A sketch planning methodology for determining interventions for bicycle and pedestrian crashes: an ecological approach

Bicycle and pedestrian safety planning have recently been gaining increased attention. With this focus, however, comes increased responsibilities for planning agencies and organizations tasked with evaluating and selecting safety interventions, a potentially arduous task given limited staff and resources. This study presents a sketch planning framework based on ecological factors that attempts to provide an efficient and effective method of selecting appropriate intervention measures. A Chicago case study is used to demonstrate how such a method may be applied

Case studies of job access and reverse commute program: 2009-2010

This report presents perceptual, mobility and employment outcomes self-reported by 573 users of 26 transportation services funded by the Job Access and Reverse Commute (JARC) program. The respondents were predominantly low income with 42 percent reporting 2008 personal incomes less than $10,000 and two-thirds of the respondents earning$20,000 or less for the same year. Nearly half the respondents have no household vehicles. Nearly three in five respondents reported that their travel has become reliable and convenient after using the services. Workers using the services have benefitted from overall reductions in the cost of commuting to work. Close to 94 percent rated the service as being important or very important in keeping their jobs. Respondents also self-reported that the services allowed them to access a job with better pay or better working conditions, and to improve their skills. Both median hourly wages and median weekly earnings are reported to have increased since using the service for those workers who use the service to commute to work and were employed in the one-month period prior to starting use of the service. Alternative reasons may exist for these wage changes, including overall changes in the economic conditions of the locations where the services operate, as well as changes in the personal conditions of the workers that are unrelated to the JARC program in the period between starting use of the service and the time of the survey, such as graduation from job-training or school, residential relocation and so on. Because of the lack of a probability sample of services, the results cannot be generalized to the entire JARC program. Detailed case studies of the 26 services yield insights into the types of benefits that are being provided overall in these cases and the planning and programmatic environment within which they operate

Case studies of job access and reverse commute program: 2009-2010

This report presents perceptual, mobility and employment outcomes self-reported by 573 users of 26 transportation services funded by the Job Access and Reverse Commute (JARC) program. The respondents were predominantly low income with 42 percent reporting 2008 personal incomes less than $10,000 and two-thirds of the respondents earning$20,000 or less for the same year. Nearly half the respondents have no household vehicles. Nearly three in five respondents reported that their travel has become reliable and convenient after using the services. Workers using the services have benefitted from overall reductions in the cost of commuting to work. Close to 94 percent rated the service as being important or very important in keeping their jobs. Respondents also self-reported that the services allowed them to access a job with better pay or better working conditions, and to improve their skills. Both median hourly wages and median weekly earnings are reported to have increased since using the service for those workers who use the service to commute to work and were employed in the one-month period prior to starting use of the service. Alternative reasons may exist for these wage changes, including overall changes in the economic conditions of the locations where the services operate, as well as changes in the personal conditions of the workers that are unrelated to the JARC program in the period between starting use of the service and the time of the survey, such as graduation from job-training or school, residential relocation and so on. Because of the lack of a probability sample of services, the results cannot be generalized to the entire JARC program. Detailed case studies of the 26 services yield insights into the types of benefits that are being provided overall in these cases and the planning and programmatic environment within which they operate

Arctic reindeer extend their visual range into the ultraviolet

The Arctic has extreme seasonal changes in light levels and is proportionally UV-rich because of scattering of the shorter wavelengths and their reflection from snow and ice. Here we show that the cornea and lens in Arctic reindeer do not block all UV and that the retina responds electrophysiologically to these wavelengths. Both rod and cone photoreceptors respond to UV at low-intensity stimulation. Retinal RNA extraction and in vitro opsin expression show that the response to UV is not mediated by a specific UV photoreceptor mechanism. Reindeer thus extend their visual range into the short wavelengths characteristic of the winter environment and periods of extended twilight present in spring and autumn. A specific advantage of this short-wavelength vision is the use of potential information caused by differential UV reflections known to occur in both Arctic vegetation and different types of snow. UV is normally highly damaging to the retina, resulting in photoreceptor degeneration. Because such damage appears not to occur in these animals, they may have evolved retinal mechanisms protecting against extreme UV exposure present in the daylight found in the snow-covered late winter environment

Exploring the Fast Ignition Approach to Fusion Energy

Probably the most famous equation in physics is Einstein's E=mc{sup 2}, which was contained within his fifth and final paper that was published in 1905. It is this relationship between energy ( E) and mass ( m) that the fusion process exploits to generate energy. When two isotopes of hydrogen (normally Deuterium and Tritium (DT)) fuse they form helium and a neutron. In this process some of the mass of the hydrogen is converted into energy. In the fast ignition approach to fusion a large driver (such as the NIF laser) is used to compress the DT fuel to extremely high densities and then is ''sparked'' by a high intensity, short-pulse laser. The short-pulse laser energy is converted to an electron beam, which then deposits its energy in the DT fuel. The energy of the electrons in this beam is so large that the electron's mass is increased according to Einstein theory of relativity. Understanding the transport of this relativistic electron beam is critical to the success of fast ignition and is the subject of this poster

Prospects of micromass culture technology in tissue engineering

Tissue engineering of bone and cartilage tissue for subsequent implantation is of growing interest in cranio- and maxillofacial surgery. Commonly it is performed by using cells coaxed with scaffolds. Recently, there is a controversy concerning the use of artificial scaffolds compared to the use of a natural matrix. Therefore, new approaches called micromass technology have been invented to overcome these problems by avoiding the need for scaffolds. Technically, cells are dissociated and the dispersed cells are then reaggregated into cellular spheres. The micromass technology approach enables investigators to follow tissue formation from single cell sources to organised spheres in a controlled environment. Thus, the inherent fundamentals of tissue engineering are better revealed. Additionally, as the newly formed tissue is devoid of an artificial material, it resembles more closely the in vivo situation. The purpose of this review is to provide an insight into the fundamentals and the technique of micromass cell culture used to study bone tissue engineering

The landscape model: a model for exploring trade-offs between agricultural production and the environment

We describe a model framework that simulates spatial and temporal interactions in agricultural landscapes and that can be used to explore trade-offs between production and environment so helping to determine solutions to the problems of sustainable food production. Here we focus on models of agricultural production, water movement and nutrient flow in a landscape. We validate these models against data from two long-term experiments, (the first a continuous wheat experiment and the other a permanent grass-land experiment) and an experiment where water and nutrient flow are measured from isolated catchments. The model simulated wheat yield (RMSE 20.3–28.6%), grain N (RMSE 21.3–42.5%) and P (RMSE 20.2–29% excluding the nil N plots), and total soil organic carbon particularly well (RMSE 3.1 − 13.8 %), the simulations of water flow were also reasonable (RMSE 180.36 and 226.02%). We illustrate the use of our model framework to explore trade-offs between production and nutrient losses

Legitimacy, Visibility, and the Antecedents of Corporate Social Performance: An Investigation of the Instrumental Perspective

Using institutional theory as the foundation, this study examines the role of organizational visibility from a variety of sources (i.e., slack visibility, industry visibility, and visibility to multiple stakeholders) in influencing corporate social performance (CSP). The conceptual framework offers important insights regarding the instrumental motives of managers in performing CSP initiatives. Based on a sample of 124 S&P 500 firms, the authors found that it is a firm’s visibility to stakeholders, rather than its economic performance, that has the larger impact on managers’ decisions regarding how much CSP their firms exhibit. The results show that more profitable firms may not be motivated to engage actively in CSP unless they are under greater scrutiny by various firm stakeholders. The authors also found that organizational slack (estimated as cost of capital) is positively associated with a Social CSP dimension but negatively associated with a Strategic CSP dimension. This research contributes to the current CSP literature by demonstrating that motivations in addition to normative or ethical ones may be at play in the decisions firms make regarding their CSP.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Synchronized ATP oscillations have a critical role in prechondrogenic condensation during chondrogenesis

The skeletal elements of embryonic limb are prefigured by prechondrogenic condensation in which secreted molecules such as adhesion molecules and extracellular matrix have crucial roles. However, how the secreted molecules are controlled to organize the condensation remains unclear. In this study, we examined metabolic regulation of secretion in prechondrogenic condensation, using bioluminescent monitoring systems. We here report on ATP oscillations in the early step of chondrogenesis. The ATP oscillations depended on both glycolysis and mitochondrial respiration, and their synchronization among cells were achieved via gap junctions. In addition, the ATP oscillations were driven by Ca2+ oscillations and led to oscillatory secretion in chondrogenesis. Blockade of the ATP oscillations prevented cellular condensation. Furthermore, the degree of cellular condensation increased with the frequency of ATP oscillations. We conclude that ATP oscillations have a critical role in prechondrogenic condensation by inducing oscillatory secretion

Teaching and Learning of Calculus

This survey focuses on the main trends in the field of calculus education. Despite their variety, the findings reveal a cornerstone issue that is strongly linked to the formalism of calculus concepts and to the difficulties it generates in the learning and teaching process. As a complement to the main text, an extended bibliography with some of the most important references on this topic is included. Since the diversity of the research in the field makes it difficult to produce an exhaustive state-of-the-art summary, the authors discuss recent developments that go beyond this survey and put forward new research questions