‘Left, right, left’ – a practical guide for forensic veterinary pathologists on identification of cattle and pig limbextremities

The identification of left and right fore or hind limbs can be very challenging in porcine or bovine cases sent from slaughterhouses for forensic surveys, especially when dissected below the carpal or tarsal joints. This short practical guide should be considered as an aid in the process of documentation and investigation of forensic farm animal cases

Relationships between risk of causing a motorway crash in Austria and attributes of drivers

"jats:title"Objective"/jats:title" "jats:p"The emphasis of the study presented in this paper was to identify the attributes of drivers who are prone to cause a motorway crash. It was induced byambitions to enhance the effectiveness of traffic safety campaigns by identifying subgroups of drivers more precisely."/jats:p" "/jats:sec""jats:sec" "jats:title"Method"/jats:title" "jats:p"For this purpose we conducted an accident data analysis of all injury crashes 2012–2014 on Austrian motorways. Since 2012 it is possible for the police to label the “mainly responsible person” for the crash in the Austrian electronic accident recording system. It turned out that the quality of the data had some limitations, which required considerable pre-processing. The analysis by comparing the proportions of “mainly responsible” and “not responsible” drivers was done using descriptive statistics and logistic regression models. The binary characteristic, if a person was, according to the police, mainly responsible for the crash served as response variable. It was regressed on various personal and vehicle characteristics in order to identify their influence on the probability of causing a crash."/jats:p" "/jats:sec""jats:sec" "jats:title"Results/Conclusions"/jats:title" "jats:p"The results yield apparent tendencies, some of which support well-known pattern, e.g., the disproportionally high risk of motorcyclists and - to a lesser extent - young and elderly car drivers to cause an accident. Other results were less expected, e.g., the higher risk of foreign car drivers (compared to Austrian drivers) as well as drivers of light trucks, whereas drivers of heavy trucks revealed a below-average risk of causing a crash. The differences between male and female car drivers were small from young to middle age and fully disappeared in the high age group. There is some evidence that the frequency and experience of driving on a motorway have more influence on the risk of causing a crash than the driver’s gender. From this we conclude that motorway safety campaigns should on the one hand focus on the abovementioned groups of high risk drivers and on the other hand, in terms of car drivers, equally address both male and female drivers."/jats:p" "/jats:sec Document type: Articl

Implications of survey methods on travel and non-travel activities: A comparison of the Austrian national travel survey and an innovative mobility-activity-expenditure diary (MAED)

This paper contributes to the research on non-reporting effects in mixed-method household travel surveys (HTS) in two ways: Firstly, we compare travel activities reported in the established Austrian National HTS (ANTS) with an innovative survey approach, the so-called “MobilityActivity-Expenditure Diary” (MAED), and secondly we extend the analysis to (i) additional travel estimates and to (ii) non-travel activities. The analysis addresses three main goals: (i) identification of non-reporting effects in the HTS for travel estimates, (ii) analysis of speed-ofresponse effects on travel estimates, (iii) assessment of the completeness and accuracy of nontravel activities inferred from the trip purposes in the HTS. Underreporting in HTS occurs both on person level and on the trip level, and mainly for peak-hour trips with either short distances or short durations of the subsequent non-travel activity. No significant underreporting was found on the tour level. Speed-of-response effects are small in both surveys but significant for the ANTS. The duration of non-travel activities per activity type corresponds well in the MAEDsurvey and in the ANTS but the information in the MAED-survey is much richer. The results can be used threefold: (i) to develop correction factors that account for systematic biases in HTS, (ii) to identify omitted items (trip frequency, duration, distance etc.) if HTS data are used without correction factors, and (iii) to demonstrate the importance of high quality field work and validation

Strain diversity in Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis-positive bovine fecal samples collected in Switzerland

Paratuberculosis or Johne’s disease is a chronic intestinal disease in domestic and wild ruminants. It affects global dairy economy and is caused by Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP). The objective of this study was to analyze strain diversity in MAP-positive fecal samples by using a particular single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) distinguishing between cattle (C-) and sheep (S-) type MAP and analysis of SNPs within gyrA and gyrB genes differentiating between Types I, II, and III. Moreover, mycobacterial interspersed repetitive unit and variable-number tandem repeat (MIRU-VNTR) analysis using eight established loci was performed. A total of 90 fecal samples from diseased animals presenting diarrhea and/or weight loss, originating from 59 bovine herds across 16 cantons of Switzerland were screened by PCR for the MAP-specific F57 and IS900 genes and were further subtyped. 96.7% and 3.3% of the samples contained C- and S-type MAP, respectively. Ten INRA Nouzilly MIRU-VNTR (INMV) profiles, with a discriminatory index of 0.802, calculated based on 65 epidemiological independent genotypes, were detected: INMV 1 (33.8%), INMV 2 (23.1%), INMV 6 (16.9%), INMV 9 (9.2%), INMV 116 (4.6%), INMV 3 (3.1%), INMV 5 (3.1%) and INMV 72 (1.5%), including two novel INMV profiles, namely INMV 253 (3.1%; S-type III) and INMV 252 (1.5%; C-type). INMV 1, INMV 2, and INMV 6 comprised almost 75% of the F57- and IS900-positive samples. Typing data from 11 herds suggest that there are some herds with intra-herd diversity of genotypes. The results of this study indicate a heterogeneity of MAP in Switzerland

A joint time-assignment and expenditure-allocation model: value of leisure and value of time assigned to travel for specific population segments

Based on a time-use model with a sound theoretical basis and carefully collected data for Austria, the value of leisure (VoL) for different population segments has been estimated. Through the combination of these results with mode-specific values of travel time savings from a related study based on the same data, the first mode-specific values of time assigned to travel (VTAT) were calculated. Data was collected using a Mobility-Activity-Expenditure Diary, a novel survey format which gathers all activities, expenditures, and travel decisions from the same individuals for 1 week in a diary-based format. The average VoL is 8.17 Euro/h, which is below the mean wage of 12.14 Euro/h, indicating that the value of work is, on average, negative. Regarding the reliability of the VoL, we show its sensitivity to the variance of working time in a sample, something that has been ignored in previous studies and could be used to avoid inadequate segmentation. We controlled this effect in the analysis of the heterogeneity of the VoL across the population by estimating the parameters from the total (unsegmented) dataset with single interaction terms. We find that the VTAT is strictly negative for walking, predominantly negative for cycling and car, and predominantly positive for public transport with 0.27 Euro/h on average. The positive VTAT for public transport is a strong indication for the importance of travel conditions, in turn suggesting that improvements in travel conditions of public transport might be as important as investing in shorter travel times

Advanced continuous-discrete model for joint time-use expenditure and mode choice estimation

This paper presents the joint time use, expenditure and mode choice model, based on the theoretical Framework of Jara-Díazand Gueva (2003), for the first time estimated in Panel Setting while using Survey edexpenditure data. This extended estimation takes into account multiple trips per individual, as well as mode availability. The model was es-timated using the novel dataset gathered in Austria in 2015. It includes individual-specific Information on time-use, expenditures and mode choice. As a result, we calculate the value of leisure (VoL), travel time savings (VTTS) and time as signed to travel (VTAT), that are rel-evant inputs to appraisals of transport policies. We also show that, at least fort he Austrian working population, the omission of expenditures in the model might result in a significant overestimation of the value of leisure (16.83%); the VoL (9.29€/h) was estimated to be considerably lower than the wage rate (12.14€/h) and the VTTS varies strongly between the modes (9.98€/h for car, 3.91€/h for public transport, 9.25€/h for bike and 17.53€/h for walk). The joint estimation framework produced positive estimates of VTAT (5.38€/h) only for public transport, reflecting the favorable public transport conditions in Austria

Bayesian Inference of Visco-Elastic Visco-Plastic Material Model Parameters for SLS-printed polyamide lattices

The response of polymeric materials can be represented using complex finite-strain visco-elastic visco-plastic material models. Such a model requires the identification of tens of parameters in order to remain accurate for a wide range of strain rates and stress states, the response in compression being different than in tension. A complex experimental campaign involving dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), and compressive and tensile cyclic loading at different strain rates is thus required. Besides, when considering lattice structures obtained by additive manufacturing, the struts response is not similar to the macro-bulk material response. Because a complex experimental campaign cannot be conducted at the level of the struts, the parameters identification also needs to be conducted at the level of the lattice response. However, when performing the parameters identification using these different loading cases, a unique set of parameters cannot usually reproduce all the experimental tests because of the model limitations and errors, in particular when considering nonlinear responses. Besides, the data are inevitably entailed by experimental errors. These difficulties can be circumvented by considering a Bayesian Inference (BI) process. In this presentation we consider experimental tests conducted at different scales on polyamide lattices in order to infer the model parameters of a complex finite-strain visco-elastic visco-plastic material model.Multiscale Optimisation for Additive Manufacturing of fatigue resistant shock-absorbing MetaMaterials (MOAMMM

Evaluation of Different Recruitment Methods: Longitudinal, Web-Based, Pan-European Physical Activity Through Sustainable Transport Approaches (PASTA) Project

BACKGROUND: Sufficient sample size and minimal sample bias are core requirements for empirical data analyses. Combining opportunistic recruitment with a Web-based survey and data-collection platform yields new benefits over traditional recruitment approaches. OBJECTIVE: This paper aims to report the success of different recruitment methods and obtain data on participants' characteristics, participation behavior, recruitment rates, and representativeness of the sample. METHODS: A longitudinal, Web-based survey was implemented as part of the European PASTA (Physical Activity through Sustainable Transport Approaches) project, between November 2014 and December 2016. During this period, participants were recruited from 7 European cities on a rolling basis. A standardized guide on recruitment strategy was developed for all cities, to reach a sufficient number of adult participants. To make use of the strengths and minimize weakness, a combination of different opportunistic recruitment methods was applied. In addition, the random sampling approach was applied in the city of Örebro. To reduce the attrition rate and improve real-time monitoring, the Web-based platform featured a participant's and a researchers' user interface and dashboard. RESULTS: Overall, 10,691 participants were recruited; most people found out about the survey through their workplace or employer (2300/10691, 21.51%), outreach promotion (2219/10691, 20.76%), and social media (1859/10691, 17.39%). The average number of questionnaires filled in per participant varied significantly between the cities (P<.001), with the highest number in Zurich (11.0, SE 0.33) and the lowest in Örebro (4.8, SE 0.17). Collaboration with local organizations, the use of Facebook and mailing lists, and direct street recruitment were the most effective approaches in reaching a high share of participants (P<.001). Considering the invested working hours, Facebook was one of the most time-efficient methods. Compared with the cities' census data, the composition of study participants was broadly representative in terms of gender distribution; however, the study included younger and better-educated participants. CONCLUSIONS: We observed that offering a mixed recruitment approach was highly effective in achieving a high participation rate. The highest attrition rate and the lowest average number of questionnaires filled in per participant were observed in Örebro, which also recruited participants through random sampling. These findings suggest that people who are more interested in the topic are more willing to participate and stay in a survey than those who are selected randomly and may not have a strong connection to the research topic. Although direct face-to-face contacts were very effective with respect to the number of recruited participants, recruiting people through social media was not only effective but also very time efficient. The collected data are based on one of the largest recruited longitudinal samples with a common recruitment strategy in different European cities

Effective management of urban short-term parking zones

W artykule zawarto krótkie omówienie dwóch przykładowych narzędzi kierowania strefami krótkotrwałego parkowania oraz realizowanych przez te narzędzia funkcji. Po pierwsze zostanie przedstawiony prototyp systemu zbierającego informacje w czasie rzeczywistym dla pokazania stopnia zajętości strefy krótkotrwałego parkowania, Po drugie zostaną omówione wyniki wdrożonej w Wiedniu strategii, która polegała na wzroście opłat za parkowanie, aby wpływać na zachowania mieszkańców związane z parkowaniem. Przykłady te mogą być traktowane jako modelowe i stanowić wzór do naśladowania w innych miastach, jako że strefy krótkoterminowego parkowania i parkowanie z wykorzystaniem telefonu komórkowego są obecnie uważane za najnowocześniejsze w wielu miastach Europy i należy oczekiwać, że ich wykorzystanie będzie się rozprzestrzeniać dalej.The paper will give an overview on the two examples of steering tools for short-term parking zones and its functions. First, a prototype of a real-time information system for showing the occupancy rate of short-term parking zones will be presented. Second, empirical parking survey was also used to evaluate the effects caused by another strategy implemented in Vienna, considering increase of parking fee, to influence the parking behaviour of citizens. These examples can serve as a role models for other cities, since short-term parking zones and mobile phone parking is state of the art in many European cities, and its use will increase elsewhere as well

CALIBRATION FOR THE MONTE CARLO SIMULATION OF ION IMPLANTATION IN RELAXED SIGE

Abstract. SiGe-based CMOS devices have significant performance enhancements compared to pure silicon devices. We have extended our Monte Carlo ion implantation simulator for Si 1−x Ge x targets in order to study the formation of shallow junctions. SiGe has a larger nuclear and electronic stopping power for ion implanted dopants compared to pure silicon due to the heavier and electron-rich germanium. It turned out that the Lindhard correction parameter of the electronic stopping model can be adjusted by a linear function of the germanium content to adopt the strength of the electronic stopping. The successful calibration for the simulation of arsenic and boron implantations in Si 1−x Ge x is demonstrated by comparing the predicted doping profiles with SIMS measurements. Thereby the non-linear shift towards shallower profiles with increasing germanium fraction is analyzed. Finally, the simulation result of source/drain implants for a MOS-transistor structure on a SiGe substrate is presented