Modern epidemiological analyses to understand and combat the spread of disease depend critically on access to, and use of, data. Rapidly evolving data, such as data streams changing during a disease outbreak, are particularly challenging. Data management is further complicated by data being imprecisely identified when used. Public trust in policy decisions resulting from such analyses is easily damaged and is often low, with cynicism arising where claims of ‘following the science’ are made without accompanying evidence. Tracing the provenance of such decisions back through open software to primary data would clarify this evidence, enhancing the transparency of the decision-making process. Here, we demonstrate a Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) data pipeline. Although developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, it allows easy annotation of any data as they are consumed by analyses, or conversely traces the provenance of scientific outputs back through the analytical or modelling source code to primary data. Such a tool provides a mechanism for the public, and fellow scientists, to better assess scientific evidence by inspecting its provenance, while allowing scientists to support policymakers in openly justifying their decisions. We believe that such tools should be promoted for use across all areas of policy-facing research. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Technical challenges of modelling real-life epidemics and examples of overcoming these’.

The notion of Thought Warfare and Anti-Warfare (TWAW) is introduced as a way of thinking about military conflict and its avoidance; it is foreseen as an increasingly important Defence issue in the twenty-first century. TWAW involves the dynamic interaction of allies' and adversaries' Thought Systems. Current Thought Systems involve entities capable of cognition, emotion and volition -typically (groups of) people -interacting via networks of information and data systems. New forms of Thought System are proposed that go beyond this; if realised they could provide significant comparative advantage in TWAW and may contribute to a Revolution in Military Affairs. RELEASE LIMITATIONApproved for public release [DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE] RCTA DEFENCE SCIENCE t TECHNOLOGY ORGANISATION I Vvl V frQFoo-U-3170

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At the 73rd TRB Annual Meeting in January 1994 the paper “Semi-Integral Bridges: Movements and Forces” was presented. It described the attributes, limitations, and peculiarities of a presumably new bridge concept developed by the Ohio Department of Transportation. That presentation elicited a comment from an attendee at the TRB meeting about recent research on a Washington State bridge, a bridge that was later found to be based on this same concept except that it predated Ohio’s earliest prototype by more than 10 years. This discovery of the Washington State experience provoked a state and province inquiry about semi-integral bridge construction, an inquiry that revealed the startling fact that fully 26 state transportation departments have constructed one or more of these structures; some departments have been constructing them for more than 20 years, and two departments have been constructing them for at least 40 years. Another surprising indication of semi-integral bridge experience was the discovery that the design of more than 80 percent of bridges built by two departments are based on the semi-integral concept. Because semi-integral bridges are deck-jointless bridges that can be designed to operate well within usual stress limits, because they are suitable for most moderate-bridge-length applications, because they can be designed to resist the destructive effects of rigid pavement growth and earthquakes, and because so many departments have achieved favorable performance with them, it appears that interest in semi-integral bridges will continue to increase, as will their numbers. However, since the stability of some semi-integral bridges depends to a great extent on composite backfill-structure interaction, future applications of this innovative bridge concept will depend to a great extent on the development of suitable soil-structure interaction research to provide the necessary experimental background to guide future designs.

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