Private road networks with uncertain demand

We study the efficiency of private supply of roads under demand uncertainty and evaluate various regulatory policies. Due to demand uncertainty, capacity is decided before demand is known but tolls can be adjusted after demand is known. Policy implications can differ from those under deterministic demand. For instance, for serial links, the toll in the second-best zero-profit case is no longer equal to the marginal external congestion cost. In the first-best scenario, the capacity under uncertain demand is higher than that under deterministic demand of the same expected value, though self-financing still holds in expected terms. Regulation by perfect competitive auction cannot replicate the second-best zero-profit result and thus leads to a lower welfare, whereas without uncertainty, various forms of competitive auctions can attain this second-best optimum. For more complex networks, when private firms add capacity in turn, contrary to the case without demand uncertainty, some forms of auction perform better than others with demand uncertainty

Concept of a new system synthesizing meteorological and orographic influences on the airplane safe energy envelope

An overproportioned number of accidents involving general aviation occur in complex terrain. According to the statistics included in the accident investigation reports published by the Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board (STSB), in some cases, pilots overestimated the energy reserves of their aircraft leading to a loss of control. In order to increase flight safety for private pilots in mountainous regions, on behalf of the Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation, the Centre for Aviation (ZAV) at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) develops an energy management system for general aviation, which displays the remaining airplane’s energy reserves taking into account meteorological information. As a result, the pilots can perform the necessary flight manoeuvres and adapt them to the situation so that the power envelope of the aircraft is not exceeded. The research project comprises two phases: i) concept and feasibility study and ii) prototype development. The phase one of the project has been recently completed. In this phase, the first implementation of the Energy Management system was carried out. To evaluate the system, a series of flight simulation tests were conducted in the ZAV’s Research and Didactics Simulator (ReDSim). A group of experienced pilots participated in the pilot-in-the-loop simulations. This paper introduces the applied methodology on building the new flight simulation environment in the framework of the interdisciplinary research project. Further, the paper draws a summary of the concept study and gives an outlook of the prototype development in the next phase

Research on the influence of abrupt climate changes on the analysis of typical meteorological year in China

The conventional, typical meteorological year (TMY) based on continuous-year original meteorological records without considering abrupt climate changes (ACC) may not be able to represent a real “typical” climate properly. Consequently, building performance analyses and simulations based on TMY may be not accurate. Current research rarely tackles this issue in TMY development. This paper presents an innovative TMY development with the consideration of ACC in the original meteorological records. It is based on the Chinese standard weather database method (CSWD) with the meteorological records of six Chinese cities in different climate zones. It applies the Moving t-test method to identify and exclude ACC points and to refine the timescales for TMY development. It also depicts the development of individual typical meteorological months again with the ACC impact to improve the accuracy of TMY. The method has been verified in several building energy consumption and thermal comfort analyses. The results demonstrate that the analysis based on the new TMY climate datasets when considering ACC will end up with less energy consumption and better thermal performance compared to the analyses based on the conversion dataset without considering ACC. This experimental research will refine TMY development, and further improve building energy performance analysis and design

Atmospheric disturbance modelling for a piloted flight simulation study of airplane safety envelope over complex terrain

A concept of a new energy management system synthesizing meteorological and orographic influences on airplane safety envelope was developed and implemented at the ZHAW Centre for Aviation. A corresponding flight simulation environment was built in a Research and Didactics Simulator (ReDSim) to test the first implementation of the cockpit display system. A series of pilot-in-the-loop flight simulations were carried out with a group of pilots. A general aviation airplane model Piper PA-28 was modified for the study. The environment model in the ReDSim was modified to include a new ad hoc subsystem simulating atmospheric disturbance. In order to generate highly resolved wind fields in the ReDsim, a well-established large-eddy simulation model, the Parallelized Large-Eddy Simulation (PALM) framework, was used in the concept study, focusing on a small mountainous region in Switzerland, not far from Samedan. For a more realistic representation of specific meteorological situations, PALM was driven with boundary conditions extracted from the COSMO-1 reanalysis of MeteoSwiss. The essential variables (wind components, temperature, and pressure) were extracted from the PALM output and fed into the subsystem after interpolation to obtain the values at any instant and any aircraft position. Within this subsystem, it is also possible to generate statistical atmospheric turbulence based on the widely used Dryden turbulence model. The paper compares two ways of generating atmospheric turbulence, by combining the numerical method with the statistical model and introduces the flight test procedure with an emphasis on turbulence realism; it then presents the experiment results including a statistical assessment achieved by collecting pilot feedback on turbulence characteristics and turbulence/task combination

Comparisons of WUE in twelve genotypes of winter wheat and the relationship between δ13C and WUE

Twelve winter wheat (Triticum aestivum) genotypes were examined for differences in grain yield, water use efficiency (WUE), and stable carbon isotope composition (δ13C) in flag leaves. The plants were subjected to rain-fed treatment and supplemental irrigation at the jointing and anthesis stages, during the 2015–2016 and 2016–2017 winter wheat growing seasons. The relationships between δ13C with grain yield and WUE were analyzed under two different water environments. The results indicated that there were significant differences in δ13C, grain yield, and WUE among wheat genotypes both under rain-fed and supplemental irrigation conditions. The δ13C values increased with grain-filling proceeding, the δ13C being lower under supplemental irrigation treatment than that under rain-fed treatment. The relationships between the average of δ13C with grain yield and WUE were significantly positive during three measurement periods (R2 = 0.5785 − 0.8258), whether under rain-fed or irrigation environments. This suggests that δ13C might be associated with the grain yield and WUE in winter wheat under rain-fed and supplemental irrigation conditions in the climate region of the northwest Huang-Huai-Hai Plain of China

Immunization of Mice with Recombinant Protein CobB or AsnC Confers Protection against Brucella abortus Infection

Due to drawbacks of live attenuated vaccines, much more attention has been focused on screening of Brucella protective antigens as subunit vaccine candidates. Brucella is a facultative intracellular bacterium and cell mediated immunity plays essential roles for protection against Brucella infection. Identification of Brucella antigens that present T-cell epitopes to the host could enable development of such vaccines. In this study, 45 proven or putative pathogenesis-associated factors of Brucella were selected according to currently available data. After expressed and purified, 35 proteins were qualified for analysis of their abilities to stimulate T-cell responses in vitro. Then, an in vitro gamma interferon (IFN-γ) assay was used to identify potential T-cell antigens from B. abortus. In total, 7 individual proteins that stimulated strong IFN-γ responses in splenocytes from mice immunized with B. abortus live vaccine S19 were identified. The protective efficiencies of these 7 recombinant proteins were further evaluated. Mice given BAB1_1316 (CobB) or BAB1_1688 (AsnC) plus adjuvant could provide protection against virulent B. abortus infection, similarly with the known protective antigen Cu-Zn SOD and the license vaccine S19. In addition, CobB and AsnC could induce strong antibodies responses in BALB/c mice. Altogether, the present study showed that CobB or AsnC protein could be useful antigen candidates for the development of subunit vaccines against brucellosis with adequate immunogenicity and protection efficacy

Rapid assessment of malnutrition based on GLIM diagnosis in Crohn’s disease

Background and aimsMalnutrition is strongly linked to adverse outcomes in patients with Crohn’s disease (CD). In this study, our objective was to validate the Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) criteria and develop a fast and accurate diagnostic approach for identifying malnutrition in CD patients.MethodsThis study assessed 177 CD patients from four general hospitals. The efficacy of the GLIM criteria for the diagnosis of CD malnutrition was compared. By analyzing the independent factors, a nomogram model was derived and internally validated to predict the diagnosis of malnutrition in patients with CD. Model performance was assessed using discrimination and calibration, decision curves, and net benefit analyses.ResultsCompared with the SGA criteria, the GLIM criteria was consistent in sensitivity (88.89%) and specificity (78.43%) [AUC = 0.84; 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 0.77–0.89]. The Harvey-Bradshaw index(HBI) score (OR: 1.58; 95% CI: 1.15–2.18), body mass index (OR: 0.41; 95% CI: 0.27–0.64), and mid-upper arm circumference (OR: 0.68; 95% CI: 0.47–0.9) were independent factors associated with malnutrition. The nomogram was developed based on these indicators showing good discrimination in malnutrition diagnosis (AUC = 0.953; 95% CI: 0.922–0.984), with agreement after calibration curve and decision curve analysis.ConclusionThe GLIM criteria are appropriate for diagnosing malnutrition in CD patients. The HBI score may be used to diagnose malnutrition in patients with CD and become a possible selection for the GLIM etiologic criteria of inflammation. The HBM nomogram could be a simple, rapid, and efficient method for diagnosing malnutrition in CD patients

Vitamin B1 Helps to Limit Mycobacterium tuberculosis Growth via Regulating Innate Immunity in a Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor-γ-Dependent Manner

It is known that vitamin B1 (VB1) has a protective effect against oxidative retinal damage induced by anti-tuberculosis drugs. However, it remains unclear whether VB1 regulates immune responses during Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infection. We report here that VB1 promotes the protective immune response to limit the survival of MTB within macrophages and in vivo through regulation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPAR-γ). VB1 promotes macrophage polarization into classically activated phenotypes with strong microbicidal activity and enhanced tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-6 expression at least in part by promoting nuclear factor-κB signaling. In addition, VB1 increases mitochondrial respiration and lipid metabolism and PPAR-γ integrates the metabolic and inflammatory signals regulated by VB1. Using both PPAR-γ agonists and deficient mice, we demonstrate that VB1 enhances anti-MTB activities in macrophages and in vivo by down-regulating PPAR-γ activity. Our data demonstrate important functions of VB1 in regulating innate immune responses against MTB and reveal novel mechanisms by which VB1 exerts its function in macrophages