Restructuring of Public Transport Service of Alcoy

Alcoy has a population of 60.000 inhabitants and is located in Valencia, on the north of the province of Alicante. Alcoy has been provided with an urban public bus transport service since 50 years ago. As a result of the current economic downturn, the Municipality of the city applied to the Polytechnic University of Valencia for a study to restructuring the public transport service to allow less municipal subsidies, ensuring quality from two points of view - coverage and frequency. The aim of this study was to provide the government team of detailed information about public transport service of Alcoy from several points of view; functional, economic, social, spatial coverage and other aspects, making easier the decision-making of the municipal government team, to achieve a public transport service more functional and socially appropriate and economically viable. The study consists of several phases. In the first phase, "Diagnosis of the current situation," the methodology used consisted, first of all, in assembling available information from recent years, on this basis, the UPV planning team made a study of the characteristics of the existing offer and demand, making more than 3.800 gauging and 700 surveys. The second phase consisted in meetings with neighborhood associations and the municipality to define objectives and make proposals to the government team. The third phase consisted in making a deep analysis of the proposals, according to the criteria considered and allowing an operation of the service approachable from a financial point of view. The paper presented details the work carried out as well as the proposed solutions and its impact on demand and municipal subsidies. As evidenced by the restructuring proposed that it is possible to achieve savings greater than the 30 % in the municipal contribution with a demand damage lower than 10%San Nicolás-Comendador, D.; Colomer Font, O.; Fiore ., MF.; Colomer Ferrandiz, JV. (2014). Restructuring of Public Transport Service of Alcoy. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 160:410-419. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.12.153S41041916

Increased plasma homocysteine predicts arrhythmia recurrence after minimally invasive epicardial ablation for nonvalvular atrial fibrillation

ObjectiveMinimally invasive epicardial ablation via right minithoracotomy is an emerging option for patients with drug-refractory nonvalvular atrial fibrillation. To guide the development of rational treatment algorithms, factors predisposing to recurrence of arrhythmia need to be quantified and eventually treated. We addressed the association of the plasma levels of homocysteine and the recurrence of atrial fibrillation after minimally invasive ablation.MethodsWe obtained peripheral blood samples from 104 patients at follow-up after arrhythmia surgery; the homocysteine concentration was expressed as micromoles per liter. Prospective follow-up was conducted through electrocardiogram Holter monitoring (average 18.5 ± 5.8 months). Stratified analysis (high vs low homocysteine) was based on the cutoff value for the last quartile of homocysteine concentration (16 μmol/L). Time-to-event and diagnostic performance analyses were performed.ResultsThe rate of freedom from atrial fibrillation was 89.4% at the end of follow-up. Elevated circulating homocysteine level, persistent type of atrial fibrillation, and increased left atrial dimension independently predicted the recurrence of atrial fibrillation during the follow-up (adjusted Cox regression). Patients with a high homocysteine level were more likely to have atrial fibrillation recurrence (stratified Kaplan–Meier, P < .001). The cutoff value for elevated homocysteine (16 μmol/L) yielded a good diagnostic performance in the prediction of atrial fibrillation recurrence (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.807).ConclusionsThe homocysteine level measured during the follow-up reliably predicts the risk of recurrence after epicardial ablation of nonvalvular atrial fibrillation via minithoracotomy. Specific treatments to reduce plasma homocysteine could be considered in the future in these patients

ATHENA Italian Management Plan

The scope of this management plan (MP) is to describe the management of the Italian team in the ATHENA space mission and to clarify roles and responsibilities within the Italian team. Objective of this document is to provide a structured and consistent approach to the Italian management of the ATHENA project to be compliant with the ESA programmatic development. This MP considers all the project management activities that are addressed by the ESA standard ECSS-M-ST-10C “Space project management” in the framework of the Italian Collaboration in the ATHENA mission. The Funding Agency (FA) responsible for the national contribution to the mission is the Italian Space Agency (ASI)

Plan de transporte para la Universidad Politécnica de Valencia

Este Plan de Transporte se elabora en el marco del sistema de gestión ambiental de la UPV, como desarrollo de uno de los objetivos planteados en el Plan Ambiental 2009El documento presenta un diagnóstico de la situación de la Universidad Politécnica de Valencia respecto a la movilidad para luego proponer una serie de actuaciones que permitan mejorar la forma en la que empleados y estudiantes se trasladan desde y hasta la UPV.Torres Martínez, AJ.; Colomer Ferrandiz, JV.; Gallego Pérez, MR.; Pino Hernandez, EM.; Ruiz Sánchez, T.; Fiore ., MF. (2010). Plan de transporte para la Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/7301

Proposing a Tool for Supply Chain Configuration: An Application to Customised Production

The full implementation of collaborative production networks is crucial for companies willing to respond to consumer demand strongly focused on product customisation. This chapter proposes an approach to evaluate the performance of different Supply Chain (SC) configurations in a customised production context. The model is based on discrete-event simulation and is applied to the case of supply chain in the fashion sector to support the comparison between mass and customised production. A prototype web-based interface is also developed and proposed to facilitate the use of the model not only for experts in simulation but for any user in the SC management field

Observation of J/ψpJ/\psi p resonances consistent with pentaquark states in Λb0→J/ψK−p{\Lambda_b^0\to J/\psi K^-p} decays

Observations of exotic structures in the $J/\psi p$ channel, that we refer to as pentaquark-charmonium states, in $\Lambda_b^0\to J/\psi K^- p$ decays are presented. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 3/fb acquired with the LHCb detector from 7 and 8 TeV pp collisions. An amplitude analysis is performed on the three-body final-state that reproduces the two-body mass and angular distributions. To obtain a satisfactory fit of the structures seen in the $J/\psi p$ mass spectrum, it is necessary to include two Breit-Wigner amplitudes that each describe a resonant state. The significance of each of these resonances is more than 9 standard deviations. One has a mass of $4380\pm 8\pm 29$ MeV and a width of $205\pm 18\pm 86$ MeV, while the second is narrower, with a mass of $4449.8\pm 1.7\pm 2.5$ MeV and a width of $39\pm 5\pm 19$ MeV. The preferred $J^P$ assignments are of opposite parity, with one state having spin 3/2 and the other 5/2.Comment: 48 pages, 18 figures including the supplementary material, v2 after referee's comments, now 19 figure

Insights from earth system model initial-condition large ensembles and future prospects

Internal variability in the climate system confounds assessment of human-induced climate change and imposes irreducible limits on the accuracy of climate change projections, especially at regional and decadal scales. A new collection of initial-condition large ensembles (LEs) generated with seven Earth system models under historical and future radiative forcing scenarios provides new insights into uncertainties due to internal variability versus model differences. These data enhance the assessment of climate change risks, including extreme events, and offer a powerful testbed for new methodologies aimed at separating forced signals from internal variability in the observational record. Opportunities and challenges confronting the design and dissemination of future LEs, including increased spatial resolution and model complexity alongside emerging Earth system applications, are discussed

Low loss coatings for the VIRGO large mirrors

présentée par L. PinardThe goal of the VIRGO program is to build a giant Michelson type interferometer (3 kilometer long arms) to detect gravitational waves. Large optical components (350 mm in diameter), having extremely low loss at 1064 nm, are needed. Today, the Ion beam Sputtering is the only deposition technique able to produce optical components with such performances. Consequently, a large ion beam sputtering deposition system was built to coat large optics up to 700 mm in diameter. The performances of this coater are described in term of layer uniformity on large scale and optical losses (absorption and scattering characterization). The VIRGO interferometer needs six main mirrors. The first set was ready in June 2002 and its installation is in progress on the VIRGO site (Italy). The optical performances of this first set are discussed. The requirements at 1064 nm are all satisfied. Indeed, the absorption level is close to 1 ppm (part per million), the scattering is lower than 5 ppm and the R.M.S. wavefront of these optics is lower than 8 nm on 150 mm in diameter. Finally, some solutions are proposed to further improve these performances, especially the absorption level (lower than 0.1 ppm) and the mechanical quality factor Q of the mirrors (thermal noise reduction)