958 research outputs found
New highway development in the Netherlands: A residents’ perspective
This study investigates the impacts of new highway development from a residents’ perspective. Data were collected by questionnaire in two residential areas, Son and Uden, both situated along the new A50 highway in the Netherlands. The objectives of this study are: 1) to analyse the extent to which highway development has impacted the residents’ self-reported residential satisfaction through the use of Structural Equation Modeling, and 2) to explore residential self-selection, by comparing characteristics of the original population with those who have relocated into the area during and after highway development using Multinomial Logistic Regression.
The results indicate that a small majority of the residents perceived an increase in residential satisfaction due to the highway development. Living in the sampled area in Son (compared to Uden), living on close proximity to the A50 highway, having a low preference for car accessibility, and a strong preference for environmental quality were negatively associated with the change in residential satisfaction, mostly via a negative association with the perceived change in liveability or accessibility. The findings of our second analysis show that residents who had relocated into the area after the highway development have a slightly more ‘highway-oriented’ profile than the original population, i.e. a marginally higher preference for car accessibility and lower preference for environmental quality.
The study sheds light on the importance of accounting for the perceptions of the wider residential population and reveals how the impacts of new highway development differ between and within residential areas
A chronometric exploration of high-resolution ‘sensitive TMS masking’ effects on subjective and objective measures of vision
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can induce masking by interfering with ongoing neural activity in early visual cortex. Previous work has explored the chronometry of occipital involvement in vision by using single pulses of TMS with high temporal resolution. However, conventionally TMS intensities have been high and the only measure used to evaluate masking was objective in nature. Recent studies have begun to incorporate subjective measures of vision, alongside objective ones. The current study goes beyond previous work in two regards. First, we explored both objective vision (an orientation discrimination task) and subjective vision (a stimulus visibility rating on a four-point scale), across a wide range of time windows with high temporal resolution. Second, we used a very sensitive TMS-masking paradigm: stimulation was at relatively low TMS intensities, with a figure-8 coil, and the small stimulus was difficult to discriminate already at baseline level. We hypothesized that this should increase the effective temporal resolution of our paradigm. Perhaps for this reason, we are able to report a rather interesting masking curve. Within the classical-masking time window, previously reported to encompass broad SOAs anywhere between 60 and 120 ms, we report not one, but at least two dips in objective performance, with no masking in-between. The subjective measure of vision did not mirror this pattern. These preliminary data from our exploratory design suggest that, with sensitive TMS masking, we might be able to reveal visual processes in early visual cortex previously unreported
Detecting a stochastic gravitational wave background with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
The random superposition of many weak sources will produce a stochastic
background of gravitational waves that may dominate the response of the LISA
(Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) gravitational wave observatory. Unless
something can be done to distinguish between a stochastic background and
detector noise, the two will combine to form an effective noise floor for the
detector. Two methods have been proposed to solve this problem. The first is to
cross-correlate the output of two independent interferometers. The second is an
ingenious scheme for monitoring the instrument noise by operating LISA as a
Sagnac interferometer. Here we derive the optimal orbital alignment for
cross-correlating a pair of LISA detectors, and provide the first analytic
derivation of the Sagnac sensitivity curve.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures. Significant changes to the noise estimate
Effects of de-implementation strategies aimed at reducing low-value nursing procedures: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Background: In the last decade, there is an increasing focus on detecting and compiling lists of low-value nursing procedures. However, less is known about effective de-implementation strategie
Determining neutrino oscillation parameters from atmospheric muon neutrino disappearance with three years of IceCube DeepCore data
We present a measurement of neutrino oscillations via atmospheric muon
neutrino disappearance with three years of data of the completed IceCube
neutrino detector. DeepCore, a region of denser instrumentation, enables the
detection and reconstruction of atmospheric muon neutrinos between 10 GeV and
100 GeV, where a strong disappearance signal is expected. The detector volume
surrounding DeepCore is used as a veto region to suppress the atmospheric muon
background. Neutrino events are selected where the detected Cherenkov photons
of the secondary particles minimally scatter, and the neutrino energy and
arrival direction are reconstructed. Both variables are used to obtain the
neutrino oscillation parameters from the data, with the best fit given by
and
(normal mass hierarchy assumed). The
results are compatible and comparable in precision to those of dedicated
oscillation experiments.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure
Flavor Ratio of Astrophysical Neutrinos above 35 TeV in IceCube
A diffuse flux of astrophysical neutrinos above has been
observed at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Here we extend this analysis to
probe the astrophysical flux down to and analyze its flavor
composition by classifying events as showers or tracks. Taking advantage of
lower atmospheric backgrounds for shower-like events, we obtain a shower-biased
sample containing 129 showers and 8 tracks collected in three years from 2010
to 2013. We demonstrate consistency with the
flavor ratio at Earth
commonly expected from the averaged oscillations of neutrinos produced by pion
decay in distant astrophysical sources. Limits are placed on non-standard
flavor compositions that cannot be produced by averaged neutrino oscillations
but could arise in exotic physics scenarios. A maximally track-like composition
of is excluded at , and a purely shower-like
composition of is excluded at .Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures. Submitted to PR
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