Modeling access to public transport in urban areas

It is important to measure public transport accessibility to help improve the sustainability of transport systems in metropolitan areas. Although many studies have defined different approaches for measuring public transport accessibility, there have been limited methods developed for measuring accessibility levels that incorporate spatial aspects. Population density is an important distributional indicator that has also been ignored in previous methods developed for quantifying accessibility. This paper outlines the research context for measurement of public transport accessibility and then describes a methodology developed as well as an application the Public Transport Accessibility Index in Melbourne area, Australia. Using the Victorian Integrated Survey of Travel and Activity dataset, we applied separate‐ordered logit regression models to examine how the new index performs with a series of predictor variables compared with two existing approaches. Key findings indicate that there is a higher probability of public transport patronage in areas with higher levels of accessibility. Furthermore, it was found using statistical modelling that the new index produces better results compared with previous approaches. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Investigation of soot formation in Diesel-GTL fuel blends under quiescent conditions

In this study, a visual investigation of sprays and flames is performed, and soot formation in Diesel-GTL fuel blends is studied in a specially designed quiescent constant-volume chamber under various ambient gas temperatures and O₂ concentrations. Similar to the case of soot formation during diesel fuel combustion, the sooting zone during the mixing-controlled combustion of Diesel-GTL blends is located in the leading portion of the jet boundaries. Auto-ignition delay and soot concentration decrease with an increase of GTL content in the fuel blend. Soot also decreases with lower O₂ concentration, higher injection pressure, and lower ambient gas temperature. The lack of soot formation at lower O₂ concentrations and lower temperatures suggests that Diesel-GTL fuel blends can be successfully utilized in low-temperature diesel combustion technologies that are currently being developed. Furthermore, this mixing controlled combustion method with Diesel-GTL blends can be used to modulate various engine operation parameters, and therefore to simultaneously reduce the formation of soot and NOx within a wide range of diesel engine loads.     

Evaluating critical lines and stations considering the impact of the consequence using transit assignment model ‐case study of London's underground network

As the problem of full transit vehicles is encountered daily by passengers in most of the big cities, previous research evaluated the consequence of overcrowding in terms of on‐board crowding and passengers not being able to board with full vehicles. The impact of overcrowding in the real world is, however, not necessarily proportional to these numbers. This paper attempts to specify the critical lines and stations of a network by considering the number of passengers failing to board and attempting to evaluate its impact on service quality and safety risks. The hypothesis is that larger stations with wider platforms can often cope better with overcrowding than smaller stations. Therefore a station size dependent satisfaction function is proposed, which takes values from 0 to 1. The method is applied to London's underground network with a number of scenarios which show critical stations in the network if delays occur.     

Design and Combustion Characteristic Analysis of Free Piston Stirling Engine External Combustion System

The free piston Stirling engine external combustion system was simulated to investigate the diesel-air combustion characteristics in order to demonstrate its feasibility by computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The different effects on combustion were distinguished by analyzing the combustion burner, the injection position of diesel oil, the front tube arrangement of Stirling heater head and the back fin. The results show that the tilted front tube arrangement of the heater head with the back fin is the best practicable technology while the distance between the diesel nozzle position and the swirler top is 0. Its total heat flux is 15.6 kW, and the average heat transfer coefficients of the front and back tubes are 127W/(m² · K) and 192W/(m² · K), respectively. The heat transfer is mainly through convection, and the proportion of radiative heat transfer is only 16.9%. The best combustion efficiency of the free piston Stirling engine external combustion system is 86%.     

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当私家车的使用可与公共交通结合时,人们会更倾向于乘坐公共交通出行. 因此,P+R（停车换乘系统）在为公共交通吸引客流的同时也为公共交通的运营起到重要的作用. 在建立和运营P+R系统时,制定合理的用户收费政策是诸多影响因素之一. 事实上,收费政策作为调节手段之一,利用其鼓励或约束停车场的各类用户,将有助于交通部门管理和经营P+R设施. 基于社会经济水平,本文为确定停车设施最优定价方案提供了一种新方法. 结合遗传算法,本文利用财务分析模型确定了P+R设施最优定价方案参数. 该模型应用于希腊雅典地铁网络的P+R设施. 结果表明,该模型可在短时间内提供近似最优定价方案. 另外,本文还在方便用户的计算机框架下结合该模型开发了相应决策支持系统.     

Luminol-potassium permanganate chemiluminescence system for the determination of three anthracycline antibiotics

Objective To establish a flow-injection chemiluminescence method for the determination of doxorubicin, epirubicin and mitoxantrone and study its reaction mechanism. Methods In alkaline medium, chemiluminescence of luminol-potassium permanganate system could be inhibited obviously by anthracycline antibiotics. Combined with flow-injection technique, a new chemiluminescence method for determining the anthracycline antibiotics was set up. The chemiluminescence mechanism of the luminol-potassium permanganate system was also discussed. Results Under optimal conditions, the good linear ranges of doxorubicin, epirubicin and mitoxantrone were 5.0×10-9-1.0×10-6g/mL, 1.0×10-9-1.0×10-5g/mL and 3×10-9-1.0×10-6g/mL, respectively. The detection limits of doxorubicin, epirubicin and mitoxantrone were 3.0×10-9g/mL, 5.0×10-8g/mL and 2.0×10-9g/mL, respectively. During eleven repeated inter-day and intra-day precision tests of 1.0×10-6g/mL samples, the relative standard deviations corresponded to reference values of 3.0%, 2.8% and 2.1%. Conclusion The developed method is sensitive, accurate, rapid and of low cost. It can be applied to determine doxorubicin hydrochloride, epirubicin hydrochloride and mitoxantrone hydrochloride in injection preparations.     

Increased expression of the 20S proteasome in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of type 2 diabetic patients

Objective To investigate the dynamic expression of the 20S proteasome in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of type 2 diabetic patients without vascular complications. Methods PBMCs were prepared from 30 type 2 diabetic patients and 30 nondiabetic controls. The general indexes including weight, height and blood pressure were recorded. Fasting plasma glucose, fasting plasma insulin and glycosylated hemoglobin were measured. The protein level of the 20S proteasome was measured by Western blotting. The mRNA expression levels of the 20S proteasome β1, β2 and β5 subunits were detected by real-time PCR. Results Compared with that in the nondiabetic controls, the protein level of the 20S proteasome was significantly increased in the diabetic patients and was positively associated with glycosylated hemoglobin. Conclusion Type 2 diabetic patients without vascular complications have an increased 20S proteasome expression, the significance of which needs to be explored by further study.     

Effects of stack array orientation on fuel cell efficiency for auxiliary power unit applications

The commercial fuel cell products currently appearing on the market are self-contained fuel cell engines. These engines can be used for many applications that are presently dominated by internal combustion engines or batteries. Vehicle mounted fuel cell auxiliary power units have been attracting attention lately. Additionally, there is a market based incentive to use multiple small fuel cell arrays in place of a single large fuel cell for some applications. Typically, fuel cells are designed to operate as stand-alone units. This paper investigates the ability of small commercial stacks to operate in common array arrangements. Although an individual Nexa is able to produce 1500 W, Dual Nexas do not maintain that capability while in array configurations. With an overall load share ratio of 1.02:1 the series array reliably produced 2900 W of power, while with an overall load share ratio of 1.09:1 the parallel array reliably produced only 2800 W of power. This study shows that array orientation affects both system stack net efficiency and individual stack net efficiency. The information gained from this study may be helpful for fuel cell design and integration.     

Analysis of bus rollover protection under legislated standards using LS-DYNA software simulation techniques

A bus rollover is one of the worst vehicle accidents that can occur. Because of the large numbers of passengers, the casualties in a bus rollover are often high and severe. The compliance with rollover safety standards for buses and coaches is mandated by law. This paper presents a comparative analysis of the physical meanings of regulation number 66 of the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE R66) and standard number 220 of the American Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS 220). This comparison was carried out using a LS-DYNA finite-element analysis. After performing a comparative analysis following ECE R66 and FMVSS 220 assessments, the investigation further demonstrated the distortion configuration of the vehicle superstructure through the absorbed energy and its distribution over the vehicle and in sections of vehicle superstructure as well as the violation of the passenger compartment under the rollover testing conditions of both ECE R66 and FMVSS 220. Great differences were found between ECE R66 and FMVSS 220 in distortion configuration, reflecting differences in capability and rollover testing conditions. These findings provide a means of evaluating bus superstructure strength and provide guidelines useful in the assessment of regulations applied to the evaluation of bus rollover strength.     

Integrated modeling and optimization of a parallel hydraulic hybrid bus

Hydraulic hybrid powertrains are a critical technology used in buses to improve fuel economy and emission performance. New exploration in configuring a parallel hydraulic hybrid bus (PHHB) is developed in this paper with no changes made to the conventional base bus driveline. An integrated model and simulation of the parallel hydraulic hybrid bus is built based on AMESim, which is used to model the hydraulic powertrain and conventional bus driveline, and interlinked with a Matlab/Simulink/Stateflow model of the control unit. Compared to conventional buses, the fuel economy of the PHHB improved by 28% in real road tests at the SMVIC (National Center of Supervision and Inspection on Motor Products Quality (Shanghai)); the approximate improvement of fuel economy was 30% in simulated runs, which validates our model. Then a Non-linear Programming by Quadratic Lagrangian algorithm (NLPQL), is applied to optimize control strategies for improving fuel economy and emissions. Simulations also demonstrate that fuel economy and emission performance can be significantly improved. However, optimum parameters for maximum fuel economy and minimum emissions are not consistent. Simulation results show tradeoffs between fuel economy and emissions in PHHB, and optimal parameters can be selected by balancing design objectives.