglary in London during the decades after the Second World War continued to emblematize the fears, preoccupations, and experiences of ‘home’ of modern urbanites. Burglars’ prevalence was inextricable from the city’s national and international reputation, a reality that posed a stark criminal contrast to the refrain of Britons’ ‘never having it so good’, as Prime Minister Harold MacMillan declared in 1957. Violence, especially the spiralling rates of sexual violence that tore apart households attempting to recover from the war, created a pronounced association between burglary, rape, and on occasion, murder. Chapter 7 reveals the attempts of police officers and criminal psychologists to rationalize the actions of perpetrators in relation to their childhoods, relationships, and family circumstances, embodied in a series of violent burglaries committed during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Yet officials’ observations largely effaced the broader reality of widespread forms of poverty and precarious employment that also fostered crime. The potential for burglars to once more imperil residents’ sense of security had bigger implications for the city’s resurgent economy, damaging the attractiveness of the capital to visiting movie stars and celebrities (and their jewels) who were otherwise drawn to its ‘swinging’ reputation. In response, the Metropolitan Police’s ‘Beat the Burglar’ campaign, created in coordination with security and insurance companies, tried to institute an embryonic form of ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ system. Encouraging citizens to monitor one another and report disturbances, it compromised cherished notions of privacy in the efforts to collapse space and time between police and prey.

Night watch during REM sleep for the first-night effect

ABSTRACTWe experience disturbed sleep in a new place, and this effect is known as the first-night effect (FNE) in sleep research. We previously demonstrated that the FNE was associated with a protective night-watch system during NREM sleep in one hemisphere, which is shown as interhemispheric asymmetry in sleep depth in the default-mode network (DMN), and interhemispheric asymmetry in increased vigilance to monitor external stimuli. The present study investigated whether rapid eye movement (REM) sleep exhibited a form similar to a night-watch system during NREM sleep. First, we tested whether theta activity, which is an index of the depth of REM sleep, showed interhemispheric asymmetry in association with the FNE, by source-localizing to the DMN. However, interhemispheric asymmetry in theta activity during REM sleep was not found in association with the FNE. Next, we tested whether vigilance, as measured by evoked brain responses to deviant sounds, was increased in one hemisphere and showed interhemispheric asymmetry in association with the FNE during REM sleep. Because vigilance is different between the phasic period where rapid eye movements occur and the tonic period where rapid eye movements do not occur during REM sleep, REM sleep was split into phasic and tonic periods for measurements of evoked brain responses. While the evoked brain responses are generally small during the phasic period without the FNE, we found that the evoked brain response was significantly augmented by the FNE during the phasic period. In contrast, the evoked brain response during the tonic period did not differ by the presence of the FNE. Interhemispheric asymmetry in brain responses was not found during the phasic or tonic periods. These results suggest that a night-watch system for the FNE appears as interhemispheric asymmetry in sleep depth and vigilance during NREM sleep, but it appears as increased vigilance in both hemispheres during the phasic period, when vigilance to external stimuli is generally reduced without the FNE, during REM sleep. Therefore, a night-watch system associated with the FNE may be subserved by different neural mechanisms during NREM and REM sleep.

The Application Study of Specific Ankle-Foot Orthoses for Stroke Patients by 3D Printing Somos NeXt

Objective: To investigate the effects of specific ankle-foot orthoses (AFOs) fabricated by 3D printing Somos NeXt on patients with stroke. Method: The ankle and foot were scanned by Artec 3D scanner. The model was performed with finite element analysis (FEA) using the software Abaqus to optimize the structure. Based on the structural optimization, AFOs were fabricated by 3D printing technique of Somos NeXt. Gait parameters were measured using the Gait Watch system. Seven sensors were bound to the sacrum, anterior side in the middle segment of the bilateral femoral femur, the median side at the proximal end of the bilateral tibia, and dorsal part of the bilateral foot. Results: The AFOs fabricated by 3D printing Somos NeXt significantly improved the temporalspatial parameters including velocity (20.75 vs. 17.38 cm/s) and stride length (47.88 vs. 43.63 cm), as well as increased cadence (52.5 vs. 48.75 times/min), while slightly decreased gait cycle (2.57 vs. 2.80 cm) and double limb support phase (34.00 vs. 37.13%). The AFOs also improved symmetry parameters such as the step length difference (9.75 vs. 15.25 cm), step length ratio (1.87 vs. 3.98), and swing phase ratio (0.99 vs. 0.75). Conclusion: The AFOs fabricated by 3D printing Somos NeXt have a significant effect on the improvement of velocity and stride length in patients with stroke.

STORM ICE OIL WIND WAVE WATCH SYSTEM (SIOWS): WEB GIS APPLICATION FOR MONITORING THE ARCTIC

Working with satellite data, has long been an issue for users which has often prevented from a wider use of these data because of Volume, Access, Format and Data Combination. The purpose of the Storm Ice Oil Wind Wave Watch System (SIOWS) developed at Satellite Oceanography Laboratory (SOLab) is to solve the main issues encountered with satellite data and to provide users with a fast and flexible tool to select and extract data within massive archives that match exactly its needs or interest improving the efficiency of the monitoring system of geophysical conditions in the Arctic. SIOWS - is a Web GIS, designed to display various satellite, model and in situ data, it uses developed at SOLab storing, processing and visualization technologies for operational and archived data. It allows synergistic analysis of both historical data and monitoring of the current state and dynamics of the "ocean-atmosphere-cryosphere" system in the Arctic region, as well as Arctic system forecasting based on thermodynamic models with satellite data assimilation.

STORM ICE OIL WIND WAVE WATCH SYSTEM (SIOWS): WEB GIS APPLICATION FOR MONITORING THE ARCTIC

Working with satellite data, has long been an issue for users which has often prevented from a wider use of these data because of Volume, Access, Format and Data Combination. The purpose of the Storm Ice Oil Wind Wave Watch System (SIOWS) developed at Satellite Oceanography Laboratory (SOLab) is to solve the main issues encountered with satellite data and to provide users with a fast and flexible tool to select and extract data within massive archives that match exactly its needs or interest improving the efficiency of the monitoring system of geophysical conditions in the Arctic. SIOWS - is a Web GIS, designed to display various satellite, model and in situ data, it uses developed at SOLab storing, processing and visualization technologies for operational and archived data. It allows synergistic analysis of both historical data and monitoring of the current state and dynamics of the "ocean-atmosphere-cryosphere" system in the Arctic region, as well as Arctic system forecasting based on thermodynamic models with satellite data assimilation.

Sargassum Watch Warns of Incoming Seaweed

The Sargassum Watch System processes satellite data and feeds results to a Web portal, giving decision makers timely information on seaweed location and warnings for potential beaching events.