Commodity-based Freight Activity on Inland Waterways through the Fusion of Public Datasets for Multimodal Transportation Planning

Within the U.S., the 18.6 billion tons of goods currently moved along the multimodal transportation system are expected to grow 51% by 2045. Most of those goods are transported by roadways. However, several benefits can be realized by shippers and consumers by shifting freight to more efficient modes, such as inland waterways, or adopting a multimodal scheme. To support such freight growth sustainably and efficiently, federal legislation calls for the development of plans, methods, and tools to identify and prioritize future multimodal transportation infrastructure needs. However, given the historical mode-specific approach to freight data collection, analysis, and modeling, challenges remain to adopt a fully multimodal approach that integrates underrepresented modes, such as waterways, into multimodal forecasting tools to identify and prioritize transportation infrastructure needs. Examples of such challenges are data heterogeneity, confidentiality, limitations in terms of spatial and temporal coverage, high cost associated with data collection, subjectivity in surveys responses, etc. To overcome these challenges, this work fuses data across a variety of novel transportation sources to close existing gaps in freight data needed to support multimodal long-range freight planning. In particular, the objective of this work is to develop methods to allow integration of inland waterway transportation into commodity-based freight forecasting models, by leveraging Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. The following approaches are presented in this dissertation: i) Maritime Automatic Identification System (AIS) data is mapped to a detailed inland navigable waterway network, allowing for an improved representation of waterway modes into multimodal freight travel demand models which currently suffer from unbalanced representation of waterways. Validation results show the model correctly identifies 84% stops at inland waterway ports and 83.5% of trips crossing locks. ii) AIS and truck Global Positioning System (GPS) data are fused to a multimodal network to identify the area of impact of a freight investment, providing a single methodology and data source to compare and contrast diverse transportation infrastructure investments. This method identifies parallel truck and vessel flows indicating potential for modal shift. iii) Truck GPS and maritime Lock Performance Monitoring System (LPMS) data are fused via a multi-commodity assignment model to characterize and quantify annual commodity throughput at port terminals on inland waterways, generating new data from public datasets, to support estimation of commodity-based freight fluidity performance measures. Results show that 84% of ports had less than a 20% difference between estimated and observed truck volumes. iv) AIS, LPMS, and truck GPS datasets are fused to disaggregate estimated annual commodity port throughput to vessel trips on inland waterways. Vessel trips characterized by port of origin, destination, path, timestamp, and commodity carried, are mapped to a detailed inland waterway network, allowing for a detailed commodity flow analysis, previously unavailable in the public domain. The novel, repeatable, data-driven methods and models proposed in this work are applied to the 43 freight port terminals located on the Arkansas River. These models help to evaluate network performance, identify and prioritize multimodal freight transportation infrastructure needs, and introduce a unique focus on modal shift towards inland waterway transportation

Trade and ethnozoological use of African lorisiformes in the last 20 years

Trade in primates is considered a major impediment to primate conservation globally. The bushmeat trade in West and Central Africa is considered largely unsustainable and represents one of the main threats to biodiversity. Furthermore, the use of primates in traditional practices and medicine includes a third of the African primate species. Little is known about the trade in the African mainland lorisiforms; pottos, angwantibos and galagos. Aiming to fill this knowledge gap we created an online survey, conducted a literature review, and analyzed CITES trade records, focusing on the last two decades. We obtained 188 questionnaire responses from researchers and people working in 31 different countries in sub-Saharan Africa. We found a total of 33 publications reporting on trade in African lorisiforms, and CITES records indicate that almost 2000 lorisiforms were traded internationally from African range countries. Fifty-three percent of respondents provided meaningful details about aspects of the trade in African lorisiforms from 50% of the range countries. Galagos were reported by respondents in larger numbers than pottos and angwantibos, and mainly occurred in the pet trade. Pottos were the most frequently mentioned taxon in the literature, when all trade types were combined. Across all of the sources (online survey, literature and CITES database), trade in pottos and angwantibos was reported from 12 countries, and galagos from 23 countries. Trade was reported to occur mainly within rural settings (64%), potentially indicating that demand is not high enough to fuel long distance trading. However, as seen in the Asian lorisiforms, once quantitative studies were conducted, the threat that trade posed became alarmingly apparent and is now considered a major impediment to their conservation. Our insight into the trade of African lorisiforms should be followed up with concerted studies, with an emphasis on quantifying trade to the species level

Wh-Questions Constructed by the Structure II Students of the English Department of Widya Mandala Catholic University Surabaya

A functional syllabus focuses on fluency which may lead to the less attention on grammatical rules. It accounts for grammar errors in producing sentences including in asking questions. This study explored Wh-question errors by using the Surface Strategy Taxonomy. The results show that the students' ability in constructing Wh-questions in Simple Present Tense, Simple Past Tense and Simple Future Tense was insufficient. The most frequent error in Simple Present Tense was the Wh word; the error consists of 96 errors in misformation; for the Simple Past Tense was verb, the errors consist of: 6 errors in omissions, 59 errors in addition, 64 errors in misformation and 3 errors in misordering, for the Simple Future Tense was the subject, the errors consists of: 6 errors in omission, 2 errors in misformation and 135 errors in misordering

The therapeutic aspects of the endocannabinoid system (ECS) for cancer and their development: from nature to laboratory

The endocannabinoid system (ECS) is a group of neuromodulatory lipids and their receptors, which are widely distributed in mammalian tissues. ECS regulates various cardiovascular, nervous, and immune system functions inside cells. In recent years, there has been a growing body of evidence for the use of synthetic and natural cannabinoids as potential anticancer agents. For instance, the CB1 and CB2 receptors are assumed to play an important role inside the endocannabinoid system. These receptors are abundantly expressed in the brain and fatty tissue of the human body. Despite recent developments in molecular biology, there is still a lack of knowledge about the distribution of CB1 and CB2 receptors in the human kidney and their role in kidney cancer. To address this gap, we explore and demonstrate the role of the endocannabinoid system in renal cell carcinoma (RCC). In this brief overview, we elucidate the therapeutic aspects of the endocannabinoid system for various cancers and explain how this system can be used for treating kidney cancer. Overall, this review provides new insights into cannabinoids' mechanisms of action in both in vivo and in vitro models, and focuses on recent discoveries in the field

Measuring the tourist destination images based on service quality using fuzzy inference system

The article discusses the measurement of tourist destination images perceived by travelers based on five dimensions of the service quality, i.e. tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, empathy, and assurance. Measurement problems occur when a traveler assesses the quality of a tourism destination service subjectively with vague boundaries and perceives the image of a tourism destination to vary. To address these issues, we designed an inference model using Mamdanis fuzzy inference system. The results of this study are quantitative assessments of the image of tourism destinations by various travellers based on qualitative perceptions of the quality of service experienced by the traveller

Modified fuzzy Delphi to determine the consensus of government facility governance

The article discusses the development of governance indicators for work facility policies of local government. These indicators will be used as a policy to ensure that work facilities are durable, cost-effective in procurement and maintenance, are effective in use, and added value for end of use/life. Many researchers previously developed governance indicators with the Fuzzy Delphi method, but there were still gaps, namely the differences in the weight of expertise had not been accommodated in determining the final consensus of the importance of each indicator. In this article, the indicators are developed by expert, by considering the weight of their expertise, using a modified Fuzzy Delphi method. The final results of the study are four dimensions of government work facilities governance with twenty indicators that are important in improving the operational performance of local governments

Penerapan Sistem Informasi Manajemen Pada Usaha Kecil Menengah Di Provinsi Lampung

Management information system is an economic device companies as the supporting of busniness wheel. This system is a support that ease companies to receive information flow where the information flows come from both internal and external company can be absorbed and presented in a place that is easy to understand, quick and on target includes the current financial information, human resources (HR), marketing and sales strategies that will be built by the company to the issues that will influence business wheel in the company. The aim of this research is to determine the influence of human resource management, electronic systems, and the distribution system in moderation system information for competitive advantage of UKM in Lampung Province. The method uses descriptive and associative. The research result shows that human resource management positively and significantly influences competitive advantage with moderation organization information system, electronic system does not significantly influence the competitive advantage with moderation organization information systems, and distribution system significantly influences the competitive advantage with moderation organizational information systems

El dimoni a les rondalles mallorquines

Abstract not availabl