CACI International (United Kingdom)

Near-death experiences (NDEs) and psychedelic drug experiences (YDEs) enable access to dimensions of non-ordinary sensation, perception, and insight beyond typical day-to-day phenomenology. Both are as-sociated with a dissolution of conventional spatio-temporal conceptual distinctions, and a corresponding sense of connectedness and unity which is difficult to describe. Moreover, NDEs and YDEs have shown a remarkable ability to reduce the anxiety that people associate with death. In two recent papers, we showed that multi-person virtual reality experiences (VREs) designed within the ‘numadelic’ aesthetic (where bod-ies are represented as light energy rather than material objects) can elicit psychometric results comparable to YDEs. It nevertheless remains an open question why numadelic aesthetics achieve the observed results, es-pecially given that the vast majority of VREs represent bodies as typically perceived in the ‘real-world’. This article describes the origins of the numadelic aesthetic from subjective accounts of NDE phenomenol-ogy, and attempts to unravel mechanistic aspects of the numadelic aesthetic by embedding it within a more general theoretical framework. Specifically, we elaborate a 2-axis framework grounded in predictive coding models of cognition and matter-energy ideas from physics. One axis tracks 'structural specificity', and the other tracks 'symbolic rigidity'. The majority of VREs, which emphasize photorealistic fidelity to content derived from 'day-to-day' phenomenology, are characterized by high structural specificity and high symbol-ic rigidity. Such approaches collapse imaginative potential into a limited low-entropy space of 'exogenous' possibility, unlike the high-entropy brain states associated with YDEs. In contrast, aesthetic domains char-acterized by low structural specificity and low symbolic rigidity are less concerned with fidelity to phenom-enological priors, offering an expansive, ‘uncollapsed’ high-entropy possibility space for participants to engage in imaginative meaning making and for corresponding endogenous insights (e.g., as occurs in NDEs and YDEs) to arise. Situated within this theoretical framing, the numadelic aesthetic emerges as a practical example of an un-collapsed approach to representation, helping to explain the experimental observations within previous papers. Moreover, the theoretical framing suggests various experimental tests, and lays the groundwork for applying numadelic aesthetics to model NDEs, which may help address the anxiety often associated with death.

Biodiesel represents one of the alternative fuels to face depletion of fossil petroleum resources. In this study, combustion characteristics, performance and emissions of a diesel engine burning different blends of rapeseed ethyl ester compared to diesel fuel were evaluated. Results indicated that properties of biodiesel derived through transesterification process and its blends were within acceptable limits of standards. Biodiesel blends achieved lower thermal efficiencies as compared to diesel oil. Therefore, using ethyl esters blends results in higher specific fuel consumptions by about 1.5, 7, 13 and 17% for B5, B10, B15, and B20 in comparison to diesel fuel at full load, respectively. Smoke opacity, unburned hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide emissions of biodiesel blends were reduced but nitrogen monoxide emissions have slightly increased. Maximum cylinder pressures of biodiesel blends were lower in comparison to conventional diesel fuel. Ignition delay decreases for B5, B10, B15 and B20 at full load were 11, 19, 28 and 32 % lower than diesel fuel, respectively. Biodiesel produced from rapeseed oil could be a substitute fuel in diesel engine.

The objective of this study is to decrease the number of defects occurring through manufacturing process of the fluorescent glass tube using six sigma techniques performing cost analysis for the case under study; before and after improvement i.e. reduction of the number of defects. The case under study is applied on glass tube production line in one of Toshiba El-Araby Industrial factories. It was observed that there are a number of defect that was monitored through the study period of 9 months. These defects include variation in the outer diameter of the tube, the texture of the batch mix and some other defects. The fluorescent glass tube factory consists of four main areas: utility, batch, melting and production area. The scope of the study is targeting the muffle area in which different types of defects occur during the process. These defects include; variation in the outer diameter of the tube, knots, stones, etc. Advanced six-sigma tool (DMAIC) is applied on a case study to reduce process variation by capability index improvement and determine reduced cost of outside diameter defect per million through using Part-Per-Million (PPM) Calculations. The reduction of outside diameter variation reached 50%

Abstract Resilience theory plays a critical part in the practical design of modern engineered resilient systems that comprise of cyber‐physical systems and components having interdependencies intended to make the whole system robust. In this paper, the percolation‐based metric is utilized to quantify the communication systems' resilience. Because there is no consistent and reliable way to measure resilience, the percolation‐based metric framework is developed to model the component or system failure by removing fractions of the nodes or links, causing the network to transition from functional to non‐functional. The efficacy of the percolation‐based metric model is demonstrated by using the power grid and maritime platform systems (legacy and future design versions) as case studies. The results from the analysis of the maritime communication and power grid systems are presented. The results indicate that percolation‐based metric may be a useful approach for system engineers and designers to gain improved insight into the quantification of communication system resilience.

The European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI) is in the process of developing the EAACI Guidelines for Allergen Immunotherapy (AIT) for the Prevention of Allergic Disease. We seek to critically assess the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and safety of AIT in the prevention of allergic disease. We will undertake a systematic review, which will involve searching international biomedical databases for published, in progress and unpublished evidence. Studies will be independently screened against pre-defined eligibility criteria and critically appraised using established instruments. Data will be descriptively and, if possible and appropriate, quantitatively synthesized. The findings from this review will be used to inform the development of recommendations for EAACI's Guidelines on AIT.