2014 Local Food Consumption in Vermont

This paper revisits and updates a 2011 study to count local food consumption in Vermont. We find consumption increased to about $188 million in 2014, with increases across most categories

Feasibility Analysis of a Connected Vehicle Wrong-Way Driver Countermeasure System

Despite existing countermeasures for addressing wrong-way driving, crashes relating to wrong-way driving continue to occur on Texas roads. These crashes tend to be more severe than typical crashes since they tend to be head-on collisions at high speeds. This study considers a countermeasure designed to use connected vehicle communications, on high-speed, controlled access, freeway-type facilities. This study quantifies the impacts of a connected vehicle wrong-way driving countermeasure (CV-WWD) system, translates them into a benefit-cost ratio that represents the economic value of the system, and performs the analysis on a generic case and case study to draw conclusions on potential deployment needs for the system. To determine the probability that a vehicle received a warning about the wrong-way driver (WWD) early enough to be able to make an informed decision earlier than if they were not equipped, calculations were done to determine vehicle presence, connected vehicle capability probability, and successful warning message transmission. The increased time for response was translated into reduced crash probability for various market penetration rates (MPRs) of connected vehicles. Each analysis used the baseline scenario as the case where the MPR of zero, representing no connected vehicles, was used as a baseline for the economic analysis. Reduced crash probability for a single event was used to estimate the benefit over the life of the system. The benefit-cost ratio was this benefit divided by the cost of the system. The findings of the study indicate that the WWD crash rate is the driving factor for economic feasibility. Each traffic density considered had similar MPRs for feasibility across each crash rate, with a rate of one WWD crash ever five years needing about 37 percent MPR and a rate of once a year only needing 17 percent MPR to break even. The case study on US-75 in downtown Dallas, TX, which has a crash rate of 1.8 WWD crashes per year, showed that a system installed there could be feasible with an MPR as low as seven percent. These results show that the system has potential to be economically feasible at low MPRs with a sufficiently high crash rate

Commune de Saint-Calais-du-Désert

Dans le cadre d’une étude d’impact pour le projet de construction d’un barrage sur la Mayenne, intéressant la commune de Saint-Calais-du-Désert et une faible partie de celle de Pré-en-Pail, une étude documentaire et une prospection ont été réalisées. Les données recueillies mettent en évidence le passé médiéval conséquent de Saint-Calais, certainement dû à l’influence de son prieuré dépendant de Saint-Vincent du Mans et de deux sites majeurs, le Chatellier (motte castrale) et la Revellière (h..

University Students’ Perception and Satisfaction with Online Formative Assessment: A Case of University of Kabianga, Kenya

Online assessment is an evaluation of a person's abilities, behaviors, and characteristics conducted over the Internet by use of available web technologies such as Learning Management Systems (LMS). Online assessments support a variety of question types and provide tailored feedback useful in improving learning and academic achievement of the learners. Online teaching and assessment had not been popular in some parts of the world, prior the COVID-19 pandemic. However with the pandemic, learning was taken online necessitating the need to make a move towards the computerization of assessment. In Kenya, this was done in a hurry without training learners on how to handle both online learning and assessment. As a result many students were apprehensive of these processes and were resisting the shift. This study provides University of Kabianga second year students’ perspective on formative online assessment. Study was based on the Constructivist Theory of learning which holds that, learners construct knowledge and learn best when engaged in learning experiences rather than passively receiving information. Only an experience can facilitate students to construct their own knowledge. Students in this study were exposed to online assessment for the first time and their perception and satisfaction was given in a feedback survey tool emended in the LMS. Analysis of students’ feedback indicated that they were satisfied and preferred online assessment to the face-to-face written assessments. Keywords: Online Assessment, Perception, Formative Assessment DOI: 10.7176/JEP/13-32-09 Publication date: November 30th 202

How ageing changes the mnemonic bias of visual behaviour

Published online: 02 Jun 2017.Ageing is associated with deficits in cognitive control, including attention and working memory processes. However, how ageing influences the interactions between these cognitive systems is not well understood. The present study compared the oculomotor behaviour and search performance of two different age groups in a well-established memory-guided visual selection paradigm. The results show that ageing can lead to impairments in the way memory representations bias the control of attention, which notably dissociate in the early stages of oculomotor orientation in search and the later process of attentional disengagement from memory distracters. The implications of these findings for theories of cognitive ageing are discussed.DS acknowledges support from the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres/Units of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2015-490) and project grant PSI2016-76443-P (METAAWARE) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER)

RAPID applied to the SIM-France model

International audienceSIM-France is a large connected atmosphere/land surface/river/groundwater modelling system that simulates the water cycle throughout metropolitan France. The work presented in this study investigates the replacement of the river routing scheme in SIM-France by a river network model called RAPID to enhance the capacity to relate simulated flows to river gauges and to take advantage of the automated parameter estimation procedure of RAPID. RAPID was run with SIM-France over a 10-year period and results compared with those of the previous river routing scheme. We found that while the formulation of RAPID enhanced the functionality of SIM-France, the flow simulations are comparable in accuracy to those previously obtained by SIM-France. Sub-basin optimization of RAPID parameters was found to increase model efficiency. A single criterion for quantifying the quality of river flow simulations using several river gauges globally in a river network is developed that normalizes the square error of modelled flow to allow equal treatment of all gauging stations regardless of the magnitude of flow. The use of this criterion as the cost function for parameter estimation in RAPID allows better results than by increasing the degree of spatial variability in optimization of model parameters. Likewise, increased spatial variability of RAPID parameters through accounting for topography is shown to enhance model performance

Recent developments and prospects for the production of biofuels in the EU: Can they really be "Part of Solution"?

The European Union has launched an ambitious policy aiming at increasing the use of biofuels in land transport “with a view to contributing to objectives such as meeting climate change commitments, environmentally friendly security of supply and promoting renewable energy sources”. Another motivation, at least for some member states, is that the development of biofuels is expected to provide larger outlets for domestic farm products and new employment opportunities in rural areas and make future adjustments of the Common agricultural policy easier. The EU policy of support to energy crops, tax exemption for biofuels and mandatory incorporation targets in some member states, has resulted in a significant increase in the demand and supply of biofuels. The market share of biofuels remains modest (1 % in 2005 in the EU-25) but has increased dramatically over the last few months. The paper provides an analysis of recent developments and prospects for the production and utilization of biofuels in the EU. Its presents the potential benefits of biofuels in the EU as well as their possible drawbacks. In particular, it addresses the three related issues of energy efficiency, environmental benefits and cost competitiveness of EU biofuels.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

High School Harvest: Combining Food Service Training and Institutional Procurement

This article discusses High School Harvest (HSH), an Extension educator-led project in five Vermont schools to provide students with job training and food system education and to provide lightly processed produce to school lunch programs. One hundred and twenty-one students participated, logging 8,752 hours growing, harvesting, and processing nearly 33,000 pounds of local produce, helping food service increase healthy local produce on their cafeteria plates. The main lesson is that while this project can achieve educational and food service procurement goals, educators must be flexible and adapt to individual schools\u27 assets and requirements. Key ingredients to success are discussed