Modelling the Behavioural Response to Congestion Pricing in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh and the home of more than 15 million people, is subjected to severe traffic congestion on a regular basis resulting in lost productivity, fuel wastage, commuter frustration and environmental degradation. The problem is getting more acute day by day due to alarming increase in car usage. According to Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, the number of newly registered private cars per year in the city has more than quadrupled between 2004 and 2015.Congestion pricing schemes, which have been successful in many parts of the world, have a good potential to minimize the number of cars on the roads and reduce traffic congestion in Dhaka. This paper investigates the potential response to congestion pricing in Dhaka using Stated Preference (SP) surveys where users are presented with hypothetical choice scenarios involving varying amounts of congestion charges and travel time savings alongside improved public transport options. Two case studies have been conducted in this regard focusing on shopping and work trips respectively. Discrete choice models have been developed to model the sensitivity towards congestion pricing and to quantify the potential effectiveness of this measure in different trip contexts. Results indicate that car users, especially those having lower incomes (less than 50,000 BDT/month), have significant sensitivity towards congestion charge and have a substantial chance of shifting to improved public transport and/or park-and-ride facilities. The findings of the study can help in formulating effective congestion reduction policies in Dhaka

The effect of rhizobacterial inoculation on growth and nutrient accumulation of tissue-cultured banana plantlets under low N-fertilizer regime

Banana, an important fruit crop, requires high amounts of N-fertilizers for commercial cultivation. This, however, is costly and can be hazardous to the soil environment when used excessively. Biofertilizer is globally accepted as an alternative source of N-fertilizer and can substantially supplement the N requirement while enhancing the uptake of water and mineral nutrients of crop plants. An experiment was conducted to observe the effect of plant growth promoting rhizobacterial inoculation on growth,nutrient uptake of bananas grown under hydroponics condition. The design of the experiment was randomized complete block with five replicates. The following six treatments were imposed: T1 (control; N0-PGPR), T2: (N0+Sp7), T3: (N0+ UPMB10), T4: (N33%+ Sp7), T5: (N33% + UPMB10), and T6: (N100%-PGPR). The results showed that inoculation by UPMB10 with minimal fertilizer-N supply increased (P < 0.05) the primary root elongation and secondary root initiation and subsequently increased (P < 0.05) the root biomass. The same treatment also increased (P < 0.05) N concentration in pseudostem and leaves and Ca concentration in roots. The total accumulation of N, P, K, Ca and Mg were increased due toinoculation; a consequence of increased plant growth. Plants with this treatment produced an equivalent total dry matter as those supplied with 100% N

Panel. Faulkner and the Literary Canon

Considering the Unthinkable: The Risks and Rewards of Decanonizing Faulkner / Deborah Clarke, Arizona State UniversityAre we doing Faulkner any favors by canonizing him? To what extent does our belief in his greatness foreclose different ways of reading his work? Do we default to “if Faulkner did it, it must be brilliant,” giving him the benefit of all doubts? I’ll be looking at how our reverence for his work may actually hinder our understanding of it, as well as alienating students and colleagues who don’t dare to admit their resistance and doubt. Rather than using Faulkner’s difficulty as a way to silence critics, let’s consider what happens if we admit that it may be a problem. It’s time to re-think why Faulkner should—or shouldn’t—retain his position atop the American literary canon. Popular Faulkner: Pulp Paperbacks, Oprah’s Book Club, and the Curse of the Hypercanonical / Jaime Harker, University of MississippiBecause of Faulkner’s hypercanonical status—that is, because his writing seems to exemplify the autonomous aesthetic object, placed in opposition to mass culture—decades of brilliant scholarship about Faulkner’s deep and complicated relationship to popular culture have had little effect on the larger direction of Faulkner studies. Building on David Earle’s book Re-Covering Modernism, I suggest that Cold War paperbacks created an egalitarian, diverse reading and writing community that Oprah’s Book Club continued. I conclude by speculating about how a pulp Faulkner canon might construct a new vocabulary for talking about style that articulates multiple interpretive communities and their contingencies of value (in Barbara Herrnstein Smith’s provocative phrase). What happens when we no longer understand popular culture as base source material transformed by genius but as alternate interpretive communities? What if we consider a ‘fertile interchange’ without assuming that our own designations of quality are natural and innate? Benjy Compson\u27s Mind of the South / Mab Segrest, Connecticut CollegeBenjy Compson is more than likely the referent of Faulkner\u27s title for The Sound and the Fury. But a reading of the novel through the lens of southern psychiatric history and my own study of Georgia\u27s mammoth and iconic \u27lunatic asylum\u27\u27/sanitarium/state hospital at Milledgeville reveals the complex signification that results from the family\u27s decision to keep a cognitively disabled son and brother out of the state hospital. What do we learn about Faulkner and about the disciplining of mind in the Jim Crow South from Faulkner\u27s radical decision to write the novel\u27s opening from Benjy\u27s point of view? How do the Compsons’ choices and those of the African Americans who care for them and for Benjy reverberate through The Sound and the Fury and through other southern works, from To Kill a Mockingbird to The Violent Bear It Away to The Member of the Wedding to Streetcar Named Desire

Portable haptic device for lower limb amputee gait feedback: Assessing static and dynamic perceptibility

Loss of joints and severed sensory pathway cause reduced mobility capabilities in lower limb amputees. Although prosthetic devices attempt to restore normal mobility functions, lack of awareness and control of limb placement increase the risk of falling and causing amputee to have high level of visual dependency. Haptic feedback can serve as a cue for gait events during ambulation thus providing sense of awareness of the limb position. This paper presents a wireless wearable skin stretch haptic device to be fitted around the thigh region. The movement profile of the device was characterized and a preliminary work with able-bodied participants and an above-knee amputee to assess the ability of users to perceive the delivered stimuli during static and dynamic mode is reported. Perceptibility was found to be increasing with stretch magnitude. It was observed that a higher magnitude of stretch was needed for the stimuli to be accurately perceived during walking in comparison to static standing, most likely due to the intense movement of the muscle and increased motor skills demand during walking activity

A dança como interface: um exemplo de práticas criativas em dança com mediação tecnológica

Resumo: Este artigo tem como ponto de partida investigar as práticas criativas no campo da dança com mediação tecnológica e suas imbricações com conceitos da performance. Consciente das potencialidades deste campo emergente e híbrido, este estudo é baseado na observação de algumas práticas artísticas e tem como objetivo refletir acerca do corpo como interface, bem como seus potenciais criativos no campo da arte e tecnologia. Palavras-chave: Dança. Interface. Tecnologia. Performance. Mídia. DANCE AS INTERFACE: AN EXAMPLE OF CREATIVE PRACTICES IN DANCE AND TECHNOLOGICAL MEDIATIONAbstract: The starting point of this article is the investigation of creative practices in the field of dance with technological mediation and its imbrications with the concepts of performance. Aware of its potencialities as a hybrid field, this study is based on the observation of some artistic practices. It aims to reflect on the body as an interface, as well its creative potencial in the field of art and technology.Keywords:Dance. Interface. Tecnology. Performance. Media

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Real-time gait event detection using a miniature gyroscope to improve rehabilitation for artificial lower limb users

This paper presents a simple heuristic rule based on real-time gait event detection algorithm for transfemoral amputees based on gyroscope signal and validate with footswitches for ramp activities with different inclinatio

Elucidating the characteristic energy balance evolution in applied smouldering systems

Applied smouldering systems are emerging to solve a range of environmental challenges, such as remediation, sludge treatment, off-grid sanitation, and resource recovery. In many cases, these systems use smouldering to drive an efficient waste-to-energy process. While engineers and researchers are making strides in developing these systems, the characteristic energy balance trends have not yet been well-defined. This study addresses this topic and presents a detailed framework to uncover the characteristic energy balance evolution in applied smouldering systems. This work provides new experimental results; a new, validated analytical description of the cooling zone temperature profile at steady-state conditions; insight into the characteristic temperature changes over time; a re-analysis of published data; and a robust framework to contextualize the global energy balance results from applied smouldering systems. Altogether, this study is aimed to support researchers and engineers to better understand smouldering system performance to further the development of environmentally beneficial applications

Real-time gait event detection for transfemoral amputees during ramp ascending and descending

Events and phases detection of the human gait are vital for controlling prosthesis, orthosis and functional electrical stimulation (FES) systems. Wearable sensors are inexpensive, portable and have fast processing capability. They are frequently used to assess spatio-temporal, kinematic and kinetic parameters of the human gait which in turn provide more details about the human voluntary control and ampute-eprosthesis interaction. This paper presents a reliable real-time gait event detection algorithm based on simple heuristics approach, applicable to signals from tri-axial gyroscope for lower limb amputees during ramp ascending and descending. Experimental validation is done by comparing the results of gyroscope signal with footswitches. For healthy subjects, the mean difference between events detected by gyroscope and footswitches is 14 ms and 10.5 ms for initial contact (IC) whereas for toe off (TO) it is -5 ms and -25 ms for ramp up and down respectively. For transfemoral amputee, the error is slightly higher either due to the placement of footswitches underneath the foot or the lack of proper knee flexion and ankle plantarflexion/dorsiflexion during ramp up and down. Finally, repeatability tests showed promising results

A Wearable Skin Stretch Haptic Feedback Device: Towards Improving Balance Control in Lower Limb Amputees

Haptic feedback to lower limb amputees is essential to maximize the functionality of a prosthetic device by providing information to the user about the interaction with the environment and the position of the prostheses in space. Severed sensory pathway and the absence of connection between the prosthesis and the Central Nervous System (CNS) after lower limb amputation reduces balance control, increases visual dependency and increases risk of falls among amputees. This work describes the design of a wearable haptic feedback device for lower limb amputees using lateral skin-stretch modality intended to serve as a feedback cue during ambulation. A feedback scheme was proposed based on gait event detection for possible real-time postural adjustment. Preliminary perceptual test with healthy subjects in static condition was carried out and the results indicated over 98% accuracy in determining stimuli location around the upper leg region, suggesting good perceptibility of the delivered stimuli