The activation of eco-driving mental models: Can text messages prime drivers to use their existing knowledge and skills?

Eco-driving campaigns have traditionally assumed that drivers lack the necessary knowledge and skills and that this is something that needs rectifying. Therefore, many support systems have been designed to closely guide drivers and fine-tune their proficiency. However, research suggests that drivers already possess a substantial amount of the necessary knowledge and skills regarding eco-driving. In previous studies, participants used these effectively when they were explicitly asked to drive fuel-efficiently. In contrast, they used their safe driving skills when they were instructed to drive as they would normally. Hence, it is assumed that many drivers choose not to engage purposefully in eco-driving in their everyday lives. The aim of the current study was to investigate the effect of simple, periodic text messages (nine messages in 2 weeks) on drivers’ eco- and safe driving performance. It was hypothesised that provision of eco-driving primes and advice would encourage the activation of their eco-driving mental models and that comparable safety primes increase driving safety. For this purpose, a driving simulator experiment was conducted. All participants performed a pre-test drive and were then randomly divided into four groups, which received different interventions. For a period of 2 weeks, one group received text messages with eco-driving primes and another group received safety primes. A third group received advice messages on how to eco-drive. The fourth group were instructed by the experimenter to drive fuel-efficiently, immediately before driving, with no text message intervention. A post-test drive measured behavioural changes in scenarios deemed relevant to eco- and safe driving. The results suggest that the eco-driving prime and advice text messages did not have the desired effect. In comparison, asking drivers to drive fuel-efficiently led to eco-driving behaviours. These outcomes demonstrate the difficulty in changing ingrained habits. Future research is needed to strengthen such messages or activate existing knowledge and skills in other ways, so driver behaviour can be changed in cost-efficient ways.     

The Acrylation of Glycerol: A Precursor to Functionalized Lipids

With the objective of expanding the number of functionalized lipids available, the reactive vinyl group of acrylic acid was introduced to triacylglycerol by esterification of glycerol. Didecanoylacryloylglycerol was synthesized from decanoic and acrylic acids and glycerol using K₂O as catalyst. 2 g (21.7 mmol) glycerol, 11.3 g (65.4 mmol) decanoic acid, 6.2 g (86.1 mmol) acrylic acid, 60 ml hexane, and 400 mg K₂O were added to 300-ml closed stainless steel reactor and maintained at 200 °C for 5 h. The resulting product, designated DDA, was isolated at about 40% yield based on the acylglycerol products. The other products included tridecanoylglycerol, diacryloyldecanoylglycerol, and the diacylglycerols of these acids. DDA was then converted to functionalized lipids by the Michael addition and Heck reaction. The Michael addition of thiophenol and 4-bromothiophenol yielded the corresponding linear thioethers whereas and Heck reaction products from bromobenzene and bromoanisole yielded triacylglycerols containing trans-cinnamic acid and trans-(4-methoxy)cinnamic acid, respectively.     

Development of a production inventory model with uncertainty and reliability considerations

This paper addresses a problem of an imperfect production system under fuzzy demand and inventory holding cost. Production process reliability is considered because of the imperfect production process. In this problem, reliability of the system in regards to producing defective and non-defective items is considered as a decision variable. The objective is to maximize the graded mean integration value (GMIV) of the expected average profit while considering revenues as well as any other relevant costs. The developed model belongs to the class of a geometric programming. We have developed a simple mathematical methodology to solve the model. Genetic algorithm and simulated annealing algorithms are also applied to solve and validate the results. A numerical example has been presented to interpret the solutions.     

A constraint consensus memetic algorithm for solving constrained optimization problems

Constraint handling is an important aspect of evolutionary constrained optimization. Currently, the mechanism used for constraint handling with evolutionary algorithms mainly assists the selection process, but not the actual search process. In this article, first a genetic algorithm is combined with a class of search methods, known as constraint consensus methods, that assist infeasible individuals to move towards the feasible region. This approach is also integrated with a memetic algorithm. The proposed algorithm is tested and analysed by solving two sets of standard benchmark problems, and the results are compared with other state-of-the-art algorithms. The comparisons show that the proposed algorithm outperforms other similar algorithms. The algorithm has also been applied to solve a practical economic load dispatch problem, where it also shows superior performance over other algorithms.     

Must psychologists change the way they analyze their data?

Wagenmakers, Wetzels, Borsboom, and van der Maas (2011) argued that psychologists should replace the familiar “frequentist” statistical analyses of their data with Bayesian analyses. To illustrate their argument, they reanalyzed a set of psi experiments published recently in this journal by Bem (2011), maintaining that, contrary to his conclusion, his data do not yield evidence in favor of the psi hypothesis. We argue that they have incorrectly selected an unrealistic prior distribution for their analysis and that a Bayesian analysis using a more reasonable distribution yields strong evidence in favor of the psi hypothesis. More generally, we argue that there are advantages to Bayesian analyses that merit their increased use in the future. However, as Wagenmakers et al.'s analysis inadvertently revealed, they contain hidden traps that must be better understood before being more widely substituted for the familiar frequentist analyses currently employed by most research psychologists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Benefits of a high‐performance phosphite in the gamma irradiation of polyolefins

The highly active process stabilizer bis(2,4‐dicumylphenyl)pentaerythritol diphosphite (P1) was compared in a series of polyolefin formulations with tris(2,4‐di‐t‐butylphenyl) phosphite (P2). Because of its high activity, there was less polymer degradation during processing with P1 as compared to P2. As a result, improvements in color and other physical properties were observed for the polymers, not only during processing, but also after treatment with gamma radiation.     

Comparison of Biological and Chemical Predictors of Dermal Carcinogenicity of Petroleum Oils

Various methods have been proposed as a basis for cancer hazard labelling of petroleum products. The Institute of Petroleum analytical method termed IP 346/80 was recently recommended to the European Union as the preferred method for this purpose. In this report we compare IP 346/80 with several other predictors of dermal carcinogenicity, including the Mobil PAC Method, the Modified Ames Test (ASTM Method E 1687-95), and the ^32P-postlabelling assay for DNA adducts. Oils for assay were selected from a repository of samples previously subjected to mouse skin-painting bioassay. 120 oils were tested in the Modified Ames Assay, 57 by the Mobil PAC Method, 50 by Method IP 346/80, and 48 by the postlabelling procedure. The ability of each assay to distinguish between carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic oils was examined at various suggested discriminators, e.g. Mutagenicity Indices (MI) of 1.0 and 2.0, 3-7 ring PAC contents of 1% and 2% (w/w), and IP 346/80 DMSO-extractables of 2% and 3% (w/w). Various adduct levels were tested for maximum discrimination between carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic oils. The accuracy of each method is reported.