BESTFACT Best Practice Handbook 3

The Best Practice Handbook (BPH) gives an overview about current concepts, strategies and actions in freight transport all over Europe. It is disseminating information on successful projects and practices to increase awareness and share experiences. It is enabling knowledge transfer and supporting transferability for best practices. The third and last Best Practice Handbook focuses on the work done over the entire project, with 157 inventory cases and 60 in-depth analyses. After four years of case collection a wide field of solutions is available. The main findings of the BESTFACT cases are cross-checked and summarised for each of the cluster topics. The consistent form of collection and information provision broadens the structural understanding of best practice cases. The synthesis of cases per topic shows that under consideration of barriers and framework conditions replicable impacts are achievable. Main editors are Martin Ruesch & Simon Bohne (Rapptrans) and Jacques Leonardi (UoW). Project leader is Marcel Huschebeck (PTV)

Datation ESR de dents d'aurochs du site Paléolithique de Castel di Guido (Italie)

International audienceLe site de Castel di Guido a été découvert en 1970. C'est un site de plein air qui se situe à environ 20 km au nord-ouest de Rome (Italie). Des restes d'Anténéandertaliens (Homo heidelbergensis) ont été découverts associés à une industrie acheuléenne riche en bifaces en os et à de nombreux restes fauniques. Ce site avait déjà fait l'objet d'une première série de datations de dents et d'ossements de grands mammifères par la méthode U-Th. Les âges ESR obtenus sur des dents de Bos primigenius sont présentés dans ce travail. Comme les teneurs en uranium des échantillons d'émail sont très élevées, les âges obtenus selon les deux modes de migration de l'uranium EU (early uptake) et LU (linear uptake) sont très différents. Ils recouvrent respectivement le stade isotopique marin (MIS) 7 et les stades MIS 10-11. La combinaison des méthodes U-Th (Série de l'uranium) et ESR (Résonance de spin électronique) permet la détermination du paramètre p de diffusion de l'uranium pour chacune des dents et l'obtention d'un âge US-ESR. Les valeurs du paramètre p indiquent une migration de l'uranium entre les deux modes EU et LU, propice à l'application du modèle US-ESR qui constitue une estimation de l'âge minimum. Dans l'unité 5 supérieure, une dent est datée de 327 (+34-31) ka par la méthode US-ESR (MIS 9). Dans l'unité inférieure 4, les âges US-ESR de trois dents sont légèrement plus petits compris entre 260 et 298 ka environ, ils recouvrent les stades MIS 8 et 9. Ces âges US-ESR sont en accord avec la biostratigraphie (Faunal Unit de Torre in Pietra, niveaux inférieurs) qui indique un environnement ouvert au cours du stade MIS 9

Contribution of simulation to the optimization of maintenance strategies for a randomly failing production system

This paper compares two strategies for operating a production system composed of two machines working in parallel and a downstream inventory supplying an assembly line. The two machines, which are prone to random failures, undergo preventive and corrective maintenance operations. These operations with a random duration make the machines unavailable. Moreover, during regular subcontracting operations, one of these machines becomes unavailable to supply the downstream inventory. In the first strategy it is assumed that the periodicity of preventive maintenance operations and the production rate of each machine are independent. The second strategy suggests an interaction between the periods of unavailability and the production rates of the two machines in order to minimize production losses during these periods. A simulation model for each strategy is developed so as to be able to compare them and to simultaneously determine the timing of preventive maintenance on each machine considering the total average cost per time unit as the performance criterion. The second strategy is then considered, and a multi-criteria analysis is adopted to reach the best cost-availability compromise.Simulation Preventive maintenance Availability Multi-criteria analysis

Using Information and Communication Technologies in Intermodal Freight Transportation: A case study

The paper focuses on the application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools to the real-time transport monitoring in order to trace and automate specific procedures as payments and customs clearance operations. In particular, a case study, that represents an example of intermodal freight transportation (IFT) system, is analyzed and simulated. The flow of goods and information involved in this case study is described in order to highlight the improvements reached by using ICT solutions. A simulation model for this system is proposed by the UML formalism and the discrete event simulation results point out the huge impact of ICT on real-time management and operations of IFT systems

New Consensus Algorithms Based on a Positive Splitting Approach

The paper proposes new consensus protocols for the agreement problem in networks of agents with a discrete time model. A new class of consensus algorithms is introduced on the basis of the positive splitting of the standard iteration matrix. In the framework of non negative matrix theory, some results are proved to guarantee the convergence of the proposed algorithms. In addition, numerous numerical experiments show that the proposed iterative schemes enjoy good rate of convergence even in the cases in which the standard iterative algorithms do not guarantee good performance

A Metamodeling Approach to the Management of Intermodal Transportation Networks

The paper specifies an Integrated System (IS) devoted to the management of Intermodal Transportation Networks (ITNs) to take both tactical decisions, i.e., in an offline mode, and operational decisions, i.e., in real-time. Both the resulting IS structures rely on a closed-loop approach that is able to tune the choices with the current system conditions. In either case, the core of the presented IS are a reference model and a simulation module. In particular, the reference model uses information from the real system, obtained by modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the simulation module evaluates the impact of the management decisions. In order to obtain a systematic model suitable to describe a generic ITN, the paper proposes a metamodeling approach that describes in a thorough and detailed way the structure and the behavior of ITNs. Moreover, the metamodeling procedure is a top-down technique based on the well-known Unified Modeling Language (UML), a graphic and textual formalism able to describe systems from structural and behavioral viewpoints. In order to show the IS application at the tactical decision level, the paper specifies the IS for an ITN case study that is constituted by the port of Trieste (Italy) and the inland terminal of Gorizia (Italy). The results show how the IS can improve the performance of the ITN by applying ICT tools and information-based services