Modelling public transport passenger flows in the era of intelligent transport systems COST Action TU1004 (TransITs)

CERN Document Server

Noekel, Klaus

2016-01-01

This book shows how transit assignment models can be used to describe and predict the patterns of network patronage in public transport systems. It provides a fundamental technical tool that can be employed in the process of designing, implementing and evaluating measures and/or policies to improve the current state of transport systems within given financial, technical and social constraints. The book offers a unique methodological contribution to the field of transit assignment because, moving beyond “traditional” models, it describes more evolved variants that can reproduce: • intermodal networks with high- and low-frequency services; • realistic behavioural hypotheses underpinning route choice; • time dependency in frequency-based models; and • assumptions about the knowledge that users have of network conditions that are consistent with the present and future level of information that intelligent transport systems (ITS) can provide. The book also considers the practical perspective of practit...

75 FR 43197 - Public Housing Assessment System (PHAS): Asset Management Transition Year 2 Extension

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-23

... System (PHAS): Asset Management Transition Year 2 Extension AGENCY: Office of the Assistant Secretary for...): Asset Management Transition Year 2 Information (75 FR 1632), dated January 12, 2010, for PHAs with... Assessment System (PHAS): Asset Management Transition Year Information and Uniform Financial Reporting...

Understanding social media program usage in public transit agencies

OpenAIRE

Jenny H. Liu; Wei Shi; O.A. (Sam) Elrahman; Xuegang (Jeff) Ban; Jack M. Reilly

2016-01-01

Social media has been gaining prominence in public transit agencies in their communication strategies and daily management. This study aims to better understand recent trends in social media usage in public transit agencies, to examine which agencies use what kind of social media programs for what purposes, and how they measure their programs. A survey was conducted of the top transit agencies in the nation, and results are examined through descriptive statistical analysis, correlation analys...

77 FR 14465 - Public Transportation on Indian Reservations Program; Tribal Transit Program

Science.gov (United States)

2012-03-09

... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Transit Administration Public Transportation on Indian... in funding provided by the Public Transportation on Indian Reservations Program (Tribal Transit... establishing the Public Transportation on Indian Reservations Program (Tribal Transit Program or TTP). This...

Advanced public transportation systems : evaluation guidelines

Science.gov (United States)

1994-01-01

The Federal Transit Administration has developed the Advanced Public Transportation Systems (APTS) Program which is an integral part of the overall U.S. DOT Intelligent Vehicle Highway Systems (IVHS) effort. A major aim of the APTS Program is to prom...

The Theory of Dynamic Public Transit Priority with Dynamic Stochastic Park and Ride

OpenAIRE

Zhu, Chengming; Chen, Yanyan; Ma, Changxi

2014-01-01

Public transit priority is very important for relieving traffic congestion. The connotation of dynamic public transit priority and dynamic stochastic park and ride is presented. Based on the point that the travel cost of public transit is not higher than the travel cost of car, how to determine the level of dynamic public transit priority is discussed. The traffic organization method of dynamic public transit priority is introduced. For dynamic stochastic park and ride, layout principle, scal...

The Theory of Dynamic Public Transit Priority with Dynamic Stochastic Park and Ride

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chengming Zhu

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Public transit priority is very important for relieving traffic congestion. The connotation of dynamic public transit priority and dynamic stochastic park and ride is presented. Based on the point that the travel cost of public transit is not higher than the travel cost of car, how to determine the level of dynamic public transit priority is discussed. The traffic organization method of dynamic public transit priority is introduced. For dynamic stochastic park and ride, layout principle, scale, and charging standard are discussed. Traveler acceptability is high through the analysis of questionnaire survey. Dynamic public transit priority with dynamic stochastic park and ride has application feasibility.

Walking associated with public transit: moving toward increased physical activity in the United States.

Science.gov (United States)

Freeland, Amy L; Banerjee, Shailendra N; Dannenberg, Andrew L; Wendel, Arthur M

2013-03-01

We assessed changes in transit-associated walking in the United States from 2001 to 2009 and documented their importance to public health. We examined transit walk times using the National Household Travel Survey, a telephone survey administered by the US Department of Transportation to examine travel behavior in the United States. People are more likely to transit walk if they are from lower income households, are non-White, and live in large urban areas with access to rail systems. Transit walkers in large urban areas with a rail system were 72% more likely to transit walk 30 minutes or more per day than were those without a rail system. From 2001 to 2009, the estimated number of transit walkers rose from 7.5 million to 9.6 million (a 28% increase); those whose transit-associated walking time was 30 minutes or more increased from approximately 2.6 million to 3.4 million (a 31% increase). Transit walking contributes to meeting physical activity recommendations. Study results may contribute to transportation-related health impact assessment studies evaluating the impact of proposed transit systems on physical activity, potentially influencing transportation planning decisions.

Transit of Venus Culture: A Celestial Phenomenon Intrigues the Public

Science.gov (United States)

Bueter, Chuck

2012-01-01

When Jeremiah Horrocks first observed it in 1639, the transit of Venus was a desirable telescopic target because of its scientific value. By the next transit of Venus in 1761, though, the enlightened public also embraced it as a popular celestial phenomenon. Its stature elevated over the centuries, the transit of Venus has been featured in music, poetry, stamps, plays, books, and art. The June 2004 transit emerged as a surprising global sensation, as suggested by the search queries it generated. Google's Zeitgeist deemed Venus Transit to be the #1 Most Popular Event in the world for that month. New priorities, technologies, and media have brought new audiences to the rare alignment. As the 2012 transit of Venus approaches, the trend continues with publicly accessible capabilities that did not exist only eight years prior. For example, sites from which historic observations have been made are plotted and readily available on Google Earth. A transit of Venus phone app in development will, if fully funded, facilitate a global effort to recreate historic expeditions by allowing smartphone users to submit their observed transit timings to a database for quantifying the Astronomical Unit. While maintaining relevance in modern scientific applications, the transit of Venus has emerged as a cultural attraction that briefly intrigues the mainstream public and inspires their active participation in the spectacle.

The Implementation of Transportation and Transit Projects on the Basis of Public-Private Partnership in Russia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Valery Anatolyevich Tsevtkov

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The article considers the main directions of the implementation of the current transportation and transit projects on the basis of the institution of public-private partnership in Russia. This work is a continuation of the study of the theory and practice of the application of public-private partnership in the investment projects aimed at the development and realization of the transportation and transit potential of the country. On the methodological basis of evolutionary and institutional economics, historical approach, system-oriented analysis and the theory of firms, the main current projects for the development of Russian transportation and transit system using public-private partnership are considered. They are the construction of a high-speed line of Moscow — Kazan with subsequent extension to the Chinese border; functioning of the transport and logistics in the Chelyabinsk region; infrastructure of transit cargo by Northern Sea Route; participation of foreign investors in the development of Russian seaports and sea gates. It is shown that the competitive advantage of transit traffic by a particular route requires more traversing speed of cargo with a minimum of stops, handling and overloads in the way. Revenue from transportation and transit potential implementation can be comparable to the size of the resource rent in the case of the development in Russia of the production and transit sector of the economy, and not only of a transit one . In this regard, the emphasis is placed on the determination of the possibility and necessity of organizational changes associated with the development of a large public-private transportation company, able to compete with global sea container services of the route of Asia — Europe. The main directions and activities under the proposed national project «Development of transit economy in Russia: Uniting Eurasia» and its subprogram «Creation of innovative rolling stock for container and multimodal

76 FR 44394 - Public Transportation on Indian Reservations Program; Tribal Transit Program

Science.gov (United States)

2011-07-25

... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Transit Administration Public Transportation on Indian... the Public Transportation on Indian Reservations Program (Tribal Transit Program) (TTP). This program... of the Census and may be used for public transportation capital projects, operating costs of...

What do Americans think about public transit? A review of U.S. public opinion polling survey questions.

Science.gov (United States)

2015-07-01

This seed grant research project compiled a set of 56 US public opinion polls that asked respondents their opinions about public : transit. The first and primary goal of the project was to assemble a large set of transit-related survey question...

Data-Driven Transition: Joint Reporting of Subscription Expenditure and Publication Costs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Irene Barbers

2018-04-01

Full Text Available The transition process from the subscription model to the open access model in the world of scholarly publishing brings a variety of challenges to libraries. Within this evolving landscape, the present article takes a focus on budget control for both subscription and publication expenditure with the opportunity to enable the shift from one to the other. To reach informed decisions with a solid base of data to be used in negotiations with publishers, the diverse already-existing systems for managing publications costs and for managing journal subscriptions have to be adapted to allow comprehensive reporting on publication expenditure and subscription expenditure. In the case presented here, two separate systems are described and the establishment of joint reporting covering both these systems is introduced. Some of the results of joint reporting are presented as an example of how such a comprehensive monitoring can support management decisions and negotiations. On a larger scale, the establishment of the National Open Access Monitor in Germany is introduced, bringing together a diverse range of data from several already-existing systems, including, among others, holdings information, usage data, and data on publication fees. This system will enable libraries to access all relevant data with a single user interface.

36 CFR 1192.173 - Automated guideway transit vehicles and systems.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

.... Vertical alignment may be accomplished by vehicle air suspension or other suitable means of meeting the... vehicles and systems. 1192.173 Section 1192.173 Parks, Forests, and Public Property ARCHITECTURAL AND... TRANSPORTATION VEHICLES Other Vehicles and Systems § 1192.173 Automated guideway transit vehicles and systems. (a...

Forecasting Public Transit Use by Crowdsensing and Semantic Trajectory Mining: Case Studies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ningyu Zhang

2016-09-01

Full Text Available With the growing development of smart cities, public transit forecasting has begun to attract significant attention. In this paper, we propose an approach for forecasting passenger boarding choices and public transit passenger flow. Our prediction model is based on mining common user behaviors for semantic trajectories and enriching features using knowledge from geographic and weather data. All the experimental data comes from the Ridge Nantong Limited bus company and Alibaba platform which is also open to the public. We evaluate our approach using various data sources, including point of interest (POI, weather condition, and public bus information in Guangzhou to demonstrate its effectiveness. Experimental results show that our proposal performs better than baselines in the prediction of passenger boarding choices and public transit passenger flow.

An evaluation of alternative fuels usage by public transit agencies.

Science.gov (United States)

2009-12-01

The oil crisis of the 1970s forced Americans to reconsider using fossil fuels as a primary energy source. In : the public transit arena, private transit companies found themselves unable to compete in the urban : environment as rapidly rising oil pri...

Transition-Systems, Event Structures, and Unfoldings

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Mogens; Rozenberg, Grzegorz; Thiagarajan, P.S.

1995-01-01

systems. Here we show that by smoothly strengthening the regional axioms for elementary transition systems, one obtains a subclass called occurrence transition system. We then prove that occurrence transition systems are the transition system model of yet another basic model of concurrency, namely, prime......A subclass of transition systems called elementary transition systems can be identified with the help of axioms based on a structural notion called regions. Elementary transition systems have been shown to be the transition system model of a basic system model of net theory called elementary net...

Punishment in public goods games leads to meta-stable phase transitions and hysteresis

Science.gov (United States)

Hintze, Arend; Adami, Christoph

2015-07-01

The evolution of cooperation has been a perennial problem in evolutionary biology because cooperation can be undermined by selfish cheaters who gain an advantage in the short run, while compromising the long-term viability of the population. Evolutionary game theory has shown that under certain conditions, cooperation nonetheless evolves stably, for example if players have the opportunity to punish cheaters that benefit from a public good yet refuse to pay into the common pool. However, punishment has remained enigmatic because it is costly and difficult to maintain. On the other hand, cooperation emerges naturally in the public goods game if the synergy of the public good (the factor multiplying the public good investment) is sufficiently high. In terms of this synergy parameter, the transition from defection to cooperation can be viewed as a phase transition with the synergy as the critical parameter. We show here that punishment reduces the critical value at which cooperation occurs, but also creates the possibility of meta-stable phase transitions, where populations can ‘tunnel’ into the cooperating phase below the critical value. At the same time, cooperating populations are unstable even above the critical value, because a group of defectors that are large enough can ‘nucleate’ such a transition. We study the mean-field theoretical predictions via agent-based simulations of finite populations using an evolutionary approach where the decisions to cooperate or to punish are encoded genetically in terms of evolvable probabilities. We recover the theoretical predictions and demonstrate that the population shows hysteresis, as expected in systems that exhibit super-heating and super-cooling. We conclude that punishment can stabilize populations of cooperators below the critical point, but it is a two-edged sword: it can also stabilize defectors above the critical point.

Benefits assessment of advanced public transportation system technologies, update 2000

Science.gov (United States)

This report was performed under the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) Advanced Public Transportation Systems (APTS) Program. This program focuses on the development and demonstration of innovative advanced navigation, information and communicati...

Peak Oil, Food Systems, and Public Health

Science.gov (United States)

Parker, Cindy L.; Kirschenmann, Frederick L.; Tinch, Jennifer; Lawrence, Robert S.

2011-01-01

Peak oil is the phenomenon whereby global oil supplies will peak, then decline, with extraction growing increasingly costly. Today's globalized industrial food system depends on oil for fueling farm machinery, producing pesticides, and transporting goods. Biofuels production links oil prices to food prices. We examined food system vulnerability to rising oil prices and the public health consequences. In the short term, high food prices harm food security and equity. Over time, high prices will force the entire food system to adapt. Strong preparation and advance investment may mitigate the extent of dislocation and hunger. Certain social and policy changes could smooth adaptation; public health has an essential role in promoting a proactive, smart, and equitable transition that increases resilience and enables adequate food for all. PMID:21778492

78 FR 27284 - Public Transportation on Indian Reservations Program; Tribal Transit Program

Science.gov (United States)

2013-05-09

... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Transit Administration Public Transportation on Indian... Federal Register Notice (77 FR 67439) Fiscal Year 2013 Public Transportation on Indian Reservation Program... formula apportionment to eligible Indian tribes providing public transportation on tribal lands. FTA...

Socioeconomic differences in outdoor food advertising at public transit stops across Melbourne suburbs.

Science.gov (United States)

Settle, Philippa J; Cameron, Adrian J; Thornton, Lukar E

2014-10-01

To assess and compare the number and type of outdoor food advertisements at public transit stops within suburbs of varying levels of socioeconomic disadvantage. An observational audit tool was developed and implemented to assess the number and type of food advertisements at public transit stops within Melbourne, Victoria. A total of 20 Melbourne neighbourhoods (suburbs) from across the least and the most socioeconomically disadvantaged areas were selected. All public transit stops, including train stations and bus and tram stops with a shelter were audited.  A similar proportion of transit stops in the least and most-disadvantaged suburbs displayed food advertisements (total n=203). However, some differences in the type of advertisements across suburbs were noted with advertisements for fast food restaurants, flavoured milk and fruit juice more common in the most-disadvantaged neighbourhoods (all padvertisements for diet soft drink, tea, coffee and convenience stores more common in the least-disadvantaged neighbourhoods (all padvertising at Melbourne transit stops found 30% displayed food advertisements, with those in more disadvantaged suburbs more frequently promoting chain-brand fast food and less frequently promoting diet varieties of soft drinks. These findings may help raise awareness of unhealthy environmental exposures. © 2014 Public Health Association of Australia.

75 FR 27114 - Public Transportation on Indian Reservations Program; Tribal Transit Program

Science.gov (United States)

2010-05-13

... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Transit Administration Public Transportation on Indian..., 2005)] amended 49 U.S.C. 5311(c) by establishing the Public Transportation on Indian Reservations... Census and may be used for public transportation capital projects, operating costs of equipment and...

Estimating the health benefits of planned public transit investments in Montreal.

Science.gov (United States)

Tétreault, Louis-François; Eluru, Naveen; Hatzopoulou, Marianne; Morency, Patrick; Plante, Celine; Morency, Catherine; Reynaud, Frederic; Shekarrizfard, Maryam; Shamsunnahar, Yasmin; Faghih Imani, Ahmadreza; Drouin, Louis; Pelletier, Anne; Goudreau, Sophie; Tessier, Francois; Gauvin, Lise; Smargiassi, Audrey

2018-01-01

Since public transit infrastructure affects road traffic volumes and influences transportation mode choice, which in turn impacts health, it is important to estimate the alteration of the health burden linked with transit policies. We quantified the variation in health benefits and burden between a business as usual (BAU) and a public transit (PT) scenarios in 2031 (with 8 and 19 new subway and train stations) for the greater Montreal region. Using mode choice and traffic assignment models, we predicted the transportation mode choice and traffic assignment on the road network. Subsequently, we estimated the distance travelled in each municipality by mode, the minutes spent in active transportation, as well as traffic emissions. Thereafter we estimated the health burden attributed to air pollution and road traumas and the gains associated with active transportation for both the BAU and PT scenarios. We predicted a slight decrease of overall trips and kilometers travelled by car as well as an increase of active transportation for the PT in 2031 vs the BAU. Our analysis shows that new infrastructure will reduce the overall burden of transportation by 2.5 DALYs per 100,000 persons. This decrease is caused by the reduction of road traumas occurring in the inner suburbs and central Montreal region as well as gains in active transportation in the inner suburbs. Based on the results of our study, transportation planned public transit projects for Montreal are unlikely to reduce drastically the burden of disease attributable to road vehicles and infrastructures in the Montreal region. The impact of the planned transportation infrastructures seems to be very low and localized mainly in the areas where new public transit stations are planned. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

CCS, locations and asynchronous transition systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mukund, Madhavan; Nielsen, Mogens

1992-01-01

We provide a simple non-interleaved operational semantics for CCS in terms of asynchronous transition systems. We identify the concurrency present in the system in a natural way, in terms of events occurring at independent locations in the system. We extend the standard interleaving transition...... system for CCS by introducing labels on the transitions with information about the locations of events. We then show that the resulting transition system is an asynchronous transition system which has the additional property of being elementary, which means that it can also be represented by a 1-safe net....... We also introduce a notion of bisimulation on asynchronous transition systems which preserves independence. We conjecture that the induced equivalence on CCS processes coincides with the notion of location equivalence proposed by Boudol et al....

STATEWIDE DATA STANDARDS TO SUPPORT CURRENT AND FUTURE STRATEGIC PUBLIC TRANSIT INVESTMENT

Science.gov (United States)

2018-04-01

Significant progress has been made in recent years in reporting and using public transit service data. With the creation and widespread use of the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data standard, there has been a significant increase in the f...

Public Transit Stations

Data.gov (United States)

Department of Homeland Security — fixed rail transit stations within the Continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The modes of transit that are serviced...

Real-time rescheduling and disruption management for public transit

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lai, D.S.W.; Leung, Janny M.Y.

2017-01-01

This research is motivated by the operations of a public transit company in Hong Kong. We investigate how real-time information can be utilized in combination with historical data to improve routing and scheduling decisions practically. A dynamic integrated vehicle and crew scheduling problem is

Managing the Accessibility on Mass Public Transit: the Case of Hong Kong

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Siman Tang

2008-11-01

Full Text Available Public transit services (PTS improve mobility and accessibility, and reduce car dependence. It is ideal if PTS are financially sustainable, with affordable fares and expedient quality. The success of PTS on accessibility improvement can be reflected by their level of patronage: do travelers choose to use them in lieu of their private cars? PTS in Hong Kong are renowned for their quality and profitability, superbly addressing the accessibility need for the city; they carry over 90% of the 11 million daily trips. A comparison of the per capita train-car and bus-vehicle kilometer run of PTS in Hong Kong with those in London and Singapore, however, suggests that it is not purely the supply that affects the use or accessibility of PTS in Hong Kong. By tracing and analyzing the development of PTS in Hong Kong over the past two decades, we found evidence that the high level of accessibility on mass public transit in the territory can be attributed to the land use policy of developing compact, high-density township, accompanying transport policies of granting high priority to the development of mass transit facilities and providing ways to ensure the financial viability of privately operated PTS, especially the innovative approach of integrating the development of public transport facility and property so as to exploit their synergy. In this paper, we study and highlight elements that contribute to the development of high accessibility on mass public transit in Hong Kong.

The Wheels That Drove New York A History of the New York City Transit System

CERN Document Server

Roess, Roger P

2013-01-01

The Wheels That Drove New York tells the fascinating story of how a public transportation system helped transform a small trading community on the southern tip of Manhattan island to a world financial capital that is home to more than 8,000,000 people.  From the earliest days of horse-drawn conveyances to the wonders of one of the world's largest and most efficient subways, the story links the developing history of the City itself to the growth and development of its public transit system.  Along the way, the key role played by the inventors, builders, financiers, and managers of the system are highlighted. The Wheels That Drove New York takes us through the present day, and discusses the many challenges that the transit system has had to face over the years.  It also traces the conversion of the system from fully private operations (through the elevated railways) to the fully public system that exists today, and the problems that this transformation has created along the way.

Parametric modal transition systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Beneš, Nikola; Křetínský, Jan; Larsen, Kim Guldstrand

2011-01-01

Modal transition systems (MTS) is a well-studied specification formalism of reactive systems supporting a step-wise refinement methodology. Despite its many advantages, the formalism as well as its currently known extensions are incapable of expressing some practically needed aspects in the refin......Modal transition systems (MTS) is a well-studied specification formalism of reactive systems supporting a step-wise refinement methodology. Despite its many advantages, the formalism as well as its currently known extensions are incapable of expressing some practically needed aspects...

Refinement for Transition Systems with Responses

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marco Carbone

2012-07-01

Full Text Available Motivated by the response pattern for property specifications and applications within flexible workflow management systems, we report upon an initial study of modal and mixed transition systems in which the must transitions are interpreted as must eventually, and in which implementations can contain may behaviors that are resolved at run-time. We propose Transition Systems with Responses (TSRs as a suitable model for this study. We prove that TSRs correspond to a restricted class of mixed transition systems, which we refer to as the action-deterministic mixed transition systems. We show that TSRs allow for a natural definition of deadlocked and accepting states. We then transfer the standard definition of refinement for mixed transition systems to TSRs and prove that refinement does not preserve deadlock freedom. This leads to the proposal of safe refinements, which are those that preserve deadlock freedom. We exemplify the use of TSRs and (safe refinements on a small medication workflow.

Review on Selection and Suitability of Rail Transit Station Design Pertaining to Public Safety

Science.gov (United States)

Akabal, Farah Mohd; Masirin, Mohd Idrus Haji Mohd; Abidin Akasah, Zainal; Rohani, Munzilah Md

2017-08-01

rail transit station design for the future. It is also important to ensure the design is appropriate from the selection and suitability perspective as design and operation will assist to facilitate the success of the national rail network and encourage the public to use rail transit system. A conducive and neatly design railway station will not only add to the passenger experience but also, as a supporting facility to the economic, social and environmental benefits of the rail industry.

Transition to a hydrogen fuel cell transit bus fleet for Canadian urban transit system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ducharme, P.

2004-01-01

'Full text:' The Canadian Transportation Fuel Cell Alliance (CTFCA), created by the Canadian Government as part of its 2000 Climate Change Action Plan, has commissioned MARCON-DDM's Hydrogen Intervention Team (HIT) to provide a roadmap for urban transit systems that wish to move to hydrogen fuel cell-powered bus fleets. HIT is currently in the process of gathering information from hydrogen technology providers, bus manufacturers, fuelling system providers and urban transit systems in Canada, the US and Europe. In September, HIT will be in a position to provide a preview of its report to the CTFCA, due for October 2004. The planned table of contents includes: TOMORROW'S FUEL CELL (FC) URBAN TRANSIT BUS - Powertrain, on-board fuel technologies - FC engine system manufacturers - Bus technical specifications, performances, operating characteristics - FC bus manufacturers TOMORROW'S FC TRANSIT PROPERTY - Added maintenance, facilities and fuelling infrastructure requirements - Supply chain implications - Environmental and safety issues - Alternative operational concepts PATHWAYS TO THE FUTURE - Choosing the future operational concept - 'Gap' assessment - how long from here to there? - Facilities and fleet adjustments, including fuelling infrastructure - Risk mitigation, code compliance measures TRANSITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS - Cost implications - Transition schedule (author)

Public-Private Partnership as the Core Form of the Implementation of Russia’s Transport and Transit Potential

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Valery Anatolyevich Tsvetkov

2017-03-01

Full Text Available The article discusses the theory and practice of the implementation and development of transport and transit potential (TTP of Russia. This could be an effective way to replace the natural resource rent as the main source of income for the state and economic actors. For the modernization of national economic system the key importance are innovative technologies in the development of transport and transit potential through the organization of the production of goods and services with the highest added value in Russia. We proposed and substantiated the hypothesis about the necessity of creation of a Federal company responsible for the financing and implementation of Russia’s transport and transit potential development projects on the principles of public-private partnership (PPP. The authors have revealed the economic, institutional and organizational prerequisites for the establishment of such a public-private partnership company. We have provided the opinions of scientists and experts showing the urgent need to create in one form or another a single operator to transport goods on the territory of Russia and the Eurasian economic Union. To prove the hypothesis, we presented a description and analysis of the factors affecting the value of transit freight transport on Euro-Asian routes. We paid the special attention to identify the reasons of the increasing competitive advantage of Maritime transport in the world’s goods movement system. The authors based the main conclusion that, first of all, the created publicprivate partnership company should be large due to tough competition of developing transit freight by land routes with the global Maritime container services. Secondly, it needs a significant state participation since the management of the world’s cargo flows requires the effort of foreign policy and geo-economic nature. We emphasized that this business entity would become an active proponent and lobbyist of the most effective

Reliability of public institutions in the transition of Eastern Europe

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jonida Drogu

2016-11-01

Full Text Available The problem of dishonesty and distrust is often unclear phenomena in Eastern Europe. These are common issues discussed not only in print media and television, but also social environments as well. Corruption, so unfair advantage, lies, deceit and abuse of trust are mentioned frequently during the last decades a" er the change of system in the region, especially in Balkan Peninsula. Although dishonesty and distrust (+ corruption have existed in the previous system, however, they have been hidden phenomena or issues for which there is talk in this system. Research in terms of honesty and trust include a more areas in different sectors. International literature on the subject focuses on two fundamental topics. One of which is his faith and relationship with social capital. What do some of these concepts mean in our perception? What are the benefits and harmful effects of faith and are those connected with social equity and democratic consolidation? The search for this topic is interdisciplinary because it includes political sciences, social sciences, political, legal or sociologic-and those of anthropology. As a result this thesis will provide comparative scale impasse that creates two realities of different social complexity, from the countries that have experienced the post-socialist transition, belief in family and society that retains a holding in the operations of public institutions and may create difficulties to succeed the efforts to implement the law impartially. In conclusion: Corruption is an unreliable source, which comprises behavior and violates the trust placed on official- and public officials. It includes the use of public positions for personal benefit and it creates an ill infrastructure for fragile democracies.

Public Policies and Private Initiatives in Transition: Evidence from the Polish Dairy Sector

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dries, L.K.E.; Falkowski, J.; Malak-Rawlikowska, A.; Milczarek-Andrzejewska, D.

2011-01-01

The drivers of institutional change in Central and Eastern Europe have changed considerably since 1989. Taking these changes into account, we identify three – partly overlapping – transition stages: public policy changes dominated the start of transition, private initiatives became crucial in a

Economic System and Transition Mode : A Comparative Research on Transition Economies

OpenAIRE

Yang, Liu

2014-01-01

This passage mainly deals with the problem of why different transition countries have different transition mode and different economic performance. According to this research, it has been found that the economic system of the traditional socialist countries played an important role in their process of reform and transition. The socialist countries with their different economic systems had determined the economic performance, the space, as well as the environment of the transition. All of this...

Potential of public transit as a transportation control measure: Case studies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sillings, M.

1998-07-01

This report is the final product of the Clean Air Project of the National Association of Regional Councils/NARC. It documents a nationwide study of transit projects and programs initiated in the wake of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments/CAAA and the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991/ISTEA. The study purpose was to assess the experience, limitations, and value of public transit as a potential transportation control measure/TCM, i.e., generates significant air quality benefits by eliminating or reducing emissions from motor vehicles. Four in-depth case studies and six additional projects featured as innovations in transportation are offered as examples investigating the potential of transit as a TCM. These case studies and innovations highlight the efforts of ten metropolitan areas and transit agencies which have succeed in developing and implementing innovative transit strategies.

Public transit generates new physical activity: Evidence from individual GPS and accelerometer data before and after light rail construction in a neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, Harvey J; Tribby, Calvin P; Brown, Barbara B; Smith, Ken R; Werner, Carol M; Wolf, Jean; Wilson, Laura; Oliveira, Marcelo G Simas

2015-11-01

Poor health outcomes from insufficient physical activity (PA) are a persistent public health issue. Public transit is often promoted for positive influence on PA. Although there is cross-sectional evidence that transit users have higher PA levels, this may be coincidental or shifted from activities such as recreational walking. We use a quasi-experimental design to test if light rail transit (LRT) generated new PA in a neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Participants (n=536) wore Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers and accelerometers before (2012) and after (2013) LRT construction. We test within-person differences in individuals' PA time based on changes in transit usage pre- versus post-intervention. We map transit-related PA to detect spatial clustering of PA around the new transit stops. We analyze within-person differences in PA time based on daily transit use and estimate the effect of daily transit use on PA time controlling for socio-demographic variables. Results suggest that transit use directly generates new PA that is not shifted from other PA. This supports the public health benefits from new high quality public transit such as LRT. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Delivering power system transition in China

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yuan Jiahai; Xu Yan; Hu Zhaoguang

2012-01-01

This paper studies the transition to low carbon power systems in China. The methodology is built on the newly developed multi-level perspective (MLP) transitions, as well as literature on innovation systems. Three lines of thought on the transition process are integrated to probe the possible transition pathways in China's power sector. Five transition pathways, namely reproduction, transformation, substitution, reconfiguration, de-alignment/re-alignment and reconfiguration, with their possible technology options are presented. The requirements for a smart grid in the socio-technical transition process are addressed within the MLP framework. The paper goes further to propose an interactive framework for low carbon transition management in China. Representative technology options are appraised by employing innovation theory to demonstrate the logic of policy design within the framework. The work presented in this paper will be useful in informing policy-makers and other stakeholders in China and it may prove to be a valuable reference for other countries in energy transition management. - Highlights: ► The transition to low carbon power systems is studied from a multi-level perspective. ► Transition pathways with possible technology options are presented. ► An interactive framework is proposed for managing this transition. ► Representative technology options are appraised within the framework to show the logic of policy design.

The Impacts of the Mass Rapid Transit System on Household Car Ownership in Taipei

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wen-Hsiu Huang

2014-06-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates the impacts of Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT system on household car ownership and analyses how socioeconomic characteristics affect household car ownership. We employ a difference-in-difference (DID strategy integrated with generalized Poisson regression models to examine the effects of MRT. The results are as follows: first, the establishment of Taipei MRT significantly reduced the level of household car ownership. Expanding the network of MRT system can be a feasible policy to control car ownership. Second, the levels of household car ownership are related to household’s socioeconomic characteristics. Third, households with high dependence on public transport own fewer cars after Taipei MRT began operation. Hence, the traffic authority should adopt more effective methods to encourage public transit use in order to decrease household car ownership.

Teaching Kids with Learning Disabilities to Take Public Transit

Science.gov (United States)

Schoenfeld, Jane

2009-01-01

Taking public transit can make anyone nervous, especially in a large or medium-sized city where there are many different bus lines going many different places. The author's daughter, Anna, has multiple learning disabilities and may never learn to drive, but she wants to be as independent as possible so the author taught her to ride the bus. This…

On Determinism in Modal Transition Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Benes, Nikola; Kretinsky, Jan; Larsen, Kim Guldstrand

2009-01-01

Modal transition systems (MTS) is a formalism which extends the classical notion of labelled transition systems by introducing transitions of two types: must transitions that have to be present in any implementation of the MTS and may transitions that are allowed but not required. The MTS framewo....... In the present article, we provide a comprehensive account of the MTS framework in the deterministic setting. We study a number of problems previously considered on MTS and point out to what extend we can expect better results under the restriction of determinism....

Relation Between Higher Physical Activity and Public Transit Use

Science.gov (United States)

Vernez Moudon, Anne; Kang, Bumjoon; Hurvitz, Philip M.; Zhou, Chuan

2014-01-01

Objectives. We isolated physical activity attributable to transit use to examine issues of substitution between types of physical activity and potential confounding of transit-related walking with other walking. Methods. Physical activity and transit use data were collected in 2008 to 2009 from 693 Travel Assessment and Community study participants from King County, Washington, equipped with an accelerometer, a portable Global Positioning System, and a 7-day travel log. Physical activity was classified into transit- and non–transit-related walking and nonwalking time. Analyses compared physical activity by type between transit users and nonusers, between less and more frequent transit users, and between transit and nontransit days for transit users. Results. Transit users had more daily overall physical activity and more total walking than did nontransit users but did not differ on either non–transit-related walking or nonwalking physical activity. Most frequent transit users had more walking time than least frequent transit users. Higher physical activity levels for transit users were observed only on transit days, with 14.6 minutes (12.4 minutes when adjusted for demographics) of daily physical activity directly linked with transit use. Conclusions. Because transit use was directly related to higher physical activity, future research should examine whether substantive increases in transit access and use lead to more physical activity and related health improvements. PMID:24625142

World in transition 3 towards sustainable energy systems

CERN Document Server

2014-01-01

'The publication of World in Transition: Towards Sustainable Energy Systems is timely indeed. The World Summit on Sustainable Development gave great prominence to this challenge, but failed to agree on a quantitative, time-bound target for the introduction of renewable energy sources. The German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) has now produced a report with a global focus, which is essential in view of the global impacts of climate change. The report provides a convincing long-term analysis, which is also essential. Global energy policies have to take a long-term perspective, over the

Public transportation systems: Comparative analysis of quality of service

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Negri, L.; Florio, L. (Rome Univ. La Sapienza (Italy). Facolta' di Ingegneria, Dipt. di Idraulica, Trasporti e Strade)

The evaluation, choice and design of public transportation systems for urban areas requires, in addition to consolidated use parameters, other dimensions essential to supply-demand qualiflcative realignment, e.g.: 'door-to-door time' which allows system differentiation in terms of commercial velocity, frequency and length of route; technical productivity expressed as 'transport power' and 'specific transport power'; and 'system/service quality'. By the means of surveys, these factors can be incorporated into suitable mathematical models representing, in a complete and reliable way, all the functions which a given system actually delivers and those functions which it is expected to deliver by its users. This paper illustrates the application of these concepts in a comparative analysis of different public transportation options - light rail rapid transit, tram and bus networks.

Spatial-Temporal Similarity Correlation between Public Transit Passengers Using Smart Card Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hamed Faroqi

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The increasing availability of public transit smart card data has enabled several studies to focus on identifying passengers with similar spatial and/or temporal trip characteristics. However, this paper goes one step further by investigating the relationship between passengers’ spatial and temporal characteristics. For the first time, this paper investigates the correlation of the spatial similarity with the temporal similarity between public transit passengers by developing spatial similarity and temporal similarity measures for the public transit network with a novel passenger-based perspective. The perspective considers the passengers as agents who can make multiple trips in the network. The spatial similarity measure takes into account direction as well as the distance between the trips of the passengers. The temporal similarity measure considers both the boarding and alighting time in a continuous linear space. The spatial-temporal similarity correlation between passengers is analysed using histograms, Pearson correlation coefficients, and hexagonal binning. Also, relations between the spatial and temporal similarity values with the trip time and length are examined. The proposed methodology is implemented for four-day smart card data including 80,000 passengers in Brisbane, Australia. The results show a nonlinear spatial-temporal similarity correlation among the passengers.

Phase transitions in finite systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chomaz, Ph. [Grand Accelerateur National d' Ions Lourds (GANIL), DSM-CEA / IN2P3-CNRS, 14 - Caen (France); Gulminelli, F. [Caen Univ., 14 (France). Lab. de Physique Corpusculaire

2002-07-01

In this series of lectures we will first review the general theory of phase transition in the framework of information theory and briefly address some of the well known mean field solutions of three dimensional problems. The theory of phase transitions in finite systems will then be discussed, with a special emphasis to the conceptual problems linked to a thermodynamical description for small, short-lived, open systems as metal clusters and data samples coming from nuclear collisions. The concept of negative heat capacity developed in the early seventies in the context of self-gravitating systems will be reinterpreted in the general framework of convexity anomalies of thermo-statistical potentials. The connection with the distribution of the order parameter will lead us to a definition of first order phase transitions in finite systems based on topology anomalies of the event distribution in the space of observations. Finally a careful study of the thermodynamical limit will provide a bridge with the standard theory of phase transitions and show that in a wide class of physical situations the different statistical ensembles are irreducibly inequivalent. (authors)

Phase transitions in finite systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chomaz, Ph.; Gulminelli, F.

2002-01-01

In this series of lectures we will first review the general theory of phase transition in the framework of information theory and briefly address some of the well known mean field solutions of three dimensional problems. The theory of phase transitions in finite systems will then be discussed, with a special emphasis to the conceptual problems linked to a thermodynamical description for small, short-lived, open systems as metal clusters and data samples coming from nuclear collisions. The concept of negative heat capacity developed in the early seventies in the context of self-gravitating systems will be reinterpreted in the general framework of convexity anomalies of thermo-statistical potentials. The connection with the distribution of the order parameter will lead us to a definition of first order phase transitions in finite systems based on topology anomalies of the event distribution in the space of observations. Finally a careful study of the thermodynamical limit will provide a bridge with the standard theory of phase transitions and show that in a wide class of physical situations the different statistical ensembles are irreducibly inequivalent. (authors)

Unintended greenhouse gas consequences of lowering level of service in urban transit systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Griswold, Julia B; Cheng, Han; Madanat, Samer; Horvath, Arpad

2014-01-01

Public transit is often touted as a ‘green’ transportation option and a way for users to reduce their environmental footprint by avoiding automobile emissions, but that may not be the case when systems run well below passenger capacity. In previous work, we explored an approach to optimizing the design and operations of transit systems for both costs and emissions, using continuum approximation models and assuming fixed demand. In this letter, we expand upon our previous work to explore how the level of service for users impacts emissions. We incorporate travel time elasticities into the optimization to account for demand shifts from transit to cars, resulting from increases in transit travel time. We find that emissions reductions are moderated, but not eliminated, for relatively inelastic users. We consider two scenarios: the first is where only the agency faces an emissions budget; the second is where the entire city faces an emissions budget. In the latter scenario, the emissions reductions resulting from reductions in transit level of service are mitigated as users switch to automobile. (letter)

To finance the ecological transition: our analyses and proposals. Contribution to the public consultation on the financing of the ecological transition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Azam, Genevieve; Combes, Maxime; Gadrey, Jean; Harribey, Jean-Marie

2014-01-01

The financing of ecological transition is a key issue which conditions the nature of the transition and its ecological efficiency, the acceptability of measures with respect to requirements in terms of social justice, and the sustainability of undertaken actions. This publication is an answer to a public consultation launched by the French government with the publication of a White Paper on these issues. The authors first analyse, discuss and criticise the content of the White Paper. For them, it reduces the approach to a normative one, is based on a decoupling between economic growth and use of resources, propagates a technical-scientific illusion, often indicates selective and incomplete data, and addresses the energy issue through a supply-based approach. In the next part, the authors discuss how transition financing is addressed in the White Paper. In the third part, proposals are made according to three main principles: ecological transition is a social, political, and cultural process which must be supported, financed and implemented at all territorial levels; transition can be financed only if it comes with a strict legal framework which will define what is possible and what is not any longer; financing must be conditioned to results in terms of sobriety and of ecological and social efficiency, including the creation, qualification and sustainability of jobs. A set of programmes is also presented with associated measures on energy efficiency and sobriety, on a fair use of common good, on a re-localisation of activities, and a support of international initiatives. Some proposals are also made regarding financing tools

Urban Transit System Microbial Communities Differ by Surface Type and Interaction with Humans and the Environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Hsu, Tiffany; Joice, Regina; Vallarino, Jose; Abu-Ali, Galeb; Hartmann, Erica M; Shafquat, Afrah; DuLong, Casey; Baranowski, Catherine; Gevers, Dirk; Green, Jessica L; Morgan, Xochitl C; Spengler, John D; Huttenhower, Curtis

2016-01-01

Public transit systems are ideal for studying the urban microbiome and interindividual community transfer. In this study, we used 16S amplicon and shotgun metagenomic sequencing to profile microbial communities on multiple transit surfaces across train lines and stations in the Boston metropolitan transit system. The greatest determinant of microbial community structure was the transit surface type. In contrast, little variation was observed between geographically distinct train lines and stations serving different demographics. All surfaces were dominated by human skin and oral commensals such as Propionibacterium , Corynebacterium , Staphylococcus , and Streptococcus . The detected taxa not associated with humans included generalists from alphaproteobacteria, which were especially abundant on outdoor touchscreens. Shotgun metagenomics further identified viral and eukaryotic microbes, including Propionibacterium phage and Malassezia globosa . Functional profiling showed that Propionibacterium acnes pathways such as propionate production and porphyrin synthesis were enriched on train holding surfaces (holds), while electron transport chain components for aerobic respiration were enriched on touchscreens and seats. Lastly, the transit environment was not found to be a reservoir of antimicrobial resistance and virulence genes. Our results suggest that microbial communities on transit surfaces are maintained from a metapopulation of human skin commensals and environmental generalists, with enrichments corresponding to local interactions with the human body and environmental exposures. IMPORTANCE Mass transit environments, specifically, urban subways, are distinct microbial environments with high occupant densities, diversities, and turnovers, and they are thus especially relevant to public health. Despite this, only three culture-independent subway studies have been performed, all since 2013 and all with widely differing designs and conclusions. In this study, we

Review on Malaysian Rail Transit Operation and Management System: Issues and Solution in Integration

Science.gov (United States)

Masirin, Mohd Idrus Mohd; Salin, Aminah Mohd; Zainorabidin, Adnan; Martin, David; Samsuddin, Norshakina

2017-08-01

In any context, operation and management of transportation systems are key issues which may affect both life quality and economic development. In large urban agglomerations, an efficient public transportation system may help abate the negative externalities of private car use such as congestion, air and noise pollution, accident and fuel consumption, without excessively penalizing user travel times or zone accessibility. Thus, this study is conducted to appraise the Malaysian rural rail transit operation and management system, which are considered important as there are many issues and solution in integration of the services that need to be tackled more conscientiously. The purpose of this paper is to describe some of the most important issues on integration of services and rail transit system in Malaysian and how to solve or reduce these problems and conflicts. In this paper, it consists of the historical development of rail transit construction in Malaysia. This paper also attempts to identify the important issues related to rail transit services and integration in Malaysian rural rail operation and management system. Comparison is also conducted with other countries such as UK, France, and Japan. Finally, a critical analysis is presented in this paper by looking at the possible application for future Malaysian rail transit operation system and management, especially focusing on enhancing the quality of Malaysian rural rail transit. In conclusion, this paper is expected to successfully review and appraise the existing Malaysian rural rail transit operation and management system pertaining to issues & solution in integration. It is also hoped that reformation or transformation of present service delivery quality of the rail transit operation and management will enable Malaysia to succeed in transforming Malaysian transportation system to greater heights.

Study on transfer optimization of urban rail transit and conventional public transport

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Jie; Sun, Quan Xin; Mao, Bao Hua

2018-04-01

This paper mainly studies the time optimization of feeder connection between rail transit and conventional bus in a shopping center. In order to achieve the goal of connecting rail transportation effectively and optimizing the convergence between the two transportations, the things had to be done are optimizing the departure intervals, shorting the passenger transfer time and improving the service level of public transit. Based on the goal that has the minimum of total waiting time of passengers and the number of start of classes, establish the optimizing model of bus connecting of departure time. This model has some constrains such as transfer time, load factor, and the convergence of public transportation grid spacing. It solves the problems by using genetic algorithms.

The transition to medication adoption in publicly funded substance use disorder treatment programs: organizational structure, culture, and resources.

Science.gov (United States)

Knudsen, Hannah K; Roman, Paul M

2014-05-01

Medications for the treatment of substance use disorders (SUDs) are not widely available in publicly funded SUD treatment programs. Few studies have drawn on longitudinal data to examine the organizational characteristics associated with programs transitioning from not delivering any pharmacotherapy to adopting at least one SUD medication. Using two waves of panel longitudinal data collected over a 5-year period, we measured the transition to medication adoption in a cohort of 190 publicly funded treatment organizations that offered no SUD medications at baseline. Independent variables included organizational characteristics, medical resources, funding, treatment culture, and detailing activities by pharmaceutical companies. Of 190 programs not offering SUD pharmacotherapy at baseline, 22.6% transitioned to offering at least one SUD medication at follow-up approximately 5 years later. Multivariate logistic regression results indicated that the employment of at least one physician at baseline, having a greater proportion of Medicaid clients, and pharmaceutical detailing were positively associated with medication adoption. Adoption of pharmacotherapy was more likely in programs that had greater medical resources, Medicaid funding, and contact with pharmaceutical companies. Given the potential expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, patients served by publicly funded programs may gain greater access to such treatments, but research is needed to document health reform's impact on this sector of the treatment system.

Financial system development in transition economies

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hermes, C.L.M.; Lensink, B.W.

This paper provides an overview of the major issues with respect to financial system development in transition economies, which were discussed at a conference in Groningen, the Netherlands, December 1997. After a brief remark on the role of financial system design during economic transition, the

Gas tax/public transit annual expenditure report pursuant to the agreement on the transfer of federal gas tax revenue and the agreement on the transfer of public transit funds for the period April 1, 2006 to March 31, 2007

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Binnie, B.; Taylor, R.; Gibson, B.

2007-09-01

Federal funding initiatives for local infrastructure and capacity building was discussed with particular reference to the unique partnerships between the Canada-British Columbia Agreement on the transfer of federal gas tax revenues and the Canada-British Columbia agreement on the transfer of funds for public transit. The agreements reflect the nature of intergovernmental relations in British Columbia where the Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) works together with both federal and provincial governments to promote sustainable communities. This report identified the initiatives that are underway in communities across British Columbia as they begin to implement Gas Tax and Public Transit funded projects. These projects span a broad range of eligible project categories. The leadership role taken by local governments in the province to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was highlighted. Some of the 141 projects reported in 2007 were highlighted in this report, including improvement to public transit in the District of Saanich; TransLink bus replacement and expansion; cycling and pedestrian infrastructure; improvements to local roads and bridges; alternative energy retrofits; collection of solid waste; improvement to water systems; stormwater and wastewater treatment; capacity building; watershed protection; and water acquisition strategies. Of the projects reported, 33 per cent anticipated gas tax spending in more than 1 year, indicating either payment of capital costs as they are incurred during a construction period that spans beyond a single year, or use of gas tax funding towards the debt servicing costs related to the eligible project. tabs., figs

The reconstruction process of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the political transition (1974-1985

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Debora Alves Maciel

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The article analyzes reconstruction dynamics of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, focusing on the mobilization of prosecutors and prosecuting attorney in the period from 1974 to 1985. We argue that the characteristics of Brazilian political transition were critical to the changing process of the institution, which gained constitutional status in 1988. Liberalization of the military regime changed the links between lawyers, opposition parties and pro-democracy movements. The connection of the institutional movement with dissident political elites and the dense activism network around new social conflicts allowed the Public Prosecutor’s Office to try new strategies of collective action, gain political visibility and thus become a viable alternative to political system to respond to social pressures for judiciary democratization.

Could transit sites become some of our great public spaces?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lanng, Ditte Bendix

of the urban spaces of traffic segregation with regard to sensory and social qualities of different ways of embodied wayfaring. The discussion draws on ethnographic studies into journeys, which entangle at the transit site,as well as re-design studio experiments. These draw to the foreground of design...... social and cultural life. Third, I draw on my studies into journeys at the site to learn about the spatial practicings of the site and of the properties and possibilities of the urban space design. Fourth, I explore in written text and drawing re-design potentials. And last, I sum up propositions...... considerations the engagement between the wayfarer and the environment. The paper is structured in five sections. I set out by introducing the traffic segregated transit site. Second, I outline and argue for the design challenge: to re-design the transit site as an important public space – a central part of our...

Stimulating transitions towards sustainable farming systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Elzen, B.; Barbier, M.; Cerf, M.; Grin, J.

2012-01-01

How can the dynamics of the agro-food sector in the long run be addressed? We argue that sustainable agro-food systems cannot be developed through a simple improvement of existing systems, but will require a transition. Therefore, we focus on how transitions to sustainability could be initiated and

Transit transparency.

Science.gov (United States)

2012-07-01

Public transit agencies have employed intelligent systems for determining : schedules and routes and for monitoring the real-time location and status of their : vehicle fleets for nearly two decades. But until recently, the data generated by : daily ...

The Implementation of Transportation and Transit Projects on the Basis of Public-Private Partnership in Russia

OpenAIRE

Valery Anatolyevich Tsevtkov; Kobilzhon Khodzhievich Zoidov; Alexey Anatolyevich Medkov

2016-01-01

The article considers the main directions of the implementation of the current transportation and transit projects on the basis of the institution of public-private partnership in Russia. This work is a continuation of the study of the theory and practice of the application of public-private partnership in the investment projects aimed at the development and realization of the transportation and transit potential of the country. On the methodological basis of evolutionary and institu...

System Geometries and Transit/Eclipse Probabilities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Howard A.

2011-02-01

Full Text Available Transiting exoplanets provide access to data to study the mass-radius relation and internal structure of extrasolar planets. Long-period transiting planets allow insight into planetary environments similar to the Solar System where, in contrast to hot Jupiters, planets are not constantly exposed to the intense radiation of their parent stars. Observations of secondary eclipses additionally permit studies of exoplanet temperatures and large-scale exo-atmospheric properties. We show how transit and eclipse probabilities are related to planet-star system geometries, particularly for long-period, eccentric orbits. The resulting target selection and observational strategies represent the principal ingredients of our photometric survey of known radial-velocity planets with the aim of detecting transit signatures (TERMS.

Homogeneous Photodynamical Analysis of Kepler's Multiply-Transiting Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Ragozzine, Darin

. Research Objective 1 (RO1) Gather and detrend publicly-available light curves for Kepler MTSs; gather starting guesses of preliminary planetary and stellar parameters from the Kepler pipeline (e.g., Rowe et al. 2014) and other studies; and expand our existing photodynamical code (e.g., Mills & Fabrycky 2017) to handle all Kepler MTSs. All required data are publicly available and our significant past expertise demonstrates our ability to complete these tasks. The new photodynamical code will be called the PhotoDynamical Multi-planet Model (PhoDyMM) and described in a paper. Research Objective 2 (RO2) Apply PhoDyMM to the 600 known systems with 2-3 transiting planets; publish these results, including full posterior distributions for all systems (to be housed at the NASA Exoplanet Archive). Research Objective 3 (RO3) Apply PhoDyMM to the 100 Kepler MTSs with 4 or more planets. This astrophysics data analysis is a major step beyond existing efforts and will provide the definitive physical and orbital properties for Kepler MTSs. It is clearly responsive to the Astrophysics Data Analysis Program and relevant to NASA Astrophysics Goals. PI Ragozzine and Co-I Fabrycky have participated in the Kepler prime science mission since its inception and have significant experience in all required areas. Co-I Mills has the most published uses of a photodynamical model on some of the most difficult to analyze exoplanetary systems (Kepler-11, Kepler-108 Kepler-223, Kepler-444). We will employ best practices for Data Management such as archiving posterior distributions and providing open access to PhoDyMM. PI Ragozzine s startup provided sufficient computational resources to perform the extensive analyses. He will be supported by a graduate student and unfunded undergraduates.

FTA National Transit GIS : data standards, guidelines and recommended practices

Science.gov (United States)

1996-01-01

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) National Transit Geographic Information System (GIS) is a representative inventory of the public transit assets of the country. Creation of this national system is an ongoing and collaborative effort on the pa...

A Framework for Supporting Organizational Transition Processes Towards Sustainable Energy Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Buch, Rajesh

Economic development over the last century has driven a tripling of the world's population, a twenty-fold increase in fossil fuel consumption, and a tripling of traditional biomass consumption. The associated broad income and wealth inequities are retaining over 2 billion people in poverty. Adding to this, fossil fuel combustion is impacting the environment across spatial and temporal scales and the cost of energy is outpacing all other variable costs for most industries. With 60% of world energy delivered in 2008 consumed by the commercial and industrial sector, the fragmented and disparate energy-related decision making within organizations are largely responsible for the inefficient and impacting use of energy resources. The global transition towards sustainable development will require the collective efforts of national, regional, and local governments, institutions, the private sector, and a well-informed public. The leadership role in this transition could be provided by private and public sector organizations, by way of sustainability-oriented organizations, cultures, and infrastructure. The diversity in literature exemplifies the developing nature of sustainability science, with most sustainability assessment approaches and frameworks lacking transformational characteristics, tending to focus on analytical methods. In general, some shortfalls in sustainability assessment processes include lack of: · thorough stakeholder participation in systems and stakeholder mapping, · participatory envisioning of future sustainable states, · normative aggregation of results to provide an overall measure of sustainability, and · influence within strategic decision-making processes. Specific to energy sustainability assessments, while some authors aggregate results to provide overall sustainability scores, assessments have focused solely on energy supply scenarios, while including the deficits discussed above. This paper presents a framework for supporting

Phase transition in finite systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chomaz, Ph.; Duflot, V.; Duflot, V.; Gulminelli, F.

2000-01-01

In this paper we present a review of selected aspects of Phase transitions in finite systems applied in particular to the liquid-gas phase transition in nuclei. We show that the problem of the non existence of boundary conditions can be solved by introducing a statistical ensemble with an averaged constrained volume. In such an ensemble the microcanonical heat capacity becomes negative in the transition region. We show that the caloric curve explicitly depends on the considered transformation of the volume with the excitation energy and so does not bear direct informations on the characteristics of the phase transition. Conversely, partial energy fluctuations are demonstrated to be a direct measure of the equation of state. Since the heat capacity has a negative branch in the phase transition region, the presence of abnormally large kinetic energy fluctuations is a signal of the liquid gas phase transition. (author)

Extending Modal Transition Systems with Structured Labels

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bauer, Sebastian S.; Juhl, Line; Larsen, Kim Guldstrand

2012-01-01

We introduce a novel formalism of label-structured modal transition systems that combines the classical may/must modalities on transitions with structured labels that represent quantitative aspects of the model. On the one hand, the specification formalism is general enough to include models like...... weighted modal transition systems and allows the system developers to employ more complex label refinement than in the previously studied theories. On the other hand, the formalism maintains the desirable properties required by any specification theory supporting compositional reasoning. In particular, we...

Electricity tariff design for transition economies. Application to the Libyan power system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Reneses, Javier; Gomez, Tomas; Rivier, Juan [Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Madrid (Spain); Angarita, Jorge L. [Europraxis Operations, Madrid (Spain)

2011-01-15

This paper presents a general electricity tariff design methodology, especially applicable for transition economies. These countries are trying to modernize their power systems from a centralized environment (with normally, a public vertically integrated electric company) to a liberalized framework (unbundling electricity companies and, eventually, starting a privatization process). Two issues arise as crucial to achieving a successful transition: (1) ensuring cost recovery for all future unbundled activities (generation, transmission, distribution and retailing), and (2) sending the right price signals to electricity customers, avoiding cross-subsidies between customer categories. The design of electricity tariffs plays a pivotal role in achieving both objectives. This paper proposes a new tariff design methodology that, complying with these two aforementioned criteria, requires a low amount of information regarding system data and customer load profiles. This is important since, typically, volume and quality of data are poor in those countries. The presented methodology is applied to computing tariffs for the Libyan power system in 2006, using real data. (author)

FINANCIAL SYSTEM STRUCTURE AND STABILITY DURING TRANSITION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Firtescu Bogdan

2012-07-01

Full Text Available The process of transition from socialist economy to market economy was not considered an end in itself, but a necessity, and standing proof to achieve high levels of sustainable development. All former socialist countries are characterized by an early transition recession transformation result of the restructuring, loss of markets, tough competition from foreign products, best quality, or in other cases cheaper. To express the financial system structure in transition we take into discussion data that reflects representatives mutations and restructuring in Central and Eastern European countries, such Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania. For all countries we show some important changes of financial system during transition and construct an image matrix that illustrates important indicators of financial system structure and their adjustment.

Note on the Tableau Technique for Commutative Transition Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Srba, Jirí

2002-01-01

We define a class of transition systems called effective commutative transition systems (ECTS) and show, by generalising a tableau-based proof for BPP, that strong bisimilarity between any two states of such a transition system is decidable. It gives a general technique for extending decidability...... borders of strong bisimilarity for a wide class of infinite-state transition systems. This is demonstrated for several process formalisms, namely BPP process algebra, lossy BPP processes, BPP systems with interrupt and timed-arc BPP nets....

Estimating and Enhancing Public Transit Accessibility for People with Mobility Limitations

Science.gov (United States)

2017-06-30

This two-part study employs fine-scale performance measures and analytical techniques designed to evaluate and improve transit services for people experiencing disability. Part one puts forth a series of time-sensitive, general transit feed system (G...

Transits of planets with small intervals in circumbinary systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liu, Hui-Gen; Wang, Ying; Zhang, Hui; Zhou, Ji-Lin

2014-01-01

Transit times around single stars can be described well by a linear ephemeris. However, transit times in circumbinary systems are influenced both by the gravitational perturbations and the orbital phase variations of the central binary star. Adopting a coplanar analog of Kepler-16 as an example, we find that circumbinary planets can transit the same star more than once during a single planetary orbit, a phenomenon we call 'tight transits.' In certain geometric architecture, the projected orbital velocity of the planet and the secondary star can approach zero and change sign, resulting in very long transits and/or 2-3 transits during a single binary orbit. Whether tight transits are possible for a particular system depends primarily on the binary mass ratio and the orbital architecture of both the binary and the planet. We derive a time-dependent criterion to judge when tight transits are possible for any circumbinary system. These results are verified with full dynamical integrations that also reveal other tight transit characteristics, i.e., the transit durations and the intervals between tight transits. For the seven currently known circumbinary systems, we estimate these critical parameters both analytically and numerically. Due to the mutual inclination between the planet and the binary, tight transits can only occur across the less massive star B in Kepler-16, -34, -35, and -47 (for both planets). The long-term average frequency of tight transits (compared to typical transits) for Kepler-16, -34, and -35 are estimated to be several percent. Using full numerical integrations, the next tight transit for each system is predicted and the soonest example appears to be Kepler-47b and -47c, which are likely to have tight transits before 2025. These unique and valuable events often deserve special observational scrutiny.

Public Policies for Career Development. Case Studies And Emerging Issues For Designing Career Information And Guidance Systems In Developing And Transition Economies

Science.gov (United States)

Watts, A. G.; Fretwell, David H.

2004-01-01

The following pages summarize the findings of seven case-studies of public policy in career guidance carried out in Chile, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, South Africa and Turkey. The objectives of this World Bank study were: to identify and describe the distinctive issues faced by developing and transition economies in forming effective…

Phase transition signals of finite systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Duflot-Flandrois, Veronique

2001-01-01

Phase transitions are universal properties of interacting matter. They are well described if the considered system is infinite, by using standard thermodynamics. But in the case of small systems like atomic nuclei, this formalism cannot be applied anymore. Our aim is to propose a statistical mechanics approach in order to define the thermodynamical features of small open systems subject to non-saturating forces. We concentrate in particular on the definition and characterization for such systems of phase transitions belonging to the liquid gas universality class. Theoretical and experimental observables are defined to signal the occurrence and the order of this transition without any ambiguity. One of the most relevant and experimentally accessible observables consists in the study of kinetic energy fluctuations for a fixed value of the total deposited energy. In a first order phase transition such fluctuations become anomaly high and at the same time the size distribution appears to behave critically. All our results are obtained within numerical simulations of the lattice gas model with a nearest neighbors attractive interaction. Finally we check the influence of non-saturating forces, developing the specific example of the Coulomb interaction in the nucleus. Future improvements and perspectives at this work consist in the analysis of specific effects occurring in nuclei: isospin and quantum mechanics. (author) [fr

Isothermal transitions of a thermosetting system

Science.gov (United States)

Gillham, J. K.; Benci, J. A.; Noshay, A.

1974-01-01

A study of the curing reactions of a cycloaliphatic epoxy resin/anhydride system by torsional braid analysis showed the existence of two critical isothermal temperatures - namely, the maximum glass transition temperature of the thermoset system and the glass transition temperature of the material at its gel point. Two rheologically active kinetic transitions occur during isothermal cure which correspond to gelation and vitrification. Three types of isothermal behavior occur. Methods for determining the time to gel and the time to vitrify, and also the two above-mentioned critical isothermal temperatures, have been developed. The time to gel obeyed the Arrhenius relationship, whereas the time to vitrify passed through a minimum. Application of these results to thermosetting systems in general is discussed in terms of the influence of molecular structure on the values of the critical isothermal temperatures.

Privatisation of fixed-rail transit systems : a case study of Malaysia's STAR and PUTRA

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Abdul-Aziz, A.R. [St. Malaysia Univ., (Malaysia). School of Housing, Building and Planning

2006-06-15

Malaysia was the first developing country to embrace the idea of privatizing its public utilities in an effort to reduce public expenditure and improve services. Many public utilities were sold in the early 1980s under Malaysia's privatization program. Some, however, have returned to government hands. Among them are the two light-rail transit (LRT) systems in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. The main objective of privatization had been to expand transportation capabilities to keep pace with economic development. The private sector was allowed to construct various rail-based mass transportation systems to alleviate vehicular traffic congestion in the city. The STAR and PUTRA light-rail transit systems were built in the 1990s by 2 concession companies at a total cost of US$2.27 billion with the bulk of the expenditure going into infrastructure and rolling stock. Generous financial incentives were offered by the Malaysian government. However, the 2 LRTs suffered below-expectation ridership right from the beginning. Even a reduction in rates to promote greater public use, failed to meet projected ridership figures. The concession companies began defaulting on their loan servicing obligations within months of becoming operational. In 2002, the government took over the operation of the 2 LRT systems. The pre- and post-privatization events of both facilities were chronicled in this paper. It examined how the entire process was administered and tried to rationalize why private ownership of the 2 LRT systems was short-lived. Based on publicly available material, this paper argued that neither the quality of government negotiators nor the length of time devoted to negotiating could be attributed to the bailout. There was no indication that political favouritism and corruption were at play. Rather, the 2 projects proved to be financially unviable, despite the large financial incentives provided to the two concession companies. 83 refs., 5 tabs.

Agent Based Model in SAS Environment for Rail Transit System Alignment Determination

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

I Made Indradjaja Brunner

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Transit system had been proposed for the urban area of Honolulu. One consideration to be determined is the alignment of the transit system. Decision to set the transit alignment will have influences on which areas will be served, who will be benefiting, as well as who will be impacted. Inputs for the decision usually conducted through public meetings, where community members are shown numbers of maps with pre-set routes. That approach could lead to a rather subjective decision by the community members. This paper attempts to discuss the utilization of grid map in determining the best alignment for rail transit system in Honolulu, Hawaii. It tries to use a more objective approach using various data derived from thematic maps. Overlaid maps are aggregated into a uniform 0.1-square mile vector based grid map system in GIS environment. The large dataset in the GIS environment is analyzed and manipulated using SAS software. The SAS procedure is applied to select the location of the alignment using a rational and deterministic approach. Grid cells that are superior compared to the others are selected based on several predefined criteria. Location of the dominant cells indicates possible transit alignment. The SAS procedure is designed to allow a transient vector called the GUIDE (Grid Unit with Intelligent Directional Expertise agent to analyze several cells at its vicinity and to move towards a cell with the highest value. Each time the agent landed on a cell, it left a mark. The chain of those marks shows location for the transit alignment. This study shows that the combination of ArcGIS and SAS allows a robust analysis of spatial data and manipulation of its datasets, which can be used to run a simulation mimicking the Agent-Based Modelling. This study also opens up further study possibilities by increasing number of factors analyzed by the agent, as well as creating a composite value of multi-factors.

Effects of new bus and rail rapid transit systems – an international review

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ingvardson, Jesper Bláfoss; Nielsen, Otto Anker

2018-01-01

areas surrounding the transit line with increasing property values. Such effects are traditionally associated with attractive rail-based public transport systems. However, a statistical comparison of 41 systems did not show significant deviations between effects on property values resulting from BRT...... time, ridership and modal shifts, and (ii) the indirect strategic effects in terms of effects on property values and urban development. The review confirms the existing literature suggesting that BRT can attract many passengers if travel time reductions are significantly high. This leads to attractive...

75 FR 70966 - Transit Asset Management (TAM) Pilot Program

Science.gov (United States)

2010-11-19

... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Transit Administration Transit Asset Management (TAM) Pilot... Management (TAM) systems and ``best practices'', which can be replicated to improve transportation asset... with asset management system suppliers; however the official proposer must be a public agency. The TAM...

Impacts of public transit improvements on ridership, and implications for physical activity, in a low-density Canadian city.

Science.gov (United States)

Collins, Patricia A; Agarwal, Ajay

2015-01-01

Public transit ridership offers valuable opportunities for modest amounts of daily physical activity (PA). Transit is a more feasible option for most Canadian commuters who live too far from work to walk or cycle, yet public transit usage in midsized Canadian cities has historically remained low due to inefficient transit service. The objectives of this longitudinal study were threefold: to assess whether the introduction of express transit service in the low-density city of Kingston, Ontario, has translated to greater transit use among a targeted employee group; to document the characteristics of those employees that have shifted to transit; and to examine the PA levels of employees using transit compared to other commute modes. An online survey was administered in October 2013 and October 2014 to all non-student employees at Queen's University. 1356 employees completed the survey in 2013, and 1123 in 2014; 656 of these employees completed the survey both years, constituting our longitudinal sample. Year-round transit ridership increased from 5.5% in 2013 to 8.5% in 2014 (p transit had fewer household-level opportunities to drive to work and more positive attitudes toward transit. Transit commuters accrued an average of 80 minutes/week of commute-related PA, and 50 minutes/week more total PA than those that commuted entirely passively. Kingston Transit's express service has stimulated an increase in transit ridership among one of their target employers, Queen's University. The findings from this study suggest that shifting to transit from entirely passive commuting can generate higher overall PA levels.

Bifurcation of transition paths induced by coupled bistable systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Tian, Chengzhe; Mitarai, Namiko

2016-06-07

We discuss the transition paths in a coupled bistable system consisting of interacting multiple identical bistable motifs. We propose a simple model of coupled bistable gene circuits as an example and show that its transition paths are bifurcating. We then derive a criterion to predict the bifurcation of transition paths in a generalized coupled bistable system. We confirm the validity of the theory for the example system by numerical simulation. We also demonstrate in the example system that, if the steady states of individual gene circuits are not changed by the coupling, the bifurcation pattern is not dependent on the number of gene circuits. We further show that the transition rate exponentially decreases with the number of gene circuits when the transition path does not bifurcate, while a bifurcation facilitates the transition by lowering the quasi-potential energy barrier.

Potential Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions from Optimizing Urban Transit Networks

Science.gov (United States)

2016-05-01

Public transit systems with efficient designs and operating plans can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relative to low-occupancy transportation modes, but many current transit systems have not been designed to reduce environmental impacts. This ...

Wheeled mobility device transportation safety in fixed route and demand-responsive public transit vehicles within the United States.

Science.gov (United States)

Frost, Karen L; van Roosmalen, Linda; Bertocci, Gina; Cross, Douglas J

2012-01-01

An overview of the current status of wheelchair transportation safety in fixed route and demand-responsive, non-rail, public transportation vehicles within the US is presented. A description of each mode of transportation is provided, followed by a discussion of the primary issues affecting safety, accessibility, and usability. Technologies such as lifts, ramps, securement systems, and occupant restraint systems, along with regulations and voluntary industry standards have been implemented with the intent of improving safety and accessibility for individuals who travel while seated in their wheeled mobility device (e.g., wheelchair or scooter). However, across both fixed route and demand-responsive transit systems a myriad of factors such as nonuse and misuse of safety systems, oversized wheeled mobility devices, vehicle space constraints, and inadequate vehicle operator training may place wheeled mobility device (WhMD) users at risk of injury even under non-impact driving conditions. Since WhMD-related incidents also often occur during the boarding and alighting process, the frequency of these events, along with factors associated with these events are described for each transit mode. Recommendations for improving WhMD transportation are discussed given the current state of

Geometric transitions and integrable systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Diaconescu, D.-E.; Dijkgraaf, R.; Donagi, R.; Hofman, C.; Pantev, T.

2006-01-01

We consider B-model large N duality for a new class of noncompact Calabi-Yau spaces modeled on the neighborhood of a ruled surface in a Calabi-Yau threefold. The closed string side of the transition is governed at genus zero by an A 1 Hitchin integrable system on a genus g Riemann surface Σ. The open string side is described by a holomorphic Chern-Simons theory which reduces to a generalized matrix model in which the eigenvalues lie on the compact Riemann surface Σ. We show that the large N planar limit of the generalized matrix model is governed by the same A 1 Hitchin system therefore proving genus zero large N duality for this class of transitions

Transit manager's handbook.

Science.gov (United States)

2011-09-01

This handbook provides an overview of public transit in Iowa and how to do business with the Iowa Department of Transportation (Iowa DOT) Office of Public Transit (OPT). It is intended to be a tool to assist transit managers navigate through the many...

Liquid-liquid phase transition and glass transition in a monoatomic model system.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Limei; Buldyrev, Sergey V; Giovambattista, Nicolas; Stanley, H Eugene

2010-01-01

We review our recent study on the polyamorphism of the liquid and glass states in a monatomic system, a two-scale spherical-symmetric Jagla model with both attractive and repulsive interactions. This potential with a parametrization for which crystallization can be avoided and both the glass transition and the liquid-liquid phase transition are clearly separated, displays water-like anomalies as well as polyamorphism in both liquid and glassy states, providing a unique opportunity to study the interplay between the liquid-liquid phase transition and the glass transition. Our study on a simple model may be useful in understanding recent studies of polyamorphism in metallic glasses.

Liquid-Liquid Phase Transition and Glass Transition in a Monoatomic Model System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicolas Giovambattista

2010-12-01

Full Text Available We review our recent study on the polyamorphism of the liquid and glass states in a monatomic system, a two-scale spherical-symmetric Jagla model with both attractive and repulsive interactions. This potential with a parametrization for which crystallization can be avoided and both the glass transition and the liquid-liquid phase transition are clearly separated, displays water-like anomalies as well as polyamorphism in both liquid and glassy states, providing a unique opportunity to study the interplay between the liquid-liquid phase transition and the glass transition. Our study on a simple model may be useful in understanding recent studies of polyamorphism in metallic glasses.

Sustainability and deliberate transition of socio-technical systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Ole Erik; Søndergård, Bent; Stærdahl, Jens

or developing socio-technical systems in order to integrate the concept of sustainability as a driver for the deliberate and purposeful shaping and transition. The article discusses the requirements to effective governance networks and governing of governance networks. Research within innovation systems......The article suggests that deliberate planning for sustainability demands a focus on the transition of socio-technical systems in order to establish robust and more sustainable patterns of production and consumption. This implies the necessity of a new perspective for environmental planning......, transition management and technology systems combined with planning and experimental activities provides both a theoretical and empirical body of knowledge of such governance processes. The article discusses how this perspective can be used in relation to the process of developing bio-fuel systems...

Chiral-glass transition in a diluted dipolar-interaction Heisenberg system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang Kaicheng; Liu Guibin; Zhu Yan

2011-01-01

Recently, numerical simulations reveal that a spin-glass transition can occur in the three-dimensional diluted dipolar system. By defining the chirality of triple spins in a diluted dipolar Heisenberg spin glass, we study the chiral ordering in the system using parallel tempering algorithm and heat bath method. The finite-size scaling analysis reveals that the system undergoes a chiral-glass transition at finite temperature. - Highlights: → We define the chirality in a diluted dipolar Heisenberg system. → The system undergoes a chiral-glass transition at finite temperature. → We extract the critical exponents of the chiral-glass transition.

Performance measurement of the gas tax and public transit funds : final report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2007-01-01

Federal funding for the gas tax fund and public transit fund are provided through Infrastructure Canada for municipal infrastructure across Canada in a broad range of municipal service projects. In order to identify appropriate outcomes that would meet reporting requirements for the gas tax fund and public transit fund, this report outlined a performance measurement approach that would allow for the reporting of projects under both funds and provide a structured methodology for multiple year analysis of benefits. The report discussed the performance measures process review and outcomes approach logic model. It also provided an outline of information sourcing strategies including an overview of the project types and expenditures; information sourcing strategy; typical municipal information sources by project type; performance measurement framework assumptions and limitations; and modeling of outcomes from outputs. Conclusions and recommendations were also offered. It was concluded that based on a comprehensive review of ancillary benefits and outcomes of various historic funding programs, there are 3 foundational outcomes that should be considered to assess all initial program outcomes. These include cleaner air, cleaner water and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. tabs., figs

Economic and demographic assumptions of the public pension insurance system functioning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Đukić Gordana

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The demographic transition is characterized by a decline in birth rates and fertility on the one hand, and an intense increase in the number of old people on the other hand. The intensity of demographic ageing is characteristic of certain countries, being more expressed in developed countries. In such a situation, negative economic consequences arise in the context of unemployment, due to a decreased number of young population and lower participation in the labour market, as well as in the domains of savings, capital market, health protection, pension system and institutional development. These consequences can be mitigated by the application of appropriate economic transition and macroeconomic policy. Demographic tendencies have a great impact on changes in the values of the pension system parameters. The dependence rate indicating the relation between the number of employed people and the number of pensioners, and the average replacement rate representing the relation between the average wage and average pension, are directly dependent on demographic changes and they directly affect the sustainability of the public pension insurance system.

Transition towards Circular Economy in the Food System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexandra Jurgilevich

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Growing population and increased demand for food, inefficient resource use and food distribution, environmental impacts, and high rates of food wasted at all stages of the food system are all calling for transition towards more sustainable practices. In this article we apply the concept of circular economy to the case of a sustainable food system. Furthermore, we explore the transition towards a circular food system through the lens of socio-technical transition theory towards sustainability. We discuss challenges and potential solutions for the production stage (focusing on nutrient flow, the consumption stage (focusing on meat consumption, and food waste and surplus management and prevention.

Transit timing observations from Kepler. V. Transit timing variation candidates in the first sixteen months from polynomial models

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ford, E.B.; Ragozzine, D.; Holman, M.J.

2012-01-01

Transit timing variations provide a powerful tool for confirming and characterizing transiting planets, as well as detecting non-transiting planets. We report the results of an updated transit timing variation (TTV) analysis for 1481 planet candidates based on transit times measured during...... that several of these planet candidates could be confirmed and perhaps characterized with more detailed TTV analyses using publicly available Kepler observations. For many others, Kepler has observed a long-term TTV trend, but an extended Kepler mission will be required to characterize the system via TTVs. We...

Energy systems in transition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Haefele, W.

1989-01-01

The principal point of the author was to discuss energy systems (ES) in transition, transition addresses the next 10-25 years, and strategy of the transition. He considers different scenarios of future development of ES. Further he presents considerations elaborated during the last years on the concept of novel horizontally integrated ES which gives promise to be at least an approximation to the desired object of no emissions. The main ideas of the concept are: to decompose and thereby clean all the primary inputs before they are brought to combustion; to develop a network combining all the primary inputs to an integrated supply structure of high absorption, buffer, and storage capacity that resembles in some way the supply and utility functions of the well established electric grid but completes it at best on the basis of mass flows; to achieve a high flexibility in supplying the final energy. The author considers the long run perspective of hydrogen, solar, and nuclear energy with respect to alternative energy sources. 6 refs, 24 figs

Quantum phase transitions of strongly correlated electron systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Imada, Masatoshi

1998-01-01

Interacting electrons in solids undergo various quantum phase transitions driven by quantum fluctuations. The quantum transitions take place at zero temperature by changing a parameter to control quantum fluctuations rather than thermal fluctuations. In contrast to classical phase transitions driven by thermal fluctuations, the quantum transitions have many different features where quantum dynamics introduces a source of intrinsic fluctuations tightly connected with spatial correlations and they have been a subject of recent intensive studies as we see below. Interacting electron systems cannot be fully understood without deep analyses of the quantum phase transitions themselves, because they are widely seen and play essential roles in many phenomena. Typical and important examples of the quantum phase transitions include metal-insulator transitions, (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) metal-superconductor transitions, superconductor-insulator transitions, magnetic transitions to antiferromagnetic or ferromagnetic phases in metals as well as in Mott insulators, and charge ordering transitions. Here, we focus on three different types of transitions

Energy transitions in small-scale regions – What we can learn from a regional innovation systems perspective

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mattes, Jannika; Huber, Andreas; Koehrsen, Jens

2015-01-01

The prevalent theories in the debate on sustainability transitions have been criticised for not sufficiently addressing energy change processes at the local level. This paper aims to enhance our understanding of local energy reorganisation processes. Drawing on the Regional Innovation Systems (RIS) approach, we argue that local development dynamics result from the interaction of various subsystems: science, politics, public administration, industry, finance, intermediaries and civil society. The analysis of the involved subsystems and their interaction shows how energy transitions are shaped by different individual and organisational actors as well as institutions on the local level. Empirical evidence from case studies on the German cities of Emden and Bottrop illustrates our theoretical conceptualisation of energy transitions. We conclude by presenting characteristic interaction patterns for energy transition drawn from the two cases. - Highlights: • We highlight the importance of spatial and regional aspects for transitions. • We draw upon regional innovation systems’ subsystems to describe energy transitions. • We show how actors and institutions interact in and coordinate transition processes. • We present evidence from two small-scale regions in Germany: Emden and Bottrop

Hidden Challenges to Education Systems in Transition Economies.

Science.gov (United States)

Berryman, Sue E.

This book, published by the World Bank, sounds the alarm for education in Europe and Central Asia (ECA). It describes how the transition from communism to free-market economies has left many countries' educational systems in disarray. At the start of transition, ECA education systems had solved problems that plagued other regions of the world,…

Trade liberalization and the diet transition: a public health response.

Science.gov (United States)

Rayner, Geof; Hawkes, Corinna; Lang, Tim; Bello, Walden

2006-12-01

Trade liberalization remains at the forefront of debates around globalization, particularly around the impact on agriculture and food. These debates, which often focus on how poorer countries can 'trade their way' out of poverty, pay limited attention to dietary health, especially in the light of the WHO's Global Strategy for Diet, Physical Activity and Health (2004), which warned that future health burdens will be increasingly determined by diet-related chronic diseases. This article examines the diet transition as the absent factor within debates on liberalizing trade and commerce. We describe the evolution of trade agreements, noting those relevant to food. We review the association between trade liberalization and changes in the global dietary and disease profile. We illustrate some of the complex linkages between trade liberalization and the 'diet transition', illustrated by factors such as foreign direct investment, supermarketization and cultural change. Finally, we offer three scenarios for change, suggesting the need for more effective 'food governance' and engagement by public health advocates in policy making in the food and agriculture arena.

Efficient transportation for Vermont : optimal statewide transit networks.

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-01

"Public transit systems are receiving increased attention as viable solutions to problems with : transportation system robustness, energy-efficiency and equity. The over-reliance on a single : mode, the automobile, is a threat to system robustness. I...

A Complete Approximation Theory for Weighted Transition Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Mikkel; Larsen, Kim Guldstrand; Mardare, Radu Iulian

2016-01-01

We propose a way of reasoning about minimal and maximal values of the weights of transitions in a weighted transition system (WTS). This perspective induces a notion of bisimulation that is coarser than the classic bisimulation: it relates states that exhibit transitions to bisimulation classes...... the image-finiteness restriction, a fact that makes this development general and robust....

Livestock in a changing climate: production system transitions as an adaptation strategy for agriculture

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Weindl, Isabelle; Lotze-Campen, Hermann; Popp, Alexander; Müller, Christoph; Schmitz, Christoph; Rolinski, Susanne; Havlík, Petr; Herrero, Mario

2015-01-01

Livestock farming is the world’s largest land use sector and utilizes around 60% of the global biomass harvest. Over the coming decades, climate change will affect the natural resource base of livestock production, especially the productivity of rangeland and feed crops. Based on a comprehensive impact modeling chain, we assess implications of different climate projections for agricultural production costs and land use change and explore the effectiveness of livestock system transitions as an adaptation strategy. Simulated climate impacts on crop yields and rangeland productivity generate adaptation costs amounting to 3% of total agricultural production costs in 2045 (i.e. 145 billion US$). Shifts in livestock production towards mixed crop-livestock systems represent a resource- and cost-efficient adaptation option, reducing agricultural adaptation costs to 0.3% of total production costs and simultaneously abating deforestation by about 76 million ha globally. The relatively positive climate impacts on grass yields compared with crop yields favor grazing systems inter alia in South Asia and North America. Incomplete transitions in production systems already have a strong adaptive and cost reducing effect: a 50% shift to mixed systems lowers agricultural adaptation costs to 0.8%. General responses of production costs to system transitions are robust across different global climate and crop models as well as regarding assumptions on CO 2 fertilization, but simulated values show a large variation. In the face of these uncertainties, public policy support for transforming livestock production systems provides an important lever to improve agricultural resource management and lower adaptation costs, possibly even contributing to emission reduction. (letter)

Private and Public Pension Systems Worldwide: Case of Russia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aleksei V. Pudovkin

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The article deals with the Russian pension system and make recommendations for its further development on the basis of international experience. The Russian pension system is in a state of transition. The reform of 2013-2015 is not completed, since in its current state pension system is still characterized by very low replacement rate value at a very high level of government spending. Moratorium on pension accumulation introduced in the course of recent reforms calls into question the future of the mandatory funded pension system. Review of international pension systems formation suggests that the most successful of them are not limited solely to public system, and use a combination of distribution and accumulation units. When choosing between mandatory or voluntary options they are guided by the characteristics of the national economy. Studying the successes and mistakes of world practice of voluntary and mandatory funded pension systems is of great scientific and practical interest, since it can contribute to a more accurate choice of the future path of development of the national pension system.

Transitivity and ergodicity of quantum systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Narnhofer, H.; Thirring, W.; Wiklicky, H.

1987-01-01

First we try to generalize the notion of a topological transitive or a topologically mixing system for quantum mechanical systems in a consistent way. Furthermore we compare these ergodic properties with the classical results. Finaly we deal with some aspects of nearly abelian systems and investigate some relations between these notions. 11 refs. (Author)

Analysis of developed transition road safety barrier systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Soltani, Mehrtash; Moghaddam, Taher Baghaee; Karim, Mohamed Rehan; Sulong, N H Ramli

2013-10-01

Road safety barriers protect vehicles from roadside hazards by redirecting errant vehicles in a safe manner as well as providing high levels of safety during and after impact. This paper focused on transition safety barrier systems which were located at the point of attachment between a bridge and roadside barriers. The aim of this study was to provide an overview of the behavior of transition systems located at upstream bridge rail with different designs and performance levels. Design factors such as occupant risk and vehicle trajectory for different systems were collected and compared. To achieve this aim a comprehensive database was developed using previous studies. The comparison showed that Test 3-21, which is conducted by impacting a pickup truck with speed of 100 km/h and angle of 25° to transition system, was the most severe test. Occupant impact velocity and ridedown acceleration for heavy vehicles were lower than the amounts for passenger cars and pickup trucks, and in most cases higher occupant lateral impact ridedown acceleration was observed on vehicles subjected to higher levels of damage. The best transition system was selected to give optimum performance which reduced occupant risk factors using the similar crashes in accordance with Test 3-21. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Framework for Assessing Feasibility of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Project Sites

Science.gov (United States)

2017-09-01

After the Second World War, the United States saw a decline in ridership on transit systems, which eventually resulted in the dismantling and abandonment of many rail systems. The primary mode of public transportation shifted from transit to buses. I...

Public health systems under attack in Canada: Evidence on public health system performance challenges arbitrary reform.

Science.gov (United States)

Guyon, Ak'ingabe; Perreault, Robert

2016-10-20

Public health is currently being weakened in several Canadian jurisdictions. Unprecedented and arbitrary cuts to the public health budget in Quebec in 2015 were a striking example of this. In order to support public health leaders and citizens in their capacity to advocate for evidence-informed public health reforms, we propose a knowledge synthesis of elements of public health systems that are significantly associated with improved performance. Research consistently and significantly associates four elements of public health systems with improved productivity: 1) increased financial resources, 2) increased staffing per capita, 3) population size between 50,000 and 500,000, and 4) specific evidence-based organizational and administrative features. Furthermore, increased financial resources and increased staffing per capita are significantly associated with improved population health outcomes. We contend that any effort at optimization of public health systems should at least be guided by these four evidence-informed factors. Canada already has existing capacity in carrying out public health systems and services research. Further advancement of our academic and professional expertise on public health systems will allow Canadian public health jurisdictions to be inspired by the best public health models and become stronger advocates for public health's resources, interventions and outcomes when they need to be celebrated or defended.

Biodiesel fuel management best practices for transit

Science.gov (United States)

2007-11-27

Public transportation systems play a key role throughout the country not only in providing vital services to citizens but also in the environmental quality of our communities. Transit systems nationwide are seeking out new technologies in order to in...

Unconventional funding of urban public transport

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ubbels, B.J.; Nijkamp, P.

2002-01-01

In the past decade public authorities have developed a wealth of creative funding mechanisms to support transit systems. This paper offers a taxonomy of various unconventional funding mechanisms (i.e. outside the domain of charges for transit passengers or general taxation schemes), based on a

Hydrogen: the great debate. 'Power to Gas - how to cope with the challenge of electricity storage?; Hydrogen in energy transition: which challenges to be faced?; Hydrogen, essential today, indispensable tomorrow; Electrolytic hydrogen, a solution for energy transition?; Development of high power electrolysis systems: need and approach; Hydrogen as energy vector, Potential and stakes: a perspective; The Toyota Fuel Cell System: a new era for the automotive industry; Three key factors: production, applications to mobility, and public acceptance; Hydrogen, benevolent fairy or tempting demon

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hauet, Jean-Pierre; Boucly, Philippe; Beeker, Etienne; Mauberger, Pascal; Quint, Aliette; Pierre, Helene; Lucchese, Paul; Bouillon-Delporte, Valerie; Chauvet, Bertrand; Brisse, Annabelle; Gautier, Ludmila; Hercberg, Sylvain; De Volder, Marc; Gruson, Jean-Francois; Marion, Pierre; Grellier, Sebastien; Devezeaux, Jean-Guy; Mansilla, Christine; Le Net, Elisabeth; Le Duigou, Alain; Maire, Jacques

2015-01-01

This publication proposes a set of contributions which address various issues related to the development of the use of hydrogen as an energy source. More precisely, these contributions discuss how to face the challenge of electricity storage by using the Power-to-Gas technology, the challenges to be faced regarding the role of hydrogen in energy transition, the essential current role of hydrogen and its indispensable role for tomorrow, the possible role of electrolytic hydrogen as a solution for energy transition, the need of and the approach to a development of high power electrolysis systems, the potential and stakes of hydrogen as an energy vector, the Toyota fuel cell system as a sign for new era for automotive industry, the three main factors (production, applications to mobility, and public acceptance) for the use of hydrogen in energy transition, and the role of hydrogen perceived either as a benevolent fairy or a tempting demon

Public values for energy futures: Framing, indeterminacy and policy making

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Butler, C.; Demski, C.; Parkhill, K.; Pidgeon, N.; Spence, A.

2015-01-01

In the UK there are strong policy imperatives to transition toward low carbon energy systems but how and in what ways such transitional processes might be realised remains highly uncertain. One key area of uncertainty pertains to public attitudes and acceptability. Though there is wide-ranging research relevant to public acceptability, very little work has unpacked the multiple questions concerning how policy-makers can grapple with and mitigate related uncertainties in efforts to enact energy systems change. In this paper, public acceptability is identified as an indeterminate form of uncertainty that presents particular challenges for policy making. We build on our existing research into public values for energy system change to explore how the outcomes of the project can be applied in thinking through the uncertainties associated with public acceptability. Notably, we illustrate how the public values identified through our research bring into view alternative and quite different problem and solution framings to those currently evident within UK policy. We argue that engagement with a wide range of different framings can offer a basis for better understanding and anticipating public responses to energy system change, ultimately aiding in managing the complex set of uncertainties associated with public acceptability. - Highlights: • We argue that public acceptability represents an indeterminate form of uncertainty. • This means alternative approaches to decision-making are required. • We introduce a public value set for energy system change. • We use this as a basis for interrogating current UK policy approaches to transitions. • Incorporating public values in policy can help tackle uncertainty about acceptability.

SPP Toolbox: Supporting Sustainable Public Procurement in the Context of Socio-Technical Transitions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paula Cayolla Trindade

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Public procurement can shape production and consumption trends and represents a stimulus for both innovation and diversification in products and services, through a direct increase in demand. In recent years, the interest in demand-side policies has grown and several approaches have emerged, such as Green Public Procurement (GPP, Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP and Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI, representing strategic goals to be achieved through public procurement. In this context, there is a need to guide and support public organizations in the uptake of GPP, SPP and PPI practices. To respond to the challenges raised by the operationalization of such strategies, this paper proposes a new tool—the SPP Toolbox—for guiding public organizations as they re-think the procurement process, raising their ambitions and broadening their vision, thus changing the organizational approach towards culture, strategies, structures and practices. This toolbox integrates insights from GPP, SPP and PPI objectives and practices, in the context of the emergence of socio-technical transitions. The toolbox coherently links GPP, SPP and PPI, allowing flexibility in terms of goals, yet promoting an increasing complexity of institutionalized practices and skills—from GPP to SPP and then from SPP to PPI, organized in a framework fully integrated into the organizational strategy.

Successfulness of bus rapid transit systems in Asia. Ex-post evaluation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kogdenko, Nadja

2010-01-01

SUMMARY Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) can be defined as “a bus-based mass transit system that delivers fast, comfortable, and cost-effective urban mobility”. It offers the opportunity to create a high-quality mass transit system at affordable costs, which is p

Facilitators and barriers to doing workplace mental health research: Case study of acute psychological trauma in a public transit system.

Science.gov (United States)

Links, Paul S; Bender, Ash; Eynan, Rahel; O'Grady, John; Shah, Ravi

2016-03-10

The Acute Psychological Trauma (APT) Study was a collaboration between an acute care hospital, a specialized multidisciplinary program designed to meet the mental health needs of injured workers, and a large urban public transit system. The overall purpose was to evaluate a Best Practices Intervention (BPI) for employees affected by acute psychological trauma compared to a Treatment as Usual (TAU) group. The specific purpose is to discuss facilitators and barriers that were recognized in implementing and carrying out mental health research in a workplace setting. Over the course of the APT study, a joint implementation committee was responsible for day-to-day study operations and made regular observations on the facilitators and barriers that arose throughout the study. The facilitators to this study included the longstanding relationships among the partners, increased recognition for the need of mental health research in the workplace, and the existence of a community advisory committee. The significant barriers to doing this study of mental health research in the workplace included differences in organizational culture, inconsistent union support, co-interventions, and stigma. Researchers and funding agencies need to be flexible and provide additional resources in order to overcome the barriers that can exist doing workplace mental health research.

Modeling the Equilibrium Bus Line Choice Behavior and Transit System Design with Oblivious Users

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chuan-Lin Zhao

2014-01-01

Full Text Available In most of transportation literature, users are assumed to be perfectly rational in minimizing their own travel costs or perceived travel costs. However, users may not be perfectly rational in implementing their choices in reality. There exists a kind of boundedly rational users, that is, oblivious users. These oblivious users make their route choices by simple criteria, for example, selecting the shortest (or the most direct route only based on physical distance or simply following routes recommended by a GPS system. This paper investigates how the existence of oblivious users affects the equilibrium bus line choice behavior in a public transit system. And we propose a method to design a more realistic system.

A Decidable Recursive Logic for Weighted Transition Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Xue, Bingtian; Larsen, Kim Guldstrand; Mardare, Radu Iulian

2014-01-01

In this paper we develop and study the Recursive Weighted Logic (RWL), a multi-modal logic that expresses qualitative and quantitative properties of labelled weighted transition systems (LWSs). LWSs are transition systems labelled with actions and real-valued quantities representing the costs of ...... extends previous results that we have demonstrated for a similar but much more restrictive logic that can only use one variable for each type of resource to encode logical properties....

Problems of transition from tax-based system of health care finance to mandatory health insurance model in Russia.

Science.gov (United States)

Shishkin, S

1999-06-01

This article examines three problems burdening the Russian system of health care finance in transition period: (a) unrealistic government promise to cover health care coverage too wide to be achieved with available resources; (b) inefficient management of health care delivery systems; and (c) lack in evidence of actual positive changes effected by the new players: mandatory health insurance carriers and funds. Radical reshaping of the health benefits promised by the government and introduction of patient co-payments are considered as a way to normalize public health sector finance and operations. Two alternative approaches to the reform of the existing eclectic system of health care management are available. Institutional preconditions for operational effectiveness of third-party purchasers of health services in public-financed health sector are defined.

Simulations of phase transitions in ionic systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Panagiotopoulos, A Z

2005-01-01

A review of recent simulation work in the area of phase transitions in ionic systems is presented. The vapour-liquid transition for the restricted primitive model has been studied extensively in the past decade. The critical temperature is now known to excellent accuracy and the critical density to moderate accuracy. There is also strong simulation-based evidence that the model is in the Ising universality class. Discretized lattice versions of the model are reviewed. Other systems covered are size- and charge-asymmetric electrolytes, colloid-salt mixtures, realistic salt models and charged chains. Areas of future research needs are briefly discussed

Public Governance and Economic Growth in the Transitional Economies of the European Union

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yilmaz BAYAR

2016-06-01

Full Text Available According to new growth theories, public governance is an important determinant for sustained economic growth. This study examines the impact of six public governance indicators, including voice and accountability, political stability and the absence of violence/terrorism, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption, on the economic growth in the transitional economies of the European Union during the 2002-2013 period. The results show that all governance indicators except regulatory quality had a statistically significant positive impact on economic growth. Our findings also indicate that control of corruption and rule of law had the largest impact on economic growth, while political stability had the lowest impact.

36 CFR 1192.87 - Public information system.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Public information system... Light Rail Vehicles and Systems § 1192.87 Public information system. (a) Each vehicle shall be equipped with an interior public address system permitting transportation system personnel, or recorded or...

The Topological Analysis of Urban Transit System as a Small-World Network

OpenAIRE

Zhaosheng Yang; Huxing Zhou; Peng Gao; Hong Chen; Nan Zhang

2011-01-01

This paper proposes a topological analysis of urban transit system based on a functional representation network constructed from the urban transit system in Beijing. The representation gives a functional view on nodes named a transit line. Statistical measures are computed and introduced in complex network analysis. It shows that the urban transit system forms small-world networks and exhibits properties different from random networks and regular networks. Furthermore, the topological propert...

Transition Services: An Investigation of the Knowledge, Confidence, and Practice of Special Education Teachers in District of Columbia Public Charter High Schools

Science.gov (United States)

Henry, Wallace R., III

2015-01-01

This study was intended to enhance the limited research on the knowledge and confidence of special education teachers in public education regarding transition services and the quality of transition plans they develop. The key variables examined in this study are knowledge, confidence, and the quality of student transition plans. The sample…

The State Public Health Laboratory System.

Science.gov (United States)

Inhorn, Stanley L; Astles, J Rex; Gradus, Stephen; Malmberg, Veronica; Snippes, Paula M; Wilcke, Burton W; White, Vanessa A

2010-01-01

This article describes the development since 2000 of the State Public Health Laboratory System in the United States. These state systems collectively are related to several other recent public health laboratory (PHL) initiatives. The first is the Core Functions and Capabilities of State Public Health Laboratories, a white paper that defined the basic responsibilities of the state PHL. Another is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Laboratory System (NLS) initiative, the goal of which is to promote public-private collaboration to assure quality laboratory services and public health surveillance. To enhance the realization of the NLS, the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) launched in 2004 a State Public Health Laboratory System Improvement Program. In the same year, APHL developed a Comprehensive Laboratory Services Survey, a tool to measure improvement through the decade to assure that essential PHL services are provided.

French gas industry in transition: breach in the public service model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Finon, D.

2001-08-01

France is generally viewed as the European country that most vigorously resists the pressure to liberalize its national gas markets. The moderate reform which has resulted from the transcription of the European gas directive was voted in 2002 after much delay. The main reason is the robustness of the French public service-model which has shaped the gas industry organisation in the same way as most of the network industries. To explain the institutional stability of the French gas industry, this document analyses its institutional trajectory shaped by the public service model and its strong institutional path dependency, marked by the resistance to change. The central hypothesis of the analysis is that, as long as this model demonstrates economic and social efficiency in the development of gas supply in relation to public services obligation and in the control of the import dependence risk in the gas sector, no reform can be brought about by endogenous factors. The analysis of the French gas industry transition consists of four sections. After a survey of its historical development, the author presents its organisation and regulation under the public service model and its performances in terms of social and economic efficiency. In the third section, the minimalist reform for transcribing the European Directive in the French law is presented, in order to identify its potential effects in terms of competition development and public service erosion. Finally, in the fourth section, the industrial policy option to preserve the existence of a French mono-energy company and its consequences in terms of strategic adaptation are discussed. (A.L.B.)

Modeling and evaluation of characteristics for on-street Rapid Transit systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Jonas Lohmann Elkjær; Landex, Alex

2012-01-01

to obtain the main objective of introducing a Rapid Transit System. to increase the number of passengers. Variations in the system characteristics have a direct impact on ridership. However, it is difficult to predict the impact of implementing or altering the characteristics. A Rapid Transit system should...... display sufficient service already in the planning phase. That is why pre-acquired knowledge of the impact of the characteristics on the system performance is valuable. Such knowledge could provide a firm basis for planning the service and operation of a Rapid Transit system. This article focuses....... It focuses on the following characteristics for Rapid Transit systems: rail factor, travel time, headway and capacity. It evaluates how the implementation and variation of these characteristics affected the ridership of a case project. It evaluates the magnitude of the impacts for the various characteristics...

77 FR 1779 - Meeting and Webinar on Integrated Dynamic Transit Operations; Notice of Public Meeting

Science.gov (United States)

2012-01-11

... of Public Meeting AGENCY: Research and Innovative Technology Administration, U.S. Department of... on concepts, opportunities, and needs for the Integrated Dynamic Transit Operations (IDTO) operational concept on January 26, 2012 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. and January 27, 2012 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m...

Refinement Checking on Parametric Modal Transition Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Benes, Nikola; Kretínsky, Jan; Larsen, Kim Guldstrand

2015-01-01

Modal transition systems (MTS) is a well-studied specification formalism of reactive systems supporting a step-wise refinement methodology. Despite its many advantages, the formalism as well as its currently known extensions are incapable of expressing some practically needed aspects in the refin...

Verifying duration properties of timed transition systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Liu, Zhiming; Ravn, Anders P.; Li, Xiaoshan

1998-01-01

This paper proposes a method for formal real-time systems development:Requirements and high level design decisions are time interval properties and are therefore specified in the Duration Calculus (DC), while implementations are described bytimed transition systems (TTS). A link from implementati...

Transition Theory – Sustainable Transition of Socio-Technical Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Søndergård, Bent; Holm, Jesper; Stauning, Inger

2015-01-01

Theories of transition management, transition studies and social practise theory Applied to studies of hosuing and construction......Theories of transition management, transition studies and social practise theory Applied to studies of hosuing and construction...

Transition(s) towards an ecologic economy. The prospective program

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Riviere, Antoine; Hervieu, Halvard; Monnoyer-Smith, Laurence; Cecutti-Etahiri, Nathalie

2015-07-01

This publication aims at presenting works performed between 2010 and 2014 within the frame of the prospective program 'Transition(s) towards an ecologic economy' of the prospective mission of the CGDD (Commissariat General au Developpement Durable, the French General Committee for Sustainable Development). It also presents lessons which can be learned. The first part examines what could be the shape of an ecologic economy. For this purpose, scenarios have been developed which allow the role which various actors (citizen, territories, State) can play, and the possible evolutions of the present social-economic system to be explored. The second part addresses more specific issues in order to highlight some levers of action for a successful transition. These issues can be transverse (for example, the role of ITs in ecologic economy, or the human factor in terms of challenge of social change and employment) as well as sector-based (focus on transports and on ecologic mobility in the perspective of automotive industries and enterprises, and of public policies)

Modal Transition Systems as the Basis for Interface Theories and Product Lines

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nyman, Ulrik

and a subset of modal transition systems is proved. The developed interface theory, which can describe liveness properties, is also applied as a behavioral variability theory for product line development. The two last papers of the thesis concern themselves with modal and mixed transition systems. The first....... It also proves PSPACE-hardness for consistency of mixed specifications and establishes a number of reductions between the different decision problems. Keywords: Modeling, Software Product Lines, Embedded Software, Modal Refinement, Labeled Transition Systems, Modal Transition Systems, Mixed Transition......This thesis presents research taking its outset in component-based software development, interface theory and software product lines, as well as modeling formalisms for describing component based software systems and their interfaces. The main part of the thesis consists of five papers. The first...

45 CFR 1308.21 - Parent participation and transition of children into Head Start and from Head Start to public...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... into Head Start and from Head Start to public school. 1308.21 Section 1308.21 Public Welfare... AND HUMAN SERVICES THE ADMINISTRATION FOR CHILDREN, YOUTH AND FAMILIES, HEAD START PROGRAM HEAD START... Standards § 1308.21 Parent participation and transition of children into Head Start and from Head Start to...

36 CFR 1192.35 - Public information system.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Public information system... Buses, Vans and Systems § 1192.35 Public information system. (a) Vehicles in excess of 22 feet in length, used in multiple-stop, fixed-route service, shall be equipped with a public address system permitting...

Gastric transit and small intestinal transit time and motility assessed by a magnet tracking system.

Science.gov (United States)

Worsøe, Jonas; Fynne, Lotte; Gregersen, Tine; Schlageter, Vincent; Christensen, Lisbet A; Dahlerup, Jens F; Rijkhoff, Nico J M; Laurberg, Søren; Krogh, Klaus

2011-12-29

Tracking an ingested magnet by the Magnet Tracking System MTS-1 (Motilis, Lausanne, Switzerland) is an easy and minimally-invasive method to assess gastrointestinal transit. The aim was to test the validity of MTS-1 for assessment of gastric transit time and small intestinal transit time, and to illustrate transit patterns detected by the system. A small magnet was ingested and tracked by an external matrix of 16 magnetic field sensors (4 × 4) giving a position defined by 5 coordinates (position: x, y, z, and angle: θ, φ). Eight healthy subjects were each investigated three times: (1) with a small magnet mounted on a capsule endoscope (PillCam); (2) with the magnet alone and the small intestine in the fasting state; and (3) with the magnet alone and the small intestine in the postprandial state. Experiment (1) showed good agreement and no systematic differences between MTS-1 and capsule endoscopy when assessing gastric transit (median difference 1 min; range: 0-6 min) and small intestinal transit time (median difference 0.5 min; range: 0-52 min). Comparing experiments (1) and (2) there were no systematic differences in gastric transit or small intestinal transit when using the magnet-PillCam unit and the much smaller magnetic pill. In experiments (2) and (3), short bursts of very fast movements lasting less than 5% of the time accounted for more than half the distance covered during the first two hours in the small intestine, irrespective of whether the small intestine was in the fasting or postprandial state. The mean contraction frequency in the small intestine was significantly lower in the fasting state than in the postprandial state (9.90 min-1 vs. 10.53 min-1) (p = 0.03). MTS-1 is reliable for determination of gastric transit and small intestinal transit time. It is possible to distinguish between the mean contraction frequency of small intestine in the fasting state and in the postprandial state.

Gastric transit and small intestinal transit time and motility assessed by a magnet tracking system

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

WorsØe Jonas

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Tracking an ingested magnet by the Magnet Tracking System MTS-1 (Motilis, Lausanne, Switzerland is an easy and minimally-invasive method to assess gastrointestinal transit. The aim was to test the validity of MTS-1 for assessment of gastric transit time and small intestinal transit time, and to illustrate transit patterns detected by the system. Methods A small magnet was ingested and tracked by an external matrix of 16 magnetic field sensors (4 × 4 giving a position defined by 5 coordinates (position: x, y, z, and angle: θ, ϕ. Eight healthy subjects were each investigated three times: (1 with a small magnet mounted on a capsule endoscope (PillCam; (2 with the magnet alone and the small intestine in the fasting state; and (3 with the magnet alone and the small intestine in the postprandial state. Results Experiment (1 showed good agreement and no systematic differences between MTS-1 and capsule endoscopy when assessing gastric transit (median difference 1 min; range: 0-6 min and small intestinal transit time (median difference 0.5 min; range: 0-52 min. Comparing experiments (1 and (2 there were no systematic differences in gastric transit or small intestinal transit when using the magnet-PillCam unit and the much smaller magnetic pill. In experiments (2 and (3, short bursts of very fast movements lasting less than 5% of the time accounted for more than half the distance covered during the first two hours in the small intestine, irrespective of whether the small intestine was in the fasting or postprandial state. The mean contraction frequency in the small intestine was significantly lower in the fasting state than in the postprandial state (9.90 min-1 vs. 10.53 min-1 (p = 0.03. Conclusion MTS-1 is reliable for determination of gastric transit and small intestinal transit time. It is possible to distinguish between the mean contraction frequency of small intestine in the fasting state and in the postprandial state.

TRANSITIONAL DISKS AS SIGNPOSTS OF YOUNG, MULTIPLANET SYSTEMS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dodson-Robinson, Sarah E.; Salyk, Colette

2011-01-01

Although there has yet been no undisputed discovery of a still-forming planet embedded in a gaseous protoplanetary disk, the cleared inner holes of transitional disks may be signposts of young planets. Here, we show that the subset of accreting transitional disks with wide, optically thin inner holes of 15 AU or more can only be sculpted by multiple planets orbiting inside each hole. Multiplanet systems provide two key ingredients for explaining the origins of transitional disks. First, multiple planets can clear wide inner holes where single planets open only narrow gaps. Second, the confined, non-axisymmetric accretion flows produced by multiple planets provide a way for an arbitrary amount of mass transfer to occur through an apparently optically thin hole without overproducing infrared excess flux. Rather than assuming that the gas and dust in the hole are evenly and axisymmetrically distributed, one can construct an inner hole with apparently optically thin infrared fluxes by covering a macroscopic fraction of the hole's surface area with locally optically thick tidal tails. We also establish that other clearing mechanisms, such as photoevaporation, cannot explain our subset of accreting transitional disks with wide holes. Transitional disks are therefore high-value targets for observational searches for young planetary systems.

Discontinuous and heterogeneous glass transition behavior of carbohydrate polymer-plasticizer systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Kawai, Kiyoshi; Hagura, Yoshio

2012-07-01

In order to understand the glass transition properties of carbohydrate polymer-plasticizer systems, glass transition temperatures of dextrin-glucose and dextrin-maltose systems were investigated systematically using differential scanning calorimetry. The onset (Tg(on)) and offset (Tg(off)) of the glass transition decreased with increasing plasticizer (glucose or maltose) content, and showed an abrupt depression at certain plasticizer content. The abrupt depression of Tg(off) occurred at higher plasticizer content than that of Tg(on). The glass transition was much broader for intermediate plasticizer content. From the enthalpy relaxation behavior of samples aged at various temperatures, it was found that two different glass transitions occurred contentiously in the broad glass transition. These results suggested that carbohydrate polymer-plasticizer systems can be classified into three regions: the entrapment of the plasticizer by the polymer, the formations of the polymer-plasticizer and plasticizer-rich domains, and the embedment of polymer into the plasticizer. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Examination of Regional Transit Service Under Contracting : A Case Study in the Greater New Orleans Region

Science.gov (United States)

2011-04-01

Many local governments and transit agencies in the United States face financial difficulties in providing adequate public transit service in individual systems, and in providing sufficient regional coordination to accommodate transit trips involving ...

PolicyNet Publication System

Data.gov (United States)

Social Security Administration — The PolicyNet Publication System project will merge the Oracle-based Policy Repository (POMS) and the SQL-Server CAMP system (MSOM) into a new system with an Oracle...

Phase transitions in two-dimensional systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Salinas, S.R.A.

1983-01-01

Some experiences are related using synchrotron radiation beams, to characterize solid-liquid (fusion) and commensurate solid-uncommensurate solid transitions in two-dimensional systems. Some ideas involved in the modern theories of two-dimensional fusion are shortly exposed. The systems treated consist of noble gases (Kr,Ar,Xe) adsorbed in the basal plane of graphite and thin films formed by some liquid crystal shells. (L.C.) [pt

Public transit to public lands : the nature express.

Science.gov (United States)

2017-05-01

Access to leisure by public transportation has not been studied in great detail, at least in the United States. The Northeastern Illinois region with the City of Chicago (in Cook County) as the focal point is home to the third largest public transpor...

Investigating Extra-solar Planetary System Qatar-1 through Transit Observations

Science.gov (United States)

Thakur, Parijat; Mannaday, Vineet Kumar; Jiang, Ing-Guey; Sahu, Devendra Kumar; Chand, Swadesh

2018-04-01

We report the results of the transit timing variation (TTV) analysis of the extra-solar planet Qatar-1b using thirty eight light curves. Our analysis combines thirty five previously available transit light curves with three new transits observed by us between June 2016 and September 2016 using the 2-m Himalayan Chandra Telescope (HCT) at the Indian Astronomical Observatory (Hanle, India). From these transit data, the physical and orbital parameters of the Qatar-1 system are determined. In addition to this, the ephemeris for the orbital period and mid-transit time are refined to investigate the possible TTV. We find that the null-TTV model provides the better fit to the (O-C) data. This indicates that there is no evidence for TTVs to confirm the presence of additional planets in the Qatar-1 system. The use of the 3.6-m Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT) operated by the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES, Nainital, India) could improve the photometric precision to examine the signature of TTVs in this system with a greater accuracy than in the present work.

FTA real-time transit information assessment : white paper on literature review of real-time transit information systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Real-time transit information systems are key technology applications within the transit industry designed to provide better customer service by disseminating timely and accurate information. Riders use this information to make various decisions abou...

49 CFR 38.121 - Public information system.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 49 Transportation 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Public information system. 38.121 Section 38.121... SPECIFICATIONS FOR TRANSPORTATION VEHICLES Intercity Rail Cars and Systems § 38.121 Public information system. (a) Each car shall be equipped with a public address system permitting transportation system personnel, or...

The 2004 Transit of Venus as a Space Science Education Opportunity

Science.gov (United States)

Odenwald, S.; Mayo, L.; Vondrak, R.; Thieman, J.; Hawkins, I.; Schultz, G.

2003-12-01

We will present some of the programs and activities that NASA and its missions are preparing in order to support public and K12 education in space science and astronomy using the 2004 transit of Venus as a focal event. The upcoming transit of Venus on June 8 offers a unique opportunity to educate students and the general public about the scale of the solar system and the universe, as well as basic issues in comparative planetology. NASA's Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum is offering a number of programs to take advantage of this rare event. Among these are a live web cast from Spain of the entire transit, a series of radio and TV programs directed at students and the general public, a web cast describing extra-solar planet searches using the transit geometry, and archived observations produced by public observatories and student-operated solar viewers. The NASA/OSS Education Forums will also partner with science museums, planetaria and teachers across the country to bring the transit of Venus 'down to Earth'. In addition to offering enrichment activities in mathematics and space science, we also describe collaborations that have yielded unique historical resources including online archives of newspaper articles from the 1874 and 1882 transits. In addition, in collaboration with the Library of Congress Music Division, we have supported a modern re-orchestration of John Philip Sousa's Transit of Venus March which has not been performed since 1883. We anticipate that the transit of Venus will be a significant event of considerable public interest and curiosity, if the newspaper headlines from the transit seen in 1882 are any indication.

Restructuring energy systems for sustainability? Energy transition policy in the Netherlands

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kern, Florian; Smith, Adrian

2008-01-01

Increasingly, researchers and policy makers are confronting the challenge of restructuring energy systems into more sustainable forms. A 'transition management' model, and its adoption in the Netherlands, is attracting attention. Starting from the socio-technical multi-level theory that informs 'transition management', we analyse the 'energy transition' project carried out by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. Despite considerable achievements, their approach risks capture by the incumbent energy regime, thereby undermining original policy ambitions for structural innovation of the energy system. This experience presents generic dilemmas for transitions approaches

Scaling up and out as a Pathway for Food System Transitions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hannah Pitt

2016-10-01

Full Text Available This paper contributes to the understanding of sustainability transitions by analysing processes of scaling up and out as change pathway. It defines scaling up and out as a distinct form of policy transfer focused on programme implementation, with continuity of actors across jurisdictions. We detail how scaling up and out occurs, introducing a new mechanism to policy transfer frameworks. This is explicated through the case study of Food for Life (FFL, a civil society innovation programme promoting sustainable healthy food in public settings. We highlight why FFL was scaled up and out, how this was achieved, by whom, and the results and success factors. The case study demonstrates the importance of interrogating motivations for transferring policies, and how these influence whether successful outcomes are achieved. This requires a revised framework for analysing policy transfer, with greater attention to the links between motives and outcomes, and a less binary understanding of agents’ roles. Where scaling is the mode of policy transfer, we suggest that continuous involvement of at least one transfer agent across the process is significant to success. We conclude by highlighting implications for future research into policy transfer and food system transitions.

36 CFR 1192.61 - Public information system.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Public information system... Rapid Rail Vehicles and Systems § 1192.61 Public information system. (a)(1) Requirements. Each vehicle... line identification information. (2) Exception. Where station announcement systems provide information...

Performance of Urban Transit in Jordan

OpenAIRE

Dr. Hashem R. Al-Masaeid; Amir Shtayat

2016-01-01

Urban public transit has essential and active role for sustainable and balanced socio-economic and environmental development. This study investigated the performance of urban public transit services in three major cities in Jordan, including Amman, Irbid, and Zarqa. Accessibility, mobility, productivity, punctuality, waiting time and comfort of public transit were investigated in the study. Data were obtained from Land Transport RegulatoryCommission of Jordan, municipalities, and ...

Noise-induced transition in a quantum system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ghosh, Pulak Kumar [Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Jadavpur, Kolkata 700 032 (India); Barik, Debashis [Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Jadavpur, Kolkata 700 032 (India); Ray, Deb Shankar [Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Jadavpur, Kolkata 700 032 (India)

2005-07-04

We examine the noise-induced transition in a fluctuating bistable potential of a driven quantum system in thermal equilibrium. Making use of a Wigner canonical thermal distribution for description of the statistical properties of the thermal bath, we explore the generic effects of quantization like vacuum field fluctuation and tunneling in the characteristic stationary probability distribution functions undergoing transition from unimodal to bimodal nature and in signal-to-noise ratio characterizing the cooperative effect among the noise processes and the weak periodic signal.

Noise-induced transition in a quantum system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ghosh, Pulak Kumar; Barik, Debashis; Ray, Deb Shankar

2005-01-01

We examine the noise-induced transition in a fluctuating bistable potential of a driven quantum system in thermal equilibrium. Making use of a Wigner canonical thermal distribution for description of the statistical properties of the thermal bath, we explore the generic effects of quantization like vacuum field fluctuation and tunneling in the characteristic stationary probability distribution functions undergoing transition from unimodal to bimodal nature and in signal-to-noise ratio characterizing the cooperative effect among the noise processes and the weak periodic signal

Transition of maternal and child nutrition in Asia: implications for public health.

Science.gov (United States)

Winichagoon, Pattanee

2015-05-01

This article reviews the maternal and child nutrition situation in Asia in transition and its public health implications. Countries in Asia are facing a double burden of malnutrition. Accessibility to high energy, less nutrient-dense foods or processed foods affects current dietary patterns, whereas industrialization is leading to more sedentary lifestyles both in rural and urban areas. Stunting and wasting among young children persist but have declined in severity, whereas overweight and obesity have risen rapidly. Growth faltering in height during the first 2 years of life has affected muscle mass accretion, but rapid weight gain after 2 years of age has led to more fat accretion, imposing risks of childhood obesity and consequent metabolic disorders. The number of women entering pregnancy with low BMI has decreased, but increasing BMI is noticeable. Prepregnancy BMI and gestational weight gain are important determinants of maternal nutrition during pregnancy, the risk of gestational diabetes and postpartum weight retention, as well as obesity and diet-related noncommunicable diseases in later adulthood. Asia in transition is faced with persistent undernutrition and increasing trends of obesity and metabolic disorders among children and women. The first 1000 days from conception is a critical period, but it is also a window of opportunity for preventing double burden of malnutrition in Asian countries characterized by a nutrition transition.

Managing innovation systems in transition economies

OpenAIRE

Baković, Tomislav

2010-01-01

Successfully managing innovations has become the basic precondition for the development of both companies and national economies. At the national level governments are forming innovation systems whose primary goal is to create conditions at which science and technology can flourish and then transfer their findings trough private sector into new revolutionary products and services. Unfortunately not all countries have the same preconditions for creating such systems and transition economies du...

49 CFR 38.35 - Public information system.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 49 Transportation 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Public information system. 38.35 Section 38.35... SPECIFICATIONS FOR TRANSPORTATION VEHICLES Buses, Vans and Systems § 38.35 Public information system. (a... a public address system permitting the driver, or recorded or digitized human speech messages, to...

36 CFR 1192.103 - Public information system.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Public information system... Commuter Rail Cars and Systems § 1192.103 Public information system. (a) Each car shall be equipped with an... speech messages, to announce stations and provide other passenger information. Alternative systems or...

36 CFR 1192.121 - Public information system.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Public information system... Intercity Rail Cars and Systems § 1192.121 Public information system. (a) Each car shall be equipped with a... messages, to announce stations and provide other passenger information. Alternative systems or devices...

Addressing fear of crime in public space: gender differences in reaction to safety measures in train transit.

Science.gov (United States)

Yavuz, Nilay; Welch, Eric W

2010-01-01

Research has identified several factors that affect fear of crime in public space. However, the extent to which gender moderates the effectiveness of fear-reducing measures has received little attention. Using data from the Chicago Transit Authority Customer Satisfaction Survey of 2003, this study aims to understand whether train transit security practices and service attributes affect men and women differently. Findings indicate that, while the presence of video cameras has a lower effect on women's feelings of safety compared with men, frequent and on-time service matters more to male passengers. Additionally, experience with safety-related problems affects women significantly more than men. Conclusions discuss the implications of the study for theory and gender-specific policies to improve perceptions of transit safety.

[Health services research for the public health service (PHS) and the public health system].

Science.gov (United States)

Hollederer, A; Wildner, M

2015-03-01

There is a great need for health services research in the public health system and in the German public health service. However, the public health service is underrepresented in health services research in Germany. This has several structural, historical and disciplinary-related reasons. The public health service is characterised by a broad range of activities, high qualification requirements and changing framework conditions. The concept of health services research is similar to that of the public health service and public health system, because it includes the principles of multidisciplinarity, multiprofessionalism and daily routine orientation. This article focuses on a specified system theory based model of health services research for the public health system and public health service. The model is based on established models of the health services research and health system research, which are further developed according to specific requirements of the public health service. It provides a theoretical foundation for health services research on the macro-, meso- and microlevels in public health service and the public health system. Prospects for public health service are seen in the development from "old public health" to "new public health" as well as in the integration of health services research and health system research. There is a significant potential for development in a better linkage between university research and public health service as is the case for the "Pettenkofer School of Public Health Munich". © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

Developing a Natural Gas-Powered Bus Rapid Transit Service: A Case Study

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mitchell, G.

2015-11-03

The Roaring Fork Transit Authority (RFTA) and its VelociRFTA Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) program are unique in many ways. For example, VelociRFTA was the first rural BRT system in the United States and the operational environment of the VelociRFTA BRT is one of the most severe in the country, with extreme winter temperatures and altitudes close to 8,000 feet. RFTA viewed high altitude operation as the most challenging characteristic when it began considering the use of natural gas. RFTA is the second-largest public transit system in Colorado behind Denver's Regional Transportation District (RTD), and it is one of the largest rural public transit systems in the country. In 2013, RFTA accepted delivery of 22 new compressed natural gas (CNG) buses that went into service after completion of maintenance and refueling facilities earlier that year. This paper examines the lessons learned from RFTA's experience of investigating--and ultimately choosing--CNG for their new BRT program and focuses on the unique environment of RFTA's BRT application; the decision process to include CNG fueling in the project; unforeseen difficulties encountered in the operation of CNG buses; public perception; cost comparison to competing fuels; and considerations for indoor fueling facilities and project funding.

Developing a Natural Gas-Powered Bus Rapid Transit Service. A Case Study

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mitchell, George [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

2015-11-01

The Roaring Fork Transit Authority (RFTA) and its VelociRFTA Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) program are unique in many ways. For example, VelociRFTA was the first rural BRT system in the United States and the operational environment of the VelociRFTA BRT is one of the most severe in the country, with extreme winter temperatures and altitudes close to 8,000 feet. RFTA viewed high altitude operation as the most challenging characteristic when it began considering the use of natural gas. RFTA is the second-largest public transit system in Colorado behind Denver's Regional Transportation District (RTD), and it is one of the largest rural public transit systems in the country. In 2013, RFTA accepted delivery of 22 new compressed natural gas (CNG) buses that went into service after completion of maintenance and refueling facilities earlier that year. This paper examines the lessons learned from RFTA's experience of investigating--and ultimately choosing--CNG for their new BRT program and focuses on the unique environment of RFTA's BRT application; the decision process to include CNG fueling in the project; unforeseen difficulties encountered in the operation of CNG buses; public perception; cost comparison to competing fuels; and considerations for indoor fueling facilities and project funding.

Mechanism-based model of a mass rapid transit system: A perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Legara, Erika Fille; Khoon, Lee Kee; Guang, Hung Gih; Monterola, Christopher

2015-01-01

In this paper, we discuss our findings on the spatiotemporal dynamics within the mass rapid transit (MRT) system of Singapore. We show that the trip distribution of Origin-Destination (OD) station pairs follows a power-law, implying the existence of critical OD pairs. We then present and discuss the empirically validated agent-based model (ABM) we have developed. The model allows recreation of the observed statistics and the setting up of various scenarios and their effects on the system, such as increasing the commuter population and the propagation of travel delays within the transportation network. The proposed model further enables identification of bottlenecks that can cause the MRT to break down, and consequently provide foresight on how such disruptions can possibly be managed. This can potentially provide a versatile approach for transport planners and government regulators to make quantifiable policies that optimally balance cost and convenience as a function of the number of the commuting public.

Phase transition universality classes of classical, nonequilibrium systems

CERN Document Server

Ódor, G

2004-01-01

In the first chapter I summarize the most important critical exponents and relations used in this work. In the second chapter I briefly address the question of scaling behavior at first order phase transitions.In chapter three I review dynamical extensions of basic static classes, show the effect of mixing dynamics and percolation behavior. The main body of this work is given in chapter four where genuine, dynamical universality classes specific to nonequilibrium systems are introduced. In chapter five I continue overviewing such nonequilibrium classes but in coupled, multi-component systems. Most of known transitions in low dimensional systems are between active and absorbing states of reaction-diffusion type systems, but I briefly introduce related classes that appear in interface growth models in chapter six. Some of them are related to critical behavior of coupled, multi-component systems. Finally in chapter seven I summarize families of absorbing state system classes, mean-field classes and the most freq...

The public health system in England

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Hunter, David J; Marks, Linda; Smith, Katherine E

2010-01-01

.... The Public Health System in England offers a wide-ranging, provocative and accessible assessment of challenges confronting a public health system, exploring how its parameters have shifted over time...

Mode-locking and the transition to chaos in dissipative systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bak, P.; Bohr, T.; Jensen, M.H.

1984-01-01

Dissipative systems with two competing frequencies exhibit transitions to chaos. We have investigated the transition through a study of discrete maps of the circle onto itself, and by constructing and analyzing return maps of differential equations representing some physical systems. The transition is caused by interaction and overlap of mode-locked resonances and takes place at a critical line where the map losses invertibility. At this line the mode-locked intervals trace up a complete Devil's Staircase whose complementary set is a Cantor set with universal fractal dimension D approx. 0.87. Below criticality there is room for quasiperiodic orbits, whose measure is given by an exponent β approx. 0.34 which can be related to D through a scaling relation, just as for second order phase transitions. The Lebesgue measure serves as an order parameter for the transition to chaos. The resistively shunted Josephson junction, and charge density waves (CDWs) in rf electric fields are usually described by the differential equation of the damped driven pendulum. The 2d return map for this equation collapses to ld circle map at and below the transition to chaos. The theoretical results on universal behavior, derived here and elsewhere, can thus readily be checked experimentally by studying real physical systems. Recent experiments on Josephson junctions and CDWs indicating the predicted fractal scaling of mode-locking at criticality are reviewed

Dual-Priced Modal Transition Systems with Time Durations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Beneš, Nikola; Kretínsky, Jan; Larsen, Kim Guldstrand

2012-01-01

Modal transition systems are a well-established specification formalism for a high-level modelling of component-based software systems. We present a novel extension of the formalism called modal transition systems with durations where time durations are modelled as controllable or uncontrollable...... intervals. We further equip the model with two kinds of quantitative aspects: each action has its own running cost per time unit, and actions may require several hardware components of different costs. We ask the question, given a fixed budget for the hardware components, what is the implementation...... with the cheapest long-run average reward. We give an algorithm for computing such optimal implementations via a reduction to a new extension of mean payoff games with time durations and analyse the complexity of the algorithm....

Emerging Early Actions to Bend the Curve in Sub-Saharan Africa's Nutrition Transition.

Science.gov (United States)

Haggblade, Steven; Duodu, Kwaku G; Kabasa, John D; Minnaar, Amanda; Ojijo, Nelson K O; Taylor, John R N

2016-06-01

Sub-Saharan Africa is the last region to undergo a nutrition transition and can still avoid its adverse health outcomes. The article explores emerging responses to "bend the curve" in sub-Saharan Africa's nutrition transition to steer public health outcomes onto a healthier trajectory. Early responses in 3 countries at different stages of food system transformation are examined: South Africa-advanced, Ghana-intermediate, and Uganda-early. By comparing these with international experience, actions are proposed to influence nutrition and public health trajectories as Africa's food systems undergo rapid structural change. Arising from rapid urbanization and diet change, major public health problems associated with overweight are taking place, particularly in South Africa and among adult women. However, public health responses are generally tepid in sub-Saharan Africa. Only in South Africa have policy makers instituted extensive actions to combat overweight and associated noncommunicable diseases through regulation, education, and public health programs. Elsewhere, in countries in the early and middle stages of transition, public health systems continue to focus their limited resources primarily on undernutrition. Related pressures on the supply side of Africa's food systems are emerging that also need to be addressed. Three types of intervention appear most feasible: maternal and child health programs to simultaneously address short-term undernutrition problems while at the same time helping to reduce future tendencies toward overweigh; regulatory and fiscal actions to limit access to unhealthy foods; and modernization of Africa's agrifood food system through job skills training, marketing reforms, and food industry entrepreneurship. © The Author(s) 2016.

Climate change mitigation through livestock system transitions

Science.gov (United States)

Havlík, Petr; Valin, Hugo; Herrero, Mario; Obersteiner, Michael; Schmid, Erwin; Rufino, Mariana C.; Mosnier, Aline; Thornton, Philip K.; Böttcher, Hannes; Conant, Richard T.; Frank, Stefan; Fritz, Steffen; Fuss, Sabine; Kraxner, Florian; Notenbaert, An

2014-01-01

Livestock are responsible for 12% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Sustainable intensification of livestock production systems might become a key climate mitigation technology. However, livestock production systems vary substantially, making the implementation of climate mitigation policies a formidable challenge. Here, we provide results from an economic model using a detailed and high-resolution representation of livestock production systems. We project that by 2030 autonomous transitions toward more efficient systems would decrease emissions by 736 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year (MtCO2e⋅y−1), mainly through avoided emissions from the conversion of 162 Mha of natural land. A moderate mitigation policy targeting emissions from both the agricultural and land-use change sectors with a carbon price of US$10 per tCO2e could lead to an abatement of 3,223 MtCO2e⋅y−1. Livestock system transitions would contribute 21% of the total abatement, intra- and interregional relocation of livestock production another 40%, and all other mechanisms would add 39%. A comparable abatement of 3,068 MtCO2e⋅y−1 could be achieved also with a policy targeting only emissions from land-use change. Stringent climate policies might lead to reductions in food availability of up to 200 kcal per capita per day globally. We find that mitigation policies targeting emissions from land-use change are 5 to 10 times more efficient—measured in “total abatement calorie cost”—than policies targeting emissions from livestock only. Thus, fostering transitions toward more productive livestock production systems in combination with climate policies targeting the land-use change appears to be the most efficient lever to deliver desirable climate and food availability outcomes. PMID:24567375

Measuring transparency in public spending: Case of Czech public e-procurement information system

OpenAIRE

Chvalkovská, Jana; Skuhrovec, Jiří

2010-01-01

The objective of this paper is to analyze the potential of e-Government tools to enable the general public to oversee spending of public institutions. The paper illustrates the “watchdog” potential of reducing corruption by means of providing information to the public on the example of the Czech Public e-Procurement Information System (further called System). The System is an Internet portal, where public authorities announce their intention to purchase goods and services. Such announcements ...

Citizens in sustainable transitions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hoffmann, Birgitte; Agger, Annika

2013-01-01

The paper explores how local public authorities can support and facilitate citizens’ participa-tion and learning in sustainable transition in urban neighbourhoods, by supporting local in-termediaries. The role of intermediaries can be performed by a variety of actors such as public housing...... associations; NGO´s, or semi public institutions. Our claim is that intermediary actors have the potential to facilitate new platforms for citizens’ participation in urban sustainable transition due to their particular role in between public authorities and civil society. The key question of the paper is how...... the intermediary actors facilitate citizens' participatory processes in sustainable urban transitions, and the paper explores the concept of institutional capacity building as a way to develop learning processes and new practises? The aim is to analyse approaches of creating platforms for involving citizens...

Bisimulation and Open Maps for Timed Transition Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Mogens

1999-01-01

Formal models for real-time systems have been studied intensively over the past decade. Much of the theory of untimed systems have been lifted to real-time settings. One example is the notion of bisimulation applied to timed transition systems, which is studied here within the general categorical...

Trap-size scaling in confined-particle systems at quantum transitions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Campostrini, Massimo; Vicari, Ettore

2010-01-01

We develop a trap-size scaling theory for trapped particle systems at quantum transitions. As a theoretical laboratory, we consider a quantum XY chain in an external transverse field acting as a trap for the spinless fermions of its quadratic Hamiltonian representation. We discuss trap-size scaling at the Mott insulator to superfluid transition in the Bose-Hubbard model. We present exact and accurate numerical results for the XY chain and for the low-density Mott transition in the hard-core limit of the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model. Our results are relevant for systems of cold atomic gases in optical lattices.

Isotropic–Nematic Phase Transitions in Gravitational Systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Roupas, Zacharias; Kocsis, Bence [Institute of Physics, Eötvös University, Pázmány P. s. 1/A, Budapest, 1117 (Hungary); Tremaine, Scott [Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ 08540 (United States)

2017-06-20

We examine dense self-gravitating stellar systems dominated by a central potential, such as nuclear star clusters hosting a central supermassive black hole. Different dynamical properties of these systems evolve on vastly different timescales. In particular, the orbital-plane orientations are typically driven into internal thermodynamic equilibrium by vector resonant relaxation before the orbital eccentricities or semimajor axes relax. We show that the statistical mechanics of such systems exhibit a striking resemblance to liquid crystals, with analogous ordered-nematic and disordered-isotropic phases. The ordered phase consists of bodies orbiting in a disk in both directions, with the disk thickness depending on temperature, while the disordered phase corresponds to a nearly isotropic distribution of the orbit normals. We show that below a critical value of the total angular momentum, the system undergoes a first-order phase transition between the ordered and disordered phases. At a critical point, the phase transition becomes second order, while for higher angular momenta there is a smooth crossover. We also find metastable equilibria containing two identical disks with mutual inclinations between 90° and 180°.

Examining the Link Between Public Transit Use and Active Commuting

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Melissa Bopp

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Background: An established relationship exists between public transportation (PT use and physical activity. However, there is limited literature that examines the link between PT use and active commuting (AC behavior. This study examines this link to determine if PT users commute more by active modes. Methods: A volunteer, convenience sample of adults (n = 748 completed an online survey about AC/PT patterns, demographic, psychosocial, community and environmental factors. t-test compared differences between PT riders and non-PT riders. Binary logistic regression analyses examined the effect of multiple factors on AC and a full logistic regression model was conducted to examine AC. Results: Non-PT riders (n = 596 reported less AC than PT riders. There were several significant relationships with AC for demographic, interpersonal, worksite, community and environmental factors when considering PT use. The logistic multivariate analysis for included age, number of children and perceived distance to work as negative predictors and PT use, feelings of bad weather and lack of on-street bike lanes as a barrier to AC, perceived behavioral control and spouse AC were positive predictors. Conclusions: This study revealed the complex relationship between AC and PT use. Further research should investigate how AC and public transit use are related.

System and prospects of China's intercity rail transit technology

Science.gov (United States)

Gong, Ming

2018-06-01

City clusters and metropolitan areas in China are flourishing in the midst of the deepening urbanization in the country, thereby resulting in the emergence of intercity rail transit. Intercity railways connect mainline and urban railways for an integrated regional transportation system that underpins and leads the development of city clusters and metropolitan areas. This study explores the development mode and service characteristics of intercity rail transit, as well as proposes overviews on this system and prospects of its future technology in China.

Online transit trip planner for small agencies using Google Transit : final deployment package.

Science.gov (United States)

2011-09-01

Google Transit is a public transportation trip planner that enables travelers to obtain information regarding available transit services between a : given origin and given destination. While transit agencies can publish their service information onto...

STIDP: A U.S. Department of Homeland Security program for countering explosives attacks at large public events and mass transit facilities

Science.gov (United States)

Knudson, Christa K.; Kemp, Michael C.; Lombardo, Nicholas J.

2009-05-01

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Standoff Technology Integration and Demonstration Program is designed to accelerate the development and integration of technologies, concepts of operations, and training to defeat explosives attacks at large public events and mass transit facilities. The program will address threats posed by suicide bombers, vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, and leave-behind bombs. The program is focused on developing and testing explosives countermeasure architectures using commercial off-the-shelf and near-commercial standoff and remotely operated detection technologies in prototypic operational environments. An important part of the program is the integration of multiple technologies and systems to protect against a wider range of threats, improve countermeasure performance, increase the distance from the venue at which screening is conducted, and reduce staffing requirements. The program will routinely conduct tests in public venues involving successively more advanced technology, higher levels of system integration, and more complex scenarios. This paper describes the initial field test of an integrated countermeasure system that included infrared, millimeter-wave, and video analytics technologies for detecting person-borne improvised explosive devices at a public arena. The test results are being used to develop a concept for the next generation of integrated countermeasures, to refine technical and operational requirements for architectures and technologies, and engage industry and academia in solution development.

Complex Network Theory Applied to the Growth of Kuala Lumpur's Public Urban Rail Transit Network.

Science.gov (United States)

Ding, Rui; Ujang, Norsidah; Hamid, Hussain Bin; Wu, Jianjun

2015-01-01

Recently, the number of studies involving complex network applications in transportation has increased steadily as scholars from various fields analyze traffic networks. Nonetheless, research on rail network growth is relatively rare. This research examines the evolution of the Public Urban Rail Transit Networks of Kuala Lumpur (PURTNoKL) based on complex network theory and covers both the topological structure of the rail system and future trends in network growth. In addition, network performance when facing different attack strategies is also assessed. Three topological network characteristics are considered: connections, clustering and centrality. In PURTNoKL, we found that the total number of nodes and edges exhibit a linear relationship and that the average degree stays within the interval [2.0488, 2.6774] with heavy-tailed distributions. The evolutionary process shows that the cumulative probability distribution (CPD) of degree and the average shortest path length show good fit with exponential distribution and normal distribution, respectively. Moreover, PURTNoKL exhibits clear cluster characteristics; most of the nodes have a 2-core value, and the CPDs of the centrality's closeness and betweenness follow a normal distribution function and an exponential distribution, respectively. Finally, we discuss four different types of network growth styles and the line extension process, which reveal that the rail network's growth is likely based on the nodes with the biggest lengths of the shortest path and that network protection should emphasize those nodes with the largest degrees and the highest betweenness values. This research may enhance the networkability of the rail system and better shape the future growth of public rail networks.

Urban planning, public transit and related initiatives for more sustainable transportation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1995-11-01

The characteristics of ten Canadian cities and their transportation systems were summarized. The need to conserve resources and to maintain environmental quality has lead to initiatives aimed at achieving more sustainable urban transportation. The most promising initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve other sustainability objectives were described. Ways to overcome the most significant barriers were suggested. Since suburban areas are generally automobile-dependant, the major challenge is how to retrofit these areas with high quality transit services. A corollary objective is to achieve more compact, mixed-use urban structure and pedestrian-friendly streetscapes, thereby reducing average trip distances and making it feasible for the transit, walking and cycling modes to be used more extensively. refs., tabs., figs

Health system strengthening in Cambodia-a case study of health policy response to social transition.

Science.gov (United States)

Grundy, John; Khut, Qiu Yi; Oum, Sophal; Annear, Peter; Ky, Veng

2009-10-01

Cambodia, following decades of civil conflict and social and economic transition, has in the last 10 years developed health policy innovations in the areas of health contracting, health financing and health planning. This paper aims to outline recent social, epidemiological and demographic health trends in Cambodia, and on the basis of this outline, to analyse and discuss these policy responses to social transition. Sources of information included a literature review, participant observation in health planning development in Cambodia between 1993 and 2008, and comparative analysis of demographic health surveys between 2000 and 2005. In Cambodia there have been sharp but unequal improvements in child mortality, and persisting high maternal mortality rates. Data analysis demonstrates associations between location, education level and access to facility based care, suggesting the dominant role of socio-economic factors in determining access to facility based health care. These events are taking place against a background of rapid social transition in Cambodian history, including processes of decentralization, privatization and the development of open market economic systems. Primary policy responses of the Ministry of Health to social transition and associated health inequities include the establishment of health contracting, hospital health equity funds and public-private collaborations. Despite the internationally recognized health policy flexibility and innovation demonstrated in Cambodia, policy response still lags well behind the reality of social transition. In order to minimize the delay between transition and response, new policy making tactics are required in order to provide more flexible and timely responses to the ongoing social transition and its impacts on population health needs in the lowest socio-economic quintiles.

The evaluation of public health in South Eastern Europe: from transition to progress

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dragan Gjorgjev

2009-03-01

Full Text Available

Background: The public health services project of the South-eastern Europe health network has undertaken an evaluation of public health services in its nine member countries. The purpose of the evaluation of public health services provision in the South-eastern European (SEE countries is to understand where these countries now stand in public health, the institutional, organisational, legislative and service delivery developments that are taking place and to identify strengths and weaknesses in their public health systems and services in order to inform decision making about investment and future reform.

Methods: The evaluation was orientated around “essential public health operations” that are deemed to form the core of public health activities and services and to be indispensable to the delivery of modern public health services in any country. The evaluation analysed these activities and services within the structure of the health system functions of stewardship, resource generation, financing and service delivery, as developed by WHO.

Results: The results demonstrate a mixed picture of strengths and weaknesses within the context of significant social, economic and political challenges in the region. Among the many visible and significant strengths in public health services in the region are well developed networks of public health institutes with well defined surveillance systems, highly experienced and well educated public health professionals as well as many positive examples of service delivery. But there are also many concerns and challenges, not the least of which is political focus, direction and support for modern public health services, as well as funding. Collaboration and partnership among sectors is weak and information and communication systems are inadequate and not sufficiently integrated.

Conclusions: Having emphasized the main weak and

Public Water Supply Systems (PWS)

Data.gov (United States)

Kansas Data Access and Support Center — This dataset includes boundaries for most public water supply systems (PWS) in Kansas (525 municipalities, 289 rural water districts and 13 public wholesale water...

Resilience Thinking as an Interdisciplinary Guiding Principle for Energy System Transitions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Frauke Wiese

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Resource usage and environmental consequences of most current energy systems exceed planetary boundaries. The transition to sustainable energy systems is accompanied by a multitude of research methods, as energy systems are complex structures of technical, economical, social and ecological interactions. The description of different discipline’s perspectives in this paper show that a more mutual understanding between disciplines of their respective focus is necessary as they partly create internally competitive views arising from differing emphasis of connected matters. The purpose of this paper is to present a framework for interdisciplinary proceeding in a complex energy system transition process. Resilience thinking is chosen as a core concept for a more holistic view on sustainable energy system development. It is shown that it is already widely used in different disciplines connected to energy system research and is especially suitable due to its wide application across disciplines. The seven principles of resilience thinking (maintain redundancy and diversity, manage connectivity, manage slow variables and feedback, foster complex adaptive systems thinking, encourage learning, broaden participation, and promote polycentric governance systems are chosen as the basis for a procedure that can be utilized to increase the interdisciplinary perspectives of energy system transitions. For energy transition processes based on scenario development, backcasting and pathway definition, resilience thinking principles are used to assess the resilience of the target energy system, the pathway resilience and the design of the scenario process with respect to the probability of a resilient outcome. The described procedure consisting of questions and parameters can be applied as a first attempt for a resilience assessment of energy transition processes. The perspective of resilience in sustainable energy systems strengthens the importance of diversity

Renormalization group theory of phase transitions in square Ising systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nienhuis, B.

1978-01-01

Some renormalization group calculations are presented on a number of phase transitions in a square Ising model, both second and first order. Of these transitions critical exponents are calculated, the amplitudes of the power law divergences and the locus of the transition. In some cases attention is paid to the thermodynamic functions also far from the critical point. Universality and scaling are discussed and the renormalization group theory is reviewed. It is shown how a renormalization transformation, which relates two similar systems with different macroscopic dimensions, can be constructed, and how some critical properties of the system follow from this transformation. Several numerical and analytical applications are presented. (Auth.)

TRANSIT TIMING OBSERVATIONS FROM KEPLER. V. TRANSIT TIMING VARIATION CANDIDATES IN THE FIRST SIXTEEN MONTHS FROM POLYNOMIAL MODELS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ford, Eric B. [Astronomy Department, University of Florida, 211 Bryant Space Sciences Center, Gainesville, FL 32111 (United States); Ragozzine, Darin; Holman, Matthew J. [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Rowe, Jason F.; Barclay, Thomas; Borucki, William J.; Bryson, Stephen T.; Caldwell, Douglas A.; Kinemuchi, Karen; Koch, David G.; Lissauer, Jack J.; Still, Martin; Tenenbaum, Peter [NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035 (United States); Steffen, Jason H. [Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics, P.O. Box 500, MS 127, Batavia, IL 60510 (United States); Batalha, Natalie M. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA 95192 (United States); Fabrycky, Daniel C. [UCO/Lick Observatory, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States); Gautier, Thomas N. [Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109 (United States); Ibrahim, Khadeejah A.; Uddin, Kamal [Orbital Sciences Corporation/NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035 (United States); Kjeldsen, Hans, E-mail: eford@astro.ufl.edu [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, DK-8000 Aarhus C (Denmark); and others

2012-09-10

Transit timing variations provide a powerful tool for confirming and characterizing transiting planets, as well as detecting non-transiting planets. We report the results of an updated transit timing variation (TTV) analysis for 1481 planet candidates based on transit times measured during the first sixteen months of Kepler observations. We present 39 strong TTV candidates based on long-term trends (2.8% of suitable data sets). We present another 136 weaker TTV candidates (9.8% of suitable data sets) based on the excess scatter of TTV measurements about a linear ephemeris. We anticipate that several of these planet candidates could be confirmed and perhaps characterized with more detailed TTV analyses using publicly available Kepler observations. For many others, Kepler has observed a long-term TTV trend, but an extended Kepler mission will be required to characterize the system via TTVs. We find that the occurrence rate of planet candidates that show TTVs is significantly increased ({approx}68%) for planet candidates transiting stars with multiple transiting planet candidates when compared to planet candidates transiting stars with a single transiting planet candidate.

Hawaii's public mental health system.

Science.gov (United States)

VanderVoort, Debra J

2005-03-01

The following article addresses the nature of and problems with the public mental health system in Hawaii. It includes a brief history of Hawaii's public mental health system, a description and analysis of this system, economic factors affecting mental health, as well as a needs assessment of the elderly, individuals with severe mental illness, children and adolescents, and ethnically diverse individuals. In addition to having the potential to increase suicide rates and unnecessarily prolong personal suffering, problems in the public mental health system such as inadequate services contribute to an increase in social problems including, but not limited to, an increase in crime rates (e.g., domestic violence, child abuse), divorce rates, school failure, and behavioral problems in children. The population in need of mental health services in Hawaii is under served, with this inadequacy of services due to economic limitations and a variety of other factors.

Health and health-care systems in southeast Asia: diversity and transitions.

Science.gov (United States)

Chongsuvivatwong, Virasakdi; Phua, Kai Hong; Yap, Mui Teng; Pocock, Nicola S; Hashim, Jamal H; Chhem, Rethy; Wilopo, Siswanto Agus; Lopez, Alan D

2011-01-29

Southeast Asia is a region of enormous social, economic, and political diversity, both across and within countries, shaped by its history, geography, and position as a major crossroad of trade and the movement of goods and services. These factors have not only contributed to the disparate health status of the region's diverse populations, but also to the diverse nature of its health systems, which are at varying stages of evolution. Rapid but inequitable socioeconomic development, coupled with differing rates of demographic and epidemiological transitions, have accentuated health disparities and posed great public health challenges for national health systems, particularly the control of emerging infectious diseases and the rise of non-communicable diseases within ageing populations. While novel forms of health care are evolving in the region, such as corporatised public health-care systems (government owned, but operating according to corporate principles and with private-sector participation) and financing mechanisms to achieve universal coverage, there are key lessons for health reforms and decentralisation. New challenges have emerged with rising trade in health services, migration of the health workforce, and medical tourism. Juxtaposed between the emerging giant economies of China and India, countries of the region are attempting to forge a common regional identity, despite their diversity, to seek mutually acceptable and effective solutions to key regional health challenges. In this first paper in the Lancet Series on health in southeast Asia, we present an overview of key demographic and epidemiological changes in the region, explore challenges facing health systems, and draw attention to the potential for regional collaboration in health. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Low-Carbon-Based Bilevel Optimization Model for Public Transit Network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xu Sun

2013-01-01

Full Text Available To satisfy the demand of low-carbon transportation, this paper studies the optimization of public transit network based on the concept of low carbon. Taking travel time, operation cost, energy consumption, pollutant emission, and traffic efficiency as the optimization objectives, a bilevel model is proposed in order to maximize the benefits of both travelers and operators and minimize the environmental cost. Then the model is solved with the differential evolution (DE algorithm and applied to a real network of Baoji city. The results show that the model can not only ensure the benefits of travelers and operators, but can also reduce pollutant emission and energy consumption caused by the operations of buses, which reflects the concept of low carbon.

BPI Challenge 2012 : the transition system case

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Verbeek, H.M.W.; La Rosa, M.; Soffer, P.

2013-01-01

Using the Transition System Miner as available in ProM6, we have investigated the control-flow perspective, the data perspective, and the resource perspective of the process that underlies the event log provided for the BPI Challenge 2012.

The Kibble-Zurek mechanism in phase transitions of non-equilibrium systems

Science.gov (United States)

Cheung, Hil F. H.; Patil, Yogesh S.; Date, Aditya G.; Vengalattore, Mukund

2017-04-01

We experimentally realize a driven-dissipative phase transition using a mechanical parametric amplifier to demonstrate key signatures of a second order phase transition, including a point where the susceptibilities and relaxation time scales diverge, and where the system exhibits a spontaneous breaking of symmetry. Though reminiscent of conventional equilibrium phase transitions, it is unclear if such driven-dissipative phase transitions are amenable to the conventional Landau-Ginsburg-Wilson paradigm, which relies on concepts of scale invariance and universality, and recent work has shown that such phase transitions can indeed lie beyond such conventional universality classes. By quenching the system past the critical point, we investigate the dynamics of the emergent ordered phase and find that our measurements are in excellent agreement with the Kibble-Zurek mechanism. In addition to verifying the Kibble-Zurek hypothesis in driven-dissipative phase transitions for the first time, we also demonstrate that the measured critical exponents accurately reflect the interplay between intrinsic coherent dynamics and environmental correlations, showing a clear departure from mean field exponents in the case of non-Markovian system-bath interactions. We further discuss how reservoir engineering and the imposition of artificial environmental correlations can result in the stabilization of novel many-body quantum phases and aid in the creation of exotic non-equilibrium states of matter.

Transition From NASA Space Communication Systems to Commerical Communication Products

Science.gov (United States)

Ghazvinian, Farzad; Lindsey, William C.

1994-01-01

Transitioning from twenty-five years of space communication system architecting, engineering and development to creating and marketing of commercial communication system hardware and software products is no simple task for small, high-tech system engineering companies whose major source of revenue has been the U.S. Government. Yet, many small businesses are faced with this onerous and perplexing task. The purpose of this talk/paper is to present one small business (LinCom) approach to taking advantage of the systems engineering expertise and knowledge captured in physical neural networks and simulation software by supporting numerous National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) projects, e.g., Space Shuttle, TDRSS, Space Station, DCSC, Milstar, etc. The innovative ingredients needed for a systems house to transition to a wireless communication system products house that supports personal communication services and networks (PCS and PCN) development in a global economy will be discussed. Efficient methods for using past government sponsored space system research and development to transition to VLSI communication chip set products will be presented along with notions of how synergy between government and industry can be maintained to benefit both parties.

Research for the energy transition. The organization of the energy systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2017-01-01

The volume on research for the energy transition includes contributions to the FVEE annual meeting 2016 concerning the following issues: status and perspectives of the energy transition, key technologies for the energy transition, political boundary conditions, development trends in photovoltaics, components for the energy supply (wind energy, hydrogen technologies, smart bioenergy concept, contribution of the geosphere), grids and storage systems for the energy transition, research network renewable energies.

Dependence of synchronization transitions on mean field approach in two-way coupled neural system

Science.gov (United States)

Shi, J. C.; Luo, M.; Huang, C. S.

2018-03-01

This work investigates the synchronization transitions in two-way coupled neural system by mean field approach. Results show that, there exists a critical noise intensity for the synchronization transitions, i.e., above (or below) the critical noise intensity, the synchronization transitions are decreased (or hardly change) with increasing the noise intensity. Meanwhile, the heterogeneity effect plays a negative role for the synchronization transitions, and above critical coupling strength, the heterogeneity effect on synchronization transitions can be negligible. Furthermore, when an external signal is introduced into the coupled system, the novel frequency-induced and amplitude-induced synchronization transitions are found, and there exist an optimal frequency and an optimal amplitude of external signal which makes the system to display the best synchronization transitions. In particular, it is observed that the synchronization transitions can not be further affected above critical frequency of external signal.

Price Elasticity of Demand and Capacity-Restraint Transit Fare Strategy: A Case Study of Bangkok Mass Transit System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ackchai Sirikijpanichkul

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Traffic congestion is a chronic problem of Bangkok. Similar to other metropolises, the city perpetually seeks for alternatives to road travel. Mass rapid transit seems to be the only way out that is expected to mitigate traffic congestion in the city. However, without common fare system, travelers need to pay an initial entrance fee every time they enter each transit system. This excess cost tapers the demand and affects the efficient use of the system. This research investigates the influence of fare price on transit use which is measured by price elasticity of demand and proposes the optimum fare price if the common fare is used. The analysis is based on the findings from the stated preference survey techniques. Finally, the conclusion on fare level that encourage more patronage, maintain service quality and operator revenue is addressed.

Media System, Public Knowledge and Democracy

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Salovaara-Moring, Inka; Curran, James; Iyengar, Shanto

2009-01-01

This article addresses the implications of the movement towards entertainment-centred, market-driven media by comparing what is reported and what the public knows in four countries with different media systems. The different systems are public service (Denmark and Finland), a `dual' model (UK) an...... consumption and contributes to a smaller within-nation knowledge gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged. But wider processes in society take precedence over the organization of the media in determining how much people know about public life......) and the market model (US). The comparison shows that public service television devotes more attention to public affairs and international news, and fosters greater knowledge in these areas, than the market model. Public service television also gives greater prominence to news, encourages higher levels of news...

LDAR, A Three-Dimensional Lightning Warning System: Its Development and Use by the Government, and Transition to Public Availability

Science.gov (United States)

Starr, Stan; Sharp, David; Merceret, Francis; Madura, John; Murphy, Martin

1998-01-01

NASA, at the John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC), developed and operates a unique high precision lightning location system to provide lightning related weather warnings. These warnings are used to stop lightning-sensitive operations such as space vehicle launches and ground operations where equipment and personnel are at risk. The data is provided to the Range Weather Operations [45th Weather Squadron, U. S. Air Force (USAF)] where it is used with other meteorological data to issue weather advisories and warnings for Cape Canaveral Air Station (CCAS) and KSC operations. This system, called Lightning Detection and Ranging (LDAR), provides users with a graphical display in three dimensions of 66 MHz radio frequency events generated by lightning processes. The locations of these events provide a sound basis for the prediction of lightning hazards. NASA and Global Atmospherics, Inc. are developing a new system that will replace the unique LDAR components with commercially available and maintainable components having improved capabilities. These components will be phased in to ensure full continuity and access to this important warning technology. These LDAR systems are expected to eventually be available for installation and use by the public at specialized facilities, such as airports, and for general weather warnings via the National Weather Service (NWS) or television broadcast. The NWS in Melbourne has had access to real-time LDAR data since 1993 on an experimental basis. This use of LDAR has shown promise for the improvement of aviation forecasts and severe weather warnings. More so, it has opened the door to investigate the feasibility of issuing lightning-related public advisories. The success of its early use suggests that this technology may improve safety and potentially save lives, therefore constituting a significant benefit to the public. This paper describes the LDR system, the plans and progress of these upgrades, and the potential benefits of its use.

The Transition of Wat Tham Krabok Hmong Children to Saint Paul Public Schools: Perspectives of Teachers, Principals, and Hmong Parents

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bic Ngo

2008-01-01

Full Text Available In 2004, with the closing of the last Hmong refugee camp, Wat Tham Krabok, the latest group of Hmong refugees resettled to the US. To facilitate the language transition of approximately 1,000 school-aged newcomer Hmong children, the Saint Paul Public Schools, developed and established Transitional Language Centers. In this article, we examine the experiences and perspectives of principals, teachers and educational assistants who worked with newcomer Hmong children in the newly-established Transitional Language Centers and well-established Language Academy programs. We also elucidate the experiences of Hmong parents with the schools that served their children. Our research offers insights into the important work of the Transitional Language Centers as well as the need to better support newcomer Hmong parents.

A numerical scheme for optimal transition paths of stochastic chemical kinetic systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liu Di

2008-01-01

We present a new framework for finding the optimal transition paths of metastable stochastic chemical kinetic systems with large system size. The optimal transition paths are identified to be the most probable paths according to the Large Deviation Theory of stochastic processes. Dynamical equations for the optimal transition paths are derived using the variational principle. A modified Minimum Action Method (MAM) is proposed as a numerical scheme to solve the optimal transition paths. Applications to Gene Regulatory Networks such as the toggle switch model and the Lactose Operon Model in Escherichia coli are presented as numerical examples

78 FR 32296 - Second Allocation of Public Transportation Emergency Relief Funds in Response to Hurricane Sandy...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-05-29

... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Transit Administration Second Allocation of Public... disaster that affects public transportation systems. The Disaster Relief Appropriations Act provides $10.9... projected total recovery costs for the four most severely affected public transportation systems, not...

Transition control system for procedure prompting

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Colley, R.W.

1981-11-01

A system called the Transition Control System (TCS) is being developed at the Hanford Engineering Development Laboratory (HEDL). The purpose of the TCS is to monitor the operational status of a plant's systems and equipment, and provide either operator guidance or direct control. The TCS provides the rule-based information to the operator specific to the plant's current operational status. A schematic of the information flow and control functions of a reactor plant is shown. The basis for the TCS is a methodology called Sequencing Established States (SES). The fundamental precept of this methodology is that all plant states are determined by the operational status of the various plant systems. The operational status of each plant system is determined, in turn, by the operational status of the system's equipment, instrumentation and controllers

REFINED SYSTEM PARAMETERS AND TTV STUDY OF TRANSITING EXOPLANETARY SYSTEM HAT-P-20

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sun, Leilei; Gu, Shenghong; Wang, Xiaobin; Cao, Dongtao; Wang, Yibo; Xiang, Yue [Yunnan Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650011 (China); Cameron, Andrew Collier [School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews, North Haugh, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9SS (United Kingdom); Hui, Ho-Keung; Kwok, Chi-Tai [Ho Koon Nature Education cum Astronomical Centre, Sik Sik Yuen, Hong Kong (China); Yeung, Bill; Ng, Eric [Hong Kong Astronomical Society, Hong Kong (China); Horta, Ferran Grau, E-mail: wangxb@ynao.ac.cn [Observatori Ca l’Ou, C/de Dalt 18, Sant Martí Sesgueioles (Spain)

2017-01-01

We report new photometric observations of the transiting exoplanetary system HAT-P-20, obtained using CCD cameras at Yunnan Observatories and Ho Koon Nature Education cum Astronomical Centre, China, from 2010 to 2013, and Observatori Ca l’Ou, Sant Marti Sesgueioles, Spain, from 2013 to 2015. The observed data are corrected for systematic errors according to the coarse de-correlation and SYSREM algorithms, so as to enhance the signal of the transit events. In order to consistently model the star spots and transits of this exoplanetary system, we develop a highly efficient tool STMT based on the analytic models of Mandel and Agol and Montalto et al. The physical parameters of HAT-P-20 are refined by homogeneously analyzing our new data, the radial velocity data, and the earlier photometric data in the literature with the Markov chain Monte Carlo technique. New radii and masses of both host star and planet are larger than those in the discovery paper due to the discrepancy of the radius among K-dwarfs between predicted values by standard stellar models and empirical calibration from observations. Through the analysis of all available mid-transit times calculated with the normal model and spotted model, we conclude that the periodic transit timing variations in these transit events revealed by employing the normal model are probably induced by spot crossing events. From the analysis of the distribution of occulted spots by HAT-P-20b, we constrain the misaligned architecture between the planetary orbit and the spin of the host star.

The smectite to chlorite transition in the Chipilapa geothermal system, El Salvador

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Robinson, D. [Univ. of Bristol (United Kingdom). Dept. of Earth Sciences; Santana de Zamora, A. [Comision Ejecutiva Hidroelectrica del Rio Lempa (El Salvador)

1999-04-01

Clay mineralogical, X-ray diffraction and electron microprobe studies have been carried out on separated <2 {micro}m fractions from cutting and core material from three wells in the Chipilapa geothermal system in El Salvador. The data indicate that the smectite to chlorite transition is prevalent, but a secondary smectite to illite transition is also present. At depths approximately <750 m, smectite with very minor chlorite mixed-layers (approximately <15%) is dominant, and has a composition midway between a di- and tri-smectite. At {approximately}750 m there is a very clear distinction and sharp transition into discrete chlorite with very minor smectite mixed-layers (approximately <10%). Corrensite is recorded only as a rare and minor phase. Smectite occurs in abundance at temperatures up to {approximately}200 C, and the transition from a smectite-dominant to chlorite-dominant assemblage takes place over a narrow temperature range ({approximately}150 to 200 C). The stability range of smectite is very similar to that recorded in other geothermal systems, whereas the smectite to chlorite transition differs greatly from that recorded in other systems. The transition does not involve continuous chlorite/smectite mixed-layering but a marked step: It is the sharpest and most discontinuous stepped sequence of this mineralogical transition recorded.

Alaska Community Transit

Science.gov (United States)

Grant Information Human Services Funding 5310 5316 (Repealed) 5317 (Repealed) Alaska Mental Health Trust Department of Transportation & Public Facilities/ Alaska Community Transit Search DOT&PF State of Alaska Photo banner DOT&PF> Program Development > Alaska Community Transit Home About Us

49 CFR 38.61 - Public information system.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 49 Transportation 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Public information system. 38.61 Section 38.61... SPECIFICATIONS FOR TRANSPORTATION VEHICLES Rapid Rail Vehicles and Systems § 38.61 Public information system. (a... other passenger information. Alternative systems or devices which provide equivalent access are also...

Public Management Information Systems: Theory and Prescription.

Science.gov (United States)

Bozeman, Barry; Bretschneider, Stuart

1986-01-01

The existing theoretical framework for research in management information systems (MIS) is criticized for its lack of attention to the external environment of organizations, and a new framework is developed which better accommodates MIS in public organizations: public management information systems. Four models of publicness that reflect external…

Complex Network Theory Applied to the Growth of Kuala Lumpur's Public Urban Rail Transit Network.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rui Ding

Full Text Available Recently, the number of studies involving complex network applications in transportation has increased steadily as scholars from various fields analyze traffic networks. Nonetheless, research on rail network growth is relatively rare. This research examines the evolution of the Public Urban Rail Transit Networks of Kuala Lumpur (PURTNoKL based on complex network theory and covers both the topological structure of the rail system and future trends in network growth. In addition, network performance when facing different attack strategies is also assessed. Three topological network characteristics are considered: connections, clustering and centrality. In PURTNoKL, we found that the total number of nodes and edges exhibit a linear relationship and that the average degree stays within the interval [2.0488, 2.6774] with heavy-tailed distributions. The evolutionary process shows that the cumulative probability distribution (CPD of degree and the average shortest path length show good fit with exponential distribution and normal distribution, respectively. Moreover, PURTNoKL exhibits clear cluster characteristics; most of the nodes have a 2-core value, and the CPDs of the centrality's closeness and betweenness follow a normal distribution function and an exponential distribution, respectively. Finally, we discuss four different types of network growth styles and the line extension process, which reveal that the rail network's growth is likely based on the nodes with the biggest lengths of the shortest path and that network protection should emphasize those nodes with the largest degrees and the highest betweenness values. This research may enhance the networkability of the rail system and better shape the future growth of public rail networks.

Rock mass classification system : transition from RMR to GSI.

Science.gov (United States)

2013-11-01

The AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications is expected to replace the rock mass rating : (RMR) system with the Geological Strength Index (GSI) system for classifying and estimating : engineering properties of rock masses. This transition is motivat...

SOAP-T: a tool to study the light curve and radial velocity of a system with a transiting planet and a rotating spotted star

Science.gov (United States)

Oshagh, M.; Boisse, I.; Boué, G.; Montalto, M.; Santos, N. C.; Bonfils, X.; Haghighipour, N.

2013-01-01

We present an improved version of SOAP named "SOAP-T", which can generate the radial velocity variations and light curves for systems consisting of a rotating spotted star with a transiting planet. This tool can be used to study the anomalies inside transit light curves and the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, to better constrain the orbital configuration and properties of planetary systems and the active zones of their host stars. Tests of the code are presented to illustrate its performance and to validate its capability when compared with analytical models and real data. Finally, we apply SOAP-T to the active star, HAT-P-11, observed by the NASA Kepler space telescope and use this system to discuss the capability of this tool in analyzing light curves for the cases where the transiting planet overlaps with the star's spots. The tool's public interface is available at http://www.astro.up.pt/resources/soap-t/

Resource Allocation for Sustainable Urban Transit from a Transport Diversity Perspective

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cheng-Min Feng

2009-11-01

Full Text Available Different transport stakeholders have different needs for transport infrastructure and services. Meeting the needs of all stakeholders implies a trade-off of benefits and costs between supply and demand and creates transport diversity issues. However, the literature has largely ignored these issues. Transport diversity can assess the level to which important needs are satisfied equitably, and monitor whether transportation systems are moving towards sustainability by confirming the targets and basic level of quality of life. Based on the concept of transport diversity, this study utilizes fuzzy multi-objective programming to solve non-linear multi-objective problems involving urban public transit systems to determine the impact of resource allocation on needs satisfaction in relation to stakeholder behaviors. The proposed approach avoids problems of inefficient and inequitable resource allocation. A real-life case is presented to demonstrate the feasibility of applying the proposed methodology. Furthermore, empirical outcomes show that recent investments allocated to public transit systems considered equitable stakeholder satisfaction for both mass rapid transit (MRT and bus, and also promoted transport diversity in the Taipei metropolitan area.

A diverse and resilient financial system for investments in the energy transition

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Polzin, F.H.J.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/413317404; Sanders, M.W.J.L.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/175620059; Täube, Florian

Diversity makes the financial system more resilient. In addition, there is a diverse investment demand to make the transition to a more sustainable energy system. We need, among others, investment in energy transition, circular resource use, better water management and reducing air pollution. The

Effect of Topology Structures on Synchronization Transition in Coupled Neuron Cells System

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liang Li-Si; Zhang Ji-Qian; Xu Gui-Xia; Liu Le-Zhu; Huang Shou-Fang

2013-01-01

In this paper, by the help of evolutionary algorithm and using Hindmarsh—Rose (HR) neuron model, we investigate the effect of topology structures on synchronization transition between different states in coupled neuron cells system. First, we build different coupling structure with N cells, and found the effect of synchronized transition contact not only closely with the topology of the system, but also with whether there exist the ring structures in the system. In particular, both the size and the number of rings have greater effects on such transition behavior. Secondly, we introduce synchronization error to qualitative analyze the effect of the topology structure. Furthermore, by fitting the simulation results, we find that with the increment of the neurons number, there always exist the optimization structures which have the minimum number of connecting edges in the coupling systems. Above results show that the topology structures have a very crucial role on synchronization transition in coupled neuron system. Biological system may gradually acquire such efficient topology structures through the long-term evolution, thus the systems' information process may be optimized by this scheme. (interdisciplinary physics and related areas of science and technology)

49 CFR 38.103 - Public information system.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 49 Transportation 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Public information system. 38.103 Section 38.103... SPECIFICATIONS FOR TRANSPORTATION VEHICLES Commuter Rail Cars and Systems § 38.103 Public information system. (a... information. Alternative systems or devices which provide equivalent access are also permitted. (b) [Reserved] ...

49 CFR 38.87 - Public information system.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 49 Transportation 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Public information system. 38.87 Section 38.87... SPECIFICATIONS FOR TRANSPORTATION VEHICLES Light Rail Vehicles and Systems § 38.87 Public information system. (a... information. Alternative systems or devices which provide equivalent access are also permitted. (b) [Reserved] ...

The effect of public transit on social opportunities for ethnic minority populations : case study of Huston-Tillotson University students.

Science.gov (United States)

2011-03-01

Travel time to destinations in the Austin area continues to rise during both peak and off-peak hours. With : increased congestion and higher gas prices, some individuals are traveling more selectively and viewing public : transit as a cost-saving alt...

78 FR 61251 - The National Public Transportation Safety Plan, the Public Transportation Agency Safety Plan, and...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-10-03

...-0030] RIN 2132-AB20; 2132-AB07 The National Public Transportation Safety Plan, the Public Transportation Agency Safety Plan, and the Public Transportation Safety Certification Training Program; Transit... Public Transportation Safety Program (National Safety Program) and the requirements of the new transit...

Tradeoffs between costs and greenhouse gas emissions in the design of urban transit systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Griswold, Julia B; Madanat, Samer; Horvath, Arpad

2013-01-01

Recent investments in the transit sector to address greenhouse gas emissions have concentrated on purchasing efficient replacement vehicles and inducing mode shift from the private automobile. There has been little focus on the potential of network and operational improvements, such as changes in headways, route spacing, and stop spacing, to reduce transit emissions. Most models of transit system design consider user and agency cost while ignoring emissions and the potential environmental benefit of operational improvements. We use a model to evaluate the user and agency costs as well as greenhouse gas benefit of design and operational improvements to transit systems. We examine how the operational characteristics of urban transit systems affect both costs and greenhouse gas emissions. The research identifies the Pareto frontier for designing an idealized transit network. Modes considered include bus, bus rapid transit (BRT), light rail transit (LRT), and metro (heavy) rail, with cost and emissions parameters appropriate for the United States. Passenger demand follows a many-to-many travel pattern with uniformly distributed origins and destinations. The approaches described could be used to optimize the network design of existing bus service or help to select a mode and design attributes for a new transit system. The results show that BRT provides the lowest cost but not the lowest emissions for our large city scenarios. Bus and LRT systems have low costs and the lowest emissions for our small city scenarios. Relatively large reductions in emissions from the cost-optimal system can be achieved with only minor increases in user travel time. (letter)

Implementing energy transition - A legal deciphering

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bain-Thouverez, Justine; Romi, Raphael; Chautard, Thomas

2016-07-01

As the French law on energy transition reconfigures many parameters of implementation of public action, the authors propose a cross-referenced reading of this law, of the law for new organisation of territories (NOTRe) in its environmental dimension, and of the regulation which results from these legal standards, in order to have a better view on public action in terms of abilities, and of action and financial levers. In a first part, the author discuss the relationships of energy transition with State, regions, districts, EPCI (communal collaboration public body), communes, and public bodies. In the second part, they address the new levers for action, and finally address the financing of energy transition (financing funds, third-party financing companies)

Hawaiian hydrogen mass transit system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Russell, G.W.; Russell, A.

1990-01-01

This paper proposes a joint effort between the scientific and business communities; to create, make and have hydrogen fuel become the primary fuel of the future. Hawaii has abundant, unharnessed renewable resources yet imports almost all of its fuel. Initiating hydrogen production and industrial application in conjunction with a prototype pilot project such as this mass transit system would not only accomplish the joining of science and business but give an environmentally safe energy alternative to the state and people of Hawaii and hopefully the world

Theory of quantum metal to superconductor transitions in highly conducting systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Spivak, B.

2010-04-06

We derive the theory of the quantum (zero temperature) superconductor to metal transition in disordered materials when the resistance of the normal metal near criticality is small compared to the quantum of resistivity. This can occur most readily in situations in which 'Anderson's theorem' does not apply. We explicitly study the transition in superconductor-metal composites, in an swave superconducting film in the presence of a magnetic field, and in a low temperature disordered d-wave superconductor. Near the point of the transition, the distribution of the superconducting order parameter is highly inhomogeneous. To describe this situation we employ a procedure which is similar to that introduced by Mott for description of the temperature dependence of the variable range hopping conduction. As the system approaches the point of the transition from the metal to the superconductor, the conductivity of the system diverges, and the Wiedemann-Franz law is violated. In the case of d-wave (or other exotic) superconductors we predict the existence of (at least) two sequential transitions as a function of increasing disorder: a d-wave to s-wave, and then an s-wave to metal transition.

Transiting planetary system WASP-17 (Southworth+, 2012)

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Southworth, J.; Hinse, T. C.; Dominik, M.

2013-01-01

A light curve of four transits of the extrasolar planetary system WASP-17 is presented. The data were obtained using the Danish 1.5m telescope and DFOSC camera at ESO La Silla in 2012, with substantial telescope defocussing in order to improve the photometric precision of the observations...

Hyperchaos-chaos-hyperchaos transition in modified Roessler systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nikolov, Svetoslav; Clodong, Sebastien

2006-01-01

We consider in this paper a family of modified hyperchaotic Roessler systems and investigate both problems of understanding hyperchaos-chaos-hyperchaos transition and computing the prediction time. These systems were obtained and numerically investigated by Nikolov and Clodong [Nikolov S, Clodong S. Occurrence of regular, chaotic and hyperchaotic behavior in a family of modified Rossler hyperchaotic systems. Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 2004;22:407-31]. Our studies confirm that transition hyperchaos-chaos-hyperchaos (i) depends on the change of the sign of the corresponding characteristic equation roots or (ii) can be obtained as a result of the absorption/repulsion of the repeller originally located out of the attractor by the growing attractor. It is also shown that the prediction time is a more reliable predictor of the evolution than the information dimension. We conclude that the prediction time in hyperchaotic regimes is at least one order of magnitude smaller than those in chaotic zones

Risk Assessment on the Transition Program for Air Traffic Control Automation System Upgrade

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Li Dong Bin

2016-01-01

Full Text Available We analyzed the safety risks of the transition program for Air Traffic Control (ATC automation system upgrade by using the event tree analysis method in this paper. We decomposed the occurrence progress of the three transition phase and built the event trees corresponding to the three stages, and then we determined the probability of success of each factor and calculated probability of success of the air traffic control automation system upgrade transition. In the conclusion, we illustrate the transition program safety risk according to the results.

Three Transits for the Price of One: Super-Earth Transits of the Nearest Planetary System Discovered By Kepler/K2

Science.gov (United States)

Redfield, Seth; Niraula, Prajwal; Hedges, Christina; Crossfield, Ian; Kreidberg, Laura; Greene, Tom; Rodriguez, Joey; Vanderburg, Andrew; Laughlin, Gregory; Millholland, Sarah; Wang, Songhu; Cochran, William; Livingston, John; Gandolfi, Davide; Guenther, Eike; Fridlund, Malcolm; Korth, Judith

2018-05-01

We propose primary transit observations of three Super-Earth planets in the newly discovered planetary system around a bright, nearby star, GJ 9827. We recently announced the detection of three super-Earth planets in 1:3:5 commensurability, the inner planet, GJ 9827 b having a period of 1.2 days. This is the nearest planetary system that Kepler or K2 has found, at 30 pc, and given its brightness is one of the top systems for follow-up characterization. This system presents a unique opportunity to acquire three planetary transits for the price of one. There are several opportunities in the Spitzer visibility windows to obtain all three transits in a short period of time. We propose 3.6 micron observations of all three Super-Earth transits in a single 18-hour observation window. The proximity to a 1:3:5 resonance is intriguing from a dynamical standpoint as well. Indeed, anomalous transit timing offsets have been measured for planet d in Hubble observations that suffer from partial phase coverage. The short cadence and extended coverage of Spitzer is essential to provide a firm determination of the ephemerides and characterize any transit timing variations. Constraining these orbital parameters is critical for follow-up observations from space and ground-based telescopes. Due to the brightness of the host star, this planetary system is likely to be extensively observed in the years to come. Indeed, our team has acquired observations of the planets orbiting GJ9827 with Hubble in the ultraviolet and infrared. The proposed observations will provide infrared atmospheric measurements and firm orbital characterization which is critical for planning and designing future observations, in particular atmospheric characterization with JWST.

Theory of constraints for publicly funded health systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Sadat, Somayeh; Carter, Michael W; Golden, Brian

2013-03-01

Originally developed in the context of publicly traded for-profit companies, theory of constraints (TOC) improves system performance through leveraging the constraint(s). While the theory seems to be a natural fit for resource-constrained publicly funded health systems, there is a lack of literature addressing the modifications required to adopt TOC and define the goal and performance measures. This paper develops a system dynamics representation of the classical TOC's system-wide goal and performance measures for publicly traded for-profit companies, which forms the basis for developing a similar model for publicly funded health systems. The model is then expanded to include some of the factors that affect system performance, providing a framework to apply TOC's process of ongoing improvement in publicly funded health systems. Future research is required to more accurately define the factors affecting system performance and populate the model with evidence-based estimates for various parameters in order to use the model to guide TOC's process of ongoing improvement.

Heat capacity for systems with excited-state quantum phase transitions

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cejnar, Pavel; Stránský, Pavel, E-mail: stransky@ipnp.troja.mff.cuni.cz

2017-03-18

Heat capacities of model systems with finite numbers of effective degrees of freedom are evaluated using canonical and microcanonical thermodynamics. Discrepancies between both approaches, which are observed even in the infinite-size limit, are particularly large in systems that exhibit an excited-state quantum phase transition. The corresponding irregularity of the spectrum generates a singularity in the microcanonical heat capacity and affects smoothly the canonical heat capacity. - Highlights: • Thermodynamics of systems with excited-state quantum phase transitions • ESQPT-generated singularities of the microcanonical heat capacity • Non-monotonous dependences of the canonical heat capacity • Discord between canonical and microcanonical pictures in the infinite-size limit.

Pairing symmetry transitions in the even-denominator FQHE system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nomura, Kentaro; Yoshioka, Daijiro

2001-01-01

Transitions from a paired quantum Hall state to another quantum Hall state in bilayer systems are discussed in the framework of the edge theory. Starting from the edge theory for the Haldane-Rezayi state, it is shown that the charging effect of a bilayer system which breaks the SU (2) symmetry of the pseudospin shifts the central charge and the conformal dimensions of the fermionic fields which describe the pseudospin sector in the edge theory. This corresponds to the transition from the Haldane-Rezayi state to Halperin's 331 state, or from a singlet d-wave to a triplet p-wave ABM type paired state in the composite fermion picture. Considering interlayer tunneling, the tunneling rate-capacitance phase diagram for the ν=5/2 paired bilayer system is discussed. (author)

Pairing Symmetry Transitions in the Even-Denominator FQHE System

Science.gov (United States)

Nomura, Kentaro; Yoshioka, Daijiro

2001-12-01

Transitions from a paired quantum Hall state to another quantum Hall state in bilayer systems are discussed in the framework of the edge theory. Starting from the edge theory for the Haldane Rezayi state, it is shown that the charging effect of a bilayer system which breaks the SU(2) symmetry of the pseudospin shifts the central charge and the conformal dimensions of the fermionic fields which describe the pseudospin sector in the edge theory. This corresponds to the transition from the Haldane Rezayi state to Halperin's 331 state, or from a singlet d-wave to a triplet p-wave ABM type paired state in the composite fermion picture. Considering interlayer tunneling, the tunneling rate-capacitance phase diagram for the ν=5/2 paired bilayer system is discussed.

An assessment method for system innovation and transition (AMSIT)

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bos, Marc W.; Hofman, Erwin; Kuhlmann, Stefan

2016-01-01

To address comprehensive system innovations that may occur in a future transition, a suitable ex ante assessment method is required. The technological innovation system approach is useful for the retrospective study of the conditions for success or failure of innovation trajectories, and the

Developing effective mass transit systems : proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Public Transportation

Science.gov (United States)

2007-09-01

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA), in conjunction with the U.S. Embassy, the Russian Ministry of Transportation, the City of Moscow, and the Ministry of Transport of the Moscow Oblast (Regional) Government, hosted a bilateral conference to dis...

Transit Timing Observations from Kepler: III. Confirmation of 4 Multiple Planet Systems by a Fourier-Domain Study of Anti-correlated Transit Timing Variations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Steffen, Jason H.; /Fermilab; Fabrycky, Daniel C.; /Lick Observ.; Ford, Eric B.; /Florida U.; Carter, Joshua A.; /Harvard-Smithsonian Ctr. Astrophys.; Fressin, Francois; /Harvard-Smithsonian Ctr. Astrophys.; Holman, Matthew J.; /Harvard-Smithsonian Ctr. Astrophys.; Lissauer, Jack J.; /NASA, Ames; Rowe, Jason F.; /SETI Inst., Mtn. View /NASA, Ames; Ragozzine, Darin; /Harvard-Smithsonian Ctr. Astrophys.; Welsh, William F.; /Caltech; Borucki, William J.; /NASA, Ames /UC, Santa Barbara

2012-01-01

We present a method to confirm the planetary nature of objects in systems with multiple transiting exoplanet candidates. This method involves a Fourier-domain analysis of the deviations in the transit times from a constant period that result from dynamical interactions within the system. The combination of observed anticorrelations in the transit times and mass constraints from dynamical stability allow us to claim the discovery of four planetary systems, Kepler-25, Kepler-26, Kepler-27 and Kepler-28, containing eight planets and one additional planet candidate.

The Transition of Military Personnel to Public Educatiion

OpenAIRE

West, Richard Wayne

2000-01-01

This is a qualitative study of second-career military personnel who have become teachers after they completed an alternative certification program. Factors that contributed to the transition of second-career military teachers to the classroom were examined. Obstacles the teachers encountered during the transition were also examined. How well the alternative certification program prepared the participants for selected components of teaching in this study was determined. Finally, the beginnin...

PUBLIC PROCUREMENT SYSTEM IN RUSSIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alla V. Trofimovskaya

2013-01-01

Full Text Available This article contains information on the theoretical-methodological research of the Institute of public procurement. The focus is on the consideration of the implementation of the priority tasks for the state contract system and the role in their solving that regional level of management can play. Opportunities in the sphere of state regulation, that Moscow, as the subject of the Federation, has, are educed in the article. The problem of transformation the existing contractual mechanisms for the formation of the model of public contract system, is studied.

Web-Based Collaborative Publications System: R&Tserve

Science.gov (United States)

Abrams, Steve

1997-01-01

R&Tserve is a publications system based on 'commercial, off-the-shelf' (COTS) software that provides a persistent, collaborative workspace for authors and editors to support the entire publication development process from initial submission, through iterative editing in a hierarchical approval structure, and on to 'publication' on the WWW. It requires no specific knowledge of the WWW (beyond basic use) or HyperText Markup Language (HTML). Graphics and URLs are automatically supported. The system includes a transaction archive, a comments utility, help functionality, automated graphics conversion, automated table generation, and an email-based notification system. It may be configured and administered via the WWW and can support publications ranging from single page documents to multiple-volume 'tomes'.

Florida public transportation anti-terrorism resource guide

Science.gov (United States)

2001-10-01

The Center for Urban Transportation (CUTR) at the University of South Florida (USF) assembled this guide to provide public transit agencies in Florida with information on current resources available to assist them with improving system security and g...

Analyzing the Historical Development and Transition of the Korean Health Care System.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Sang-Yi; Kim, Chul-Woung; Seo, Nam-Kyu; Lee, Seung Eun

2017-08-01

Many economically advanced countries have attempted to minimize public expenditures and pursue privatization based on the principles of neo-liberalism. However, Korea has moved contrary to this global trend. This study examines why and how the Korean health care system was formed, developed, and transformed into an integrated, single-insurer, National Health Insurance (NHI) system. We describe the transition in the Korean health care system using an analytical framework that incorporates such critical variables as government economic development strategies and the relationships among social forces, state autonomy, and state power. This study focuses on how the relationships among social forces can change as a nation's economic development or governing strategy changes in response to changes in international circumstances such as globalization. The corporatist Social Health Insurance (SHI) system (multiple insurers) introduced in 1977 was transformed into the single-insurer NHI in July 2000. These changes were influenced externally by globalization and internally by political democratization, keeping Korea's private-dominant health care provision system unchanged over several decades. Major changes such as integration reform occurred, when high levels of state autonomy were ensured. The state's power (its policy capability), based on health care infrastructures, acts to limit the direction of any change in the health care system because it is very difficult to build the infrastructure for a health care system in a short timeframe.

Watching the Evolution of the American Family? Amazon's Transparent, Ecological Systems Theory, and the Changing Dynamics of Public Opinion.

Science.gov (United States)

Becker, Amy B; Todd, Maureen E

2018-01-01

Using Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological systems theory as an organizing framework, the research closely examines the text of the Amazon Studios hit show Transparent and, by extension, the evolution of public opinion toward transgender individuals. By examining the Pfefferman family in detail and their related microsystem and macrosystem, we are able to closely unpack the transition of Jeffrey Tambor's character from Mort to Maura and the show's connections with broader developments in the Los Angeles LGBT community and the Jewish diaspora in postwar and contemporary Los Angeles. In addition, by focusing on the influence of the chronosystem, we are able to examine how both opinions toward Maura and public opinion toward transgender issues more generally have evolved within the family system and the larger American community over time.

Transitions of social-ecological subsistence systems in the Arctic

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Per Fauchald

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Transitions of social-ecological systems (SES expose governance systems to new challenges. This is particularly so in the Arctic where resource systems are increasingly subjected to global warming, industrial development and globalization which subsequently alter the local SES dynamics. Based on common-pool resource theory, we developed a dynamic conceptual model explaining how exogenous drivers might alter a traditional subsistence system from a provisioning to an appropriation actions situation. In a provisioning action situation the resource users do not control the resource level but adapt to the fluctuating availability of resources, and the collective challenge revolve around securing the subsistence in the community. An increased harvest pressure enabled by exogenous drivers could transform the SES to an appropriation action situation where the collective challenge has changed to avoid overuse of a common-pool resource. The model was used as a focal lens to investigate the premises for broad-scale transitions of subsistence-oriented SESs in Arctic Alaska, Canada and Greenland. We synthesized data from documents, official statistics and grey and scientific literature to explore the different components of our model. Our synthesis suggests that the traditional Arctic subsistence SESs mostly comply with a provisioning action situation. Despite population growth and available technology; urbanization, increased wage labor and importation of food have reduced the resource demand, and we find no evidence for a broad-scale transition to an appropriation action situation throughout the Western Arctic. However, appropriation ­challenges have emerged in some cases either as a consequence of commercialization of the resource or by severely reduced resource stocks due to various exogenous drivers. Future transitions of SESs could be triggered by the emergence of commercial local food markets and Arctic warming. In particular, Arctic warming is an

System impact research - increasing public health and health care system performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Malmivaara, Antti

2016-01-01

Interventions directed to system features of public health and health care should increase health and welfare of patients and population. To build a new framework for studies aiming to assess the impact of public health or health care system, and to consider the role of Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) and of Benchmarking Controlled Trials (BCTs). The new concept is partly based on the author's previous paper on the Benchmarking Controlled Trial. The validity and generalizability considerations were based on previous methodological studies on RCTs and BCTs. The new concept System Impact Research (SIR) covers all the studies which aim to assess the impact of the public health system or of the health care system on patients or on population. There are two kinds of studies in System Impact Research: Benchmarking Controlled Trials (observational) and Randomized Controlled Trials (experimental). The term impact covers in particular accessibility, quality, effectiveness, safety, efficiency, and equality. System Impact Research - creating the scientific basis for policy decision making - should be given a high priority in medical, public health and health economic research, and should also be used for improving performance. Leaders at all levels of health and social care can use the evidence from System Impact Research for the benefit of patients and population. Key messages The new concept of SIR is defined as a research field aiming at assessing the impacts on patients and on populations of features of public health and health and social care systems or of interventions trying to change these features. SIR covers all features of public health and health and social care system, and actions upon these features. The term impact refers to all effects caused by the public health and health and social care system or parts of it, with particular emphasis on accessibility, quality, effectiveness, adverse effects, efficiency, and equality of services. SIR creates the

DEVELOPING GIS-BASED DEMAND-RESPONSIVE TRANSIT SYSTEM IN TEHRAN CITY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

H. Faroqi

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Create, maintain and development of public transport network in metropolitan are important problems in the field of urban transport management. In public transport, maximize the efficient use of public fleet capacity has been considered. Concepts and technologies of GIS have provided suitable way for management and optimization of the public transports systems. In demand-responsive public transportation system, firstly fellow traveller groups have been established for applicants based on spatial concepts and tools of GIS, second for each group according to its’ members and their paths, a public vehicle has been allocated to them then based on dynamic routing, the fellow passenger group has been gathered from their origins and has been moved to their destinations through optimal route. The suggested system has been implemented based on network data and commuting trips statistics of 1 to 6 districts in Tehran city. Evaluation performed on the results show the 34% increase using of Taxi capacity, 13% increase using of Van capacity and 10% increase using of Bus capacity in comparison between current public transport system and suggested public transportation system has been improved.

Consensus based Nuclear Public-Hearing system Model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Young Wook; Cho, Young Ho; Shin, Dong Hoon; Ko, Hyun Seok; Kim, Suk Hoon; Kang, Chang Sun

2006-01-01

For public participation, Korea has a system of Public-Hearing in accordance with the law. Because of the absence of the detailed way for public opinion aggregation and for the reflection of the aggregated opinion, Korean Public-Hearing system is only a concept model. In this study, to share the right of decision making, which is an ultimate concept for public participation, components of decision making and the characteristics of each phase are analyzed. It could be said that the relative weight of attributes for assessment and comparison with alternatives are founded as a valuation factor of the decision making, which should be based on the social consensus

Strongly correlated electron systems and neutron scattering. Magnetism, superconductivity, structural phase transition

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Katano, Susumu [Japan Atomic Energy Research Inst., Tokai, Ibaraki (Japan). Tokai Research Establishment

1998-03-01

Neutron scattering experiments in our group on strongly correlated electron systems are reviewed Metal-insulator transitions caused by structural phase transitions in (La{sub 1-x}Sr{sub x}) MnO{sub 3}, a novel magnetic transition in the CeP compound, correlations between antiferromagnetism and superconductivity in UPd{sub 2}Al{sub 3} and so forth are discussed. Here, in this note, the phase transition of Mn-oxides was mainly described. (author)

Phase transitions, nonequilibrium dynamics, and critical behavior of strongly interacting systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mottola, E.; Bhattacharya, T.; Cooper, F.

1998-01-01

This is the final report of a three-year, Laboratory Directed Research and Development project at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In this effort, large-scale simulations of strongly interacting systems were performed and a variety of approaches to the nonequilibrium dynamics of phase transitions and critical behavior were investigated. Focus areas included (1) the finite-temperature quantum chromodynamics phase transition and nonequilibrium dynamics of a new phase of matter (the quark-gluon plasma) above the critical temperature, (2) nonequilibrium dynamics of a quantum fields using mean field theory, and (3) stochastic classical field theoretic models with applications to spinodal decomposition and structural phase transitions in a variety of systems, such as spin chains and shape memory alloys

Phase transitions, nonequilibrium dynamics, and critical behavior of strongly interacting systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mottola, E.; Bhattacharya, T.; Cooper, F. [and others

1998-12-31

This is the final report of a three-year, Laboratory Directed Research and Development project at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In this effort, large-scale simulations of strongly interacting systems were performed and a variety of approaches to the nonequilibrium dynamics of phase transitions and critical behavior were investigated. Focus areas included (1) the finite-temperature quantum chromodynamics phase transition and nonequilibrium dynamics of a new phase of matter (the quark-gluon plasma) above the critical temperature, (2) nonequilibrium dynamics of a quantum fields using mean field theory, and (3) stochastic classical field theoretic models with applications to spinodal decomposition and structural phase transitions in a variety of systems, such as spin chains and shape memory alloys.

To finance the transition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Regnier, Yannick; Maciel, Guillaume; Zeroual, Bouchra; Leca, Christel; Guillou, Maelle; Mossalgue, Marc; Raguet, Alex; Sabot, Guillaume; Coton, Patrice; Olesen, Gunnar Boye; Friggens, Sam; Pouyet, Regis; Blanc, Nicolas; Laurent, Pierre; Ruedinger, Andreas

2013-01-01

A set of brief articles illustrates the emergence of innovating and operational financing tools aimed at supporting energy transition in France and in Europe. As far as France is concerned, different examples are evoked: raising local savings, crowd-funding for renewable energies, citizen investment, cooperation between industries, communities and citizens, a semi-public company with citizen participation, the case of the Nancy urban community, a joint experience by a local public company and an investment fund. As far as Europe is concerned, the following topics or examples are evoked: local policies as lever for European financing, the Danish example of citizen-based financing, crowd-funding in the UK, the European emergence of cooperatives. As far as banks and institutions are concerned, the following topics are addressed: tools implemented by the Caisse des Depots for energy transition, the roles of banks and of public institutions in the financing of energy transition

State transition storyboards: A tool for designing the Goldstone solar system radar data acquisition system user interface software

Science.gov (United States)

Howard, S. D.

1987-01-01

Effective user interface design in software systems is a complex task that takes place without adequate modeling tools. By combining state transition diagrams and the storyboard technique of filmmakers, State Transition Storyboards were developed to provide a detailed modeling technique for the Goldstone Solar System Radar Data Acquisition System human-machine interface. Illustrations are included with a description of the modeling technique.

A universal indicator of critical state transitions in noisy complex networked systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Liang, Junhao; Hu, Yanqing; Chen, Guanrong; Zhou, Tianshou

2017-02-23

Critical transition, a phenomenon that a system shifts suddenly from one state to another, occurs in many real-world complex networks. We propose an analytical framework for exactly predicting the critical transition in a complex networked system subjected to noise effects. Our prediction is based on the characteristic return time of a simple one-dimensional system derived from the original higher-dimensional system. This characteristic time, which can be easily calculated using network data, allows us to systematically separate the respective roles of dynamics, noise and topology of the underlying networked system. We find that the noise can either prevent or enhance critical transitions, playing a key role in compensating the network structural defect which suffers from either internal failures or environmental changes, or both. Our analysis of realistic or artificial examples reveals that the characteristic return time is an effective indicator for forecasting the sudden deterioration of complex networks.

Public health in Kosovo after five difficult years of independence

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Naim Jerliu

2015-12-01

administration. Regarding the health status, five years after independence, compared with other European countries, post-war transitional Kosovo is still characterized by higher mortality rates including traditional public health problems pertinent to infant mortality and maternal deaths. In parallel, however, Kosovo is undergoing a rapid process of epidemiological transition characterized by an aging trend which is inevitably coupled with high cardiovascular and cancer mortality and morbidity along with an excess mortality in external causes of death and injuries among the adult population. Adoption of the new Health Law in December 2012 by the Kosovo Assembly aims the transition from centralized health care system established under emergency conditions of the post-war period towards a contemporary modern health care system with a clear purchaser-provider split based on a high transparency and accountability of the health care providers and their contractors. The health care reform, leading eventually to significant changes within the health sector in Kosovo, consists of two main pillars: (i structural and functional reorganization of the health care system through establishment of Kosovo Health Service (an autonomous and non-for-profit public enterprise at central level of the health care sector, and; (ii establishment for the first time of the public health insurance system with a Health Insurance Fund as its main body. Nevertheless, five years after declaration of independence, Kosovo, the newest state in Europe consisting of the youngest population, is currently facing a particularly difficult socioeconomic and political transition and is additionally struggling and mainstreaming all energies and efforts in order to get full international recognition.

Europe’s electricity regime: restoration or thorough transition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aviel Verbruggen

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Concerns about climate change, diminishing social acceptance of traditional fuels, and technological innovations have led several countries to pursue energy transition strategies, typically by massive diffusion of renewable electricity supplies. The German ‘Energiewende’ has been successful so far in terms of deploying renewable power, mainly by applying particular feed-in tariffs, and by bundling public, academic, industrial and political support. So far though, only few EU member states proceed with a similar transition. In March 2014 CEOs of Europe’s major energy companies publicly opposed a fast and thorough transformation of electricity supplies to become fully renewable. In April 2014 the European Commission published new state aid guidelines, generally mandating renewable energy support mechanisms (premiums, tenders of lesser performance than regularly adjusted, specific feed-in tariffs. The new guidelines are likely to be pernicious for the fast deployment of renewable electricity supplies. In light of these challenges, this position paper highlights two implications of power sector transitions. First, the engineering-economics theory of power generation systems needs fundamental revision, mainly since a growing share of power sources no longer function on command. Second, and based on the experience in Germany, the paper sketches out a strategy for a thorough transition of the power sector, which, in the end, also entails normative judgements. Deep changes in energy systems and associated ways of living require societal consensus building based on ethical considerations.

The Malaysian Public Procurement's Prevalent System and its Weaknesses

OpenAIRE

Rohana Othman; Husein Zakaria; Norlaili Nordin; Zamzam Shahidan; Kamaruzaman Jusoff

2010-01-01

Problem statement: This study examined the public procurement system as prevalent in the Malaysian government system of administration. Various aspects of public procurement are outlined including types and the processes that entail public procurement. This study also highlighted the weaknesses in the manual public procurement processes that are opened to potential abuse and mismanagement resulting in corruption. This study places the Malaysian Government public procurement system under the s...

Disconnect Between Public Sector Management System and ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

three regional governments, this article exposes how public sector management system (public finance and human resource management system) determines decentralization outcomes. It contends that outcomes of decentralization reforms are shaped not only by political and economic factors, as suggested in the ...

Dissipation-driven quantum phase transitions in collective spin systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Morrison, S; Parkins, A S

2008-01-01

We consider two different collective spin systems subjected to strong dissipation-on the same scale as interaction strengths and external fields-and show that either continuous or discontinuous dissipative quantum phase transitions can occur as the dissipation strength is varied. First, we consider a well-known model of cooperative resonance fluorescence that can exhibit a second-order quantum phase transition, and analyse the entanglement properties near the critical point. Next, we examine a dissipative version of the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick interacting collective spin model, where we find that either first- or second-order quantum phase transitions can occur, depending only on the ratio of the interaction and external field parameters. We give detailed results and interpretation for the steady-state entanglement in the vicinity of the critical point, where it reaches a maximum. For the first-order transition we find that the semiclassical steady states exhibit a region of bistability. (fast track communication)

Shear-induced transitions in a ternary polymeric system

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zvelindovsky, AV; Sevink, GJA; Fraaije, JGEM

The first three-dimensional simulation of shear-induced phase transitions in a polymeric system has been performed. The method is based on dynamic density-functional theory. The pathways between a bicontinuous phase with developing gyroid mesostructure and a lamellar/cylinder phase coexistence are

TRANSIT TIMING VARIATIONS FOR INCLINED AND RETROGRADE EXOPLANETARY SYSTEMS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Payne, Matthew J.; Ford, Eric B.; Veras, Dimitri

2010-01-01

We perform numerical calculations of the expected transit timing variations (TTVs) induced on a hot-Jupiter by an Earth-mass perturber. Motivated by the recent discoveries of retrograde transiting planets, we concentrate on an investigation of the effect of varying relative planetary inclinations, up to and including completely retrograde systems. We find that planets in low-order (e.g., 2:1) mean-motion resonances (MMRs) retain approximately constant TTV amplitudes for 0 deg. 170 deg. Systems in higher order MMRs (e.g., 5:1) increase in TTV amplitude as inclinations increase toward 45 deg., becoming approximately constant for 45 deg. 135 deg. Planets away from resonance slowly decrease in TTV amplitude as inclinations increase from 0 deg. to 180 deg., whereas planets adjacent to resonances can exhibit a huge range of variability in TTV amplitude as a function of both eccentricity and inclination. For highly retrograde systems (135 deg. < i ≤ 180 deg.), TTV signals will be undetectable across almost the entirety of parameter space, with the exceptions occurring when the perturber has high eccentricity or is very close to an MMR. This high inclination decrease in TTV amplitude (on and away from resonance) is important for the analysis of the known retrograde and multi-planet transiting systems, as inclination effects need to be considered if TTVs are to be used to exclude the presence of any putative planetary companions: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The Public Health Practitioner of the Future.

Science.gov (United States)

Erwin, Paul Campbell; Brownson, Ross C

2017-08-01

The requisite capacities and capabilities of the public health practitioner of the future are being driven by multiple forces of change, including public health agency accreditation, climate change, health in all policies, social media and informatics, demographic transitions, globalized travel, and the repercussions of the Affordable Care Act. We describe five critical capacities and capabilities that public health practitioners can build on to successfully prepare for and respond to these forces of change: systems thinking and systems methods, communication capacities, an entrepreneurial orientation, transformational ethics, and policy analysis and response. Equipping the public health practitioner with the requisite capabilities and capacities will require new content and methods for those in public health academia, as well as a recommitment to lifelong learning on the part of the practitioner, within an increasingly uncertain and polarized political environment.

Transit oriented development in Belgrade

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sava Atanacković

2005-01-01

Full Text Available In Belgrade the process of transition from oriental kasaba to European city was long and thwarted by various economic political and social cultural factors. The European ideal still hasn’t been reached. Transition, as a development process in Belgrade, operates by a specific paradoxical inversion – the logic of harmonised development of urban transport, urban form and structure, which in theories of urban planning appears as a postulate, is in Belgrade influenced by incredible, ephemeral, disfigured, yet authentic transformation. However, quality solutions, conclusions and recommendations for further implementation of the idea about introducing the new public transport system, which is part of the main project for the first light metro line in Belgrade, establishment of a united group of experts, investors, negotiators, public opinion and all actors needed to make decisions, united and uncompromising idea about the future image and quality of urban life in Belgrade, have uncovered an until recently untried field of possibilities for transport management coupled with urban development as the optimal and acceptable model. City life could again become dynamic, productive and attractive.

Assessing Sustainability Transition in the US Electrical Power System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stephen McCauley

2010-02-01

Full Text Available This paper examines sustainability transition dynamics in the US electricity system, drawing on the socio-technical systems approach. We view system change as unfolding along several critical dimensions and geographical scales, including dynamics in the environment, science, civil society, discourse, and state regulatory institutions, as well as in capital and technology formations. A particular emphasis is given to the interaction of discourses, policy networks, and institutions. We trace four distinct regimes which have characterized the evolution of this discourse-network-institutional nexus over the last century. The research examines dynamics that present a challenge to the incumbent energy regime based on fossil fuels, nuclear and hydropower, and demonstrates how the actor-network supporting renewables and energy efficiency has grown stronger and more capable of moving toward a sustainability transition than at any time since the sustainable energy movement began a generation ago.

Women, transition and strikes in Serbia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Novaković Nada G.

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The author, in a sociological way, describes and analyzes the concepts of transition, privatization and strikes in Serbia, particularly the place of women in it. It examines the most important economic and social causes and consequences of these phenomena. The main hypothesis is: women's strikes in the Serbian transition are less efficient than strikes and public protests of women in the developed world and the second Yugoslavia. A strike is a class conflict, in which the workers are fighting for their social and economic rights, threatened by the capitalist class. Elites in government and state authorities protect the interests of big capital at the detriment of the interests of the majority of workers. Exploring women's strikes in transition reveals the nature of the social and political system. Their strikes in enterprises, the blocking of public spaces and public protests are systemic, ie. class determined. As the transition was very fast, the resistance of the strikers was inefficient, and the protests of women became an expression of desperation against the loss of jobs and basic resources for lifehood. In short, this research is about the main causes, the organizational forms and the consequences of strikes in which the majority were women. For this purpose, the author chose to describe an array of strikes in the industries and the companies where women are most employed. The choice of strikes in the economic sector is not accidental, but a consequence of the fact that the women there were the most vulnerable. Women in public institutions and companies had much higher financial and social position. They are less likely to strike and publicly protested. After 2000, these strikes were more successful than worker's strikes in textile, food processing, manufacturing and trade. Relationship between the government and the public towards them was tainted by self-interest and selective. The main criterion for the selection of companies and

78 FR 19357 - Allocation of Public Transportation Emergency Relief Funds in Response to Hurricane Sandy

Science.gov (United States)

2013-03-29

... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Transit Administration Allocation of Public Transportation...) announces the allocation of $2,000,000,000 under the Public Transportation Emergency Relief Program... after an emergency or major disaster that affects public transportation systems. The Appropriations Act...

Regional Gastrointestinal Transit Times in Patients With Carcinoid Diarrhea: Assessment With the Novel 3D-Transit System.

Science.gov (United States)

Gregersen, Tine; Haase, Anne-Mette; Schlageter, Vincent; Gronbaek, Henning; Krogh, Klaus

2015-07-30

The paucity of knowledge regarding gastrointestinal motility in patients with neuroendocrine tumors and carcinoid diarrhea re-stricts targeted treatment. 3D-Transit is a novel, minimally invasive, ambulatory method for description of gastrointestinal motility. The system has not yet been evaluated in any group of patients. We aimed to test the performance of 3D-Transit in patients with carcinoid diarrhea and to compare the patients' regional gastrointestinal transit times (GITT) and colonic motility patterns with those of healthy subjects. Fifteen healthy volunteers and seven patients with neuroendocrine tumor and at least 3 bowel movements per day were inves-tigated with 3D-Transit and standard radiopaque markers. Total GITT assessed with 3D-Transit and radiopaque markers were well correlated (Spearman's rho = 0.64, P = 0.002). Median total GITT was 12.5 (range: 8.5-47.2) hours in patients versus 25.1 (range: 13.1-142.3) hours in healthy (P = 0.007). There was no difference in gastric emptying (P = 0.778). Median small intestinal transit time was 3.8 (range: 1.4-5.5) hours in patients versus 4.4 (range: 1.8-7.2) hours in healthy subjects (P = 0.044). Median colorectal transit time was 5.2 (range: 2.9-40.1) hours in patients versus 18.1 (range: 5.0-134.0) hours in healthy subjects (P = 0.012). Median frequency of pansegmental co-lonic movements was 0.45 (range: 0.03-1.02) per hour in patients and 0.07 (range: 0-0.61) per hour in healthy subjects (P = 0.045). Three-dimensional Transit allows assessment of regional GITT in patients with diarrhea. Patients with carcinoid diarrhea have faster than normal gastrointestinal transit due to faster small intestinal and colorectal transit times. The latter is caused by an increased frequency of pansegmental colonic movements.

Structural transitions and hysteresis in clump- and stripe-forming systems under dynamic compression

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

McDermott, Danielle; Reichhardt, Charles

2016-01-01

In using numerical simulations, we study the dynamical evolution of particles interacting via competing long-range repulsion and short-range attraction in two dimensions. The particles are compressed using a time-dependent quasi-one dimensional trough potential that controls the local density, causing the system to undergo a series of structural phase transitions from a low density clump lattice to stripes, voids, and a high density uniform state. The compression proceeds via slow elastic motion that is interrupted with avalanche-like bursts of activity as the system collapses to progressively higher densities via plastic rearrangements. The plastic events vary in magnitude from small rearrangements of particles, including the formation of quadrupole-like defects, to large-scale vorticity and structural phase transitions. In the dense uniform phase, the system compresses through row reduction transitions mediated by a disorder-order process. We also characterize the rearrangement events by measuring changes in the potential energy, the fraction of sixfold coordinated particles, the local density, and the velocity distribution. At high confinements, we find power law scaling of the velocity distribution during row reduction transitions. We observe hysteresis under a reversal of the compression when relatively few plastic rearrangements occur. The decompressing system exhibits distinct phase morphologies, and the phase transitions occur at lower compression forces as the system expands compared to when it is compressed.

Integration of multi-modal public transportation systems.

Science.gov (United States)

2013-05-01

Transit ridership may be sensitive to fares, travel times, waiting times, and access times, among other factors. Thus, : elastic demands are considered in formulations for maximizing the system welfare for conventional and flexible bus : services. Tw...

Best practices in transit service planning : final report, March 2009.

Science.gov (United States)

2009-03-01

The provision of cost efficient and effective bus transit service is the basic premise upon which transit service is developed and the goal that all public transportations agencies strive to achieve. To attain this goal, public transit agencies must ...

Flexible fuel cycle system for the transition from LWR to FBR

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fukasawa, Tetsuo; Yamashita, Junichi; Hoshino, Kuniyoshi; Sasahira, Akira; Inoue, Tadashi; Minato, Kazuo; Sato, Seichi

2009-01-01

Japan will deploy commercial fast breeder reactor (FBR) from around 2050 under the suitable conditions for the replacement of light water reactor (LWR) with FBR. The transition scenario from LWR to FBR is investigated in detail and the flexible fuel cycle initiative (FFCI) system has been proposed as a optimum transition system. The FFCI removes ∼95% uranium from LWR spent fuel (SF) in LWR reprocessing and residual material named Recycle Material (RM), which is ∼1/10 volume of original SF and contains ∼50% U, ∼10% Pu and ∼40% other nuclides, is treated in FBR reprocessing to recover Pu and U. If the FBR deployment speed becomes lower, the RM will be stored until the higher speed again. The FFCI has some merits compared with ordinary system that consists of full reprocessing facilities for both LWR and FBR SF during the transition period. The economy is better for FFCI due to the smaller LWR reprocessing facility (no Pu/U recovery and fabrication). The FFCI can supply high Pu concentration RM, which has high proliferation resistance and flexibly respond to FBR introduction rate changes. Volume minimization of LWR SF is possible for FFCI by its conversion to RM. Several features of FFCI were quantitatively evaluated such as Pu mass balance, reprocessing capacities, LWR SF amounts, RM amounts, and proliferation resistance to compare the effectiveness of the FFCI system with other systems. The calculated Pu balance revealed that the FFCI could supply enough but no excess Pu to FBR. These evaluations demonstrated the applicability of FFCI system to the transition period from LWR to FBR cycles. (author)

Transiting Exoplanet Monitoring Project (TEMP). II. Refined System Parameters and Transit Timing Analysis of HAT-P-33b

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Yong-Hao; Wang, Songhu; Liu, Hui-Gen; Hinse, Tobias C.; Laughlin, Gregory; Wu, Dong-Hong; Zhang, Xiaojia; Zhou, Xu; Wu, Zhenyu; Zhou, Ji-Lin; Wittenmyer, R. A.; Eastman, Jason; Zhang, Hui; Hori, Yasunori; Narita, Norio; Chen, Yuanyuan; Ma, Jun; Peng, Xiyan; Zhang, Tian-Meng; Zou, Hu; Nie, Jun-Dan; Zhou, Zhi-Min

2017-08-01

We present 10 R-band photometric observations of eight different transits of the hot Jupiter HAT-P-33b, which has been targeted by our Transiting Exoplanet Monitoring Project. The data were obtained by two telescopes at the Xinglong Station of National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC) from 2013 December through 2016 January, and exhibit photometric scatter of 1.6{--}3.0 {mmag}. After jointly analyzing the previously published photometric data, radial-velocity (RV) measurements, and our new light curves, we revisit the system parameters and orbital ephemeris for the HAT-P-33b system. Our results are consistent with the published values except for the planet to star radius ratio ({R}{{P}}/{R}* ), the ingress/egress duration (τ) and the total duration (T 14), which together indicate a slightly shallower and shorter transit shape. Our results are based on more complete light curves, whereas the previously published work had only one complete transit light curve. No significant anomalies in Transit Timing Variations (TTVs) are found, and we place upper mass limits on potential perturbers, largely supplanting the loose constraints provided by the extant RV data. The TTV limits are stronger near mean-motion resonances, especially for the low-order commensurabilities. We can exclude the existence of a perturber with mass larger than 0.6, 0.3, 0.5, 0.5, and 0.3 {M}\\oplus near the 1:3, 1:2, 2:3, 3:2, and 2:1 resonances, respectively.

Paperless Transaction for Publication Incentive System

Science.gov (United States)

Ibrahim, Rosziati; Madon, Hamiza Diana; Nazri, Nurul Hashida Amira Mohd; Saarani, Norhafizah; Mustapha, Aida

2017-08-01

Within the Malaysian context, incentive system in scientific publishing rewards authors for publishing journal articles or conference papers that are indexed by Scopus. At Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, the incentive system is going into its third year in operational. The main challenge lies in preparing the evidences as required by the application guideline. This paper presents an online module for publication incentive within the University Publication Information System (SMPU). The module was developed using the Scrum methodology based on the existing workflow of paper-based application. The module is hoped to increase the quality of the system deliverables of SMPU as well as having the ability to cope with change of university requirements in the future.

Modeling and control of distributed energy systems during transition between grid connected and standalone modes

Science.gov (United States)

Arafat, Md Nayeem

Distributed generation systems (DGs) have been penetrating into our energy networks with the advancement in the renewable energy sources and energy storage elements. These systems can operate in synchronism with the utility grid referred to as the grid connected (GC) mode of operation, or work independently, referred to as the standalone (SA) mode of operation. There is a need to ensure continuous power flow during transition between GC and SA modes, referred to as the transition mode, in operating DGs. In this dissertation, efficient and effective transition control algorithms are developed for DGs operating either independently or collectively with other units. Three techniques are proposed in this dissertation to manage the proper transition operations. In the first technique, a new control algorithm is proposed for an independent DG which can operate in SA and GC modes. The proposed transition control algorithm ensures low total harmonic distortion (THD) and less voltage fluctuation during mode transitions compared to the other techniques. In the second technique, a transition control is suggested for a collective of DGs operating in a microgrid system architecture to improve the reliability of the system, reduce the cost, and provide better performance. In this technique, one of the DGs in a microgrid system, referred to as a dispatch unit , takes the additional responsibility of mode transitioning to ensure smooth transition and supply/demand balance in the microgrid. In the third technique, an alternative transition technique is proposed through hybridizing the current and droop controllers. The proposed hybrid transition control technique has higher reliability compared to the dispatch unit concept. During the GC mode, the proposed hybrid controller uses current control. During the SA mode, the hybrid controller uses droop control. During the transition mode, both of the controllers participate in formulating the inverter output voltage but with different

Enhanced Publications: Data Models and Information Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alessia Bardi

2014-04-01

Full Text Available “Enhanced publications” are commonly intended as digital publications that consist of a mandatory narrative part (the description of the research conducted plus related “parts”, such as datasets, other publications, images, tables, workflows, devices. The state-of-the-art on information systems for enhanced publications has today reached the point where some kind of common understanding is required, in order to provide the methodology and language for scientists to compare, analyse, or simply discuss the multitude of solutions in the field. In this paper, we thoroughly examined the literature with a two-fold aim: firstly, introducing the terminology required to describe and compare structural and semantic features of existing enhanced publication data models; secondly, proposing a classification of enhanced publication information systems based on their main functional goals.

Sampling Transition Pathways in Highly Correlated Complex Systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chandler, David

2004-10-20

This research grant supported my group's efforts to apply and extend the method of transition path sampling that we invented during the late 1990s. This methodology is based upon a statistical mechanics of trajectory space. Traditional statistical mechanics focuses on state space, and with it, one can use Monte Carlo methods to facilitate importance sampling of states. With our formulation of a statistical mechanics of trajectory space, we have succeeded at creating algorithms by which importance sampling can be done for dynamical processes. In particular, we are able to study rare but important events without prior knowledge of transition states or mechanisms. In perhaps the most impressive application of transition path sampling, my group combined forces with Michele Parrinello and his coworkers to unravel the dynamics of auto ionization of water [5]. This dynamics is the fundamental kinetic step of pH. Other applications concern nature of dynamics far from equilibrium [1, 7], nucleation processes [2], cluster isomerization, melting and dissociation [3, 6], and molecular motors [10]. Research groups throughout the world are adopting transition path sampling. In part this has been the result of our efforts to provide pedagogical presentations of the technique [4, 8, 9], as well as providing new procedures for interpreting trajectories of complex systems [11].

Phase transitions in glassy systems via convolutional neural networks

Science.gov (United States)

Fang, Chao

Machine learning is a powerful approach commonplace in industry to tackle large data sets. Most recently, it has found its way into condensed matter physics, allowing for the first time the study of, e.g., topological phase transitions and strongly-correlated electron systems. The study of spin glasses is plagued by finite-size effects due to the long thermalization times needed. Here we use convolutional neural networks in an attempt to detect a phase transition in three-dimensional Ising spin glasses. Our results are compared to traditional approaches.

The roles of users in shaping transitions to new energy systems

Science.gov (United States)

Schot, Johan; Kanger, Laur; Verbong, Geert

2016-05-01

Current government information policies and market-based instruments aimed at influencing the energy choices of consumers often ignore the fact that consumer behaviour is not fully reducible to individuals making rational conscious decisions all the time. The decisions of consumers are largely configured by shared routines embedded in socio-technical systems. To achieve a transition towards a decarbonized and energy-efficient system, an approach that goes beyond individual consumer choice and puts shared routines and system change at its centre is needed. Here, adopting a transitions perspective, we argue that consumers should be reconceptualized as users who are important stakeholders in the innovation process shaping new routines and enacting system change. We review the role of users in shifts to new decarbonized and energy-efficient systems and provide a typology of user roles.

„FRAMES OF TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE: SOME APPLICATION IN INTERGENERATIONAL JUSTICE AND RETROACTIVITY”

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

GABRIEL RADU

2011-04-01

Full Text Available The article attempts to evaluate the concept of transitional justice in the sphere of public and academical debates, in different social environments during the transition period in the recent history. The approach will include an overflight over some definitions and interpretation of that concept and an assessment of possible applications of this concept in the reparative (corrective theories during the political transition. The evaluation of operational dimension of transitional justice will focus primarily the moral grounds invoked in political and juridical debates, and will pursue some applications of the transitional justice in intergenerational justice realm and at the level of the institution of retroactivity. Also, the assessment will focus the moral core of the motivation of judicial decisions in the space of positive law debates, concerning the constitutional and normative dimension.Examination of particular aspects of the transition has raised particular interest in the public agenda of romanian political change. Reparation issues in dealing with the past had always occupied a privileged role in public debate, in social and political problems. Justification for corrective measures during transition period were presented on various occasions in different points of view, but tools and proper institutions in generating legitimate formal-political obligations were absent, threatening the strength of the the political stability. Requirements for application of a corrective, reparative justice, appeared as a consequence of subjective awareness of rights and liberties that positive law of the communist system ignored or assign them like law infrigement. An approach of such rights, with their features should be evaluated in the context of both totalitarian and democratic state. A dialogue with the past becomes more necesary and will contribute to the success of any public policy designed for any possible reparation in the future

Rethinking Information Systems in the Public Sector

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Medaglia, Rony

2014-01-01

This section of Information Polity consists of papers presented during the workshop “Rethinking Information Systems in the Public Sector: Bridging Academia and Public Service”. The workshop was held on 8 June 2014 in Tel Aviv, Israel, in conjunction with the European Conference on Information...... Systems (ECIS 2014), and it is part of the activities of the Special Interest Group for eGovernment (SIGeGov) of the Association for Information Systems (AIS)....

Consensus Based Nuclear Public-Hearing System Model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Young Wook Lee; Suk Hoon Kim; Young Ho Cho; Hyun Seok Ko; Dong Hoon Shin; Chang Sun Kang; Joo Hyun Moon

2006-01-01

Although the government admit the benefit of construction of a nuclear facility for national electric source, related policy could be developed and carried out only if the public, especially who have some stake on it, recognize the benefit and accept the policy. For public participation, Korea has a system of public-hearing in accordance with the law. Because of the absence of the detailed way for public opinion aggregation and for the reflection of the aggregated opinion, Korean public-hearing system is only a conceptual model. Therefore, some specific system for Korean Public-Hearing should be developed and applied. In this study, to share the right of decision making, which is an ultimate concept for public participation, decision making components and the characteristics of each phase are analyzed. The criteria weight for assessment and comparison with alternatives are founded as a valuation factor of the decision making components, which should be based on the social consensus. On these foundations, a system for aggregation and reflection of the public opinion was proposed. The system named 'CPDM' (Consensus based Participatory Decision Making) has three authority groups for decision making. At first, 'advisory experts group' play a role for the technical assessment and the serve utility value on the criteria for each alternatives. Next, 'participatory deliberation group' play a role for consensus building on the relative-importance (weight) between the criteria by feedback to promote degree of consensus. Lastly including gentlemen of the long robe, 'expert group for decision making' play a role to reflect the utility and weight and make a decision with agreement for performance of it. Also, in this study, a mathematical model for the quantification of the degree of consensus was conceptualized using Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA) aggregation operator and fuzzy similarity theory, which is a comparison concept. Since this model enables influence of each

Energy transition, is it now?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Combe, Matthieu; Thouverez, Pierre

2016-06-01

As French energy policy is now defined for energy transition, the contributions of this publication discuss implemented measures, what new laws will change, and what will be the consequences for industry. A first set of articles thus comments evolutions related to the implementation of energy transition in the building sector, how energy transition wants to get rid of wastage, how energy transition will impact the transport sector (public transports, car-pool and car sharing, bicycle, retail sector, airfields), and outline that President Hollande has fulfilled (nearly) all his commitments. The next article comments changes and critics made by the French constitutional Council on the law for energy transition. The next set of articles comments the results of an ADEME's study on bicycle kilometre allowance, discusses the issue of energy safety, and comments statements made by candidates to the French President election of 2012 on nuclear energy after the Fukushima accident

ARCHITECTURE AND DYNAMICS OF KEPLER'S CANDIDATE MULTIPLE TRANSITING PLANET SYSTEMS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lissauer, Jack J.; Jenkins, Jon M.; Borucki, William J.; Bryson, Stephen T.; Howell, Steve B. [NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035 (United States); Ragozzine, Darin; Holman, Matthew J.; Carter, Joshua A. [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Fabrycky, Daniel C.; Fortney, Jonathan J. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States); Steffen, Jason H. [Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics, Batavia, IL 60510 (United States); Ford, Eric B. [211 Bryant Space Science Center, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 (United States); Shporer, Avi [Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network, Santa Barbara, CA 93117 (United States); Rowe, Jason F.; Quintana, Elisa V.; Caldwell, Douglas A. [SETI Institute/NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035 (United States); Batalha, Natalie M. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA 95192 (United States); Ciardi, David [Exoplanet Science Institute/Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States); Dunham, Edward W. [Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, AZ 86001 (United States); Gautier, Thomas N. III, E-mail: Jack.Lissauer@nasa.gov [Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109 (United States); and others

2011-11-01

About one-third of the {approx}1200 transiting planet candidates detected in the first four months of Kepler data are members of multiple candidate systems. There are 115 target stars with two candidate transiting planets, 45 with three, 8 with four, and 1 each with five and six. We characterize the dynamical properties of these candidate multi-planet systems. The distribution of observed period ratios shows that the vast majority of candidate pairs are neither in nor near low-order mean-motion resonances. Nonetheless, there are small but statistically significant excesses of candidate pairs both in resonance and spaced slightly too far apart to be in resonance, particularly near the 2:1 resonance. We find that virtually all candidate systems are stable, as tested by numerical integrations that assume a nominal mass-radius relationship. Several considerations strongly suggest that the vast majority of these multi-candidate systems are true planetary systems. Using the observed multiplicity frequencies, we find that a single population of planetary systems that matches the higher multiplicities underpredicts the number of singly transiting systems. We provide constraints on the true multiplicity and mutual inclination distribution of the multi-candidate systems, revealing a population of systems with multiple super-Earth-size and Neptune-size planets with low to moderate mutual inclinations.

Public health system - current status and world experience

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andreyeva І.А.

2016-09-01

Full Text Available In the review, the evolution of Public Health and global development tendencies of Public Health system have been discussed. Stages of formation of the updated concept, principles of Public Health organization and the role of various organizations have been shown in the connection with development of the global concept of "Health for All". A well-functioning public health system is primarily the result of multisectoral cooperation. The aim of modern Public Health is to provide conditions of access to appropriate and cost-effective health care for all population groups, including health promotion and disease prevention.

Public Policies Analysis and the Prince System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Behxhet Brajshori

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Public Policies present governmental sectorial policies and according to several scholars those are defined based on "what does the Government do". In fact, those are mandatory state's principles for the Government that aims the implementation of the strategy, objectives and Government's goals in the function of its promises' fulfilment towards the electors and all of the country's citizens. Public Policies Analysis has to do with the monitoring of government's agenda which directly can influence on a specific community. The idea of public policies analysis in linked with the need that the Government through statistical data has to prove what is being worked. Public Policies Analysis evolves in terms of design, implementation and public policies' effects. One of the methods for predicting the probability that a specifi c public policy will be implemented or not, is the Prince System. The Prince System, actually, presents a technique for assessing the relative support or opposition to a particular policy from individuals, groups or organizations.

Improving Travel Projections for Public Transportation

Science.gov (United States)

1995-08-01

Public transportation use saves energy and reduces emissions by taking people : out of single passenger automobiles and putting them into high occupancy, energy : efficient transit vehicles. Furthermore, public transit ridership and vehicular : trip ...

Reforming the Public Agricultural Extension System in China ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

Reforming the Public Agricultural Extension System in China : Supporting Rural Innovation. The public agricultural extension system has played a critical role in Chinese agricultural development over the past few decades. There is growing evidence that since the mid-1990s the system has failed to provide new and ...

The Normative Dimension in Transdisciplinarity, Transition Management, and Transformation Sciences: New Roles of Science and Universities in Sustainable Transitioning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roland W. Scholz

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This paper discusses the role normative aspects play in different approaches of science–practice collaboration, in particular as action research, (Mode 2 Transdisciplinarity (Td, Transition Management (TM, and Transformative Science (TSc. We elaborate on the different roles that scientists in these processes play. They work as facilitators (or contribute to a facilitated Td process, as activists (i.e., activist researchers in TM projects, and as catalysts in TSc. Td processes develop socially robust solutions for sustainable transitioning and impacts on the science system through mutual learning and by integrating epistemics (i.e., ways of knowing from science and practice and focusing on the empowerment of stakeholders. Science is viewed as a public good aiming to serve all key stakeholders. Researchers involved in TM projects strive to influence ongoing transition processes by actively engaging and participating in them, including lobbying for and empowering transformative changes toward sustainability based upon the researchers’ own analyses and world views. The TSc approach takes a catalyst perspective of the scientist’s role in inducing processes of strategic (societal transition when including certain stakeholder groups. The paper focuses on what roles normative aspects play in the different approaches and new societal demands imposed on science and universities. Based on this, we conclude that a new order of universities, public knowledge institutions, and boundary institutions is forthcoming.

TRANSIT TIMING OBSERVATIONS FROM KEPLER. VI. POTENTIALLY INTERESTING CANDIDATE SYSTEMS FROM FOURIER-BASED STATISTICAL TESTS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Steffen, Jason H.; Ford, Eric B.; Rowe, Jason F.; Borucki, William J.; Bryson, Steve; Caldwell, Douglas A.; Jenkins, Jon M.; Koch, David G.; Sanderfer, Dwight T.; Seader, Shawn; Twicken, Joseph D.; Fabrycky, Daniel C.; Holman, Matthew J.; Welsh, William F.; Batalha, Natalie M.; Ciardi, David R.; Kjeldsen, Hans; Prša, Andrej

2012-01-01

We analyze the deviations of transit times from a linear ephemeris for the Kepler Objects of Interest (KOI) through quarter six of science data. We conduct two statistical tests for all KOIs and a related statistical test for all pairs of KOIs in multi-transiting systems. These tests identify several systems which show potentially interesting transit timing variations (TTVs). Strong TTV systems have been valuable for the confirmation of planets and their mass measurements. Many of the systems identified in this study should prove fruitful for detailed TTV studies.

Transit timing observations from Kepler. VI. Potentially interesting candidate systems from fourier-based statistical tests

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Steffen, J.H.; Ford, E.B.; Rowe, J.F.

2012-01-01

We analyze the deviations of transit times from a linear ephemeris for the Kepler Objects of Interest (KOI) through quarter six of science data. We conduct two statistical tests for all KOIs and a related statistical test for all pairs of KOIs in multi-transiting systems. These tests identify...... several systems which show potentially interesting transit timing variations (TTVs). Strong TTV systems have been valuable for the confirmation of planets and their mass measurements. Many of the systems identified in this study should prove fruitful for detailed TTV studies....

Assessing transition trajectories towards a sustainable energy system: A case study on the Dutch transition to climate-neutral transport fuel chains

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Suurs, R.A.A.; Hekkert, M.P.; Meeus, M.T.H.; Nieuwlaar, E.

2004-01-01

This paper proposes a method for the ex ante evaluation of technological trajectories. As a case we study the Dutch transport energy system and its transition to climate neutrality. Two technological trajectories are proposed: (i) a sequence of transition steps based on radical infrastructural

The Impact of Carsharing on Public Transit and Non-Motorized Travel: An Exploration of North American Carsharing Survey Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Susan Shaheen

2011-11-01

Full Text Available By July 2011, North American carsharing had grown to an industry of nearly 640,000 members since its inception on the continent more than 15 years ago. Carsharing engenders changes in member travel patterns both towards and away from public transit and non-motorized modes. This study, which builds on the work of two previous studies, evaluates this shift in travel based on a 6281 respondent survey completed in late-2008 by members of major North American carsharing organizations. Across the entire sample, the results showed an overall decline in public transit use that was statistically significant, as 589 carsharing members reduced rail use and 828 reduced bus use, while 494 increased rail use and 732 increased bus use. Thus for every five members that use rail less, four members use rail more, and for every 10 members that ride a bus less, almost nine members ride the bus more. The people increasing and decreasing their transit use are fundamentally different in terms of how carsharing impacts their travel environment. This reduction, however, is also not uniform across all organizations; it is primarily driven by a minority (three of eleven of participating organizations. At the same time, members exhibited a statistically significant increase in travel by walking, bicycling, and carpooling. Across the sample, 756 members increased walking versus a 568 decrease, 628 increased bicycling versus a 235 decrease, and 289 increased carpooling versus a decrease of 99  study participants. The authors found that 970 members reduced their auto commuting to work, while 234 increased it. Interestingly, when these shifts are combined across modes, more people increased their overall public transit and non-motorized modal use after joining carsharing than decreased it. Data collected on the commute distance of respondents found that carsharing members tend to have shorter commutes than most people living in the same zip code. The analysis also evaluates

Public health preparedness in Alberta: a systems-level study.

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, Douglas; Shiell, Alan; Noseworthy, Tom; Russell, Margaret; Predy, Gerald

2006-12-28

Recent international and national events have brought critical attention to the Canadian public health system and how prepared the system is to respond to various types of contemporary public health threats. This article describes the study design and methods being used to conduct a systems-level analysis of public health preparedness in the province of Alberta, Canada. The project is being funded under the Health Research Fund, Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research. We use an embedded, multiple-case study design, integrating qualitative and quantitative methods to measure empirically the degree of inter-organizational coordination existing among public health agencies in Alberta, Canada. We situate our measures of inter-organizational network ties within a systems-level framework to assess the relative influence of inter-organizational ties, individual organizational attributes, and institutional environmental features on public health preparedness. The relative contribution of each component is examined for two potential public health threats: pandemic influenza and West Nile virus. The organizational dimensions of public health preparedness depend on a complex mix of individual organizational characteristics, inter-agency relationships, and institutional environmental factors. Our study is designed to discriminate among these different system components and assess the independent influence of each on the other, as well as the overall level of public health preparedness in Alberta. While all agree that competent organizations and functioning networks are important components of public health preparedness, this study is one of the first to use formal network analysis to study the role of inter-agency networks in the development of prepared public health systems.

Transit productivity program: going on the offensive in productivity-management studies and performance monitoring. Session 2. 1983 APTA (American Public Transit Association) annual meeting, Denver, Colorado

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Maloney, J.; Kiepper, A.F.; Simonetta, R.J.

1983-10-01

The volume examines monitoring and reporting procedures applicable to performance and productivity. The managers of three transit systems of varying sizes discuss how productivity has been increased within their systems. The Pittsburgh discussion reviews a variety of capital projects and management improvement initiatives undertaken by Port Authority Transit, including development of maintenance manuals and an absenteeism reduction project. The Houston discussion describes how the property used a management study to identify needed organizational change and restructuring. The Ann Arbor discussion focuses on a set of service standards and performance indicators adopted to focus the management improvement process.

Driverless operation for public passenger transport systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kehl, R. [Siemens AG, Erlangen (Germany). Bereich Verkehrstechnik

2001-07-01

The author presents the automation of new and existing lines as a possible solution to the twin problems of the growing need for public transport and the threat of collapse facing many public transport systems in the big conurbations as they wrestle against overloading. It emerges that automatic, driverless operation is a suitable approach to making systems more flexible and more attractive. Automation can increase the capacities of existing systems significantly and thus help them gain more passengers. (orig.)

Massive financing of the energy transition - SFTE feasibility study: synthesis report, Energy renovation of public buildings

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2014-11-01

The Energy Shift Financing Agency's (SFTE) project aims to establish a broad partnership between public and private entities to stimulate the economy and deliver between euros 180 bn and euros 420 bn of investment in Europe over 10 years for the benefit of medium-sized projects (in the order of euros 1 m) that are necessary for the energy transition. It will enable EU banks to finance the energy renovation of public buildings under excellent - cheap and long-term - conditions. A feasibility study has been conducted by the AFTER association with an exemplary consortium of public and private stakeholders in France: local authorities, industry players, banks/financial institutions, NGOs, Plan Batiment Durable. Many European institutions have expressed their interest in the initiative. Now the implementation of the SFTE project requires a commitment from European and national public authorities. Such a proactive real-estate policy would significantly contribute to economic recovery, cut costs, CO_2 emissions and the external deficit and improve energy independence, and could quickly create jobs. This document is the French version of the synthesis report of the SFTE project feasibility study. Two notes are attached to the document: one about the SFTE project adaptation to the Juncker's 315 bn euros investment plan, and the other about the selection of public buildings energy retrofitting in the Juncker plan and the French-German proposals

49 CFR 38.173 - Automated guideway transit vehicles and systems.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... accomplished by vehicle air suspension or other suitable means of meeting the requirement. (c) In stations... 49 Transportation 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Automated guideway transit vehicles and systems... DISABILITIES ACT (ADA) ACCESSIBILITY SPECIFICATIONS FOR TRANSPORTATION VEHICLES Other Vehicles and Systems § 38...

Polydispersity effect on solid-fluid transition in hard sphere systems

KAUST Repository

Nogawa, T.

2010-02-01

The solid-fluid transition of the hard elastic particle system with size polydispersity is studied by molecular dynamics simulations. Using nonequilibrium relaxation from the mixed initial condition we determines the melting point where the first order transition between the solid, fcc crystal, and fluid states occurs. It is found that the density gap between the bistable states decreases with increasing the strength of the polydispersity and continuously approaches to zero at the critical point. © 2010.

Public health preparedness in Alberta: a systems-level study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Noseworthy Tom

2006-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Recent international and national events have brought critical attention to the Canadian public health system and how prepared the system is to respond to various types of contemporary public health threats. This article describes the study design and methods being used to conduct a systems-level analysis of public health preparedness in the province of Alberta, Canada. The project is being funded under the Health Research Fund, Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research. Methods/Design We use an embedded, multiple-case study design, integrating qualitative and quantitative methods to measure empirically the degree of inter-organizational coordination existing among public health agencies in Alberta, Canada. We situate our measures of inter-organizational network ties within a systems-level framework to assess the relative influence of inter-organizational ties, individual organizational attributes, and institutional environmental features on public health preparedness. The relative contribution of each component is examined for two potential public health threats: pandemic influenza and West Nile virus. Discussion The organizational dimensions of public health preparedness depend on a complex mix of individual organizational characteristics, inter-agency relationships, and institutional environmental factors. Our study is designed to discriminate among these different system components and assess the independent influence of each on the other, as well as the overall level of public health preparedness in Alberta. While all agree that competent organizations and functioning networks are important components of public health preparedness, this study is one of the first to use formal network analysis to study the role of inter-agency networks in the development of prepared public health systems.

Private sector in public health care systems

OpenAIRE

Matějusová, Lenka

2008-01-01

This master thesis is trying to describe the situation of private sector in public health care systems. As a private sector we understand patients, private health insurance companies and private health care providers. The focus is placed on private health care providers, especially in ambulatory treatment. At first there is a definition of health as a main determinant of a health care systems, definition of public and private sectors in health care systems and the difficulties at the market o...

System impact research – increasing public health and health care system performance

Science.gov (United States)

Malmivaara, Antti

2016-01-01

Abstract Background Interventions directed to system features of public health and health care should increase health and welfare of patients and population. Aims To build a new framework for studies aiming to assess the impact of public health or health care system, and to consider the role of Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) and of Benchmarking Controlled Trials (BCTs). Methods The new concept is partly based on the author's previous paper on the Benchmarking Controlled Trial. The validity and generalizability considerations were based on previous methodological studies on RCTs and BCTs. Results The new concept System Impact Research (SIR) covers all the studies which aim to assess the impact of the public health system or of the health care system on patients or on population. There are two kinds of studies in System Impact Research: Benchmarking Controlled Trials (observational) and Randomized Controlled Trials (experimental). The term impact covers in particular accessibility, quality, effectiveness, safety, efficiency, and equality. Conclusions System Impact Research – creating the scientific basis for policy decision making - should be given a high priority in medical, public health and health economic research, and should also be used for improving performance. Leaders at all levels of health and social care can use the evidence from System Impact Research for the benefit of patients and population.Key messagesThe new concept of SIR is defined as a research field aiming at assessing the impacts on patients and on populations of features of public health and health and social care systems or of interventions trying to change these features.SIR covers all features of public health and health and social care system, and actions upon these features. The term impact refers to all effects caused by the public health and health and social care system or parts of it, with particular emphasis on accessibility, quality, effectiveness, adverse effects, efficiency

Hysteresis, phase transitions, and dangerous transients in electrical power distribution systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Duclut, Charlie; Backhaus, Scott; Chertkov, Michael

2013-06-01

The majority of dynamical studies in power systems focus on the high-voltage transmission grids where models consider large generators interacting with crude aggregations of individual small loads. However, new phenomena have been observed indicating that the spatial distribution of collective, nonlinear contribution of these small loads in the low-voltage distribution grid is crucial to the outcome of these dynamical transients. To elucidate the phenomenon, we study the dynamics of voltage and power flows in a spatially extended distribution feeder (circuit) connecting many asynchronous induction motors and discover that this relatively simple 1+1 (space+time) dimensional system exhibits a plethora of nontrivial spatiotemporal effects, some of which may be dangerous for power system stability. Long-range motor-motor interactions mediated by circuit voltage and electrical power flows result in coexistence and segregation of spatially extended phases defined by individual motor states, a "normal" state where the motors' mechanical (rotation) frequency is slightly smaller than the nominal frequency of the basic ac flows and a "stalled" state where the mechanical frequency is small. Transitions between the two states can be initiated by a perturbation of the voltage or base frequency at the head of the distribution feeder. Such behavior is typical of first-order phase transitions in physics, and this 1+1 dimensional model shows many other properties of a first-order phase transition with the spatial distribution of the motors' mechanical frequency playing the role of the order parameter. In particular, we observe (a) propagation of the phase-transition front with the constant speed (in very long feeders) and (b) hysteresis in transitions between the normal and stalled (or partially stalled) phases.

Transition from closed system to Internet of Things: A study in standardizing building lighting systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mathews, E.; Muller, G.

2016-01-01

Internet of Things (IoT) is triggering changes in lighting industry from the traditional closed and propriety systems to flexible, interoperable and service oriented systems. To address the challenges of this transition and catering the specific requirements of lighting networks, an Open

Determining the Optimal Layout Design for Public Bicycle System within the Attractive Scope of a Metro Station

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jingxu Chen

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Public bicycle acts as a seamless feeder mode in combination with the citywide public transit, as well as a competitor for the inner-city short trips. The primary objective of this study is to address the layout planning of public bicycle system within the attracted scope of a metro station. Based on the land use function, population, and bicycle mode share, bicycle rental stations are divided into three types, namely, the metro station, district station, and resident station, and later the quantity of bicycle facilities in each rental station is estimated. Then, the service stations are selected from these bicycle rental stations to provide the service of periodical bicycle redistribution. An improved immune algorithm is proposed to determine the number and locations of service stations and the optimal route options for the implement of redistributing strategy. Finally, a case study of Nanjing Tianyin Road metro station is conducted to illustrate the proposed model and clarify some of its implementation details.

Nuclear quantum shape-phase transitions in odd-mass systems

Science.gov (United States)

Quan, S.; Li, Z. P.; Vretenar, D.; Meng, J.

2018-03-01

Microscopic signatures of nuclear ground-state shape-phase transitions in odd-mass Eu isotopes are explored starting from excitation spectra and collective wave functions obtained by diagonalization of a core-quasiparticle coupling Hamiltonian based on energy density functionals. As functions of the physical control parameter—the number of nucleons—theoretical low-energy spectra, two-neutron separation energies, charge isotope shifts, spectroscopic quadrupole moments, and E 2 reduced transition matrix elements accurately reproduce available data and exhibit more-pronounced discontinuities at neutron number N =90 compared with the adjacent even-even Sm and Gd isotopes. The enhancement of the first-order quantum phase transition in odd-mass systems can be attributed to a shape polarization effect of the unpaired proton which, at the critical neutron number, starts predominantly coupling to Gd core nuclei that are characterized by larger quadrupole deformation and weaker proton pairing correlations compared with the corresponding Sm isotopes.

Deep learning the quantum phase transitions in random two-dimensional electron systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ohtsuki, Tomoki; Ohtsuki, Tomi

2016-01-01

Random electron systems show rich phases such as Anderson insulator, diffusive metal, quantum Hall and quantum anomalous Hall insulators, Weyl semimetal, as well as strong/weak topological insulators. Eigenfunctions of each matter phase have specific features, but owing to the random nature of systems, determining the matter phase from eigenfunctions is difficult. Here, we propose the deep learning algorithm to capture the features of eigenfunctions. Localization-delocalization transition, as well as disordered Chern insulator-Anderson insulator transition, is discussed. (author)

A complex systems methodology to transition management

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Alkemade, F.; Frenken, K.; Hekkert, M.P.; Schwoon, M.

2009-01-01

There is a general sense of urgency that major technological transitions are required for sustainable development. Such transitions are best perceived as involving multiple transition steps along a transition path. Due to the path dependent and irreversible nature of innovation in complex

EDRiT - Eems Dollard Region in Transition

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bulder, Elles

2016-01-01

EDRiT is a living lab focussing on transition and transitional processes in the Eems Dollard Region. Within the framework of EDRiT Dutch and German organizations, public authorities, universities and civilians work together in investigating, facilitating and innovating transitional processes

The Role of School in Educational Decisions during the Transition to High School Public Institutions in Mexico City context

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eduardo Rodríguez Rocha

2016-09-01

Full Text Available This article analyzes the role of schools in educational choices in the transition to public high schools in Mexico City. Secondary schools have the potential to influence educational choices, through the development of certain educational functions. This influence comes in different ways, and is relatively independent of adscriptive characteristics and previous academic performance of students.  Schools serve i as agents contributing to decision making, facilitating continuity on educational trajectories ii or as instances that do not develop explicit actions aimed to link their students to any of the options offered in the post-secondary educational system. While some schools teaching resources are destined to accompany their students during their decision process, others lack of them, abandoning them in this crucial educational event. The article is based on data provided by an ethnographic study conducted in seven high schools in southern Mexico City between January and July 2012

Unconventional Topological Phase Transition in Two-Dimensional Systems with Space-Time Inversion Symmetry

Science.gov (United States)

Ahn, Junyeong; Yang, Bohm-Jung

2017-04-01

We study a topological phase transition between a normal insulator and a quantum spin Hall insulator in two-dimensional (2D) systems with time-reversal and twofold rotation symmetries. Contrary to the case of ordinary time-reversal invariant systems, where a direct transition between two insulators is generally predicted, we find that the topological phase transition in systems with an additional twofold rotation symmetry is mediated by an emergent stable 2D Weyl semimetal phase between two insulators. Here the central role is played by the so-called space-time inversion symmetry, the combination of time-reversal and twofold rotation symmetries, which guarantees the quantization of the Berry phase around a 2D Weyl point even in the presence of strong spin-orbit coupling. Pair creation and pair annihilation of Weyl points accompanying partner exchange between different pairs induces a jump of a 2D Z2 topological invariant leading to a topological phase transition. According to our theory, the topological phase transition in HgTe /CdTe quantum well structure is mediated by a stable 2D Weyl semimetal phase because the quantum well, lacking inversion symmetry intrinsically, has twofold rotation about the growth direction. Namely, the HgTe /CdTe quantum well can show 2D Weyl semimetallic behavior within a small but finite interval in the thickness of HgTe layers between a normal insulator and a quantum spin Hall insulator. We also propose that few-layer black phosphorus under perpendicular electric field is another candidate system to observe the unconventional topological phase transition mechanism accompanied by the emerging 2D Weyl semimetal phase protected by space-time inversion symmetry.

Sustainable transition of socio-technological systems: How can Governance Network Research and Transition Theory contribute to the transition to biofuel for transportation?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Ole Erik; Stærdahl, Jens; Søndergård, Bent

-technological systems, calling attention to how such governance structures emerge, stabilize and become dominant, which functions governance structures have to serve to become efficient, and how they can be made subject to deliberate and purposeful shaping and transition. Taking this approach, research in planning...

The political economy of a public health case management program's transition into medical homes.

Science.gov (United States)

Wells, Rebecca; Cilenti, Dorothy; Issel, L Michele

2015-11-01

Throughout the United States, public health leaders are experimenting with how best to integrate services for individuals with complex needs. To that end, North Carolina implemented a policy incorporating both local public health departments and other providers into medical homes for low income pregnant women and young children at risk of developmental delays. To understand how this transition occurred within local communities, a pre-post comparative case study was conducted. A total of 42 people in four local health departments across the state were interviewed immediately before the 2011 policy change and six months later: 32 professionals (24 twice) and 10 pregnant women receiving case management at the time of the policy implementation. We used constant comparative analysis of interview and supplemental data to identify three key consequences of the policy implementation. One, having medical homes increased the centrality of other providers relative to local health departments. Two, a shift from focusing on personal relationships toward medical efficiency diverged in some respects from both case managers' and mothers' goals. Three, health department staff re-interpreted state policies to fit their public health values. Using a political economy perspective, these changes are interpreted as reflecting shifts in public health's broader ideological environment. To a large extent, the state successfully induced more connection between health department-based case managers and external providers. However, limited provider engagement may constrain the implementation of the envisioned medical homes. The increased focus on medical risk may also undermine health departments' role in supporting health over time by attenuating staff relationships with mothers. This study helps clarify how state public health policy innovations unfold at local levels, and why front line practice may in some respects diverge from policy intent. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

A Novel Trip Coverage Index for Transit Accessibility Assessment Using Mobile Phone Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhengyi Cai

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Transit accessibility is an important measure on the service performance of transit systems. To assess whether the public transit service is well accessible for trips of specific origins, destinations, and origin-destination (OD pairs, a novel measure, the Trip Coverage Index (TCI, is proposed in this paper. TCI considers both the transit trip coverage and spatial distribution of individual travel demands. Massive trips between cellular base stations are estimated by using over four-million mobile phone users. An easy-to-implement method is also developed to extract the transit information and driving routes for millions of requests. Then the trip coverage of each OD pair is calculated. For demonstrative purposes, TCI is applied to the transit network of Hangzhou, China. The results show that TCI represents the better transit trip coverage and provides a more powerful assessment tool of transit quality of service. Since the calculation is based on trips of all modes, but not only the transit trips, TCI offers an overall accessibility for the transit system performance. It enables decision makers to assess transit accessibility in a finer-grained manner on the individual trip level and can be well transformed to measure transit services of other cities.

For a citizen energy transition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Geze, Patrick; Bernon, Francoise; Alphandery, Claude; Albizzati, Amandine; Ballandras, Marc; Berland, Olivier; Peullemeulle, Justine; Causse, Laurent; Olivier, Dominique; Damerval, Francois; Lepage, Corinne; Dughera, Jacques; Bouchart, Christiane; Duracka, Nicolas; Ferrari, Albert; Noe, Julien; Soulias, Emmanuel; Gaspard, Albane; Greenwood, Marianne; Guy, Lionel; Kretzschmar, Cyril; Lalu, Delphine; Naett, Caroline; Raguet, Alex; Rouchon, Jean-Philippe; Ruedinger, Andreas; Sautter, Christian; Tudor, Ivan; Vaquie, Pierre-Francois; Vernier, Christophe; Youinou, Jean-Michel; Verny, Emmanuel; Claustre, Raphael; Leclercq, Michel

2015-09-01

This publication by a think tank specialised in social and solidarity economy first outlines that energy transition means a transition from the present energy model to a new model based on three pillars: a drastic reduction of energy consumption through sobriety (energy saving, struggle against wastage), an improvement of energy efficiency, and an energy mix based on renewable and sustainable resources. A first part proposes a discussion of what 'citizen' energy transition can be: general framework of energy transition, pioneering examples in Europe, citizen empowerment, importance of a decentralised model which is anchored in territories, general interest as a priority. Each of these issues and aspects is illustrated by examples. Then, as this evolution towards a citizen-based model requires a change of scale, the authors discuss how to involve public authorities and to adapt regulation, how to develop financing tools, how to support the emergence and development of projects, and how to be part of international dynamics. The author then discuss what their think tank can do to accelerate energy transition. Proposals made in the different chapters are then summarized

Detecting critical state before phase transition of complex biological systems by hidden Markov model.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Pei; Liu, Rui; Li, Yongjun; Chen, Luonan

2016-07-15

Identifying the critical state or pre-transition state just before the occurrence of a phase transition is a challenging task, because the state of the system may show little apparent change before this critical transition during the gradual parameter variations. Such dynamics of phase transition is generally composed of three stages, i.e. before-transition state, pre-transition state and after-transition state, which can be considered as three different Markov processes. By exploring the rich dynamical information provided by high-throughput data, we present a novel computational method, i.e. hidden Markov model (HMM) based approach, to detect the switching point of the two Markov processes from the before-transition state (a stationary Markov process) to the pre-transition state (a time-varying Markov process), thereby identifying the pre-transition state or early-warning signals of the phase transition. To validate the effectiveness, we apply this method to detect the signals of the imminent phase transitions of complex systems based on the simulated datasets, and further identify the pre-transition states as well as their critical modules for three real datasets, i.e. the acute lung injury triggered by phosgene inhalation, MCF-7 human breast cancer caused by heregulin and HCV-induced dysplasia and hepatocellular carcinoma. Both functional and pathway enrichment analyses validate the computational results. The source code and some supporting files are available at https://github.com/rabbitpei/HMM_based-method lnchen@sibs.ac.cn or liyj@scut.edu.cn Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Phase transitions

CERN Document Server

Sole, Ricard V; Solé, Ricard V; Solé, Ricard V; Sol, Ricard V; Solé, Ricard V

2011-01-01

Phase transitions--changes between different states of organization in a complex system--have long helped to explain physics concepts, such as why water freezes into a solid or boils to become a gas. How might phase transitions shed light on important problems in biological and ecological complex systems? Exploring the origins and implications of sudden changes in nature and society, Phase Transitions examines different dynamical behaviors in a broad range of complex systems. Using a compelling set of examples, from gene networks and ant colonies to human language and the degradation of diverse ecosystems, the book illustrates the power of simple models to reveal how phase transitions occur. Introductory chapters provide the critical concepts and the simplest mathematical techniques required to study phase transitions. In a series of example-driven chapters, Ricard Solé shows how such concepts and techniques can be applied to the analysis and prediction of complex system behavior, including the origins of ...

Systemic Model for Optimal Regulation in Public Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lucica Matei

2006-05-01

Full Text Available The current paper inscribes within those approaching the issue of public services from the interdisciplinary perspective. Public service development and imposing standards of efficiency and effectiveness, as well as for citizens’ satisfaction bring in front line the systemic modelling and establishing optimal policies for organisation and functioning of public services. The issue under discussion imposes an interface with powerful determinations of social nature. Consequently, the most adequate modelling might be that with a probabilistic and statistic nature. The fundamental idea of this paper, that obviously can be broadly developed, starts with assimilating the way of organisation and functioning of a public service with a waiting thread, to which some hypotheses are associated concerning the order of provision, performance measurement through costs or waiting time in the system etc. We emphasise the openness and dynamics of the public service system, as well as modelling by turning into account the statistic knowledge and researches, and we do not make detailed remarks on the cybernetic characteristics of this system. The optimal adjustment is achieved through analysis on the feedback and its comparison with the current standards or good practices.

Magnetic phase transitions in low dimension quantum spin systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Canevet, Emmanuel

2010-01-01

In this PhD thesis, three low dimensional spin systems are studied by means of elastic and inelastic neutron scattering. Macroscopic measurements in the DMACuCl 3 compound indicate the coexistence of two kinds of dimers: antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic. The magnetic structure determined by our neutron diffraction survey at H = 0 shows irrevocably the existence of these two kinds of dimers. It has been shown that the Ising-like compound BaCo 2 V 2 O 8 should be the first realization of a system in which a longitudinal spin density wave (LSDW) magnetic order occurs when a magnetic field is applied. In a first time, we have determined the magnetic structure in zero magnetic field. Then, we focused on the effect of a magnetic field on the propagation vector, showing an entrance in the LSDW phase at H c = 3.9 T. The magnetic structure refined above this critical field confirms that BaCo 2 V 2 O 8 is the first compound in which occurs a LSDW phase. In the organic compound DF 5 PNN, it has been shown that this compound is well described at low temperature by spin chains with alternating couplings. However, the crystallographic structure determined at room temperature implies that the interactions are uniform. By means of neutron diffraction, we characterized a structural transition at low temperature (T c = 450 mK) making the system evolve from C2/c space group to Pc. This transition explains the alternating behavior of the interactions. We have also evidenced a field-induced structural transition (H c = 1.1 T). Above this field, the system is back to the C2/c space group, implying that the interactions are back to uniform. We have confirmed this by studying the magnetic excitations. (author) [fr

Regional Gastrointestinal Transit Times in Patients With Carcinoid Diarrhea: Assessment With the Novel 3D-Transit System

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gregersen, Tine; Haase, Anne-Mette; Schlageter, Vincent

2015-01-01

BACKGROUND/AIMS: The paucity of knowledge regarding gastrointestinal motility in patients with neuroendocrine tumors and carcinoid diarrhea re-stricts targeted treatment. 3D-Transit is a novel, minimally invasive, ambulatory method for description of gastrointestinal motility. The system has not ...

Securing military information systems on public infrastructure

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Botha, P

2015-03-01

Full Text Available to set up in time for scenarios which require real time information. This may force communications to utilise public infrastructure. Securing communications for military mobile and Web based systems over public networks poses a greater challenge compared...

Energy barrier of bcc-fcc phase transition via the Bain path in Yukawa system

Science.gov (United States)

Kiyokawa, Shuji

2018-05-01

In the Yukawa system with the dimensionless screening parameter κ>1.5 , when bcc-fcc transition occurs via Bain path, we show that spontaneous transitions do not occur even if the system temperature reaches the transition point of bcc-fcc because it is necessary to increase once the free energy in the process of transition from bcc to fcc through Bain deformation. Here, we refer the temporary increment of the free energy during Bain deformation as Bain barrier. Since there are the Bain barriers at the transitions between bcc and fcc phases, these phases may coexist as metastable state in the wide region (not a coexistence line) of κ and the coupling constant Γ. We study the excess energy of the system and the free energy difference between bcc and fcc phases by the Monte Carlo method, where the simulation box is divided into a large number of elements with small volume and a particle in the box is restricted be placed in one of these elements. By this method, we can tabulate the values of the interparticle potential and can calculate the internal energy fast and precisely.

Demystifying governance and its role for transitions in urban social–ecological systems

Science.gov (United States)

T.A. Muñoz-Erickson; L.K. Campbell; D.L. Childers; J.M. Grove; D.M. Iwaniec; S.T.A. Pickett; Michelle Romolini; Erika S. Svendsen

2016-01-01

Governance is key to sustainable urban transitions. Governance is a system of social, power, and decision-making processes that acts as a key driver of resource allocation and use, yet ecologists even urban ecologists–seldom consider governance concepts in their work. Transitions to more sustainable futures are becoming increasingly important to the management of many...

Walk, Bicycle, and Transit Trips of Transit-Dependent and Choice Riders in the 2009 United States National Household Travel Survey.

Science.gov (United States)

Lachapelle, Ugo

2015-08-01

Previous research has shown that public transit use may be associated with active transportation. Access to a car may influence active transportation of transit riders. Using the 2009 United States National Household Travel Survey (NHTS), transit users ≥ 16 years old (n = 25,550) were categorized according to driver status and number of cars and drivers in the household. This typology ranged from choice transit riders (ie, "fully motorized drivers") to transit-dependent riders (ie, "unmotorized nondriver"). Transit trips, walking trips, and bicycling trips of transit users are estimated in negative binomial models against the car availability typology. Sixteen percent of participants took transit in the past month; most (86%) lived in car-owning households. As income increased, car availability also increased. Transit user groups with lower car availability were generally more likely than fully motorized drivers to take more public transit, walking, and bicycle trips. Transit riders have varying levels of vehicle access; their use of combinations of alternative modes of transportation fluctuates accordingly. Transit-dependent individuals without cars or sharing cars used active transportation more frequently than car owners. Policies to reduce vehicle ownership in households may enable increases in the use of alternative modes of transportation for transit users, even when cars are still owned.

Transitions induced by speed in self-propelled particles system with attractive interactions

Science.gov (United States)

Cambui, Dorilson. S.; Rosas, Alexandre

2018-05-01

In this work, we consider a system of self-propelled particles with attractive interactions in two dimensions. The model presents an order-disorder transition with the speed playing the role of the control parameter. In order to characterize the transition, we investigate the behavior of the order parameter and the Binder cumulant as a function of the speed. Our main finding is that the transition can be either continuous or discontinuous depending on two parameter of the model: the strength of the noise and the radius of attraction.

Insulator–metal transition in a conservative system: An evidence for ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

substrate, suggest that the mobility coalescence is responsible for the aging in island metal films. ... esting transition observed in a conservative system – after the stoppage of ... Oxidation of islands model and mobility coalescence model.

Polydispersity effect on solid-fluid transition in hard sphere systems

KAUST Repository

Nogawa, T.; Watanabe, H.; Ito, N.

2010-01-01

The solid-fluid transition of the hard elastic particle system with size polydispersity is studied by molecular dynamics simulations. Using nonequilibrium relaxation from the mixed initial condition we determines the melting point where the first

Specification, construction, and exact reduction of state transition system models of biochemical processes.

Science.gov (United States)

Bugenhagen, Scott M; Beard, Daniel A

2012-10-21

Biochemical reaction systems may be viewed as discrete event processes characterized by a number of states and state transitions. These systems may be modeled as state transition systems with transitions representing individual reaction events. Since they often involve a large number of interactions, it can be difficult to construct such a model for a system, and since the resulting state-level model can involve a huge number of states, model analysis can be difficult or impossible. Here, we describe methods for the high-level specification of a system using hypergraphs, for the automated generation of a state-level model from a high-level model, and for the exact reduction of a state-level model using information from the high-level model. Exact reduction is achieved through the automated application to the high-level model of the symmetry reduction technique and reduction by decomposition by independent subsystems, allowing potentially significant reductions without the need to generate a full model. The application of the method to biochemical reaction systems is illustrated by models describing a hypothetical ion-channel at several levels of complexity. The method allows for the reduction of the otherwise intractable example models to a manageable size.

Endothelial to mesenchymal transition in the cardiovascular system.

Science.gov (United States)

Gong, Hui; Lyu, Xing; Wang, Qiong; Hu, Min; Zhang, Xiangyu

2017-09-01

Endothelial to mesenchymal transition (EndMT) is a special type of epithelial to mesenchymal transition. It is a process that is characterized by the loss of features of endothelial cells and acquisition of specific markers of mesenchymal cells. A variety of stimuli, such as inflammation, growth factors, and hypoxia, regulate EndMT through various signaling pathways and intracellular transcription factors. It has been demonstrated that epigenetic modifications are also involved in this process. Recent studies have identified the essential role of EndMT in the cardiovascular system. EndMT contributes to steps in cardiovascular development, such as cardiac valve formation and septation, as well as the pathogenesis of various cardiovascular disorders, such as congenital heart disease, myocardial fibrosis, myocardial infarction and pulmonary arterial hypertension. Thus, comprehensive understanding of the underlying mechanisms of EndMT will provide novel therapeutic strategies to overcome congenital heart disease due to abnormal development and other cardiovascular diseases. This review will focus on summarizing the currently understood signaling pathways and epigenetic modifications involved in the regulation of EndMT and the role of EndMT in pathophysiological conditions of the cardiovascular system. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Glass transitions in one-, two-, three-, and four-dimensional binary Lennard-Jones systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bruening, Ralf; St-Onge, Denis A; Patterson, Steve [Physics Department, Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB, E4L 1E6 (Canada); Kob, Walter [Laboratoire des Colloides, Verres et Nanomateriaux, UMR5587, Universite Montpellier II and CNRS, 34095 Montpellier Cedex (France)], E-mail: rbruening@mta.ca

2009-01-21

We investigate the calorimetric liquid-glass transition by performing simulations of a binary Lennard-Jones mixture in one through four dimensions. Starting at a high temperature, the systems are cooled to T = 0 and heated back to the ergodic liquid state at constant rates. Glass transitions are observed in two, three and four dimensions as a hysteresis between the cooling and heating curves. This hysteresis appears in the energy and pressure diagrams, and the scanning rate dependence of the area and height of the hysteresis can be described using power laws. The one-dimensional system does not experience a glass transition but its specific heat curve resembles the shape of the D{>=}2 results in the supercooled liquid regime above the glass transition. As D increases, the radial distribution functions reflect reduced geometric constraints. Nearest neighbor distances become smaller with increasing D due to interactions between nearest and next-nearest neighbors. Simulation data for the glasses are compared with crystal and melting data obtained with a Lennard-Jones system with only one type of particle and we find that with increasing D crystallization becomes increasingly more difficult.

The Homogeneity Research of Urban Rail Transit Network Performance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wang Fu-jian

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Urban Rail Transit is an important part of the public transit, it is necessary to carry out the corresponding network function analysis. Previous studies mainly about network performance analysis of a single city rail transit, lacking of horizontal comparison between the multi-city, it is difficult to find inner unity of different Urban Rail Transit network functions. Taking into account the Urban Rail Transit network is a typical complex networks, so this paper proposes the application of complex network theory to research the homogeneity of Urban Rail Transit network performance. This paper selects rail networks of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou as calculation case, gave them a complex network mapping through the L, P Space method and had a static topological analysis using complex network theory, Network characteristics in three cities were calculated and analyzed form node degree distribution and node connection preference. Finally, this paper studied the network efficiency changes of Urban Rail Transit system under different attack mode. The results showed that, although rail transport network size, model construction and construction planning of the three cities are different, but their network performance in many aspects showed high homogeneity.

Quantum phase transition in strongly correlated many-body system

Science.gov (United States)

You, Wenlong

The past decade has seen a substantial rejuvenation of interest in the study of quantum phase transitions (QPTs), driven by experimental advance on the cuprate superconductors, the heavy fermion materials, organic conductors, Quantum Hall effect, Fe-As based superconductors and other related compounds. It is clear that strong electronic interactions play a crucial role in the systems of current interest, and simple paradigms for the behavior of such systems near quantum critical points remain unclear. Furthermore, the rapid progress in Feshbach resonance and optical lattice provides a flexible platform to study QPT. Quantum Phase Transition (QPT) describes the non-analytic behaviors of the ground-state properties in a many-body system by varying a physical parameter at absolute zero temperature - such as magnetic field or pressure, driven by quantum fluctuations. Such quantum phase transitions can be first-order phase transition or continuous. The phase transition is usually accompanied by a qualitative change in the nature of the correlations in the ground state, and describing this change shall clearly be one of our major interests. We address this issue from three prospects in a few strong correlated many-body systems in this thesis, i.e., identifying the ordered phases, studying the properties of different phases, characterizing the QPT points. In chapter 1, we give an introduction to QPT, and take one-dimensional XXZ model as an example to illustrate the QPT therein. Through this simple example, we would show that when the tunable parameter is varied, the system evolves into different phases, across two quantum QPT points. The distinct phases exhibit very different behaviors. Also a schematic phase diagram is appended. In chapter 2, we are engaged in research on ordered phases. Originating in the work of Landau and Ginzburg on second-order phase transition, the spontaneous symmetry breaking induces nonzero expectation of field operator, e.g., magnetization M

Transit Timing Observations from Kepler: II. Confirmation of Two Multiplanet Systems via a Non-parametric Correlation Analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ford, Eric B.; /Florida U.; Fabrycky, Daniel C.; /Lick Observ.; Steffen, Jason H.; /Fermilab; Carter, Joshua A.; /Harvard-Smithsonian Ctr. Astrophys.; Fressin, Francois; /Harvard-Smithsonian Ctr. Astrophys.; Holman, Matthew J.; /Harvard-Smithsonian Ctr. Astrophys.; Lissauer, Jack J.; /NASA, Ames; Moorhead, Althea V.; /Florida U.; Morehead, Robert C.; /Florida U.; Ragozzine, Darin; /Harvard-Smithsonian Ctr. Astrophys.; Rowe, Jason F.; /NASA, Ames /SETI Inst., Mtn. View /San Diego State U., Astron. Dept.

2012-01-01

We present a new method for confirming transiting planets based on the combination of transit timing variations (TTVs) and dynamical stability. Correlated TTVs provide evidence that the pair of bodies are in the same physical system. Orbital stability provides upper limits for the masses of the transiting companions that are in the planetary regime. This paper describes a non-parametric technique for quantifying the statistical significance of TTVs based on the correlation of two TTV data sets. We apply this method to an analysis of the transit timing variations of two stars with multiple transiting planet candidates identified by Kepler. We confirm four transiting planets in two multiple planet systems based on their TTVs and the constraints imposed by dynamical stability. An additional three candidates in these same systems are not confirmed as planets, but are likely to be validated as real planets once further observations and analyses are possible. If all were confirmed, these systems would be near 4:6:9 and 2:4:6:9 period commensurabilities. Our results demonstrate that TTVs provide a powerful tool for confirming transiting planets, including low-mass planets and planets around faint stars for which Doppler follow-up is not practical with existing facilities. Continued Kepler observations will dramatically improve the constraints on the planet masses and orbits and provide sensitivity for detecting additional non-transiting planets. If Kepler observations were extended to eight years, then a similar analysis could likely confirm systems with multiple closely spaced, small transiting planets in or near the habitable zone of solar-type stars.

Resilience, Regime Shifts, and Guided Transition under Climate Change: Examining the Practical Difficulties of Managing Continually Changing Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brenda B. Lin

2013-03-01

Full Text Available Managing terrestrial systems has become increasingly difficult under climate change as unidirectional shifts in climate conditions challenge the resilience of ecosystems to maintain their compositional structure and function. Despite the increased attention of resilience management to guide transformational change, questions remain as to how to apply resilience to manage transitions. Rather than pushing systems across thresholds into alternative states, climate change may create a stepwise progression of unknown transitional states that track changing climate conditions. Because of this uncertainty, we must find ways to guide transitioning systems across climate boundaries towards states that are socially and environmentally desirable. We propose to ease the uncertainty of managing shifting systems by providing an approach to adaptive management that we call guided transition, where socially and environmentally important ecosystem functions are preserved through transitions by considering and maintaining the species and structures needed for the desired functions. Scientifically, it will require a better understanding of the relationships between structure, species composition, and function for specific systems. Managers will also need to identify important functions at the local, regional, and national scale, and to determine how best to transition systems to a desired state based on existing scientific knowledge. Guided transition, therefore, helps guide the process of adaptive management by specifying a function-based management pathway that guides transitions through climatic changes.

Making the Public Distribution System Work

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Debarshi Das

2014-02-01

Full Text Available Drawing on empirical observations of operation of public distribution system in different states of India, the paper constructs a preliminary game theoretic model. It argues that an effective public distribution must be as universal as possible, delivery mechanism of fair price shops should be re- formed, they should be make them commercially viable and that special attention should be paid to PDS at times of high food inflation.

Transition of Future Energy System Infrastructure; through Power-to-Gas Pathways

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Azadeh Maroufmashat

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Power-to-gas is a promising option for storing interment renewables, nuclear baseload power, and distributed energy and it is a novel concept for the transition to increased renewable content of current fuels with an ultimate goal of transition to a sustainable low-carbon future energy system that interconnects power, transportation sectors and thermal energy demand all together. The aim of this paper is to introduce different Power-to-gas “pathways”, including Power to Hydrogen, Power to Natural Gas End-users, Power to Renewable Content in Petroleum Fuel, Power to Power, Seasonal Energy Storage to Electricity, Power to Zero Emission Transportation, Power to Seasonal Storage for Transportation, Power to Micro grid, Power to Renewable Natural Gas (RNG to Pipeline (“Methanation”, and Power to Renewable Natural Gas (RNG to Seasonal Storage. In order to compare the different pathways, the review of key technologies of Power-to-gas systems are studied and the qualitative efficiency and benefits of each pathway is investigated from the technical points of view. Moreover, different Power-to-gas pathways are discussed as an energy policy option that can be implemented to transition towards a lower carbon economy for Ontario’s energy systems.

Smart Energy Systems and Energy Transition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Duic, N.

2016-01-01

Transition to decarbonized energy systems is becoming more attractive with fall of investment costs of renewables and volatile prices and political insecurity of fossil fuels. Improving energy efficiency, especially of buildings and transport, is important, but due to long life of buildings, it will be a slow way of decarbonization. The renewable energy resources are bountiful, especially wind and solar, while integrating them into current energy systems is proving to be a challenge. Solar has reached grid parity making it cheapest electricity source for retail customers in most of the World, creating new prosumer markets. It has started to reach cost parity in sunny countries, and soon solar energy will be cheapest everywhere. The limit of cheap and easy integration for wind is around 20% of yearly electricity generation, while a combined wind and solar may reach 30%. Going any further asks for implementation of completely free energy markets (involving day ahead, intraday and various reserve and ancillary services markets), demand response, coupling of wholesale and retail energy prices, and it involves integration between electricity, heat, water and transport systems. The cheapest and simplest way of increasing further the penetration of renewables is integrating power and heating/cooling systems through the use of district heating and cooling (which may be centrally controlled and may have significant heat storage capacity), since power to heat technologies are excellent for demand response. District cooling is of particular importance to historic cities that want to remove split systems from their facades. In countries with low heat demand water supply system may be used to increase the penetration of renewables, by using water at higher potential energy as storage media, or in dry climates desalination and stored water may be used for those purposes, and reversible hydro may be used as balancing technology. Electrification of personal car transport allows

42 CFR 403.822 - Reimbursement of transitional assistance and associated sponsor requirements.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 42 Public Health 2 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Reimbursement of transitional assistance and associated sponsor requirements. 403.822 Section 403.822 Public Health CENTERS FOR MEDICARE & MEDICAID... Prescription Drug Discount Card and Transitional Assistance Program § 403.822 Reimbursement of transitional...

Public transport travel time and its variability

OpenAIRE

Mazloumi Shomali, Ehsan

2017-01-01

Executive Summary Public transport agencies around the world are constantly trying to improve the performance of their service, and to provide passengers with a more reliable service. Two major measures to evaluate the performance of a transit system include travel time and travel time variability. Information on these two measures provides operators with a capacity to identify the problematic locations in a transport system and improve operating plans. Likewise, users can benefit through...

Phase transitions and dynamic entropy in small two-dimensional systems: Experiment and numerical simulation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Koss, K. G.; Petrov, O. F.; Myasnikov, M. I., E-mail: miasnikovmi@mail.ru; Statsenko, K. B.; Vasiliev, M. M. [Russian Academy of Sciences, Joint Institute for High Temperatures (Russian Federation)

2016-07-15

The results of experimental and numerical analysis are presented for phase transitions in strongly nonequilibrium small systems of strongly interacting Brownian particles. The dynamic entropy method is applied to analysis of the state of these systems. Experiments are carried out with kinetic heating of the structures of micron-size particles in a laboratory rf discharge plasma. Three phase states of these small systems are observed: crystalline, liquid, and transient. The mechanism of phase transitions in cluster structures of strongly interacting particles is described.

Hydrogen as a link between sustainable mobility and transition of the German energy system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Conreder, Alexander [EnBW Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG, Karlsruhe (Germany)

2013-06-01

Even 15 years ago, the predictions with regard to the market penetration of fuel cell automobiles or of so-called fuel cell heaters were communicated with differing statements. Daimler Benz AG, as it still was back then, had put their faith in the rapid integration of a fuel cell into the vehicle, whereas companies such as Vaillant, Hamburger Gas Consult, Sulzer Hexis or even MTU and Siemens were working on stationary fuel cell systems. The expectations at that time with regard to market and technology development have still not yet been fulfilled. Today, the subject has been given a new lease of life thanks to the public discussions regarding the energy transition and the current framework conditions. Many concepts that have already been under consideration, but which very few have considered realistic in the short-term, now appear at least to have come within reach. As a result of the fluctuations in the generation of renewable energies, Germany needs loads that can be switched and, above all, methods of storing energy. In conjunction with new technologies, such as PEM electrolysis and the pressure which has been put on politics to react and to create the necessary framework conditions, a new momentum has developed with regard to the use of hydrogen. This article analyses to what extent synergies between energy transition and mobility can be expected within the context of hydrogen. With a view to quantity, times and local relationships, quality and price, we have been able to determine that the relevant amounts and dependencies have a positive and relevant magnitude to one another, thus synergies are present. It should be noted that hydrogen will not be the sole solution for the Federal Government when it comes to achieving CO{sub 2} reduction aims. Electrical mobility with approaches for bidirectional charging, new storage technologies and alternative energy carriers, switchable loads as well as the local public transport systems and new mobility concepts will

Effect of Parametric Dichotomic Markov Noise on the Properties of Chaotic Transitions in Dynamical Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Gac, J. M.; Żebrowski, J. J.

A chaotic transition occurs when a continuous change of one of the parameters of the system causes a discontinuous change in the properties of the chaotic attractor of the system. Such phenomena are present in many dynamical systems, in which a chaotic behavior occurs. The best known of these transitions are: the period-doubling bifurcation cascade, intermittency and crises. The effect of dichotomous Markov noise (DMN) on the properties of systems with chaotic transitions is discussed. DMN is a very simple two-valued stochastic process, with constant transition rates between the two states. In spite of its simplicity, this kind of noise is a very powerful tool to describe various phenomena present in many physical, chemical or biological systems. Many interesting phenomena induced by DMN are known. However, there is no research on the effect of this kind of noise on intermittency or crises. We present the change of the mean laminar phase length and of laminar phase length distribution caused by DMN modulating the parameters of a system with intermittency and the modification of the mean life time on the pre-crisis attractor in the case of a boundary crisis. The results obtained analytically are compared with numerical simulations for several simple dynamical systems.

Systems science and systems thinking for public health: a systematic review of the field.

Science.gov (United States)

Carey, Gemma; Malbon, Eleanor; Carey, Nicole; Joyce, Andrew; Crammond, Brad; Carey, Alan

2015-12-30

This paper reports on findings from a systematic review designed to investigate the state of systems science research in public health. The objectives were to: (1) explore how systems methodologies are being applied within public health and (2) identify fruitful areas of activity. A systematic review was conducted from existing literature that draws on or uses systems science (in its various forms) and relates to key public health areas of action and concern, including tobacco, alcohol, obesity and the social determinants of health. 117 articles were included in the review. An inductive qualitative content analysis was used for data extraction. The following were systematically extracted from the articles: approach, methodology, transparency, strengths and weaknesses. These were then organised according to theme (ie, commonalities between studies within each category), in order to provide an overview of the state of the field as a whole. The assessment of data quality was intrinsic to the goals of the review itself, and therefore, was carried out as part of the analysis. 4 categories of research were identified from the review, ranging from editorial and commentary pieces to complex system dynamic modelling. Our analysis of each of these categories of research highlighted areas of potential for systems science to strengthen public health efforts, while also revealing a number of limitations in the dynamic systems modelling being carried out in public health. There is a great deal of interest in how the application of systems concepts and approach might aid public health. Our analysis suggests that soft systems modelling techniques are likely to be the most useful addition to public health, and align well with current debate around knowledge transfer and policy. However, the full range of systems methodologies is yet to be engaged with by public health researchers. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under

The Mercury Transit 2016: educational activities from CESAR

Science.gov (United States)

Pérez-Ayúcar, Miguel; Breitfelner, Michel

2017-04-01

A transit of Mercury in front of the solar disk as seen from Earth is a rare astronomical event which occurs only about every 13-14 times per century. Although its historic scientific importance, e.g. to measure the distances in the solar system, has diminished since humanity roams our solar system with robotic spacecrafts, a Mercury Transit remains a spectacular astronomical event that is used very effectively to engage general public and students to Science and Space in general. The educational project CESAR (Cooperation through Education in Science and Astronomy Research) , working upon previous experience (Venus transit 2012, live Sun transmissions ..), prepared a dual observation of the transit from two separate locations: the CESAR Solar Observatory at ESAC (European Space Astronomy Center), Madrid, Spain, and a twin portable telescope set-up in Cerro Paranal, Chile, achieving a ground baseline parallax of 10.000km. CESAR organized an educational and outreach event in collaboration with several Spanish schools/universities, the ESA Education and Communications offices, the Teide observatory and the ESA projects Bepi Colombo and Solar Orbiter. The driving activity was a continuous 10h interactive Google hangout that connected students in Spain (Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, CAC in Valencia), students in observatories in Chile, the remote observing teams, and scientists at ESAC. Live images were transmitted via a specific web in two bands (h-alpha and visible). Experts in the fields of Solar and Planetary Physics gave presentations related to the Sun and Mercury. Questions and answers sessions were performed so that world-wide audience could interact with the scientists and engineers. In this paper we explain how this public educational and outreach event was created, what activities it comprised, and the follow up activities.

Transition to Postgraduate Study: Postgraduate Ecological Systems and Identity

Science.gov (United States)

Tobbell, Jane; O'Donnell, Victoria L.

2013-01-01

This paper explores and examines the distal and proximal systems which construct social science postgraduate study in the UK and analyses the emergent identities of postgraduate students as they negotiate the multiple and interacting practices in their transition to study. The data represent part of a one-year research project, funded by the…

Public health services and systems research: current state of finance research.

Science.gov (United States)

Ingram, Richard C; Bernet, Patrick M; Costich, Julia F

2012-11-01

There is a growing recognition that the US public health system should strive for efficiency-that it should determine the optimal ways to utilize limited resources to improve and protect public health. The field of public health finance research is a critical part of efforts to understand the most efficient ways to use resources. This article discusses the current state of public health finance research through a review of public health finance literature, chronicles important lessons learned from public health finance research to date, discusses the challenges faced by those seeking to conduct financial research on the public health system, and discusses the role of public health finance research in relation to the broader endeavor of Public Health Services and Systems Research.

Field-induced phase transitions in antiferromagnetic systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Smeets, J.P.M.

1984-05-01

Neutron scattering experiments and magnetization measurements are carried out on cobalt bromide hexahydrate, of which 48% of the water molecules are replaced by deuterium oxide molecules. Results were compared with data obtained from non-deuterated cobalt bromide hexahydrate. Neutron scattering experiments showed the importance of the deuterium fraction. Interplay exists between the crystallographic system and the magnetic system, which is influenced by changing the deuterium fraction. Neutron scattering and magnetization experiments on partially deuterated RbFeCl 3 .2H 2 O and CsFeCl 3 .2H 2 O were performed to study the magnetic phase transitions in these quasi one-dimensional Ising compounds. The observed behaviour in the various phases can be described by the nucleation theory of chain reversals. (Auth.)

Critical transitions in chronic disease: transferring concepts from ecology to systems medicine.

Science.gov (United States)

Trefois, Christophe; Antony, Paul M A; Goncalves, Jorge; Skupin, Alexander; Balling, Rudi

2015-08-01

Ecosystems and biological systems are known to be inherently complex and to exhibit nonlinear dynamics. Diseases such as microbiome dysregulation or depression can be seen as complex systems as well and were shown to exhibit patterns of nonlinearity in their response to perturbations. These nonlinearities can be revealed by a sudden shift in system states, for instance from health to disease. The identification and characterization of early warning signals which could predict upcoming critical transitions is of primordial interest as prevention of disease onset is a major aim in health care. In this review, we focus on recent evidence for critical transitions in diseases and discuss the potential of such studies for therapeutic applications. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Gastrointestinal transit in patients with systemic sclerosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Fynne, Lotte; Worsøe, Jonas; Gregersen, Tine; Schlageter, Vincent; Laurberg, Søren; Krogh, Klaus

2011-10-01

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune disease characterized by fibrosis and collagen deposits. Gastrointestinal symptoms of SSc, including abdominal pain, bloating and discomfort, are common but diffuse and their pathophysiology remains obscure. To investigate the pathophysiology of abdominal pain and discomfort in individuals with SSc. A total of 15 individuals with SSc (13 women, median age 58 years), all suffering from diffuse abdominal symptoms, and 17 healthy volunteers (12 women, median age 52 years) were evaluated with the Motility Tracking System, MTS-1, measuring gastric emptying (GE) and velocity through the small intestine. SSc patients were also examined for bacterial overgrowth using the hydrogen breath test and with radiopaque markers to determine the total gastrointestinal transit time (GITT). Assessed with the MTS-1, the velocity through the proximal small intestine was significantly reduced in SSc patients (median 0.525 m/h, range 0.11-1.15) when compared to healthy subjects (median 0.91 m/h, range 0.51-1.74) (p = 0.02). Prolonged GE was found in 4 SSc patients (27%) but in none of the healthy volunteers (p = 0.04). Only 3 SSc patients (21%) had positive breath tests for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. GITT was >3 days in 8 patients (53%). Slow small intestinal transit was associated with a prolonged GITT (p < 0.05). Velocity through the small intestine is significantly reduced in SSc patients with diffuse abdominal symptoms.

The Mandate System for the Belgian Public Prosecution

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bruno BROUCKER

2009-12-01

Full Text Available The law of 22 December 1998 introduced the mandate system for the heads of the Public Prosecution offices, which were appointed permanent before that. Theoretically, such a system needs to enhance, within the organization, effectiveness, efficiency, responsabilisation, and goal-orientation. However, the mandate system within the Belgian Public Prosecution was introduced prematurely, for dubious reasons and in a precipitate manner. In the current situation, the position of the mandate holder is uncertain, with a bounded autonomy and a low wage increase. Moreover, it remains impossible to intervene in the policy of appointed heads of office (during their mandate, the efficiency and effectiveness is only increased in some prosecution offices and a contract containing actual management responsibilities is absent. In sum: there is a large gap between the theoretical principles of mandate systems and the way it is introduced in the Belgian Public Prosecution.

Mean Transit Time and Mean Residence Time for Linear Diffusion–Convection–Reaction Transport System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jacek Waniewski

2007-01-01

Full Text Available Characteristic times for transport processes in biological systems may be evaluated as mean transit times (MTTs (for transit states or mean residence times (MRT (for steady states. It is shown in a general framework of a (linear reaction–diffusion–convection equation that these two times are related. Analytical formulas are also derived to calculate moments of exit time distribution using solutions for a stationary state of the system.

[The transition from 'international' to 'global' public health and the World Health Organization].

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, Theodore M; Cueto, Marcos; Fee, Elizabeth

2006-01-01

Within the context of international public health, 'global health' seems to be emerging as a recognized term of preference. This article presents a critical analysis of the meaning and importance of 'global health' and situates its growing popularity within a historical context. A specific focus of this work is the role of the World Health Organization - WHO in both 'international' and 'global' health, and as na agent of transition from one to the other. Between 1948 and 1998, the WHO went through a period of hardship as it came up against an organizational crisis, budget cuts and a diminished status, especially when confronted with the growing influence of new, power players like the World Bank. We suggest that the WHO has responded to this changing international context by inititating its own process of restructuring and repositioning as an agent for coordinating, strategically planning and leading 'global health' initiatives.

TRANSIT TIMING OBSERVATIONS FROM KEPLER. II. CONFIRMATION OF TWO MULTIPLANET SYSTEMS VIA A NON-PARAMETRIC CORRELATION ANALYSIS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ford, Eric B.; Moorhead, Althea V.; Morehead, Robert C.; Fabrycky, Daniel C.; Steffen, Jason H.; Carter, Joshua A.; Fressin, Francois; Holman, Matthew J.; Ragozzine, Darin; Charbonneau, David; Lissauer, Jack J.; Rowe, Jason F.; Borucki, William J.; Bryson, Stephen T.; Burke, Christopher J.; Caldwell, Douglas A.; Welsh, William F.; Allen, Christopher; Batalha, Natalie M.; Buchhave, Lars A.

2012-01-01

We present a new method for confirming transiting planets based on the combination of transit timing variations (TTVs) and dynamical stability. Correlated TTVs provide evidence that the pair of bodies is in the same physical system. Orbital stability provides upper limits for the masses of the transiting companions that are in the planetary regime. This paper describes a non-parametric technique for quantifying the statistical significance of TTVs based on the correlation of two TTV data sets. We apply this method to an analysis of the TTVs of two stars with multiple transiting planet candidates identified by Kepler. We confirm four transiting planets in two multiple-planet systems based on their TTVs and the constraints imposed by dynamical stability. An additional three candidates in these same systems are not confirmed as planets, but are likely to be validated as real planets once further observations and analyses are possible. If all were confirmed, these systems would be near 4:6:9 and 2:4:6:9 period commensurabilities. Our results demonstrate that TTVs provide a powerful tool for confirming transiting planets, including low-mass planets and planets around faint stars for which Doppler follow-up is not practical with existing facilities. Continued Kepler observations will dramatically improve the constraints on the planet masses and orbits and provide sensitivity for detecting additional non-transiting planets. If Kepler observations were extended to eight years, then a similar analysis could likely confirm systems with multiple closely spaced, small transiting planets in or near the habitable zone of solar-type stars.

TRANSIT TIMING OBSERVATIONS FROM KEPLER. II. CONFIRMATION OF TWO MULTIPLANET SYSTEMS VIA A NON-PARAMETRIC CORRELATION ANALYSIS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ford, Eric B.; Moorhead, Althea V.; Morehead, Robert C. [Astronomy Department, University of Florida, 211 Bryant Space Sciences Center, Gainesville, FL 32611 (United States); Fabrycky, Daniel C. [UCO/Lick Observatory, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States); Steffen, Jason H. [Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics, P.O. Box 500, MS 127, Batavia, IL 60510 (United States); Carter, Joshua A.; Fressin, Francois; Holman, Matthew J.; Ragozzine, Darin; Charbonneau, David [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Lissauer, Jack J.; Rowe, Jason F.; Borucki, William J.; Bryson, Stephen T.; Burke, Christopher J.; Caldwell, Douglas A. [NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035 (United States); Welsh, William F. [Astronomy Department, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182-1221 (United States); Allen, Christopher [Orbital Sciences Corporation/NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035 (United States); Batalha, Natalie M. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA 95192 (United States); Buchhave, Lars A., E-mail: eford@astro.ufl.edu [Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen University, DK-2100 Copenhagen (Denmark); Collaboration: Kepler Science Team; and others

2012-05-10

We present a new method for confirming transiting planets based on the combination of transit timing variations (TTVs) and dynamical stability. Correlated TTVs provide evidence that the pair of bodies is in the same physical system. Orbital stability provides upper limits for the masses of the transiting companions that are in the planetary regime. This paper describes a non-parametric technique for quantifying the statistical significance of TTVs based on the correlation of two TTV data sets. We apply this method to an analysis of the TTVs of two stars with multiple transiting planet candidates identified by Kepler. We confirm four transiting planets in two multiple-planet systems based on their TTVs and the constraints imposed by dynamical stability. An additional three candidates in these same systems are not confirmed as planets, but are likely to be validated as real planets once further observations and analyses are possible. If all were confirmed, these systems would be near 4:6:9 and 2:4:6:9 period commensurabilities. Our results demonstrate that TTVs provide a powerful tool for confirming transiting planets, including low-mass planets and planets around faint stars for which Doppler follow-up is not practical with existing facilities. Continued Kepler observations will dramatically improve the constraints on the planet masses and orbits and provide sensitivity for detecting additional non-transiting planets. If Kepler observations were extended to eight years, then a similar analysis could likely confirm systems with multiple closely spaced, small transiting planets in or near the habitable zone of solar-type stars.

The Transiting Exocomets in the HD 172555 System

Science.gov (United States)

Grady, C. A.; Brown, A.; Kamp, I.; Roberge, A.; Riviere-Marichalar, P.; Welsh, B.

2017-01-01

The Earth is thought to have formed dry, in a part of the Solar Nebula deficient in organic material, and to have acquired its organics and water through bombardment by minor bodies. Observations of this process in well-dated systems can provide insight into the probable origin and composition of the bombarding parent bodies. Transiting cometary activity has previously been reported in Ca II for the late-A member of the 241 Myr old Pictoris Moving Group member, HD 172555(Kiefer et al. 2014). We present HST STIS and COS spectra of HD 172555 demonstrating that the star has chromospheric emission and variable in falling gas features in transitions of silicon and carbon ions at times when no Fe II absorption is seen in the UV data, and no Ca II absorption is seen in contemporary optical spectra. The lack of CO absorption and stable gas absorption at the system velocity is consistent with the absence of a cold Kuiper belt analog (Riviere-Marichalar et al. 2012) in this system. The presence of infall in some species at one epoch and others at different epochs suggests that, like Pictoris, there may be more than one family of exocomets. If perturbed into star-grazing orbits by the same mechanism as for Pic, these data suggest that the wide planet frequency among A-early F stars in the PMG is at least 37.5, well above the frequency estimated for young moving groups independent of host star spectral type.

Waveguide transition with vacuum window for multiband dynamic nuclear polarization systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rybalko, Oleksandr; Bowen, Sean; Zhurbenko, Vitaliy [Technical University of Denmark, Ørsteds Plads 349, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby (Denmark); Ardenkjær-Larsen, Jan Henrik, E-mail: jhar@elektro.dtu.dk [Technical University of Denmark, Ørsteds Plads 349, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby (Denmark); GE Healthcare, Park Alle 295, Brøndby (Denmark)

2016-05-15

A low loss waveguide transition section and oversized microwave vacuum window covering several frequency bands (94 GHz, 140 GHz, 188 GHz) is presented. The transition is compact and was optimized for multiband Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP) systems in a full-wave simulator. The window is more broadband than commercially available windows, which are usually optimized for single band operation. It is demonstrated that high-density polyethylene with urethane adhesive can be used as a low loss microwave vacuum window in multiband DNP systems. The overall assembly performance and dimensions are found using full-wave simulations. The practical aspects of the window implementation in the waveguide are discussed. To verify the design and simulation results, the window is tested experimentally at the three frequencies of interest.

Participating to the Transition Towards New Energy Technology Systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tosato, G.

2008-01-01

The paper analyses possible implications for Croatia of a global transition towards new energy technology systems, as depicted by the recent report on scenarios and strategies to 2050 of the International Energy Agency [ETP2008]. The analysis is based upon the present Croatian energy balance. It takes into account some draft results of the USAID-supported Regional Energy Demand Planning (REDP) study under the South East Europe Regional Energy Market Support (SEE REMS) Project. The paper then presents ongoing EC-funded energy research projects, such as RES2020 (Monitoring and Evaluation of the Renewable Energy Sources directives implementation in EU27 and policy recommendations for 2020), REACCESS (Risk of Energy Availability: Common Corridors for Europe Supply Security) and REALISEGRID (REseArch, methodoLogIes and technologieS for the effective development of pan-European key GRID infrastructures to support the achievement of a reliable, competitive and sustainable electricity supply). The participation of Croatian research organizations to EC-funded research projects could make the transition towards new energy system an opportunity for economic development.(author)

Public outcomes: Building a 21st century national innovation system that serves the public

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gover, J. [Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States); Huray, P.; Carayannis, E. [George Washington Univ., Washington, DC (United States)

1997-09-01

Federal R and D must be principally focused on solving public problems that the marketplace is failing to address. With few exceptions programs must be supported by roadmaps that show how the R and D is linked to public outcomes. Federal R and D and those who perform it must be judged in terms of the public outcomes. The overarching issues of federal R and D policy, what it should address, how to manage it, who should perform it, how to perform it, what works best, etc. are highly complex and lack a strong theoretical foundation. (In fact, the linear, assembly-line model used by policymakers is wrong.) It is time that policymakers recognize and acknowledge the uncertainty of their work and conduct a wide array of policy experiments (the authors consider SEMATECH such an experiment) that are supported by public outcome metrics. In addition to making federal R and D better address public needs, such an approach to policy making could raise the public`s interest in T and S policy. Of course, as in any experiment the results may be measured and if failures aren`t observed, it is likely that policies lack vision and imagination. It is time to abandon the budget driven federal R and D system where performers of federal R and D are treated as constituents, and replace it with a public problem--public outcome driven system where public problems are prioritized and the budget is distributed to agencies according to these priorities.

Heliopause Electrostatic Rapid Transit System (HERTS)

Science.gov (United States)

Wiegmann, Bruce M.

2015-01-01

A recent six month investigation focused on: "Determining the benefits of propelling a scientific spacecraft by an 'Electric Sail' propulsion system to the edge of our solar system (the Heliopause), a distance of 100 to 120 AU, in ten years or less" has recently been completed by the Advance Concepts Office at NASA's MSFC. The concept investigated has been named the Heliopause Electrostatic Rapid Transit System (HERTS) by the MSFC team. The HERTS is a revolutionary propellant-less propulsion concept that is ideal for deep space missions to the Outer Planets, Heliopause, and beyond. It is unique in that it uses momentum exchange from naturally occurring solar wind protons to propel a spacecraft within the heliosphere. The propulsion system consists of an array of electrically positively-biased wires that extend outward 20 km from a rotating (one revolution per hour) spacecraft. It was determined that the HERTS system can accelerate a spacecraft to velocities as much as two to three times that possible by any realistic extrapolation of current state-of-the-art propulsion technologies- including solar electric and solar sail propulsion systems. The data produced show that a scientific spacecraft could reach distances of 100AU in less than 10 years. Moreover, it can be reasonably expected that this system could be developed within a decade and provide meaningful Heliophysics Science and Outer Planetary Science returns in the 2025-2035 timeframe.

Integration of cabs and hired cars in urban transportation systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bernauer,

1984-01-01

Integrating taxis and limousine services into the public transit system has become a major goal in designing new forms of public transportation. Expanding the spectrum of possible use for these vehicles - for both scheduled and on-demand service - requires, first of all, a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the current state of affairs in this area. Administrative, organizational, technical, and legal issues as well as the respective traffic patterns had to be investigated. This investigation was to find out if, and in what ways, taxis and limousine services could actually be incorporated into the public transit system. In addition, the results were interpreted against the background of experiments and tentative models for regular, scheduled and supplementary public transit. As a result, we developed a generalized concept for integrating the two systems and proposed possible forms of service, organization, and financial calculation. Included were legal issues and comments on contractual relations between the partners.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN THE CHINESE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT (EIA) SYSTEM

OpenAIRE

SHANSHAN YANG

2008-01-01

This article was initiated by findings that public participation in the Chinese Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) system has not been effectively carried out. The article first introduces the research rationale and theoretical basis. It then reviews and analyses public participation in the Chinese EIA system, including its history, legal and institutional requirements and problems. Thirdly it puts forward suggestions for promoting public participation in the Chinese EIA system taking into...

A Transitive Recommendation System for Information Technology Communities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hesham Ali

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Social networks have become a new trend for research among computer scientist around the world. Social network had an impact on users' way of life. One of social network usages is recommendation systems. The need of recommendation systems is arising when users try to know best choice for them in many items types (books, experts, locations, technologies...etc. The problem is that a single person can't try all alternatives in all possibles life goals to compare. Thus, a person has to use his friends' expertise to select better option in any item category. This process is the main idea of “Recommendation Systems”. Recommendation systems usually depend on users-to-items ratings in a network (graph. Two main challenges for recommendation systems are accuracy of recommendation and computation size. The main objective of this paper is to introduce a suggested technique for transitive recommendation system based on users' collaborative ratings, and also to balance loading of computation. All this has to be applied on a special type of social network. Our work studied the transitivity usage in connections to get a relation (path as a recommendation for nodes not directly connected. The target social network has eight types of nodes. So, there are techniques that are not suitable to this complex type of network. Those we can present a new support for recommending items of several types to users with several types. We believe that this functionality hasn't been fully provided elsewhere. We have suggested using single source shortest path algorithm combined with Map Reduce technique, and mathematically deduced that we have a speeding up of algorithm by 10% approximately. Our testing results shows an accuracy of 89% and false rejection of 99% compared to traditional algorithms with less configuration parameters and more steady count of recommendations.

Facilitating energy transition through energy commons : An application of socio-ecological systems framework for integrated community energy systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Acosta, Cristina; Ortega, Mariana; Bunsen, Till; Koirala, B.P.; Ghorbani, A.

2018-01-01

Integrated Community Energy Systems (ICES) are an emerging local energy system focusing on the collective use of distributed energy resources (DER). These socio-technical systems (STSs) have a high potential to advance the transition towards socially inclusive, environmentally-friendly energy

Facilitating energy transition through energy commons : An application of socio-ecological systems framework for integrated community energy systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Acosta, Cristina; Ortega, Mariana; Bunsen, Till; Koirala, Binod Prasad; Ghorbani, Amineh

2018-01-01

Integrated Community Energy Systems (ICES) are an emerging local energy system focusing on the collective use of distributed energy resources (DER). These socio-technical systems (STSs) have a high potential to advance the transition towards socially inclusive, environmentally-friendly energy

Quantum phase transitions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sachdev, S.

1999-01-01

Phase transitions are normally associated with changes of temperature but a new type of transition - caused by quantum fluctuations near absolute zero - is possible, and can tell us more about the properties of a wide range of systems in condensed-matter physics. Nature abounds with phase transitions. The boiling and freezing of water are everyday examples of phase transitions, as are more exotic processes such as superconductivity and superfluidity. The universe itself is thought to have passed through several phase transitions as the high-temperature plasma formed by the big bang cooled to form the world as we know it today. Phase transitions are traditionally classified as first or second order. In first-order transitions the two phases co-exist at the transition temperature - e.g. ice and water at 0 deg., or water and steam at 100 deg. In second-order transitions the two phases do not co-exist. In the last decade, attention has focused on phase transitions that are qualitatively different from the examples noted above: these are quantum phase transitions and they occur only at the absolute zero of temperature. The transition takes place at the ''quantum critical'' value of some other parameter such as pressure, composition or magnetic field strength. A quantum phase transition takes place when co-operative ordering of the system disappears, but this loss of order is driven solely by the quantum fluctuations demanded by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. The physical properties of these quantum fluctuations are quite distinct from those of the thermal fluctuations responsible for traditional, finite-temperature phase transitions. In particular, the quantum system is described by a complex-valued wavefunction, and the dynamics of its phase near the quantum critical point requires novel theories that have no analogue in the traditional framework of phase transitions. In this article the author describes the history of quantum phase transitions. (UK)

Universal scheme to generate metal–insulator transition in disordered systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guo, Ai-Min; Xiong, Shi-Jie; Xie, X C; Sun, Qing-feng

2013-01-01

We propose a scheme to generate metal–insulator transition in the random binary layer (RBL) model, which is constructed by randomly assigning two types of layers along the longitudinal direction. Based on a tight-binding Hamiltonian, the localization length is calculated for a variety of RBLs with different cross section geometries by using the transfer-matrix method. Both analytical and numerical results show that a band of extended states could appear in the quasi-one-dimensional RBLs and the systems behave as metals by properly tuning the model parameters, due to the existence of a completely ordered subband, leading to a metal–insulator transition in parameter space. Furthermore, the extended states are irrespective of the diagonal and off-diagonal disorder strengths. Our results can be generalized to two- and three-dimensional disordered systems with arbitrary layer structures, and may be realized in Bose–Einstein condensates. (paper)

Merger transitions in brane-black-hole systems: Criticality, scaling, and self-similarity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Frolov, Valeri P.

2006-01-01

We propose a toy model for studying merger transitions in a curved spacetime with an arbitrary number of dimensions. This model includes a bulk N-dimensional static spherically symmetric black hole and a test D-dimensional brane (D≤N-1) interacting with the black hole. The brane is asymptotically flat and allows a O(D-1) group of symmetry. Such a brane-black-hole (BBH) system has two different phases. The first one is formed by solutions describing a brane crossing the horizon of the bulk black hole. In this case the internal induced geometry of the brane describes a D-dimensional black hole. The other phase consists of solutions for branes which do not intersect the horizon, and the induced geometry does not have a horizon. We study a critical solution at the threshold of the brane-black-hole formation, and the solutions which are close to it. In particular, we demonstrate that there exists a striking similarity of the merger transition, during which the phase of the BBH system is changed, both with the Choptuik critical collapse and with the merger transitions in the higher dimensional caged black-hole-black-string system

Nuclear safeguards - a system in transition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Carlson, J.

1999-01-01

'Classical' safeguards have a strong emphasis on nuclear materials accountancy, and are primarily concerned with verifying nuclear activities as declared by the State - what has been termed the correctness of States' declarations. Following the Gulf War, failure to adequately address the possibility of undeclared nuclear activities - the issue of the completeness of States' declarations - has been recognised as a major shortcoming in the classical safeguards system, and major changes are in progress to strengthen the IAEA's capabilities in this regard. Agreement has been reached on a Model Protocol substantially extending the IAEA's authority, and there has been good progress in developing the new approaches and technologies required to ensure this authority is used effectively. IAEA safeguards are undergoing a major transition, towards greater emphasis on information collection and analysis, diversity of verification methods, incorporation of more qualitative judgments, and improved efficiency. These changes present major challenges to the IAEA and to the international community, but the end result will be a more effective safeguards system

Transition of International System and China’s Strategic Choice

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

TANG YONGSHENG

2016-01-01

At present,the international situation is at change.The international system undergoes profound transition.Great changes are happening to structure of power pattern,essence of international relations and norms of global governance.Major events of overall and strategic bearings such as the Ukraine Crisis,the Chaos of the Middle East,the proliferation of terrorism and the slowdown in economic

Brane-antibrane systems at finite temperature and phase transition near the Hagedorn temperature

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hotta, Kenji

2002-01-01

In order to study the thermodynamic properties of brane-antibrane systems, we compute the finite temperature effective potential of tachyon T in this system on the basis of boundary string field theory. At low temperature, the minimum of the potential shifts towards T=0 as the temperature increases. In the D9-anti-D9 case, the sign of the coefficient of vertical bar T vertical bar 2 term of the potential changes slightly below the Hagedorn temperature. This means that a phase transition occurs near the Hagedorn temperature. On the other hand, the coefficient is kept negative in the Dp-anti-Dp case with p≤8, and thus a phase transition does not occur. This leads us to the conclusion that only a D9-anti-D9 pair and no other (lower dimensional) brane-antibrane pairs are created near the Hagedorn temperature. We also discuss a phase transition in NS9B-anti-NS9B case as a model of the Hagedorn transition of closed strings. (author)

Orange County Transit/traffic Management Integration And Traveler Information Project: Evaluation Plan

OpenAIRE

Hall, R.; Hickman, M.

1996-01-01

This document focuses on a Field Operational Test (FOT) to develop an integrated information system for transit and traffic management and for traveler information that relies on Global Positioning System (GPS) equipped buses as probe vehicles. The document provides the evaluation plan for the FOT. The plan covers three principal elements: 1) Institutional, TMC Operator and Bus Operator, 2) Public Knowledge and Perceptions, and 3) System performance. The document provides an overall evaluatio...

Level of service for pedestrian movement towards the performance of passenger information in public transport stations in Klang Valley

Science.gov (United States)

Ramli, M. Z.; Hanipah, M. H.; Lee, L. G.; Loo, K. F.; Wong, J. K.; Zawawi, M. H.; Fuad, N. F. S.

2017-09-01

Rapid growth in car ownership in Malaysia plays a major role to traffic congestion. Hence, public transportation is crucial to cater the residents in high-density area especially in Klang Valley. Signage information in public transport station is one of an important passenger information system. Poor placement of sign information will decrease the efficiency of passenger flow and caused congestion in the station. Passenger information system is very useful for trip planning and decision making. Therefore, it is interesting to study the performance of passenger information system in focusing the movement behavior of pedestrian at non-peak period. Thus, the study on pedestrian movement during non-peak period on weekdays and weekends in mass transit stations and bus transit stations in Klang Valley was carried out by using video observation. The observation of the pedestrian movement was made in Mass Transit Station 1 in the middle of Kuala Lumpur and Mass Transit Station 2 in southern of Kuala Lumpur. The other site was focused at Bus Transit Station 1 in Putrajaya and Bus Transit Station 2 in Kajang. Findings shown that Mass Transit Station 1 having the best facility in terms of passenger information which the level of service obtained is LOS A, while the lowest level of service which is LOS E was obtained in Bus Transit Station 2.

Transit and climate change adaptation : synthesis of FTA-funded pilot projects.

Science.gov (United States)

2014-08-01

Public transit agencies play a critical role in providing safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to the communities they serve. In : the face of increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, several public transit and other ...

Dipole transitions and Stark effect in the charge-dyon system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mardoyan, Levon; Nersessian, Armen; Sarkisyan, Hayk; Yeghikyan, Vahagn

2007-01-01

We consider the dipole transitions and the linear and quadratic Stark effects in the MICZ-Kepler system interpreted as a charge-dyon system. We show that while the linear Stark effect in the ground state is proportional to the azimuth quantum number (and to the sign of the monopole number), the quadratic Stark effect in the ground state is independent of the signs of the azimuth and monopole numbers

Transition? What transition? : Changing energy systems in an increasingly carbon constrained world

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mc Cahery, J.A.; Lopez de Silanes, Florencio; de Roode, Alexander

2014-01-01

Energy transitions have been taking place continuously since the Industrial Revolution. These transitions primarily involve national energy mixes. In general, countries keep moving up the energy ladder, meaning that they integrate larger and larger proportions of specialized fuels into their energy

From system requirements to source code: transitions in UML and RUP

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stanisław Wrycza

2011-06-01

Full Text Available There are many manuals explaining language specification among UML-related books. Only some of books mentioned concentrate on practical aspects of using the UML language in effective way using CASE tools and RUP. The current paper presents transitions from system requirements specification to structural source code, useful while developing an information system.

Locating stations of public transportation vehicles for improving transit accessibility

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

H. Ziari

2007-06-01

Full Text Available Since transportation is one of the most complicated and the basic problem of urban life in developing countries at the present time and in various dimensions, so it is necessary to view it more scientifically-practically. Reducing travelling time is one way to reduce its cost. In public transportation system, it is important to determine proper travelling costs. There are various methods to determine the distances between stations. One of these methods used in England is based on logical and calculative relations in mathematics. In this paper, in addition to studying this method some changes have been made in order to reduce and modify required variables for calculation of those relations. A numerical example is designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method and thus developed to optimize the public transportation stop location problem. The sensitivity of the total travel time, access, speed and the effect of the parameters on the optimum stop location are analyzed and discussed.

Modeling Transit Patterns Via Mobile App Logs.

Science.gov (United States)

2016-01-01

Transit planners need detailed information of the trips people take using public transit in : order to design more optimal routes, address new construction projects, and address the : constantly changing needs of a city and metro region. Better trans...

Transitional region of phase transitions in nuclear models

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kotze, A A

1988-01-01

The phase transition in an exactly solvable nuclear model, the Lipkin model, is scrutinised, first using Hartree-Fock methods or the plain mean flield approximation, and then using projected wave functions. It turns out that the plain mean field is not reliable in the transitional region. Although the projection methods give better resutls in the transitional region, it leads to spurious singularities. While the energy of the projection before variation is slightly better than its projection after variation counterpart, the perfomance of the wave function is considerably worse in the transitional region. The model's wave function undergoes dramatic changes in the transitional region. The mechanism that brings about these changes is studied within a model Hamiltonian that can reproduce the Lipkin model mathematically. It turns out that the numerous exceptional points found in the transitional region, bring about the change of the ground state wave function. Exceptional points are associated with level crossings in the complex plane. These level crossings can be seen as level repulsions in the spectrum. Level repulsion and a sensitive dependence of the system on some external parameter are characteristics of chaotic behaviour. These two features are found in the transitional region of the Lipkin model. In order to study chaos, one has to resort to a statistical analysis. A measure of the chaotic behaviour of systems, the ..delta../sub 3/ statistic, is introduced. The results show that the Lipkin model is harmonic, even in the transitional region. For the Lipkin model the exceptional points are regularly distributed in the complex plane. In a total chaotic system the points would be randomly distributed.

MODEL-INDEPENDENT STELLAR AND PLANETARY MASSES FROM MULTI-TRANSITING EXOPLANETARY SYSTEMS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Montet, Benjamin T.; Johnson, John Asher

2013-01-01

Precise exoplanet characterization requires precise classification of exoplanet host stars. The masses of host stars are commonly estimated by comparing their spectra to those predicted by stellar evolution models. However, spectroscopically determined properties are difficult to measure accurately for stars that are substantially different from the Sun, such as M-dwarfs and evolved stars. Here, we propose a new method to dynamically measure the masses of transiting planets near mean-motion resonances and their host stars by combining observations of transit timing variations with radial velocity (RV) measurements. We derive expressions to analytically determine the mass of each member of the system and demonstrate the technique on the Kepler-18 system. We compare these analytic results to numerical simulations and find that the two are consistent. We identify eight systems for which our technique could be applied if follow-up RV measurements are collected. We conclude that this analysis would be optimal for systems discovered by next-generation missions similar to TESS or PLATO, which will target bright stars that are amenable to efficient RV follow-up.

Public Debt and Its Impact on the Polish Economy and Society

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gavin Rae

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Purpose: To analyse the issue of public debt in Poland and examine its effect on other areas of socio-economic life as well as government policy.Approach: The question of public debt is placed in its historical context by looking at how it grew during the Communist system and influenced the transition period. The article draws on a range of secondary economic statistics and considers in detail a number of public policy issues, such as the reform of the pension system.Findings: One result of the large debt incurred by the end of the 1970s was that Poland became indebted to creditors in the West. This dependency helped to shape its economic policy at the end of the 1980s. The transition to a market economy placed new burdens on the country’s public services, primarily due to the resulting large deactivation of labour. Furthermore, the creation of a compulsory private pension system at the end of the 1990s diverted significant funds out of the government’s budget and swelled the country’s public debt. Since the outbreak of the economic crisis, Poland has avoided a recession by increasing public investment by utilising available European Union funds. However, due to internal and external limits on the size of its public debt, the government is being pressured to reduce this spending. In order to create more fiscal room, the government has partly dismantled the compulsory private pension system as a short-term solution to the growing debt crisis.Value: In the wake of the global financial crisis and economic turmoil in the European Union, the matter of public debt has taken on increased importance. This paper considers this question from a long-term perspective in a country that has been relatively successful during the international economic downturn. By examining public debt from this broad perspective, we can better understand the economic situation in Poland and the European Union, whilst also shedding light on some of the surrounding

Transitive Credit and JSON-LD

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniel S. Katz

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Science and engineering research increasingly relies on activities that facilitate research but are not currently rewarded or recognized, such as: data sharing; developing common data resources, software and methodologies; and annotating data and publications. To promote and advance these activities, we must develop mechanisms for assigning credit, facilitate the appropriate attribution of research outcomes, devise incentives for activities that facilitate research, and allocate funds to maximize return on investment. In this article, we focus on addressing the issue of assigning credit for both direct and indirect contributions, specifically by using JSON-LD to implement a prototype transitive credit system.

Heterogeneity of passenger exposure to air pollutants in public transport microenvironments

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Fenhuan; Kaul, Daya; Wong, Ka Chun; Westerdahl, Dane; Sun, Li; Ho, Kin-fai; Tian, Linwei; Brimblecombe, Peter; Ning, Zhi

2015-05-01

Epidemiologic studies have linked human exposure to pollutants with adverse health effects. Passenger exposure in public transport systems contributes an important fraction of daily burden of air pollutants. While there is extensive literature reporting the concentrations of pollutants in public transport systems in different cities, there are few studies systematically addressing the heterogeneity of passenger exposure in different transit microenvironments, in cabins of different transit vehicles and in areas with different characteristics. The present study investigated PM2.5 (particulate matter with aerodynamic diameters smaller than 2.5 μm), black carbon (BC), ultrafine particles (UFP) and carbon monoxide (CO) pollutant concentrations in various public road transport systems in highly urbanized city of Hong Kong. Using a trolley case housing numerous portable air monitors, we conducted a total of 119 trips during the campaign. Transit microenvironments, classified as 1). busy and secondary roadside bus stops; 2). open and enclosed termini; 3). above- and under-ground Motor Rail Transport (MTR) platforms, were investigated and compared to identify the factors that may affect passenger exposures. The pollutants inside bus and MTR cabins were also investigated together with a comparison of time integrated exposure between the transit modes. Busy roadside and enclosed termini demonstrated the highest average particle concentrations while the lowest was found on the MTR platforms. Traffic-related pollutants BC, UFP and CO showed larger variations than PM2.5 across different microenvironments and areas confirming their heterogeneity in urban environments. In-cabin pollutant concentrations showed distinct patterns with BC and UFP high in diesel bus cabins and CO high in LPG bus cabins, suggesting possible self-pollution issues and/or penetration of on-road pollutants inside cabins during bus transit. The total passenger exposure along selected routes, showed bus

Understanding the organization of public health delivery systems: an empirical typology.

Science.gov (United States)

Mays, Glen P; Scutchfield, F Douglas; Bhandari, Michelyn W; Smith, Sharla A

2010-03-01

Policy discussions about improving the U.S. health care system increasingly recognize the need to strengthen its capacities for delivering public health services. A better understanding of how public health delivery systems are organized across the United States is critical to improvement. To facilitate the development of such evidence, this article presents an empirical method of classifying and comparing public health delivery systems based on key elements of their organizational structure. This analysis uses data collected through a national longitudinal survey of local public health agencies serving communities with at least 100,000 residents. The survey measured the availability of twenty core public health activities in local communities and the types of organizations contributing to each activity. Cluster analysis differentiated local delivery systems based on the scope of activities delivered, the range of organizations contributing, and the distribution of effort within the system. Public health delivery systems varied widely in organizational structure, but the observed patterns of variation suggested that systems adhere to one of seven distinct configurations. Systems frequently migrated from one configuration to another over time, with an overall trend toward offering a broader scope of services and engaging a wider range of organizations. Public health delivery systems exhibit important structural differences that may influence their operations and outcomes. The typology developed through this analysis can facilitate comparative studies to identify which delivery system configurations perform best in which contexts.

Enabling Bus Transit Service Quality Co-Monitoring Through Smartphone-Based Platform

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Li, Corinna; Zegras, P. Christopher; Zhao, Fang

2017-01-01

’ word, meaning “agencies using public feedback to supplement official monitoring and regulation.”] bus service quality. The pilot project adapted a smartphone-based travel survey system, Future Mobility Sensing, to collect real-time customer feedback and objective operational measurements on specific...... monitoring through a more real-time, customer-centric perspective. The pilot project operated publicly for 3 months on the Silver Line bus rapid transit in Boston, Massachusetts. Seventy-six participants completed the entrance survey; half of them actively participated and completed more than 500...

Thermal-hydraulic effects of transition to improved System 80TM fuel

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rodack, T.; Joffre, P.F.; Kapoor, R.K.

2004-01-01

ABB CE's improved System 80 TM PWR fuel design includes GUARDIAN debris-resistant features and laser-welded Zircaloy grids. The GUARDIAN features include an Inconel grid with debris-filtering features located just above the Lower End Fitting, and a solid fuel rod bottom end cap that extends above the filtering features. Tests and analyses were done to establish the impact of these design improvements on fuel assembly hydraulic performance. Further analysis was done to determine the mixed core thermal-hydraulic performance as the transition is made over two fuel cycles to a full core of the improved System 80 TM fuel. Results confirm that the Thermal-Hydraulic (T-H) effects of the reduction in hydraulic resistance between the improved and resident fuel due to the laser-welded Zircaloy grids offsets the effects of the increased resistance GUARDIAN grid. Therefore, the mechanically improved System 80 TM fuel can be implemented with no net impact on Departure from Nucleate Boiling (DNB) margin in transition cores. (author)

Transitions of interaction outcomes in a uni-directional consumer-resource system

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Y.; DeAngelis, D.L.

2011-01-01

A uni-directional consumer-resource system of two species is analyzed. Our aim is to understand the mechanisms that determine how the interaction outcomes depend on the context of the interaction; that is, on the model parameters. The dynamic behavior of the model is described and, in particular, it is demonstrated that no periodic orbits exist. Then the parameter (factor) space is shown to be divided into four regions, which correspond to the four forms of interaction outcomes; i.e. mutualism, commensalism, parasitism and amensalism. It is shown that the interaction outcomes of the system transition smoothly among these four forms when the parameters of the system are varied continuously. Varying each parameter individually or varying pairs of parameters can also lead to smooth transitions between the interaction outcomes. The analysis leads to both conditions for which each species achieves its maximal density, and situations in which periodic oscillations of the interaction outcomes emerge. ?? 2011 Elsevier Ltd.

Allosteric transitions of supramolecular systems explored by network models: application to chaperonin GroEL.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zheng Yang

2009-04-01

Full Text Available Identification of pathways involved in the structural transitions of biomolecular systems is often complicated by the transient nature of the conformations visited across energy barriers and the multiplicity of paths accessible in the multidimensional energy landscape. This task becomes even more challenging in exploring molecular systems on the order of megadaltons. Coarse-grained models that lend themselves to analytical solutions appear to be the only possible means of approaching such cases. Motivated by the utility of elastic network models for describing the collective dynamics of biomolecular systems and by the growing theoretical and experimental evidence in support of the intrinsic accessibility of functional substates, we introduce a new method, adaptive anisotropic network model (aANM, for exploring functional transitions. Application to bacterial chaperonin GroEL and comparisons with experimental data, results from action minimization algorithm, and previous simulations support the utility of aANM as a computationally efficient, yet physically plausible, tool for unraveling potential transition pathways sampled by large complexes/assemblies. An important outcome is the assessment of the critical inter-residue interactions formed/broken near the transition state(s, most of which involve conserved residues.

Concavity anomalies, topology of events and phase transitions in finite systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gulminelli, F.; Chomaz, P.H.

2001-02-01

We propose a definition of first order phase transitions in finite systems based on topology anomalies of the event distribution in the space of observations. This generalizes the definitions based on the curvature anomalies of thermodynamical potentials, provides a natural definition of order parameters and can be related to the Yang Lee theorem in the thermodynamical limit. It is directly operational from the experimental point of view. It allows to study phase transitions in Gibbs equilibria as well as in other ensembles such as the Tsallis ensemble. (authors)