Traffic signals are ubiquitous devices that first appeared in 1868. Recent advances in information and communications technology (ICT) have led to unprecedented improvements in such areas as mobile handheld devices (i.e., smartphones), the electric power industry (i.e., smart grids), transportation infrastructure, and vehicle area networks. Given the trend towards interconnectivity, it is only a matter of time before vehicles communicate with one another and with infrastructure. In fact, several pilots of such vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure (e.g. traffic lights and parking spaces) communication systems are already operational. This survey of autonomous and self-organized traffic signaling control has been undertaken with these potential developments in mind. Our research results indicate that, while many sophisticated techniques have attempted to improve the scheduling of traffic signal control, either real-time sensing of traffic patterns or a priori knowledge of traffic flow is required to optimize traffic. Once this is achieved, communication between traffic signals will serve to vastly improve overall traffic efficiency.

Self-Organization in Traffic Lights: Evolution of Signal Control with Advances in Sensors and Communications
Sanjay Goel, Stephen F. Bush, Carlos Gershenson

Source: arxiv.org

Blade Runner (1982) is a magnificent film, but there’s something odd about it. The heroine, Rachael, seems to be a beautiful young woman. In reality, she’s a piece of technology — an organic robot designed by the Tyrell Corporation. She has a lifelike mind, imbued with memories extracted from a human being. 

So sophisticated is Rachael that she is impossible to distinguish from a human without specialised equipment; she even believes herself to be human. Los Angeles police detective Rick Deckard knows otherwise; in Rachael, Deckard is faced with an artificial intelligence so beguiling, he finds himself falling in love. Yet when he wants to invite Rachael out for a drink, what does he do?

He calls her up from a payphone.

Source: www.ft.com

Chemotherapy is often administered in openly designed hospital wards, where the possibility of patient–patient social influence on health exists. Previous research found that social relationships influence cancer patient’s health; however, we have yet to understand social influence among patients receiving chemotherapy in the hospital. We investigate the influence of co-presence in a chemotherapy ward. We use data on 4,691 cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom who average 59.8 years of age, and 44% are Male. We construct a network of patients where edges exist when patients are co-present in the ward, weighted by both patients’ time in the ward. Social influence is based on total weighted co-presence with focal patients’ immediate neighbors, considering neighbors’ 5-year mortality. Generalized estimating equations evaluated the effect of neighbors’ 5-year mortality on focal patient’s 5-year mortality. Each 1,000-unit increase in weighted co-presence with a patient who dies within 5 years increases a patient’s mortality odds by 42% (β = 0.357, CI:0.204,0.510). Each 1,000-unit increase in co-presence with a patient surviving 5 years reduces a patient’s odds of dying by 30% (β =−0.344, CI:−0.538,0.149). Our results suggest that social influence occurs in chemotherapy wards, and thus may need to be considered in chemotherapy delivery.

Social influence on 5-year survival in a longitudinal chemotherapy ward co-presence network
JEFFREY LIENERT, CHRISTOPHER STEVEN MARCUM, JOHN FINNEY, FELIX REED-TSOCHAS

Network Science
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/nws.2017.16

Source: www.cambridge.org