The aim of this study was to investigate the combined effect of driver and driving style on the behaviour, salivary cortisol concentration, and heart-rate variability of pigs during a short journey. In addition, the effect of differing accelerations (longitudinal, lateral, and vertical) of the trailer on these variables was studied. One hundred and thirty-five cross-bred pigs (Piétrain × Hypor) were transported in groups of five on a trailer towed by a jeep. Three different drivers transported the pigs using a normal, a quiet, and a wild driving style (the latter two in relation to their normal style). Driving style mainly had an effect on the longitudinal and lateral accelerations. Salivary cortisol increases were lowest for the wild driving style. The latter can be explained by the shorter duration of these journeys and not by the accelerations, thus it is our view that acceleration due to manoeuvring as opposed to acceleration due to overall speed should be avoided. Also, in practice, journeys should take as brief a time as possible. Increasing acceleration saw an increase in the proportion of pigs standing during the journey and a decrease in the proportion of pigs lying down. Measurements of variability in heart rate revealed that lateral acceleration was an important stressor for pigs. We concluded that, as driving style has an effect on different stress variables, increased driver awareness of the effects of their driving on the responses of pigs, would improve pig welfare.

This study aimed to explore the impact of an awareness tool for relatives of older drivers (OSCARPA) on i) their interest, openness and knowledge, ii) changes of abilities required for safe driving, and iii) utilization of compensatory strategies. A pre-experimental design with pretest (T0) and post-test (T1) eight to ten weeks after the intervention was realized with 45 relatives in contact with an older driver of 65 years old or older and who was driving at least once a week. Overall, the results demonstrated that OSCARPA increased i) interest, openness and knowledge of relatives (p<0.001), as well as their perceptions of ii) changes of abilities of older drivers (p=0.02), and iii) their utilization of compensatory strategies (p=0.001). Future studies would be relevant to further evaluate and increase the effectiveness of OSCARPA.

The requirements of matching shell ICF target parameters, parameters of compressing, and triggering drivers under direct (fast) ignition are developed. Thin shell target, which represents a shell-ablator with a DT-ice layer, frosted on the inner surface of the shell are considered. Design of a target which ensures the energy supply from the triggering driver to the central part of thermonuclear fuel, in both spherical and cylindrical geometry is developed. Spherical target is furnished with one or two conical channels for the injection of the triggering driver radiation. The ends of the cylindrical target are protected by heavy material walls that have the holes of the radius equal to the final radius of compressed fuel. It was found that the parameters of fast ignition spherical and cylindrical targets, which provide high thermonuclear gain of 500–2000 in the range of the compressing driver energy of 1–10 MJ, may be matched with the drivers parameters at low aspect ratios of the targets, 10–20. The operation of spherical targets at the moderate radius convergence ratio of 15–20, may be provided at the triggering driver energy not higher than 30 kJ. The operation of cylindrical target with spin-oriented DT-fuel at radius convergence ratio of 20–25 may be provided at 150–200 kJ of the triggering driver energy.

We describe the next set of experiments proposed in the U.S. Heavy Ion Fusion Virtual National Laboratory, the so-called Integrated Beam Experiment (IBX). The purpose of IBX is to investigate in an integrated manner the processes and manipulations necessary for a heavy ion fusion induction accelerator. The IBX experiment will demonstrate injection, acceleration, compression, bending, and final focus of a heavy ion beam at significant line charge density. Preliminary conceptual designs are presented and issues and trade-offs are discussed. Plans are also described for the step after IBX, the Integrated Research Experiment (IRE), which will carry out significant target experiments.

Recently the “fast ignition” method in the ICF problem was considered (Caruso & Pais, 1996). It allows increasing a target gain factor and raising reliability of the burning process. Since the required power of the irradiating beam in this method is unattainable for the traditional type of heavy ion driver with the energy of ions ≤10 GeV, the powerful laser is considered as a possible driver only. Here we investigate the fast ignition method for a system constituted from the directly irradiated cylindrical target and a powerful heavy ion driver of the charge-symmetric type (Koshkarev, 1993) in which the ions with energy ≈100 GeV and mass ≈200 are used. The actual design of a powerful heavy ion driver with the required characteristics is outside the purpose of this article. However some consideration will be given to exploring whether such a performance is within the realm of reasonable extrapolations of the present state of the art.