Eddies around Madagascar — The retroflection re-considered

The Agulhas Current with its retroflection and attendant eddy-shedding is the cause of some of the greatest mesoscale variability in the ocean. This paper considers the area to the south and east of Madagascar, which provides some of the source waters of the Agulhas Current, and examines the propagating sea surface height signals in altimetry and output from a numerical model, OCCAM. Both show bands of variability along the axis of the East Madagascar Current (EMC) and along a zonal band near 25°S. Sequences of images plus associated temperature data suggest that a number of westward-propagating eddies are present in this zonal band. The paper then focuses on the region to the south of the island, where ocean colour and infra-red imagery are evocative of an East Madagascar Retroflection. The synthesis of data analysed in this paper, however, shows that remotely observed features in this area can be explained by anticyclonic eddies moving westward through the region, and this explanation is consistent with numerical model output and the trajectories of drifting buoys.     

GLUTAMATE－IMMUNOREACTIVE NEURONS IN MEDULLARY RAPHE－CEREBELLUM PATHWAY IN THE KITTEN

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The design of bus route systems — An interactive location-allocation approach

An interactive modelling approach is developed to solve the practical problem of bus route network design. Possible bus routes are identified with facilities which can be DDLE" BORDER="0">locatedDDLE" BORDER="0">. Zones or pairs of zones in the urban area are identified with customers who will be DDLE" BORDER="0">allocatedDDLE" BORDER="0"> to the established facilities. It is shown that the classical Set Covering Problem is useful under the assumption of fixed demand; the Simple Plant Location Problem is effective under the assumption of demand which is sensitive to the level of bus service provided.     

Making do: The effects of a mass transit strike on travel behavior

A brief transit strike in early December 1976 disrupted bus services to the city of Pittsburgh and surrounding Allegheny County. That strike provided an opportunity for testing a variety of approaches to increase ride-sharing and to reduce traffic congestion, and for examining the effect of the strike on traffic congestion and on individual travel behavior. Even though over 60% of the commuters to the CBD use transit, the effects of the strike were relatively mild. There was some increase in traffic flow into the CBD and some spreading of the peak period. The largest proportion of the transit commuters who made trips to the CBD during the strike were dropped off by a non-commuter, increasing highway traffic. The most severe impact was felt by those transit commuters who had no cars in the household; 25% of these commuters (only 3% of the total CBD commuters) stayed home from work on the first day of the strike. Most attempts to mitigate the impact of the strike had little effect, largely because most commuters were able to manage adequately during the short strike. The anticipated parking problem, on which much of the contingency planning was focused, did not emerge, largely because of the use of carpooling and DDLE" BORDER="0">drop-offDDLE" BORDER="0"> mode by many of the transit users.     

Regulatory reform and freight mode choice

Reform of trucking Vehicle Weights and Dimensions (VWD) regulations in Canada is now underway. The effect these reforms will have on the freight transportation industry are only recently the subject of research. This paper is part of this new research effort, aimed at understanding how regulatory reform in the trucking sector will affect the existing competitive relationship between trucks and the railways. The paper presents the results of study and research into modelling the relationship between mode choice and the service characteristics that are affected by VWD reform.Using several periods of data, a series of econometric models are developed which help to elucidate the relative relationships between the mode service characteristics for both of the principal interprovincial freight modes. A technique is developed and presented to model railway user costs in order to overcome the complex and often unrepresentable pricing activities of Canadian railways.The strength of the developed econometric models is presented, including their significance and statistical reliability. This is further reinforced by the similarities exhibited by all the models in the series. The selected model is applied to predict market service responses required of the railway industry in order to compete with the trucking sector now adapting to the new regulations.The impact of the newly implemented vehicle weight and dimension reform on the rail transportation industry is analyzed and railway industry improvements aimed at maintaining its market share are presented. The results predicted by the model show that railway user cost reductions should be moderate, and likely less than the level of inflation over the period of time when trucking converts its fleet to take advantage of the new regulations.Abbreviations AASHTO American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials - CCMTA Canadian Conference of Motor Transport Administrators - EPI DER="0">End products, inedibleDER="0"> commodity classification - GVW Gross Vehicle Weight - NA 1988 VWD National Agreement - RTAC Roads and Transportation Association of Canada - VWD Vehicle Weight(s) and Dimension(s) - WA 1988 VWD Western Agreement     

Correlation between automotive CO, HC, NO, and PM emission factors from on-road remote sensing: implications for inspection and maintenance programs

Carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbon (HC), and nitrogen oxide (NO) emission factors (EFs) are measured with a commercial vehicle emissions remote sensing system (VERSS) during a large-scale vehicle exhaust emissions study in Las Vegas. Particulate matter (PM) EFs are simultaneously measured for individual vehicles with a newly developed PM-VERSS based on ultraviolet backscatter light detection and ranging (Lidar). The effectiveness of CO and HC EFs as proxy for NO and PM EFs for spark-ignition vehicles is evaluated. Poor correlations were found between EFs for pollutants on an individual vehicle basis indicating that high EFs for one or more pollutants cannot be used as a predictor of high EFs for other pollutants. Stronger functional relationships became evident after averaging the EF data in bins based on rank-order of a single pollutant EF. Low overlap between the highest 10% emitters for CO, HC, NO, and PM was found. These results imply that for an effective reduction of the four pollutants, inspection and maintenance (I/M) programs, including clean screening, should measure all four pollutants individually. Fleet average CO and HC concentrations determined by gaseous VERSS were compared with fleet average CO and HC concentrations measured at low-idle and at high-idle during local I/M tests for spark-ignition vehicles. The fleet average CO concentrations measured by I/M tests at either idle were about half of those measured by remote sensing. The fleet average high-idle HC concentration measured by I/M tests was about half of that measured by VERSS while low-idle I/M and VERSS HC average concentrations were in better agreement. For a typical vehicle trip, most of the fuel is burned during non-idle conditions. I/M measurements collected during idling conditions may not be a good indicator of a vehicle’s potential to be a high emitter. VERSS measurements, when the vehicle is under a load, should more effectively identify high emitting vehicles that have a large contribution to the mobile emissions inventory.     

Hub location with flow economies of scale

A characteristic feature of hub and spoke networks is the bundling of flows on the interhub links. This agglomeration of flows leads to reduced travel costs across the interhub links. Current models of hub location do not adequately model the scale economies of flow that accrue due to the agglomeration of flows. This paper shows that current hub location models, by assuming flow-independent costs, not only miscalculate total network cost, but may also erroneously select optimal hub locations and allocations. The model presented in this paper more explicitly models the scale economies that are generated on the interhub links and in doing so provides a more reliable model representation of the reality of hub and spoke networks.     

An Optimal Self-Tuning Controller for an Active Suspension

An optimal self-tuning control algorithm is presented for vehicle suspension design. The controller, incorporating a weighting controller, state observer and parameter estimator, is designed according to linear optimal control (LQG) theory. Based on the updated estimates of vehicle parameters and states, and the adapted weighting parameters, the LQG controller provides the optimal set of gains over different operating conditions. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed self-tuning system was investigated and proved by simulation studies.     

Analysis of the effectiveness of control measures to mitigate road dust emissions in a regional network

The effectiveness of control measures to reduce road dust emissions is analyzed using a year’s data of road dust emissions collected with a mobile sampling platform and a survey of road maintenance practices in the Lake Tahoe Basin of Nevada and California US. Attributes such as sweeping practices, anti-icing, shoulder improvement, pavement condition, trackout, and abrasive material from road segments were analyzed with a feature subset selection algorithm. Street sweeping was found to be an effective means of controlling dust emissions from roads. Road dust from dirty tertiary roads served as a continuous source of suspendable material for adjacent high-speed roads in the winter time. To be most effective, emission control strategies require that not only primary roads, but all roads be swept after snow storms to recover applied abrasive material.