A low glycaemic load breakfast can attenuate cognitive impairments observed in middle aged obese females with impaired glucose tolerance.

Increased central adiposity and abnormalities in glucose tolerance preceding type 2 diabetes can have demonstrable negative effects on cognitive function, even in ostensibly healthy, middle-aged females. The potential for GL manipulations to modulate glycaemic response and cognitive function in type 2 diabetes and obesity merits further investigation..

Type 2 diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance are associated with word memory source monitoring recollection deficits but not simple recognition familiarity deficits following water, low glycaemic load, and high glycaemic load breakfasts.

Isolated source monitoring recollection deficits indicate that abnormalities in glucose metabolism are not detrimental for global episodic memory processes. This enhances our understanding of how metabolic disorders are associated with memory impairments.

Acute glycaemic load breakfast manipulations do not attenuate cognitive impairments in adults with type 2 diabetes

Abnormalities in glucose tolerance such as type 2 diabetes can have demonstrable negative effects on a range of cognitive functions. However, there was no evidence that low GL breakfasts administered acutely could confer benefits for cognitive function (ClincalTrials.gov identifier, NCT01047813).

A refined parametric model for short term load forecasting

Abstract We present a refined parametric model for forecasting electricity demand which performed particularly well in the recent Global Energy Forecasting Competition (GEFCom 2012). We begin by motivating and presenting a simple parametric model, treating the electricity demand as a function of the temperature and day of the data. We then set out a series of refinements of the model, explaining the rationale for each, and using the competition scores to demonstrate that each successive refinement step increases the accuracy of the model’s predictions. These refinements include combining models from multiple weather stations, removing outliers from the historical data, and special treatments of public holidays.

Long term individual load forecast under different electrical vehicles uptake scenarios

More and more households are purchasing electric vehicles (EVs), and this will continue as we move towards a low carbon future. There are various projections as to the rate of EV uptake, but all predict an increase over the next ten years. Charging these EVs will produce one of the biggest loads on the low voltage network. To manage the network, we must not only take into account the number of EVs taken up, but where on the network they are charging, and at what time. To simulate the impact on the network from high, medium and low EV uptake (as outlined by the UK government), we present an agent-based model. We initialise the model to assign an EV to a household based on either random distribution or social influences - that is, a neighbour of an EV owner is more likely to also purchase an EV. Additionally, we examine the effect of peak behaviour on the network when charging is at day-time, night-time, or a mix of both. The model is implemented on a neighbourhood in south-east England using smart meter data (half hourly electricity readings) and real life charging patterns from an EV trial. Our results indicate that social influence can increase the peak demand on a local level (street or feeder), meaning that medium EV uptake can create higher peak demand than currently expected.

The Phantom Carriage (1921)

The reputation of The Phantom Carriage (Körkarlen) as one of the major films of Swedish silent cinema is in some respects securely established. Yet the film has attracted surprisingly little detailed discussion. It may be that its most striking stylistic features have deflected or discouraged closer scrutiny. Tom Gunning, for instance, in making the case for Sjöström’s Masterman, argues that ‘Körkarlen wears its technique on its sleeve, overtly displays its unquestionable mastery of superimposition and complex narrative structure. Mästerman tucks its mastery of editing and composition up its sleeve, so to speak’. This article makes an argument for a different evaluation of The Phantom Carriage, bringing a critical and interpretative understanding of the film’s style into conversation with the historical accounts of film form which predominate in the scholarship around silent cinema. It suggests that the film achieves ‘mastery of editing and composition’ with a flexibility and fluidity in the construction of dramatic space that is in itself remarkable for its period, but that Sjöström’s achievements extend well beyond his handling of film space. Specifically, it discusses a segment which is in several respects at the heart of the film: the first meeting between the two central characters, David Holm (Victor Sjöström) and Sister Edit (Astrid Holm); it spans the film’s exact mid-point; and at almost twelve and a half minutes it is the longest uninterrupted passage to take place in a single setting. The chapter argues that the dramatic and structural centrality of the hostel segment is paralleled by its remarkably rich articulation of the relationships between action, character and space. We show how Sjöström’s creation of a three-dimensional filmic space - with no hint of frontality - becomes the basis for a reciprocal relationship between spatial naturalism and performance style, and for a mise-en-scene that can take on discrete interpretive force. The argument also places the hostel sequences within the film as a whole in order to show how relationships articulated through the detailed decisions in this section take on their full resonance within patterns and motifs that develop across the film.

The Phantom Carriage: a revaluation

This is a two-part audiovisual essay on Victor Sjöström’s extraordinary film The Phantom Carriage (Körkarlen), which was released on New Year’s Day 1921. Part 1 explores a sequence in detail, revealing a mastery of three-dimensional film space which is remarkable for its period; the essay then look at the ways in which this handling of space is integral to the film’s rich articulation of character and action. Part 2 considers aspects of the film’s mise-en-scène and shows how the features of the sequence explored in Part 1 take on their full resonance within patterns and motifs that develop across the film. Published by Movie: a journal of film criticism, the essay complements our chapter on the film in the volume Silent Features, edited by Steve Neale (Exeter University Press, 2016).