Impact of family in-home quality time on person travel demand

This paper introduces the concept of Primary Family Priority Time (PFPT), which represents a high priority household decision to spend time together for in-home activities. PFPT is incorporated into a fully specified and operational activity based (AB) discrete choice model system for Copenhagen, called COMPAS, using the DaySim software platform. Structural tests and estimation results identify two important findings. First, PFPT belongs high in the model hierarchy, and second, strong interactions exist between PFPT and the other day level activity components of the model system. Forecasts are generated for a road pricing and congestion scenario by COMPAS and a comparison version of the model system that excludes PFPT. COMPAS with PFPT exhibits less mode changing and time-of-day shifting in response to pricing and congestion than the comparison version

A practical approach to cellular communications standards education

The cellular communications industry is steadily growing and expanding to solve the needs of governments, businesses and communities. Standards are fundamental to enable cooperation while promoting competition. The companies involved contribute and agree on appropriate technical specifications to ensure diversity, compatibility and facilitate worldwide commercial deployment and evolution. The specifications of cellular communications standards are extensive, complex and intentionally incomplete to spur innovation and differentiation. This makes standards education a difficult endeavor, but it is highly demanded by the wireless industry. This paper describes a practical approach to teaching cellular communications standards. Our methodology leverages software-defined radio technology and uses the abstraction layer and operating environment (ALOE) to provide a practical learning environment that facilitates developing many of the needed technical and soft skills without the inherent difficulty and cost associated with radio frequency components and regulation. We define six learning stages that assimilate the standardization process and identify key learning objectives for each. We discuss our experiences when employing the proposed methodology at Barcelona Tech in Spain, compare the approach with an equivalent class at Virginia Tech in the US and make the following observations: (1) The complexity of standards need to be abstracted and presented in a form suitable for a given class. (2) Educating about cellular communications standards is most effective when students are immersed in the process. (3) Hands-on activities need careful preparation and close guidance.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Proton Magnetic Relaxation in Ethane Diol-Water Solutions of Haemoglobin

Ethane diol was added to aqueous solutions of bovine and human met(FeUI)- and CO-haemoglobin in order to extend the temperature range for nuclear magnetict relaxation measurements below freezing point. No significant difference in the relaxation rates was found on adding ethane diol except in the case of human met- and CO-haemog1obin, which may be . ascribed to chang·es in the hydration sheath. The energies of activation derived :firom Arrhenius plots of the relaxation rates for bovine Hb are also independent (within ± 50/o) of ethane diol. It is concluded that the gross conformation of the haem pocket is not altered by addition of ethane diol, so that measurements can be done down to - 30 °c

Simulation of underground gravity gradients from stochastic seismic fields

We present results obtained from a finite-element simulation of seismic displacement fields and of gravity gradients generated by those fields. The displacement field is constructed by a plane wave model with a 3D isotropic stochastic field and a 2D fundamental Rayleigh field. The plane wave model provides an accurate representation of stationary fields from distant sources. Underground gravity gradients are calculated as acceleration of a free test mass inside a cavity. The results are discussed in the context of gravity-gradient noise subtraction in third generation gravitational-wave detectors. Error analysis with respect to the density of the simulated grid leads to a derivation of an improved seismometer placement inside a 3D array which would be used in practice to monitor the seismic field.Comment: 24 pages, 12 figure

Paleolinguistics brings more light on the earliest history of the traditional Eurasian pulse crops

Traditional pulse crops such as pea, lentil, field bean, bitter vetch, chickpea and common vetch originate from Middle East, Mediterranean and Central Asia^1^. They were a part of human diets in hunter-gatherers communities^2^ and are one of the most ancient cultivated crops^3,4^. Europe has always been rich in languages^5^, with individual families still preserving common vocabularies related to agriculture^6,7^. The evidence on the early pulse history witnessed by the attested roots in diverse Eurasian proto-languages remains insufficiently clarified and its potential for supporting archaeobotanical findings is still non-assessed. Here we show that the paleolinguistic research may contribute to archaeobotany in understanding the role traditional Eurasian pulse crops had in the everyday life of ancient Europeans. It was found that the Proto-Indo-European language^8,9^ had the largest number of roots directly related to pulses, such as *arnk(')- (a leguminous plant), *bhabh- (field bean), *erəgw[h]- (a kernel of leguminous plant; pea), *ghArs- (a leguminous plant), *kek-, *k'ik'- (pea) and *lent- (lentil)^10,11,12^, numerous words subsequently related to pulses^13,14^ and borrowings from one branch to another^15^, confirming their essential place in the nutrition of Proto-Indo-Europeans^16,17,18^. It was also determined that pea was the most important among Proto-Uralic people^19,20,21^, while pea and lentil were the most significant in the agriculture of Proto-Altaic people^22,23,24^. Pea and bean were most common among Caucasians^25,26^, Basques^27,28^ and their hypothetical common forefathers^29^ and bean and lentil among the Afro-Asiatic ancestors of modern Maltese^30^. Our results demonstrate that pulses were common among the ancestors of present European nations and that paleolinguistics and its lexicological and etymological analysis may be useful in better understanding the earliest days of traditional Eurasian crops. We believe our results could be a basis for advanced multidisciplinary approach to the pulse crop domestication, involving plant scientists, archaeobotanists and linguists, and for reconstructing even earlier periods of pulse history

Solvent Proton Magnetic Relaxation in Solution of Rabbit Liver Cytochrome P450. On the Corfelation Time for the Electron Proton Dipole-Dipole Interaction

Structural parameters can be derived from PMR measurements if the correlation time fdr the spin interactions is known. The relaxation rates induced by the ferric haem-iron of cyt P450 were found to be frequency independent from 10 to 37 MHz. The possible limits for the correlation time according to Solomon\u27s theory are discussed with regard to the possible existence of a water molecule at the sixth coordination site of the haem-iron. No definite conclusion could be reached in this respect, but the results are definetely in favour of a haem environment which can accomodate several water molecules exchanging quickly with the bulk of solvent

Proton Magnetic Relaxation in Ethane Diol-Water Solutions of Haemoglobin

Ethane diol was added to aqueous solutions of bovine and human met(FeUI)- and CO-haemoglobin in order to extend the temperature range for nuclear magnetict relaxation measurements below freezing point. No significant difference in the relaxation rates was found on adding ethane diol except in the case of human met- and CO-haemog1obin, which may be . ascribed to chang·es in the hydration sheath. The energies of activation derived :firom Arrhenius plots of the relaxation rates for bovine Hb are also independent (within ± 50/o) of ethane diol. It is concluded that the gross conformation of the haem pocket is not altered by addition of ethane diol, so that measurements can be done down to - 30 °c

Gravitational wave radiometry: Mapping a stochastic gravitational wave background

The problem of the detection and mapping of a stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB), either of cosmological or astrophysical origin, bears a strong semblance to the analysis of CMB anisotropy and polarization. The basic statistic we use is the cross-correlation between the data from a pair of detectors. In order to `point' the pair of detectors at different locations one must suitably delay the signal by the amount it takes for the gravitational waves (GW) to travel to both detectors corresponding to a source direction. Then the raw (observed) sky map of the SGWB is the signal convolved with a beam response function that varies with location in the sky. We first present a thorough analytic understanding of the structure of the beam response function using an analytic approach employing the stationary phase approximation. The true sky map is obtained by numerically deconvolving the beam function in the integral (convolution) equation. We adopt the maximum likelihood framework to estimate the true sky map that has been successfully used in the broadly similar, well-studied CMB map making problem. We numerically implement and demonstrate the method on simulated (unpolarized) SGWB for the radiometer consisting of the LIGO pair of detectors at Hanford and Livingston. We include `realistic' additive Gaussian noise in each data stream based on the LIGO-I noise power spectral density. The extension of the method to multiple baselines and polarized GWB is outlined. In the near future the network of GW detectors, including the Advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors that will be sensitive to sources within a thousand times larger spatial volume, could provide promising data sets for GW radiometry.Comment: 24 pages, 19 figures, pdflatex. Matched version published in Phys. Rev. D - minor change

The occurrence of Trichophytosis among people and cattle on a farm in Vojvodina, Serbia

Dermatophytoses are frequent contagious fungal skin diseases that affect the skin of people and animals. Zoophile dermatophytes pose a significant problem for both human and veterinary medicine, and they are especially present among bovines. In this paper we showed a simultaneous occurrence of trichophytosis among professionally exposed people and bovines on a farm in Vojvodina, Serbia. The tested samples (skin scrapings and hair) originating from people and animals, were positive for Trichophyton verrucosum dermatophyte which was determined by applying a direct microscopic examination of the smears, as well as the isolation and identification of the agents

Algebraic integrability of confluent Neumann system

In this paper we study the Neumann system, which describes the harmonic oscillator (of arbitrary dimension) constrained to the sphere. In particular we will consider the confluent case where two eigenvalues of the potential coincide, which implies that the system has S^{1} symmetry. We will prove complete algebraic integrability of confluent Neumann system and show that its flow can be linearized on the generalized Jacobian torus of some singular algebraic curve. The symplectic reduction of S^{1} action will be described and we will show that the general Rosochatius system is a symplectic quotient of the confluent Neumann system, where all the eigenvalues of the potential are double. This will give a new mechanical interpretation of the Rosochatius system.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figur