Connecting European Regions using Innovative Transport: Summary Report

This summary report gives results from the EU-funded Interreg IVB Sintropher transnational cooperation project, aimed at improving the connectivity of poorly-connected regions in North West Europe, using innovative rail-based technologies that can deliver sustainable, cost-effective solutions

Development of improved plastic foam generating agents and techniques for Saturn applications Final report, Jul. 1964 - Jun. 1965

Foam system compressive strength analysis, solid urethane castings to screen polymer systems, and prepolymer methods of foam preparation in plastic foam development for Saturn projec

Observations of the Growth and Decay of Stall Cells during Stall and Surge in an Axial Compressor

This research investigated unsteady events such as stall inception, stall-cell development, and surge. Stall is characterized by a decrease in overall pressure rise and nonaxisymmetric throughflow. Compressor stall can lead to surge which is characterized by quasi-axisymmetric fluctuations in mass flow and pressure. Unsteady measurements of the flow field around the compressor rotor are examined. During the stall inception process, initial disturbances were found within the rotor passage near the tip region. As the stall cell develops, blade lift and pressure ratio decrease within the stall cell and increase ahead of the stall cell. The stall inception event, stall-cell development, and stall recovery event were found to be nearly identical for stable rotating stall and surge cases. As the stall cell grows, the leading edge of the cell will rotate at a higher rate than the trailing edge in the rotor frame. The opposite occurs during stall recovery. The trailing edge of the stall cell will rotate at the approximate speed as the fully developed stall cell, while the leading edge decreases in rotational speed in the rotor frame

Transport emissions in Beijing: a scenario planning approach

This paper explores and analyses how to reduce smog-related air pollutants and carbon dioxide emissions generated by passenger transport systems in Beijing. In-depth surveys with experts and practitioners in China are used to examine the current business-as-usual projection for emissions in Beijing, the drivers and trends affecting current projections, and to develop alternative scenarios that might help reduce projected emissions significantly. These are based around different variants of population and migration growth and environmental stewardship. Current levels of smog caused by transport emissions are much higher in Beijing than internationally accepted safety standards, partly because of high levels of motorised traffic. Carbon dioxide emissions always tend to be overlooked because economic growth is prioritised. The sustainable model represents one of the best models for Beijing to follow; however, Beijing faces major challenges in becoming more environmentally sustainable over the next few years, mainly due to population growth and increased migration, even if there is powerful top-down government environmental stewardship. The aspiration to reduce smog-related air pollutants and carbon dioxide emissions in Beijing by implementing sustainable transport mitigation measures seems very ambitious; however, it is perhaps in this context that the real innovations in transport planning will emerge

A J-band detection of the donor star in the dwarf nova OY Carinae, and an optical detection of its `iron curtain'

Purely photometric models can be used to determine the binary parameters of eclipsing cataclysmic variables with a high degree of precision. However, the photometric method relies on a number of assumptions, and to date there have been very few independent checks of this method in the literature. We present time-resolved spectroscopy of the P=90.9 min eclipsing cataclysmic variable OY Carinae obtained with X-shooter on the VLT, in which we detect the donor star from K I lines in the J-band. We measure the radial velocity amplitude of the donor star K2 = 470.0 +/- 2.7 km/s, consistent with predictions based upon the photometric method (470 +/- 7 km/s). Additionally, the spectra obtained in the UVB arm of X-shooter show a series of Fe I and Fe II lines with a phase and velocity consistent with an origin in the accretion disc. This is the first unambiguous detection at optical wavelengths of the `iron curtain' of disc material which has been previously reported to veil the white dwarf in this system. The velocities of these lines do not track the white dwarf, reflecting a distortion of the outer disc that we see also in Doppler images. This is evidence for considerable radial motion in the outer disk, at up to 90 km/s towards and away from the white dwarf.Comment: MNRAS accepted. 11 pages with 10 figures and 2 table

An Infrared Color-Magnitude Relationship

We have investigated a sample of dusty supergiants and Mira variables and have found a roughly linear relationship between the absolute magnitude at 12 mum and the [l2]-[25] color. Both samples follow the same infrared color-magnitude relationship, whic

Semantic Video Segmentation for Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection Procedures

We present the first deep learning model for the analysis of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) procedures. Using a dataset of ICSI procedure videos, we train a deep neural network to segment key objects in the videos achieving a mean IoU of 0.962, and to localize the needle tip achieving a mean pixel error of 3.793 pixels at 14 FPS on a single GPU. We further analyze the variation between the dataset's human annotators and find the model's performance to be comparable to human experts

The cardiovascular and intracranial effects of laryngoscopy and endotracheal intubation in hypercarbic neonatal piglets

Laryngoscopy and endotracheal intubation is a potent sympathetic stimulus in adults. Neonates are frequendy intubated, but few data exist on the cerebral effects of this intervention. The cardiovascular and intracranial effects of laryngoscopy and endotracheal intubation were studied in 17 hypercarbic neonatal piglets. The mean arterial pressure in the study group (11 piglets) increased significandy within 2 minutes of the stimulus, and remained elevated for almost 14 minutes. The intubated animals showed significantly more haemorrhage in the basal area of the brain than the 6 control animals. The distribution suggests bleeding in the choroid plexus of the 4th ventricle. The significance of such bleeds is not immediately apparent, since none of the animals was grossly neurologically affected by the intervention. However, subtle long-term neurological deficits cannot be excluded and this aspect requires further study. Laryngoscopy and endotracheal intubation may cause non-lethal haemorrhage in the choroid plexus and central canal of the hindbrain  in hypercarbic, neonatal piglets

Improving interchanges in China: the experiential phenomenon

This paper examines the development of multimodal passenger rail hubs as part of the high-speed rail (HSR) network in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The instrumental, attitudinal and affective experience of the journey through the interchange is assessed from the user perspective. Surveys are used from three HSR stations: Beijing South, Chengdu East and Suzhou North (N = 150), representing three types of HSR stations, i.e. national capital, regional capital and sub-regional city. ‘Expected’ and ‘realised’ facilities are compared – with the difference representing the ‘disgruntlement’ factor (after Stradling et al., 2007). The unprecedented urbanisation process currently being witnessed in the PRC, together with the rapid development of the HSR network and associated multimodal interchanges, offers much opportunity to develop a leading-edge public transport system and urban development predicated on the use of public transport. Although the importance of intermodal interchange hubs is being increasingly recognised, the journey experience through the interchange often remains poor, with problems including Wi-Fi availability, waiting and seating, the availability of door-to-door ticketing, crowdedness, access to the hub, time of travel through and waiting in the hub. MANOVA analysis and factorial (three way) MANOVA analysis are used to explore the differences between intermodal hubs, with many instrumental and particularly attitudinal and affective factors being significantly influenced by location