Design and development of a stated choice experiment for interdependent agents: accounting for interactions between buyers and sellers of urban freight services

Stated choice experiments have proven to be a powerful tool in eliciting preferences across a broad range of choice settings. This paper outlines the elements of a group-based experiment designed for interdependent urban freight stakeholders, along with the procedure to administer the questionnaire sequentially. The focus is on the design of a computer-assisted personal survey instrument and the value in disseminating the details of a new approach to design and collect stated choice data for interacting agents. The paper also discusses how to specify a reference alternative, and then how to recruit appropriate real-market or representative decision-making group members to participate in a subsequent phase of the survey, which incorporates the reference alternative and contextual information from an initial phase. The empirical strategy, set out in some detail, provides a new framework within which to understand more fully the role that specific attributes, such as variable user charges, influencing freight distribution chains might play, and who in the supply chain is affected by specific attributes in terms of willingness to pay for the gains in distribution efficiency.

Pedestrian streets in Singapore

A fair amount of literature pertaining to pedestrian streets has been produced but for the most part it is on the American and European developments. There has been surprisingly little published research on pedestrian street development in Asia. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to examine pedestrian streets in Asia, using the city-state of Singapore as a case study. Since the mid-1980s, pedestrian streets have been adopted as a policy in the conservation and planning of Singapore's city centre. The resulting pedestrian streets came in many forms, from a single pedestrian-only street to a whole precinct of several streets.     

利用加压焊接舱好处多多

在进行焊接作业时利用加压舱可以带来众多好处。如降低风险、提高产量以及保护环境等     

A Comparison of Alternative Intervention Strategies for Unintended Roadway Departure (URD) Control

This paper investigates the use of several different inputs for the control of a vehicle, in the context of URD. In this investigation, the goal of the URD controller is to provide an intervention in the event of the vehicle leaving the road. The types of inputs that will be considered are (i) Four Wheel Steering, (ii) Front Wheel Steering, (iii) Four Wheel Brake Steering, (iv) Front Wheel Brake Steering, and (v) Rear Wheel Brake Steering. The controller design is an LQ controller based on the simplified dynamics of a 2 degree of freedom bicycle model. However, the analysis of the different strategies are performed on a 7 degree-of-freedom nonlinear vehicle model. The key contribution of this paper is the quantitative evaluation of the relative efficiencies of each of these input strategies being examined. Unlike most control schemes, the performance measure to be used will not be the output tracking error of the system. Instead, the metric of performance is the ratio of peak tire force used versus available tire force or, in other words, the actuator response relative to the maximum available actuator capability.     

Are urban bus services natural monopolies?

Although Britain's local bus services have been open to free competition for more than three years, most have continued to be operated as monopolies by the original incumbents. Some competition has occurred, but the incumbents have usually driven off entrants. This paper uses findings from case-studies of competition and from deregulation generally to consider whether monopoly operation has inherent advantages over competitive operation. If so, urban bus routes would be natural monopolies. The evidence suggests that they may be, because single-operator services are more convenient for users.     

Alternatives in assigning short‐term counts to seasonal adjustment factor groupings

The precise estimation of the annual average daily traffic (AADT) is a task of significant interest for many transportation authorities and Departments of Transportation. In this study, three methods are developed to improve the assignment of short‐term counts to seasonal adjustment factor (SAF) groupings: the traditional functional classification, a discriminant analysis (DA), and a new statistical approach based on a weighted coefficient of variation (WCV). The data analyzed within this study are generated from all available continuous counters within the State of Ohio between 2002 and 2006. The analysis is conducted using SAFs that are separately calculated for the total volume and the directional specific volumes of a site. The results show that the directionally based assignment errors are statistically lower at a 95% confidence interval when compared with those generated by the total volume analysis. It is also found that the hourly time‐of‐day factors are more important in the assignment process than the average daily traffic. The directionally based WCV produces a decline in the average mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) over the roadway functional classification by 58% and in the standard deviation of the absolute error (SDAE) by 70%. On the contrary, the directionally based DA lowers the MAPE and the SDAE by 35% and 60%, respectively. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

临床致病性不动杆菌的分子生物学鉴定

目的对临床致病性不动杆菌进行种属鉴定,并比较3种方法(44℃生长试验、特异性引物PCR扩增和16SrRNA测序)对鲍曼不动杆菌鉴定的特异性、准确性及应用价值。方法收集临床致病不动杆菌56株,首先接种在胰蛋白胨大豆肉汤中44℃进行培养,观察是否可以生长;其次,提取56株不动杆菌基因组DNA,用两组不同的特异性引物进行PCR扩增鉴定;最后,用通用引物对56株不动杆菌的16SrRNA进行测序鉴定。结果 56株不动杆菌中有17株可在44℃生长。经特异性引物PCR扩增鉴定,发现8株鲍曼不动杆菌和3株13TU型不动杆菌均可在44℃中较早较快生长。金标准16SrRNA测序确定56株不动杆菌中含有9个种,其中鲍曼不动杆菌和13TU型不动杆菌的鉴定结果与特异性引物PCR扩增法相同。结论应用分子生物学方法鉴定鲍曼不动杆菌具有准确、高效且可重复性高的优点,尤其是特异性PCR扩增法,可作为较难诊断的鲍曼不动杆菌的首选鉴定方法。     

让速度去配合你

高铁还是飞机?飞机抑或驾车?看来非单纯关手速度。也许中国要开始接受一个事实:不要先考虑到是否世界第一,是否创下纪录,是否需要那么快。而选择出行工具,是关乎到一整套出行文化与生活方式,不单纯是一个交通工具的问题。中国,快也好,慢也行,最重要的不是速度本身是否快或慢,而是这速度是否适合中国,是否配合到     

是时候为中国制造了

香港的购物名区铜锣湾有一个以年青人顾客为对象的小商场"银座商场",熟悉此商场的人都知这里是潮流服饰小店的"英雄地"——很多抱着潮流时装梦的小店老板满腔热血地开业,预算付出一年半载的"进场费"(包括租金、买货和销售的成本)来证明自己的时尚触觉和眼光,更关键的是用有限的时间去摸索商场的客路、时尚品味,以至细微到顾客喜欢的颜色、不会碰的剪裁、购物的习性等