Methodology for urban rail and construction technology research and development planning

A series of transit system visits, organized by the American Public Transit Association (APTA), was conducted in which the system operators identified the most pressing development needs. These varied by property and were reformulated into a series of potential projects. To assist in the evaluation, a data base useful for estimating the present capital and operating costs of various transit system elements was generated from published data. An evaluation model was developed which considered the rate of deployment of the research and development project, potential benefits, development time and cost. An outline of an evaluation methodology that considered benefits other than capital and operating cost savings was also presented. During the course of the study, five candidate projects were selected for detailed investigation; (1) air comfort systems; (2) solid state auxiliary power conditioners; (3) door systems; (4) escalators; and (5) fare collection systems. Application of the evaluation model to these five examples showed the usefulness of modeling deployment rates and indicated a need to increase the scope of the model to quantitatively consider reliability impacts

Discovery of novel alphacoronaviruses in European rodents and shrews

Eight hundred and thirteen European rodents and shrews encompassing seven different species were screened for alphacoronaviruses using PCR detection. Novel alphacoronaviruses were detected in the species Rattus norvegicus, Microtus agrestis, Sorex araneus and Myodes glareolus. These, together with the recently described Lucheng virus found in China, form a distinct rodent/shrew-specific clade within the coronavirus phylogeny. Across a highly conserved region of the viral polymerase gene, the new members of this clade were up to 22% dissimilar at the nucleotide level to the previously described Lucheng virus. As such they might represent distinct species of alphacoronaviruses. These data greatly extend our knowledge of wildlife reservoirs of alphacoronaviruses

The eastern Australian magnetic inclination record: dating the recent past and re-assessing the historical geomagnetic archive

A new compilation of historical observations and archaeomagnetic measurements of magnetic inclination for the last 1000 years from eastern Australia (the eastern Australian Inclination Record [eAIR2012]) has revealed the existence of a well-defined inclination anomaly in the region. Evidence of this magnetic feature has been preserved in sedimentary records from across eastern Australia, though this has not previously been recognised. Analyses of additional sedimentary sequences have confirmed the incidence and timing of this feature, revealing its presence between the 13th and 18th centuries AD. The inclination of the field during this episode appears to have been steeper than at any time since the start of the Holocene. Lake sediment evidence suggests that the anomaly is a composite feature, displaying a distinct peak at cal AD 1270–1386 (±2 s uncertainty), reappearing after cal AD 1431–1651 (±2 s uncertainty) and disappearing before AD 1822±46 (±2 s uncertainty). The disappearance of the anomaly is tightly bracketed in the historical record between AD 1770 and 1777. The rapid shift in inclination during the 18th century AD offers considerable potential as a means of dating a critical period of Australian environmental history, an episode that currently lies beyond the reach of established dating methods. This information also provides a valuable constraint on models of regional geomagnetic field change over centennial and millennial timescales. Our examination of the historical record has revealed that the inclination measurements made by the 18th century French explorer La Pérouse are consistently erroneous. Since La Pérouse’s data make up 13% of the total body of pre-19th century inclination records, the inclusion of these measurements in global compendia of magnetic observations may seriously skew attempts to model the geomagnetic field. We advocate that La Pérouse’s inclination measurements should therefore be employed only with considerable caution

Analysis of naturally occurring radioactive material using neutron activation analysis and passive Compton suppression gamma - ray spectrometry

Naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) still remains a problem in oil and gas exploration. Radioactive wastes from oil and gas drilling take the form of produced water, drilling mud, sludge, slimes, or evaporation ponds and pits. In many parts of the USA the soil contains radioactivity that is then concentrated in mineral scales on the pipes, storage tanks and other extraction equipment. The radionuclides 226Ra and its one of daughter products 210Pb and 228Ra from 232Th are the primary radionuclides of concern in the waste. We have investigated the concentrations of heavy metals in NORM using neutron activation analysis (NAA) as well as using passive radioactivity counting using Compton suppressed gamma-ray spectrometry. With a low-energy germanium counter and the Compton suppression system low detection limits were achieved to measure 226Ra, 228Ra and 210Pb. Results have shown very elevated amounts for these radionuclides as well as the heavy metals of barium and strontium