Why People Refrain from Cycling in Indian Cities: A Comparative Investigation

In comparison to many bicycle-friendly European cities, Indian cities are not popular for their bicycle-friendly environment. The absence of basic infrastructure is cited as the primary reason for such a situation. This study aims to understand this phenomenon at a micro scale by comparing two European cities, namely Amsterdam and Copenhagen and two Indian cities, Chandigarh and Noida. This research uses the ‘comparative case study\u27 approach to evaluate two planned Indian cities against these two successful European examples. The purpose of the study is to understand Indian people\u27s reluctance for cycling through a comparative spatial study. With an emphasis on cycling, the new planned cities in India supposedly provide more opportunities to cycle to its citizens. It is assumed that people choose to cycle in a city under various conditions. These conditions have been assessed by identifying suitable indicators and collecting data through a secondary survey. These indicators are grouped together in three attributes - physical, environmental and social. The collected data from each city is compared and analysed to comprehend the existing situation and draw appropriate conclusions. This study highlights many non-conventional parameters to understand people\u27s reluctance to cycle in the Indian cities. The research will help to understand the limitations in Indian cities through a comparative analysis of successful European cases

Convalescent plasma in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised controlled, open-label, platform trial

SummaryBackground Azithromycin has been proposed as a treatment for COVID-19 on the basis of its immunomodulatoryactions. We aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of azithromycin in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19.Methods In this randomised, controlled, open-label, adaptive platform trial (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19Therapy [RECOVERY]), several possible treatments were compared with usual care in patients admitted to hospitalwith COVID-19 in the UK. The trial is underway at 176 hospitals in the UK. Eligible and consenting patients wererandomly allocated to either usual standard of care alone or usual standard of care plus azithromycin 500 mg once perday by mouth or intravenously for 10 days or until discharge (or allocation to one of the other RECOVERY treatmentgroups). Patients were assigned via web-based simple (unstratified) randomisation with allocation concealment andwere twice as likely to be randomly assigned to usual care than to any of the active treatment groups. Participants andlocal study staff were not masked to the allocated treatment, but all others involved in the trial were masked to theoutcome data during the trial. The primary outcome was 28-day all-cause mortality, assessed in the intention-to-treatpopulation. The trial is registered with ISRCTN, 50189673, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04381936.Findings Between April 7 and Nov 27, 2020, of 16 442 patients enrolled in the RECOVERY trial, 9433 (57%) wereeligible and 7763 were included in the assessment of azithromycin. The mean age of these study participants was65·3 years (SD 15·7) and approximately a third were women (2944 [38%] of 7763). 2582 patients were randomlyallocated to receive azithromycin and 5181 patients were randomly allocated to usual care alone. Overall,561 (22%) patients allocated to azithromycin and 1162 (22%) patients allocated to usual care died within 28 days(rate ratio 0·97, 95% CI 0·87–1·07; p=0·50). No significant difference was seen in duration of hospital stay (median10 days [IQR 5 to >28] vs 11 days [5 to >28]) or the proportion of patients discharged from hospital alive within 28 days(rate ratio 1·04, 95% CI 0·98–1·10; p=0·19). Among those not on invasive mechanical ventilation at baseline, nosignificant difference was seen in the proportion meeting the composite endpoint of invasive mechanical ventilationor death (risk ratio 0·95, 95% CI 0·87–1·03; p=0·24).Interpretation In patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19, azithromycin did not improve survival or otherprespecified clinical outcomes. Azithromycin use in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 should be restrictedto patients in whom there is a clear antimicrobial indication

Exploring Transportation Demand Management as a Strategy to Decongest Indian Cities and Improve Mobility

Indian cities are known for their notorious traffic congestion and limited mobility. Increasing per capita income and urbanization are further aggravating the already constrained situation and results in hazards like environmental pollution, accidents and health risks. One of the major reasons for the urban congestion problem is the increasing use of private vehicles. This study addresses the problem of congestion by introducing Transportation Demand Management (TDM) strategies. TDM encourages people to shift from private vehicles to public transport modes like mass transit and buses. In this research the Jaipur Walled City is analysed for the empirical research. The research employs an aggregate Logit modelling for analysing modal choice probability. For the purpose of modelling, data is collected by a mix of primary and secondary surveys. Based on the findings, this research discusses strategic interventions in four sectors – road space redesign, public transit improvements, use of MRTS and parking arrangements

Preparing for Gaia Searches for Optical Counterparts of Gravitational Wave Events during O4

The discovery of gravitational wave (GW) events and the detection of electromagnetic counterparts from GW170817 has started the era of multimessenger GW astronomy.The field has been developing rapidly and in this paper,we discuss the preparation for detecting these events with the ESA Gaia satellite,during the 4th observing run of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) collaboration that has started on May 24,2023. Gaia is contributing to the search for GW counterparts by a new transient detection pipeline called GaiaX. In GaiaX, a new source appearing in the field of view of only one of the two telescopes on-board Gaia is sufficient to send out an alert on the possible detection of a new transient. Ahead of O4, an experiment was conducted over a period of about two months. During the two weeks around New Moon in this period of time, the MeerLICHT (ML) telescope located in South Africa tried (weather permitting) to observe the same region of the sky as Gaia within 10 minutes. Any GaiaX detected transient was published publicly. ML and Gaia have similar limiting magnitudes for typical seeing conditions at ML. At the end of the experiment, we had 11861 GaiaX candidate transients and 15806 ML candidate transients, which we further analysed and the results of which are presented in this paper. Finally, we discuss the possibility and capabilities of Gaia contributing to the search for electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave events during O4 through the GaiaX detection and alert procedure.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures; Submitted to MNRA