Trucking industry demand for urban shared use freight terminals

The issue of shared use urban freight facilities first received attention during the 1970s when it was observed that, while inter-urban freight movements were becoming increasingly efficient, there were significant diseconomies in the movement of freight via truck within urban areas. Early research suggested that shared urban freight facilities should be constructed so that trucking companies could consolidate smaller shipments into larger ones. In the past few years, the concept of Urban Ports has gained increasing attention, not just for carriers who need to load and unload freight, but to provide a place near the urban center for truckers to wait out peak traffic periods. In this paper, using recently developed survey data, we examine trucking company interest in such facilities by examining the results of an ordered probit demand model.     

High-strain-rate fracture of adhesively bonded composite joints in DCB and TDCB specimens

Double-cantilever beam (DCB) and tapered double-cantilever beam (TDCB) specimens are the test configurations most commonly used to measure the fracture toughness of composites and adhesive joints. Strain rates of 1 to 18.47 m/s were applied to the test specimens via high-speed hydraulic test equipment. Because the fracture occurs through the adhesively bonded joints and the cracks grow rapidly, the crack length and beam displacement were recorded by a high-speed camera. An energy range from 0 to 10 J was often observed in the high-strain-rate fracture experiments for nonlinear plastic behavior of the dynamically loaded adhesively bonded DCB and TDCB specimens. The range of energy release rates (fracture energy) for TDCB specimen was 2 to 3 times higher than that of a DCB specimen for all high strain rates. The fracture energy of automotive adhesive joints can be estimated using the experimental results in this study for the fracture toughness (G_IC) under high rates of loading. The crack grows as the applied fracture energy exceeds the value of the critical energy release rate (G_IC) at the crack tip. The energy release rate was calculated using the fracture mechanics formula. The key fracture mechanics parameter, the fracture energy GIC, was ascertained as a function of the test rate and can be used to assess and model the overall joint performance.     

New lead-acid battery management system based on generator regulation

A novel regulation system for a vehicle generator and lead-acid battery is proposed in this paper. By integrating the regulation method, the output voltage of the generator is determined and controlled by the algorithm to save electrical energy and protect the lead-acid battery. The regulation algorithm is implemented in Matlab/Simulink, and the logic function of the system is verified using the dSPACE/AutoBox workbench. The experimental results show that the new algorithm improves the performance of the fuel economy of the vehicle and the battery state-of-health compared to the traditional control method.     

Fine Mapping of a Deafness Mutation hml on Mouse Chromosome 10

Objective To map a mouse deafness gene.identify the underlying mutation and develop a mouse model for human deafncss.Methods Genetic lindage cross and genome scan wer used to map a novel mutation named hypoplasia of the membranous labyrinth (hml),which causes hearing loss in mutant mice.Results ① hml was mapped on mouse Chr 10 (～43 cM from the centromere) suggests that the homologous human gene is on 12q22--q24, which was defined on the basis of known mouse-human homologies (OMIM,2004). ② This study has generated 25 polymorphic microsateUite markers, placed 3 known human genes in the correct order in a high-resolution mouse map and narrowed the hml candidate gene region to a 500 kb area.     

层状边坡渐进破裂与失稳过程数值模拟探讨

运用岩石破裂与失稳过程分析RFPA^2D系统，以含层理弱层边坡的渐进破裂与失稳分析为例，通过对边坡渐进破裂与失稳发生孕育机制及其锚固控制规律的数值模拟，数值模拟再现了含层理弱层和锚固边坡渐进破坏与失稳的发生、发展过程，模拟结果表明，复杂结构边坡的渐进破坏与失稳现象是一些简单机理的演化结果。     

Structural Evaluation for Maputo Airport Pavement

Introduction Structural evaluation of pavements provides awealth of information that concerns the expected be-havior of pavements[1]. Different asphalt pavementdesign and evaluation methods are described inRefs.[2-9]. Refs.[2-5,9,10] use two design meth-o…     

The digital revolution and worthwhile use of travel time: implications for appraisal and forecasting

Savings in travel time and more specifically their monetary value typically constitute the main benefit to justify major investment in transport schemes. However, worthwhile use of travel time is an increasingly prominent phenomenon of the digital age. Accordingly, questions are increasingly being asked regarding whether values of time used by countries around the world based on their appraisal approaches are too high. This paper offers the most comprehensive examination of our theoretical and empirical understandings of international appraisal approaches and how they account for worthwhile use of travel time. It combines the economics perspective with wider social science insight and reaches the conclusion that past revolutions in transport that have made longer and quicker journeys possible are now joined by a digital revolution that is reducing the disutility of travel time. This revolution offers potential economic benefit that comes at a fraction of the cost of major investments in transport that are predicated on saving travel time. The paper highlights the challenges faced in both current and indeed potential alternative future appraisal approaches. Such challenges are rooted in the difficulty of measuring time use and productivity with sufficient accuracy and over time to credibly account for how travel time factors into the economic outcomes from social and working practices in the knowledge economy. There is a need for further research to: establish how improvements in the opportunities for and the quality of worthwhile use of travel time impact on the valuation of travel time savings for non-business travel; improve our understanding of how productive use of time impacts on the valuation of time savings for business travellers; and estimate how these factors have impacted on the demand for different modes of travel.     

Mathematical model for optimising the sequence for clearing snow from the manoeuvring area during winter operations

This article considers the optimisation of the sequence for clearing snow from stretches of the manoeuvring area of an airport. This issue involves the optimisation of limited resources to remove snow from taxiways and runways thereby leaving them in an acceptable condition for operating aircraft. The airfield is divided into subsets of significant stretches for the purpose of operations and target times are established during which these are open to aircraft traffic. The document contains several mathematical models each with different functions, such as the end time of the process, the sum of the end times of each stretch and gap between the estimated and the real end times. During this process, we introduce different operating restrictions on partial fulfilment of the operational targets as applied to zones of special interest, or relating to the operation of the snow‐clearing machines. The problem is solved by optimisation based on linear programming. The article gives the results of the computational tests carried out on five distinct models of the manoeuvring area, which cover increasingly complex situations and larger areas. The mathematical model is particularised for the case of the manoeuvring area of Adolfo Suarez Madrid—Barajas Airport. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Highlights
• Optimal sequence for clearing snow from the manoeuvring area of an airport.
• Contains optimising algorithms solved using CPLEX LP‐based tree search.
• Restrictions on partial fulfilment of operational targets applied to subsets of significant stretches, used for planning the operation of snow‐clearing machines.
• Model applied to the case of the manoeuvring area of Adolfo Suárez Madrid Barajas Airport.
• Conclusions are given on the results of the computational tests carried out. There are five models of the manoeuvring area which cover increasingly complex situations and larger areas.

     

Vehicle rollover avoidance by application of gain-scheduled LQR controllers using state observers

Many researches have been conducted in the area of control applied to vehicle dynamics, aiming at reducing the possibility of the occurrence of the type of accident known as rollover. In this research, based on a common nonlinear model and its linearisation, a method for properly selecting matrices for solving the Riccati equation considering different speeds was proposed. The method showed in which ways speed really influences the choice of controller gains. By developing the dynamic equations for the yaw- and roll-coupled motions and modelling of controllers and state observers, it is possible to compare the efficacy of this control strategy using both linear and nonlinear simulations using Matlab. Significant results were obtained regarding the reduction of the rollover coefficient for a double-lane change manoeuvre at different speeds, thus indicating advantages of using this controller in practical cases.     

Practicability study on the suitability of artificial,neural networks for the approximation of unknown steering torques

For steer-by-wire systems, the steering feedback must be generated artificially due to the system characteristics. Classical control concepts require operating-point driven optimisations as well as increased calibration efforts in order to adequately simulate the steering torque in all driving states. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are an innovative control concept; they are capable of learning arbitrary non-linear correlations without complex knowledge of physical dependencies. The present study investigates the suitability of neural networks for approximating unknown steering torques. To ensure robust processing of arbitrary data, network training with a sufficient volume of training data is required, that represents the relation between the input and target values in a wide range. The data were recorded in the course of various test drives. In this research, a variety of network topologies were trained, analysed and evaluated. Though the fundamental suitability of ANNs for the present control task was demonstrated.