The impact of break duration, time of break onset, and prior shift duration on the amount of sleep between shifts in heavy vehicle drivers.

This study aimed to examine the impact of break duration between consecutive shifts, time of break onset, and prior shift duration on total sleep time (TST) between shifts in heavy vehicle drivers (HVDs), and to assess the interaction between break duration and time of break onset. The sleep (actigraphy and sleep diaries) and work shifts (work diaries) of 27 HVDs were monitored during their usual work schedule for up to 9 weeks. Differences in TST between consecutive shifts and days off were assessed.

Concreteness and levels of processing: a test of the dual-coding hypothesis using dynamic visual noise.

Concreteness and levels of processing (LOP) effects have been attributed to the differential availability of visual images for concrete words, and at deeper levels of processing, respectively. Interestingly, the concreteness effect has been shown to disappear under conditions involving dynamic visual noise (DVN), which is thought to suppress the generation of visual images from long-term memory. The present study further investigated the role of visual imagery in concreteness and LOP effects.

Service learning and self-efficacy in exercise science: outcomes of a community fitness training program involving undergraduate Exercise Science students.

There is increasing awareness of the importance of civic engagement in higher education. Service-learning activities in undergraduate programs, in particular, have been linked to positive academic outcomes and gains in various forms of self-efficacy. Exercise Science students at our university complete two service-learning courses as part of the curriculum, each of which involves implementing a structured 12-week individualized fitness training program with a community member client.

Associations between shift work characteristics, shift work schedules, sleep and burnout in North American police officers: a cross-sectional study.

Objectives: To examine associations between shift work characteristics and schedules on burnout in police and whether sleep duration and sleepiness were associated with burnout.

Methods: Police officers (n=3140) completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory (emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, personal accomplishment) and self-reported shift schedules (irregular, rotating, fixed), shift characteristics (night, duration, frequency, work hours), sleep duration and sleepiness.

Results: Irregular schedules, long shifts (≥11 hours), mandatory overtime, short sleep and sleepiness were associated with increased risk of overall burnout in police.

Modeling and validation of on-road CO2 emissions inventories at the urban regional scale.

On-road emissions are a major contributor to rising concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases. In this study, we applied a downscaling methodology based on commonly available spatial parameters to model on-road CO(2) emissions at the 1 × 1 km scale for the Boston, MA region and tested our approach with surface-level CO(2) observations. Using two previously constructed emissions inventories with differing spatial patterns and underlying data sources, we developed regression models based on impervious surface area and volume-weighted road density that could be scaled to any resolution.

Implicit attentional orienting in a target detection task with central cues.

Studies using Posner's spatial cueing paradigm have demonstrated that participants can allocate their attention to specific target locations based on the predictiveness of preceding cues. Four experiments were conducted to investigate attentional orienting processes operating in a high probability condition (cues 75% predictive) as compared to a low probability condition (cues 50% predictive) using various types of centrally-presented cues. Spatially-informative cues (arrows and circles with gaps) resulted in cueing effects (CEs) for both probability conditions, with significantly larger CEs in the high probability conditions than the low probability conditions.

Divided attention and visual search for simple versus complex features.

Under what search conditions does attention affect perceptual processes, resulting in capacity limitations, rather than affecting noisy decision-making processes? Does parallel or serial processing cause the capacity limitations? To address these issues, we varied stimulus complexity, set size, and whether distractors were mirror images of the target. Both target detection and localization produced similar patterns of results. Capacity limitations only occurred for complex stimuli used in within-object conjunction searches.