The Signs of the Times: Imposing a Globally Signed Condition on Willingness to Pay Distributions

A feature of recent developments in choice models that enable estimation of the distribution of willingness to pay (WTP) is that the sign of the distribution can change over the range. Behaviourally this often makes little sense for attributes such as travel time on non-discretionary travel, despite a growing recognition of positive utility over some travel time ranges. This can in part be attributed to the analytical distribution that is selected (except the cumbersome lognormal), many of which are unconstrained over the full range. Although a number of analysts have imposed constraints on various distributions for random parameters that can satisfy the single-sign condition, these restrictions are, with rare exception, only satisfied for the mean and the standard deviation estimates of a random parameter. When heterogeneity around the mean and/or heteroscedasticity around the standard deviation is allowed for, however, the constraint condition is often not satisfied. Given the popularity of distributions other than the lognormal, in order to satisfy the sign condition under the most general form of parameterisation, we need to impose a global sign condition. In this paper we show how this might be achieved in the context of the valuation of travel time savings for car commuters choosing amongst an offered set of route-specific travel times and costs. We illustrate the impact of the constraint under a globally constrained Rayleigh distribution for total travel time parameterisation, contrasting the evidence with a multinomial logit model and a range of other distributional assumptions within the mixed logit framework. Discussions with Bill Greene, John Rose, Ken Train and especially Juan de Dios Ortuzar have been invaluable as have the comments of referees.     

Combined Effects of Cadmium and Phenanthrene on DNA Sequence Diversity of Soil Microbial Community

Pollution of soil environment has become a se-rious problem in many countries, including China.Heavy metal (HM) and polycyclic aromatic hydro-carbons (PAHs) are two of the most abundant andpotentially harmful pollutants found in most pol-luted soil[1, 2]. Besides their natural occurrence,heavy metals may enter the soil environmentthrough anthropogenic activities, such as mining,smelting, sewage sludge disposal, application ofpesticides and inorganic fertilizers, and atmospher-ic deposition. …     

地铁动车转向架牵引电机垂向加速度谱统计分析

转向架寿命是转向架的重要经济技术指标。现代设计技术表明,载荷特征掌握越具体,结构寿命预计越准确。如果动车转向架电机吊座的寿命预计欠精确,势必影响转向架整体寿命预计。本文通过在线试验,拟合了动车转向架电机垂向振动加速度概率密度函数,预计了30年间不同加速度值出现的频次,为该部件寿命设计提供依据。     

基于随机加权自适应容积卡尔曼的电池SOC估计

准确估计锂离子电池荷电状态（SOC）对于突破电动汽车发展瓶颈，推动电动汽车商业化至关重要。针对动力电池模型参数辨识问题，提出基于遗忘因子的递推最小二乘法（FRLS）的模型参数在线识别方法。实时测量动力电池电流和电压数据，在线辨识模型参数并实时更新，实时反映电池内部参数的变化过程，对电池动态特性进行实时模拟。针对容积卡尔曼（CKF）滤波过程中对噪声敏感的问题，提出一种基于随机加权思想的自适应容积卡尔曼滤波（ARWCKF）方法。相比于常规CKF容积点权值始终不变，通过引入随机加权因子，自适应调整容积点权值并对系统噪声、状态向量及观测向量进行预测，抑制系统噪声对状态估计的干扰，避免因容积点权重值固定所带来的误差。针对CKF算法在容积点计算过程中由于状态方差矩阵失去正定性导致的平方根分解无法使用的问题，提出基于奇异值分解的容积点计算方法，克服由于先验协方差矩阵负定性变化而导致的滤波精度下降等问题，并进行多种工况、温度下不同SOC初值的对比验证。结果表明：所提出的基于遗忘因子的递推最小二乘法的在线参数辨识及ARWCKF滤波方法具备良好的估计精度及收敛能力，最大电压估计误差不超过40 mV，SOC估计误差不超过1%。     

An analytical formula of driver RMS acceleration response for quarter-car considering cushion effects

In this paper, a 3-DOF (degree-of-freedom) model of quarter-car coupled with driver and cushion is used to derive an analytical formula, which can describe the driver RMS (root-mean-square) acceleration response with cars under random excitation generated by road irregularities. The study starts with the 3-DOF model. Based on the vehicle random vibration theory, using the residue theorem, the analytical formula of driver RMS acceleration considering cushion effects is obtained. Then, the driver RMS acceleration values calculated from the measured data and from the analytical formulae of the 3-DOF and the classical 2-DOF model are compared. The results show the analytical formula for the 3-DOF model provides a more reasonable approximation of the real response of the test car. Having obtained the analytical formula, the effects of vehicle parameters on driver RMS acceleration are studied. Finally, to provide critical foundations for the selection of the cushion damping, the optimal damping ratio of driver-cushion system is deciphered from the analytical formula. To uncover how each dynamic parameter effects the optimal damping ratio, the analysis of influencing factors is performed and some important conclusions are obtained. The derived analytical formula can be also conveniently used either during preliminary design or for other special purposes.     

随机荷载作用下钢构件的疲劳可靠度研究

本文利用裂纹扩展速率的Ｐａｒｉｓ公式，将应力变程Ｓｒ和材料参数Ｃ作为随机变量，应用概率的中心极限定理推导出在随机荷载作用下构件的裂纹长度和疲劳寿命的概率密度函数。并且将构件中含有的缺陷个数及长度作为随机变量考虑，导出了构件的疲劳可靠度函数。     

有关船舶倾覆概率问题的讨论

本文从横摇运动微分方程出发，结合随机微分方程理论，讨论了船舶在横对随机波时的倾覆概率问题。可以看出关于船舶在随机波上倾覆概率问题目前提出的几种方法间的联系。最后用Fokker-Planck方程解出了随时间演变的概率分布函数，分析了倾覆问题。     

桥上列车脱轨计算分析

在列车桥梁振动分析的计算模型基础上,进一步考虑了轮对与钢轨之间的相对位移大于游间时,轮缘爬上钢轨的接触状态,从而建立了桥上列车脱轨分析的计算模型。基于列车脱轨分析的能量随机分析理论,采用车桥系统输入能量增量与此系统抗力作功增量比较的能量增量准则,对老滦河桥下行线上列车脱轨实例和上行线上列车不脱轨实例进行了计算分析。分析结果与实际情况一致。     

收敛系统的性质

离散时间收敛系统是研究离散时间线性模型渐近理论的重要工具。利用随机积分工具推广了离散时间收敛系统的概念,给出收敛系统的定义并获得了收敛系统的几个重要性质。