Modern Information Systems

The development of modern information systems is a demanding task. New technologies and tools are designed, implemented and presented in the market on a daily bases. User needs change dramatically fast and the IT industry copes to reach the level of efficiency and adaptability for its systems in order to be competitive and up-to-date. Thus, the realization of modern information systems with great characteristics and functionalities implemented for specific areas of interest is a fact of our modern and demanding digital society and this is the main scope of this book. Therefore, this book aims to present a number of innovative and recently developed information systems. It is titled "Modern Information Systems" and includes 8 chapters. This book may assist researchers on studying the innovative functions of modern systems in various areas like health, telematics, knowledge management, etc. It can also assist young students in capturing the new research tendencies of the information systems' development

Designing and Operating Safe and Secure Transit Systems: Assessing Current Practices in the United States and Abroad, MTI Report 04-05

Public transit systems around the world have for decades served as a principal venue for terrorist acts. Today, transit security is widely viewed as an important public policy issue and is a high priority at most large transit systems and at smaller systems operating in large metropolitan areas. Research on transit security in the United States has mushroomed since 9/11; this study is part of that new wave of research. This study contributes to our understanding of transit security by (1) reviewing and synthesizing nearly all previously published research on transit terrorism; (2) conducting detailed case studies of transit systems in London, Madrid, New York, Paris, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C.; (3) interviewing federal officials here in the United States responsible for overseeing transit security and transit industry representatives both here and abroad to learn about efforts to coordinate and finance transit security planning; and (4) surveying 113 of the largest transit operators in the United States. Our major findings include: (1) the threat of transit terrorism is probably not universal—most major attacks in the developed world have been on the largest systems in the largest cities; (2) this asymmetry of risk does not square with fiscal politics that seek to spread security funding among many jurisdictions; (3) transit managers are struggling to balance the costs and (uncertain) benefits of increased security against the costs and (certain) benefits of attracting passengers; (4) coordination and cooperation between security and transit agencies is improving, but far from complete; (5) enlisting passengers in surveillance has benefits, but fearful passengers may stop using public transit; (6) the role of crime prevention through environmental design in security planning is waxing; and (7) given the uncertain effectiveness of antitransit terrorism efforts, the most tangible benefits of increased attention to and spending on transit security may be a reduction in transit-related person and property crimes

Blown through the tube at 50 miles an hour : transportation, motion and mobility in Virginia Woolf\u27s novels

At the turn of the 20th century the rapid development of transportation technology significantly transformed the physical world as well as people’s subjective perceptions of it. Virginia Woolf’s fascination with various modes of transportation, both as a traveler and as a keen observer, is translated into her fiction and non-fiction writings. The representation of physical transportation in Woolf’s works has received the attention of a number of scholars. However, the ways in which Woolf was inspired by the transport revolution and employed this as a vehicle for modernist narrative experimentation have not been fully explored. This dissertation therefore investigates the phenomenon of transport spaces employed in Woolf\u27s novels, and explores how transportation and mobility contribute to the literary forms and representations she innovated, and to the wider transnational cultural mobility of modernist aesthetics and ideas. My study examines transportation following a trajectory from the physical to the metaphysical, the more literal to the more metaphorical. The study begins with analyzing how transports of thought and emotion are evoked and manifested by Woolf, and how she employs diverse traffic images and constant physical mobility to explore women’s subjectivity and professions, expose the mechanisms of patriarchy and imperial power, and observe their gradual decline in her three London novels Night and Day, Mrs. Dalloway and The Years. Next, the study explores how Woolf represents and controls the characters’ streams of consciousness by manipulating various physical transport modes as well as devising a set of linguistic, syntactic, visual and auditory images, thus endowing her mid-term works with a highly innovative and distinctive narrative mobility. In the third chapter the argument is expanded to include connotations of metaphysical transport to explore how she breaks the boundaries of genre, gender and temporality in her late works, in order to convey her readers into a more kaleidoscopic narrative world through building hybrid and heterogeneous textual spaces. In the final chapter I situate Woolf in the global context, and examine the cultural mobility between her and Chinese modernist writers, especially the members of the Chinese Crescent Moon society. Through my investigation of the multifaceted transport spaces discernible in her novels, I argue that Woolf’s works accurately represent the effects of transportation technology on modern people’s cognitive and affective experience, and register the impact of the social and ideological mobility of the era in which she produced her creative works. Her assiduous modernist experimentation not only made a profound contribution to the narrative mobility of stream of consciousness novels, but also expanded the boundaries of fiction generally, and stimulated her readers’ synthetic sensibilities of motion and mobility. Moreover, the cultural assimilation reflected in both Woolf’s and Chinese modernist writers’ works exemplify that modernism functioned as a two-way vehicle for reciprocity between oriental and occidental civilizations. Overall, the dissertation itself opens up spaces for closer investigation of ideas, associations and implications of transport across Woolf’s entire praxis

Station. Public Exodus Centers

MBArch - Màster Universitari en Estudis Avançats en Arquitectura-Barcelona: The Contemporary ProjectResearch focuses on the renovation of the abandoned or disused 19th-century railway stations to adapt them into the contemporary city as public exodus centers. The birth of railroad transportation became an evolution in transportation history, which was followed by the appearance of railway stations which evolved from simple cottages to cathedrals and palaces. Due to their “node” and “place” characters, station buildings became a convergence place of various social classes during history until the fall of railroad transportation in mid of 20th century and the abandonment of railway stations. On the contrary, stations, rather than being places keeping people away, have a very powerful potential to be hedonistic public spaces in contemporary cities through the five qualities that station buildings have. Thus, the research examines deeply three case studies that follow different strategies for the readaptation of abandoned 19th-century stations. Atocha Railway Station has been extended linearly behind the former station, and the historical building is used as a public space amidst the tropical garden. Railroads in Orsay Station have been moved laterally under the ground level, and the former station transformed into a museum which is a contemporary public space. The last case study, which is proposed by the author in Haydarpasa Railway Station, creates a new centrality by detaching the station terminal from the historical building. The former station is functioned as a cultural center, while the public space between the old and new station becomes a convergence place. Since railroad transportation is the strongest candidate to be the main actor of green and sustainable transportation in the near future, most 19th-century station buildings would gain importance to be the central point of dense transportation traffic. Thus, renovation of former stations as public exodus centers defines them as a meeting place for society and the city.Award-winnin

Train on matrix.

Law So Man Belinda."Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 2000-01, design report."Includes bibliographical references.EXPLORATION-ISSUE AND INTERESTPrimary Elements of RailroadIntroduction--a Deconstmction of the Railroad4 QuestionsINTERPRETATION-along THE RAILROADTime ScaleSpatial ValueSocial ValueTRANSFORMATIONTime TableUnification of SpaceHybrid CompositionTransportationPenetrative PromotionShow TimeParticipantHuman RelationshipINTEGRATION-MULTIPLE IDENTITY ON THE LAST TRAINThree Statuses of Trainthe Last TrainIdentityTime-SpaceTime PeopleTime-EventCONSIDERATIONS-SITE ANALYSIS AND PROGRAMMESocial SignificanceThe Railthe Stationsthe Traintho DepotTime ApplicationSchedule of AccomodationCONFIGURATIONS--DESIGN DEVELOPMENT"Form, Space and Order"Passengers' NoticeTenants' NoticeDevelopment in PhasesComponents of MatrixArchitectural MatrixTime MatrixSenerio Matri

The Chorography of the Modern City

Until the nineteenth century, space was represented and produced through mathematically constructed drawings: plans and sections captured buildings and the scientific map recorded the territory. The development of technologies of transport brought crisis into this static and balanced world as speed and displacement radically reconfigured the subject’s orientation. This thesis examines the maps, plans, guides and signs produced in Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth century to accompany railway travelling, motoring, underground commuting and walking in the city, arguing that they indeed became chorographies of the modern metropolis. These modern chorographies not only exploited the possibilities of the graphein in order to deal with the complexities of space, time and movement, but they also prescribed a very specific knowledge, one that dictated a new way of being in space. In fact, they created a new set of spaces altogether

Admission for all: how cinema and railways shaped British culture, 1895-1948

My thesis examines the intersections between railway and cinema spaces to demonstrate how crucial these technologies were in altering life in Britain. The project focuses on the period between 1895 (the birth of film) and 1948 (when the railways were nationalised). Access to railways and cinemas was predicated on payment rather than birthright: in carriages and auditoriums, consumerism was—in theory—inclusive. The two technologies were thus crucial in transforming public space from one of privilege to one of mass consumption. I analyse three spaces: inside carriages, the interiors of auditoriums and the space onscreen to demonstrate how trains and moving images affected in material ways people’s experiences of modernity in everyday life. I also connect the intersections between the railway and cinema to a broader narrative about Britain’s democracy and industrial and political change in the period. This interdisciplinary thesis draws on a variety of fields including film theory, history, geography and sociology to provoke a reinvestigation of the cinema and the train in British culture. Archival research is central to the thesis, as primary sources create a material history of both the railway and cinema’s impacts on life in Britain. The project’s historical narrative is also interwoven with conceptual analysis. I use moving images as archives, proposing that films help us access the past by releasing stored time and space onscreen. In exploring the connections between the two technologies and everyday life, the thesis also addresses transformations of public and private space, gender and work, domesticity, tourism, and British industry. My research is articulated through a series of case studies incorporating royal rail travel, ambulance carriages, passenger trains, and railway movie theatres

Risk Evaluation of Railway Rolling Stock Failures using FMECA Technique: A Case Study of Passenger Door System

Railway transport consists of two main asset classes of infrastructure and rolling stock. To date, there has been a great deal of interest in the study and analysis of failure mechanisms for railway infrastructure assets, e.g. tracks, sleepers, bridges, signalling system, electrical units, etc. However, few attempts have been made by researchers to develop failure criticality assessment models for rolling stock components. A rolling stock failure may cause delays and disruptions to transport services or even result in catastrophic derailment accidents. In this paper, the potential risks of unexpected failures occurring in rolling stock are identified, analysed and evaluated using a failure mode, effects and criticality analysis-based approach. The most critical failure modes in the system with respect to both reliability and economic criteria are reviewed, the levels of failure criticality are determined and possible methods for mitigation are provided. For the purpose of illustrating the risk evaluation methodology, a case study of the Class 380 train’s door system operating on Scotland’s railway network is provided and the results are discussed. The data required for the study are partly collected from the literature and unpublished sources and partly gathered from the maintenance management information system available in the company. The results of this study can be used not only for assessing the performance of current maintenance practices, but also to plan a cost-effective preventive maintenance (PM) programme for different components of rolling stock