GDP Per Capita Measured in Purchasing Power Standard: an Analysis of Results

Eurostat regularly issues GDP per capita statistics in purchasing power standards, for member countries of the European Union. This paper aims at recalling the main methodological elements used in order to compute these statistics, at presenting their interest and their limits. We highlight the main conclusions that can be drawn from them.GDP measurement, purchasing power standard, European Union

A communication platform demonstrator for new generation railway traffic management systems: Testing and validation

Current rail traffic management and control systems cannot be easily upgraded to the new needs and challenges of modern railway systems because they do not offer interoperable data structures and standardized communication interfaces. To meet this need, the Horizon 2020 Shift2Rail OPTIMA project has developed a communication platform for testing and validating the new generation of traffic management systems (TMS), whose main innovative features are the interoperability of the data structures used, standardization of communications, continuous access to real-time and persistent data from heterogeneous data sources, modularity of components and scalability of the platform. This paper presents the main components, their functions and characteristics, then describes the testing and validation of the platform, even when federated with other innovative TMS modules developed in separate projects. The successful validation of the system has confirmed the achievement of the objectives set and allowed a new set of objectives to be defined for the reference platform for the railway TMS/Traffic Control systems

A communication platform demonstrator for new generation railway traffic management systems: Testing and validation

\ua9 2023 The Author(s). Current rail traffic management and control systems cannot be easily upgraded to the new needs and challenges of modern railway systems because they do not offer interoperable data structures and standardized communication interfaces. To meet this need, the Horizon 2020 Shift2Rail OPTIMA project has developed a communication platform for testing and validating the new generation of traffic management systems (TMS), whose main innovative features are the interoperability of the data structures used, standardization of communications, continuous access to real-time and persistent data from heterogeneous data sources, modularity of components and scalability of the platform. This paper presents the main components, their functions and characteristics, then describes the testing and validation of the platform, even when federated with other innovative TMS modules developed in separate projects. The successful validation of the system has confirmed the achievement of the objectives set and allowed a new set of objectives to be defined for the reference platform for the railway TMS/Traffic Control systems

Estimating population birth rates of zooplankton when rates of egg deposition and hatching are periodic

I present a general method of computing finite birth and death rates of natural zooplankton populations from changes in the age distribution of eggs and changes in population size. The method is applicable to cases in which eggs hatch periodically owing to variable rates of oviposition. When morphological criteria are used to determine the age distribution of eggs at the beginning and end of a sampling interval, egg mortality can be incorporated in estimates of population birth rate. I raised laboratory populations of Asplanchna priodonta , a common planktonic rotifer, in semicontinuous culture to evaluate my method of computing finite birth rate. The Asplanchna population became synchronized to a daily addition of food but grew by the same amount each day once steady state was achieved. The steady-state rate of growth, which can be computed from the volume-specific dilution rate of the culture, was consistent with the finite birth rate predicted from the population's egg ratio and egg age distribution.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/47764/1/442_2004_Article_BF00410359.pd

Formalization and Processing of Data Requirements for the Development of Next Generation Railway Traffic Management Systems

Railway Traffic Management Systems (TMSs) handle data from multiple railway subsystems, including Rail Business Services (such as interlocking, RBC, maintenance service, etc.) and external services (such as passenger information systems, weather forecast, etc.). In turn, the data from these subsystems are described in several models or ontologies contributed by various organizations or projects which are in a process of converging or federation. The challenge of the Shift2Rail OPTIMA project, which is implementing a communication platform for virtual testing of new applications for railway TMS, is to allow the exchange of data between different services or users and to support new traffic management applications, enabling access to a large number of disparate data sources. In this paper, the core activities of the OPTIMA project related to the formulation and standardization of a common data model are described. A new Common Data Model is developed based on standardized data structures to enable the seamless exchange of large amounts of data between different and heterogeneous sources and consumers of data, that contributes to the building of next generation of a more effective and efficient railway TMS suitable to offer precise and real-time traffic information to railway operators and other end users

Kinetics of iron redox reactions in silicate liquids: A high-temperature X-ray absorption and Raman spectroscopy study

International audienceThe oxidation kinetics of a Fe-bearing supercooled liquid of the system SiO2–CaO–MgO–Na2O–FeO has been determined near the glass transition range by X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) and Raman spectroscopies. Both techniques yield room-temperature iron redox ratios in accord with wet chemical, Mössbauer and electron microprobe analyses. Similar oxidation kinetics have also been observed with both methods. At constant temperature, the kinetics obey an exponential law with a characteristic time that follows an Arrhenian temperature dependence. As redox changes are too fast to be accounted for in terms of diffusion of either ionic or molecular oxygen, these results lend further support to the idea that the rate-limiting factor for oxidation near the glass transition is diffusion of network-modifying cations along with a flux of electron holes

Investigation of the temperature-dependent heat path of an LED module by thermal simulation and design of experiments

One key aspect in light emitting diode (LED) systems engineering lies in the understanding and management of the heat transfer during device operation. A deeper understanding of the thermal behavior of an LED module can be gained by an in-depth thermal path analysis. The three-dimensional heat path of the LED is influenced by its operating conditions (e.g. heat sink temperature, driving current, the properties of the thermal interface materials of the device attachment to the heatsink). In this paper, different operating conditions were systematically varied in a set of experiments and its corresponding numerical simulations making use of a statistical Design of Experiments (DOE) approach. The operating conditions were treated as experimental factors of the DOE and the responses were derived from analyzing the resulting structure functions. The results quantified not only the sensitivities of the responses (thermal transients) to the operating conditions but also showed the influence of temperature dependencies in the material properties on the thermal behavior of an LED module