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This PhD research is part of the Postgenomic Solidarity Odyseuss project and investigates how insurance markets deal with the 'Big Data Revolution'. Big Data is believed to be of large relevance for insurance markets because Big Data might give more knowledge of the insured risks, allow insurers to know their customers better and provide lifestyle tools to incentivize their customers to become less risky. Insurers can, however, not just 'apply' these possibilities because insurance markets are linked to mechanisms of solidarity, ideas of isnurance as a basic right, and anti-discrimination legislations. In this research I investigate: how and where insurers and other actors express their expectations of Big Data and the role of Big Data in future insurance markets; how insurers and insurtech companies experiment with big data technologies, build showcases and prepare new types of insurance products; and what the consequences of these new insurance practices might be for what it is to be insured, how it affects the idea of solidarity, what the role of the insurer is considered to be and how responsibility is reconfigured. status: published

Water loss from leaking pipes represents a substantial loss of revenue as well as environmental and public health concerns. Leak location is normally identified by placing sensors either side of the leak and recording and analysing the leak noise. The leak noise contains information about the leak’s characteristics, including its shape. Whilst a tool which non-invasively provides information about a leak’s shape from the leak noise would be useful for water industry practitioners, no tool currently exists. This study evaluates the effect of various leak shapes on the vibration signal and presents a unique methodology for predicting the leak shape from the vibration signal. An innovative signal processing technique which utilises the machine learning method Random Forest classifiers is used in combination with a number of signal features in order to develop a leak shape prediction algorithm. The results demonstrate a robust methodology for predicting leak shape at several leak flow rates and backfill types, providing a useful tool for water companies to assess leak repair based on leak shape.

The Flaviviridae is a family of small enveloped viruses with RNA genomes of 9000-13 000 bases. Most infect mammals and birds. Many flaviviruses are host-specific and pathogenic, such as hepatitis C virus in the genus Hepacivirus. The majority of known members in the genus Flavivirus are arthropod borne, and many are important human and veterinary pathogens (e.g. yellow fever virus, dengue virus). This is a summary of the current International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) report on the taxonomy of the Flaviviridae, which is available at www.ictv.global/report/flaviviridae.

Proposals are described for the assignment of recently reported viruses, infecting rodents, bats and other mammalian species, to new species within the Hepacivirus and Pegivirus genera (Family Flaviviridae). Assignments into 14 Hepacivirus species (Hepacivirus A to N) and 11 Pegivirus species (Pegivirus A to K) are based on phylogenetic relationships and sequence distances between conserved regions extracted from complete coding sequences of each proposed taxon. We propose that the species hepatitis C virus is renamed Hepacivirus C in order to acknowledge its unique historical position and so as to minimise confusion. Despite the newly documented genetic diversity of hepaciviruses and pegiviruses, members of these genera remain phylogenetically distinct, and differ in hepatotropism and the possession of a basic core protein; pegiviruses in general lack these features. However, other characteristics that were originally used to support their division into separate genera are no longer definitive; there is overlap between the two genera in the type of internal ribosomal entry site (IRES) and the presence of miR-122 sites in the 5'untranslated region (UTR), the predicted number of N-linked glycosylation sites in the envelope E1 and E2 proteins, the presence of poly U tracts in the 3' UTR and the propensity of viruses to establish a persistent infection. While all classified hepaciviruses and pegiviruses have mammalian hosts, the recent description of a hepaci-/pegi-like virus from a shark and the likely existence of further homologues in other non-mammalian species indicates that further species or genera remain to be defined in the future.

The Leeuwin Current, a warm, poleward flowing eastern boundary current, dominates the surface circulation off the west coast of Australia and has profound influence on regional marine ecosystem and fisheries recruitment. In this study, the seasonal and interannual variations of upper ocean heat balance in the Leeuwin Current region are analyzed by using an eddy-resolving numerical model simulation, as a first step to quantify the climate impacts on regional ocean thermodynamics and marine ecosystem. The volume transport and heat advection of the Leeuwin Current are stronger during the austral winter on the seasonal cycle and are stronger during a La Nina event on the interannual scale. On both seasonal and interannual timescales, the mixed layer heat budget off the west coast of Australia is predominantly balanced between the variations of the Leeuwin Current heat advection and heat flux across the air-sea interface. On the interannual timescale, the variation of the Leeuwin Current heat advection tends to lead that of the air-sea (latent) heat flux by two months, which is likely a reflection of advection timescales of the Leeuwin Current and its eddy field. The interannual variation of the average February–April sea surface temperature off the west coast of Australia, which is crucial for the larval settlement of western rock lobster, is mostly influenced by the Leeuwin Current heat advection as well as the ocean memory from the previous austral winter, with the air-sea heat exchange playing a buffering role.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Human Factors group has approved the formation of a study group, HFM-128, on human behavior representation (HBR) in constructive simulation. The differentiating focus of this working group is the translation of HBR concepts into a combined “how-to” and “when-to” guide for military simulation “practitioners.” Previous efforts have identified the shortcomings and research challenges of current HBR and have surveyed the state-of-the-art, providing the necessary foundation for the work effort of HFM-128. This paper outlines the goals of the group, the HBR framework being adopted to guide the work, and the planned end products. The paper concludes with a call for data and information.

Understanding and predicting the interannual variations of the whole monsoon climate system has been, and will continue to be, one of the major reasons for studying the oceanography of the Indian Ocean; but there are other reasons. Knowledge about Indian Ocean current systems may have diverse practical applications, from fisheries through search and rescue to management of Exclusive Economic Zones. Our discussion mainly concerns the open ocean and the climate applications, but the results are important for most continental shelves of the Indian Ocean region on all but the shortest timescales. We start by discussing what we know now of the Indian Ocean’s mean annual cycle, painfully gleaned from sparse observations over the last four decades. This data base for understanding the interannual variability of the Indian Ocean climate has not been adequate until very recently; however, this data base is in the process of expanding radically, due to the availability of four new tools. These are: satellite data (altimeter, wind stress); surface flux products, from weather forecast reanalyses; output of fine-scale numerical models, driven with those fluxes; and data from profiling floats. As we will see in various talks, this is revolutionising our understanding of variability in the Indian Ocean. CLIVAR’s Asian-Australian Monsoon Panel is starting to plan a programme of further observations, to coincide with a useful conjunction of observation satellites in 2003. This will be aimed at filling the larger remaining gaps in our understanding of Indian Ocean dynamics, (with emphasis on understanding its role in the monsoon cycle). Published

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether previous blood donations from HIV-positive patients posed a threat to recipients. DESIGN: Interviewer-administered questionnaire survey. SETTING: Regional HIV outpatient referral clinic for southern Alberta. PATIENTS: All 478 patients attending the clinic from May 1, 1993, to Mar. 31, 1994; 366 were excluded: 335 had not donated blood, and 31 could not provide reliable information regarding possible donations. INTERVENTIONS: Patients were asked at a routine clinic visit regarding the dates, frequency and location of previous blood donations. The Canadian Red Cross was informed, with patient consent, if the previous donations posed a potential risk of HIV transmission. OUTCOME MEASURES: Number of HIV-positive patients whose donations posed a possible or definite risk to recipients. RESULTS: A total of 545 units of blood had been donated by the 112 patients in the study; 57 units (donated by 29 patients) posed a possible risk, and 12 (given by 11 patients) posed a definite risk of HIV transmission to the recipients. Thirty-two of these donors had been unknown to the Red Cross through its "look-back" and "trace-back" protocols. Only 1 of the 13 patients found to be HIV positive by the Red Cross openly admitted donating blood to undergo HIV antibody testing; the remainder were either ill-informed or did not perceive themselves to be at risk. The patients were highly mobile, 36.7% donating blood at some time in a province other than the one where they had received their positive HIV test result. CONCLUSION: Asking HIV-positive patients about their blood donation history, although subject to recall bias, is a simple and inexpensive method for identifying high-risk blood donations. The Red Cross should routinely be notified, with patient consent, of all donations posing a risk in order to enhance the prospect for identifying HIV-positive blood recipients.

The Quality Control (QC) procedures described here have been developed by oceanographers participating in the CSIRO XBT Program, specifically to assure the research quality of expendable bathythermograph (XBT) data of 0.6 to 2.0 m resolution, at the delayed mode stage. This manual provides an overview of real oceanographic features and instrument errors that have been monitored over a period of years and from which the CSIRO procedures and QC codes (flags) have been developed. http://woce.nodc.noaa.gov/woce_v3/wocedata_1/woce-uot/document/qcmans/csiro/csiro.htm SOOPIP to review (Gustavo Goni); should be reviewed as a second priority