Optimal Scheduling of Trains on a Single Line Track

This paper describes the development and use of a model designed to optimise train schedules on single line rail corridors. The model has been developed with two major applications in mind, namely: as a decision support tool for train dispatchers to schedule trains in real time in an optimal way; and as a planning tool to evaluate the impact of timetable changes, as well as railroad infrastructure changes. The mathematical programming model described here schedules trains over a single line track. The priority of each train in a conflict depends on an estimate of the remaining crossing and overtaking delay, as well as the current delay. This priority is used in a branch and bound procedure to allow and optimal solution to reasonable size train scheduling problems to be determined efficiently. The use of the model in an application to a 'real life' problem is discussed. The impacts of changing demand by increasing the number of trains, and reducing the number of sidings for a 150 kilometre section of single line track are discussed. It is concluded that the model is able to produce useful results in terms of optimal schedules in a reasonable time for the test applications shown here

Institutional strategies for capturing socio-economic impact of academic research

Evaluation of socio-economic impact is an emerging theme for publicly-funded academic research. Within this context the paper suggests that the concept of institutional research capital be expanded to include the capture and evaluation of socio-economic impact. Furthermore, it argues that understanding the typology of impacts and the tracking from research to impact will assist the formulation of institutional strategies for capturing socio-economic impact. A three-stage approach is proposed for capturing and planning activities to enhance the generation of high-quality impact. Stage one outlines the critical role of user engagement that facilitates the tracking of such impact. Stage two employs an analytical framework based on the criteria of ‘depth’ and ‘spread’ to evaluate impacts that have been identified. Stage three utilizes the outcomes of the framework to devise strategies, consisting of either further research (to increase depth) or more engagement (to increase spread) that will improve the generation of higher quality impact

General Aviation Trends in the European Market Memorandum Report

In 1969, as western Europe was becoming a common market, significant economic growth was projected. His Highness, The Aga Kahn requested that Economics Research Associates (ERA) perform a memorandum report and forecast the trends for private aviation potentials in Europe over the decade of the 1970s. The resulting report by ERA reviews the history of European aviation, current and future economic trends in the common European market area as these pertain to the growth of private aviation, advantages and disadvantages involved in noncommercial flying, and future trends in private aviation. Data was gathered from such sources as aviation publications, interviews with persons connected with private aviation, and market studies and projections of commercial organizations. The report includes the following sections: 1) introduction, 2) summary and conclusions, 3) the western European economy, 4) general aviation, 5) general aviation and future trends in aviation design, 6) impact of general aviation on tourism. The report includes four tables

Understanding factors associated with the translation of cardiovascular research: A multinational case study approach

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: Funders of health research increasingly seek to understand how best to allocate resources in order to achieve maximum value from their funding. We built an international consortium and developed a multinational case study approach to assess benefits arising from health research. We used that to facilitate analysis of factors in the production of research that might be associated with translating research findings into wider impacts, and the complexities involved. Methods: We built on the Payback Framework and expanded its application through conducting co-ordinated case studies on the payback from cardiovascular and stroke research in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. We selected a stratified random sample of projects from leading medical research funders. We devised a series of innovative steps to: minimize the effect of researcher bias; rate the level of impacts identified in the case studies; and interrogate case study narratives to identify factors that correlated with achieving high or low levels of impact. Results: Twenty-nine detailed case studies produced many and diverse impacts. Over the 15 to 20 years examined, basic biomedical research has a greater impact than clinical research in terms of academic impacts such as knowledge production and research capacity building. Clinical research has greater levels of wider impact on health policies, practice, and generating health gains. There was no correlation between knowledge production and wider impacts. We identified various factors associated with high impact. Interaction between researchers and practitioners and the public is associated with achieving high academic impact and translation into wider impacts, as is basic research conducted with a clinical focus. Strategic thinking by clinical researchers, in terms of thinking through pathways by which research could potentially be translated into practice, is associated with high wider impact. Finally, we identified the complexity of factors behind research translation that can arise in a single case. Conclusions: We can systematically assess research impacts and use the findings to promote translation. Research funders can justify funding research of diverse types, but they should not assume academic impacts are proxies for wider impacts. They should encourage researchers to consider pathways towards impact and engage potential research users in research processes. © 2014 Wooding et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.RAND Europe and HERG, with subsequent funding from the NHFA, the HSFC and the CIHR. This research was also partially supported by the Policy Research Programme in the English Department of Health

Comparing research investment to United Kingdom institutions and published outputs for tuberculosis, HIV and malaria: A systematic analysis across 1997-2013

Background: The "Unfinished Agenda" of infectious diseases is of great importance to policymakers and research funding agencies that require ongoing research evidence on their effective management. Journal publications help effectively share and disseminate research results to inform policy and practice. We assess research investments to United Kingdom institutions in HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, and analyse these by numbers of publications and citations and by disease and type of science. Methods: Information on infection-related research investments awarded to United Kingdom institutions across 1997-2010 were sourced from funding agencies and individually categorised by disease and type of science. Publications were sourced from the Scopus database via keyword searches and filtered to include only publications relating to human disease and containing a United Kingdom-based first and/or last author. Data were matched by disease and type of science categories. Investment (United Kingdom pounds) and publications were compared to generate an 'investment per publication' metric; similarly, an 'investment per citation' metric was also developed as a measure of the usefulness of research. Results: Total research investment for all three diseases was £1.4 billion, and was greatest for HIV (£651.4 million), followed by malaria (£518.7 million) and tuberculosis (£239.1 million). There were 17,271 included publications, with 9,322 for HIV, 4,451 for malaria, and 3,498 for tuberculosis. HIV publications received the most citations (254,949), followed by malaria (148,559) and tuberculosis (100,244). According to UK pound per publication, tuberculosis (£50,691) appeared the most productive for investment, compared to HIV (£61,971) and malaria (£94,483). By type of science, public health research was most productive for HIV (£27,296) and tuberculosis (£22,273), while phase I-III trials were most productive for malaria (£60,491). According to UK pound per citation, tuberculosis (£1,797) was the most productive area for investment, compared to HIV (£2,265) and malaria (£2,834). Public health research was the most productive type of science for HIV (£2,265) and tuberculosis (£1,797), whereas phase I-III trials were most productive for malaria (£1,713). Conclusions: When comparing total publications and citations with research investment to United Kingdom institutions, tuberculosis research appears to perform best in terms of efficiency. There were more public health-related publications and citations for HIV and tuberculosis than other types of science. These findings demonstrate the diversity of research funding and outputs, and provide new evidence to inform research investment strategies for policymakers, funders, academic institutions, and healthcare organizations.Infectious Disease Research Networ

Are Labour Markets Necessarily Local? Spatiality, Segmentation and Scale

This paper draws on recent debates about scale to approach the geography of labour markets from a dynamic perspective sensitive to the spatiality and scale of labour market restructuring. Its exploration of labour market reconfigurations after the collapse of a major firm (Ansett Airlines) raises questions about geography’s faith in the inherently ‘local’ constitution of labour markets. Through an examination of the job reallocation process after redundancy, the paper suggests that multiple labour markets use and articulate scale in different ways. It argues that labour market rescaling processes are enacted at the critical moment of recruitment, where social networks, personal aspirations and employer preferences combine to shape workers’ destinations

Determinants of environmental management in the red sea hotels: Personal and organizational values and contextual variables

What motivates firms to adopt environmental management practices is one of the most significant aspects in the contemporary academic debate in which the review of the existing literature yields, with an obvious contextual bias toward developed world, contested theories and inconclusive findings. Providing a unique model that brings together the individual and organizational levels of analysis on firms' adoption of environmental management practices, this study aims to provide a new insight from the context of developing world. Data from 158 Red Sea hotels reveal two identifiable dimensions of environmental management-planning and organization, and operations-that can be explained as originating from different values. Whereas organizational altruism is a powerful predictor of both dimensions, managers' personal values and organizational competitive orientation are only relevant to environmental operations. The evidence also indicates that contextual variables such as chain affiliation, hotel star rating, and size are important to explain hotels' environmental management behaviors. © 2012 ICHRIE

Assessing health and well-being among older people in rural South Africa

Background: The population in developing countries is ageing, which is likely to increase the burden of noncommunicable diseases and disability. Objective: To describe factors associated with self-reported health, disability and quality of life (QoL) of older people in the rural northeast of South Africa. Design: Cross-sectional survey of 6,206 individuals aged 50 and over. We used multivariate analysis to examine relationships between demographic variables and measures of self-reported health (Health Status), functional ability (WHODASi) and quality of life (WHOQoL). Results: About 4,085 of 6,206 people eligible (65.8%) completed the interview. Women (Odds Ratio (OR) 1.30, 95% CI 1.09, 1.55), older age (OR2.59, 95% CI 1.97, 3.40), lower education (OR1.62, 95% CI 1.31,2.00), single status (OR1.18, 95% CI 1.01, 1.37) and not working at present (OR1.29, 95% CI 1.06, 1.59) were associated with a low health status. Women were also more likely to report a higher level of disability (OR1.38, 95% CI 1.14, 1.66), as were older people (OR2.92, 95% CI 2.25, 3.78), those with no education (OR1.57, 95% CI 1.26, 1.97), with single status (OR1.25, 95% CI 1.06, 1.46) and not working at present (OR1.33, 95% CI 1.06, 1.66). Older age (OR1.35, 95% CI 1.06, 1.74), no education (OR1.39, 95% CI 1.11, 1.73), single status (OR1.28, 95% CI 1.10, 1.49), a low household asset score (OR1.52, 95% CI 1.19, 1.94) and not working at present (OR1.32; 95% CI 1.07, 1.64) were all associated with lower quality of life. Conclusions: This study presents the first population-based data from South Africa on health status, functional ability and quality of life among older people. Health and social services will need to be restructured to provide effective care for older people living in rural South Africa with impaired functionality and other health problems

Statistical characterisation of bio-aerosol background in an urban environment

In this paper we statistically characterise the bio-aerosol background in an urban environment. To do this we measure concentration levels of naturally occurring microbiological material in the atmosphere over a two month period. Naturally occurring bioaerosols can be considered as noise, as they mask the presence of signals coming from biological material of interest (such as an intentionally released biological agent). Analysis of this 'biobackground' was undertaken in the 1-10 um size range and a 3-9% contribution was found to be biological in origin - values which are in good agreement with other studies reported in the literature. A model based on the physics of turbulent mixing and dispersion was developed and validated against this analysis. The Gamma distribution (the basis of our model) is shown to comply with the scaling laws of the concentration moments of our data, which enables us to universally characterise both biological and non-biological material in the atmosphere. An application of this model is proposed to build a framework for the development of novel algorithms for bio-aerosol detection and rapid characterisation.Comment: 14 Pages, 8 Figure