WAYS TO CREATE A GREENER TRAFFIC USING TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS and RTTI

The continuous increase of traffic in major cities led to the mandatory usage of traffic management systems in order to have an organized traffic. There are many levels such systems may be implemented, depending on the traffic volume, starting from the static signaling systems up to management systems based on complex algorithms that consider a series of key factors. But in the recent years two new factors were considered in the process of finding solutions for traffic management: control of the pollution level and energy efficiency. There were some studies that concluded that the two measures which have the greatest impact in pollution reduction are the change in drivers’ behavior and the mobility management (in this order) and many European projects tried to integrate the environmental component in the traffic management problem.traffic, B2B services, traveler information, eco-driving, RTTI

Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Patients with Chronic Plaque Psoriasis: A Case-control Study on the Brasov County Population

Many studies have suggested that cardiovascular risk factors seem to be more common in patients with psoriasis than in the general population. In this study we aimed to determine the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in patients with chronic plaque psoriasis depending on the severity of disease. We conducted a prospective study in Braşov County (Romania) including 142 patients with chronic plaque psoriasis and disease duration of at least six months and 167 controls without psoriasis. The severity of psoriasis was assessed using the psoriasis area and severity index (PASI) score. Along with a thorough medical history and physical examination, serum lipid profile and fasting plasma glucose tests were carried out. The 10-year Framingham risk score (FRS) for general cardiovascular disease, which includes age, gender, total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, systolic blood pressure, smoking status, and diabetes mellitus, was applied.  The severity of chronic plaque psoriasis was mild in 32 patients (22.53%) and moderate to severe in 110 patients (77.47%). We found a significant higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome in the patient group compared to controls. Individual components of metabolic syndrome like waist circumference, elevated triglycerides, reduced HDL-C, impaired fasting plasma glucose, and arterial hypertension were also more prevalent in patients than in controls. Mean triglycerides, total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol levels were significantly raised in patients with psoriasis when compared to controls. The 10-year FRS was significantly higher in patients with psoriasis than in controls (8.36±5.75 vs. 6.61±4.13; P&lt;0.001). FRS was higher in men (P=0.012) and in patients older than 50 years (P=0.008). According to the severity of psoriasis, FRS increases significantly from mild to moderate-to-severe psoriasis (6.82±4.48 to 8.8±6.71; P=0.003). Psoriasis, and especially moderate to severe psoriasis, seems to represent a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Patients with psoriasis should be risk-assessed for cardiovascular diseases, and comorbidities should be actively managed.</p

Prevalence and Antifungal Susceptibility Patterns of Dermatophytes Isolated from Patients with Neoplastic Diseases: A Case Control Study

ABSTRACT Patients with neoplasia who are severely immunocompromised have a higher risk of fungal infections. There are limited data in the literature regarding the frequency of dermatophyte infections and efficacy of antifungals in patients with malignancies.Objective was assessment of the incidence of dermatophyte infections and antifungal susceptibility, determination of dermatophyte species isolated from patients with neoplastic diseases. 138 patients diagnosed with various malignancies and 160 immunocompetent patients who were referred to the Department of Dermatology in Brasov, Romania, for suspicion of dermatophyte infections were included in the study. Nail clippings or skin scrapings were examined by direct microscopy and cultures in Sabouraud agar medium. Susceptibility tests for antifungals were conducted in vitro using a method of broth microdilution.  Infections with dermatophytes were identified in 30.4% of patients with neoplastic diseases and in 29.37% in the control group. There was a significantly higher frequency of dermatophyte infections in patients with hematologic malignancies (52%) compared to those with solid cancers (25.66%) (P=0.01). The clinical aspects of dermatophyte infections in patients with neoplastic diseases were not different from those of patients without cancer; though in some cases the infections were more extensive. There were no statistically significant differences between mean values of minimum inhibitory concentration of antifungals compared with controls. Terbinafine had the highest antidermatophyte activity for all tested dermatophyte species isolated from patients with neoplastic diseases.There were no differences in frequency of dermatophyte infections and antifungal susceptibility to dermatophytes between patients with neoplastic diseases and immunocompetent patients. KEY WORDS: dermatophyte; neoplasia; antifungals; in vitro susceptibility</p

ReLooper: Refactoring for Loop Parallelism

In the multicore era, sequential programs need to be refactored for parallelism. The next version of Java provides ParallelArray, an array data structure that supports parallel operations over the array elements. For example, one can apply a procedure to each element, or reduce all elements to a new element in parallel. Refactoring an array to a ParallelArray requires (i) analyzing whether the loop iterations are safe for parallel execution, and (ii) replacing loops with the equivalent parallel operations. When done manually, these tasks are non-trivial and time-consuming. We present ReLooper, an Eclipse-based refactoring tool, that performs these tasks automatically. Experience with refactoring real programs shows that ReLooper is useful: it reduces the burden of analyzing and rewriting parallel loops, and it is fast enough to be used interactively.DOE grant ER25752Microsoft and Intel through the UPCRC Illinoisunpublishednot peer reviewe

On the Feasibility and Efficiency of Self-Powered Green Intelligent Highways

(1) Background: The present development of transport networks focusses on the better management of fuels and energy and the preservation of the environment. To fulfill these desiderates, some countries have already reconsidered the deployment plans of new highways. This research studies the feasibility of less polluting, quasi-self-powered, intelligent highway infrastructure functional blocks accommodating functions for the future introduction of smart wireless sensor grids and connected autonomous vehicles. Subject of investigation are the possibilities of energy harvesting, and the intelligent management of resources. (2) Methods: the research investigates the main technologies for energy harvesting and recommends an optimal solution. It also proposes a framework for the intelligent, AI-based management of energy and the use of an optimized backup solution relying on 5G beamforming for energy supply of the local wireless sensing network devices; (3) Results: recommendations are made for the best energy harvesting solution, an architecture of the energy management system, an algorithm for energy management and backup solution based on 5G beamforming; (4) Conclusions: the research emphasizes the advantages and drawbacks for different solutions regarding energy harvesting in an intelligent green highway scenario with a focus on the infrastructure developed to accommodate future connected and autonomous vehicles. The term &ldquo;intelligent highway&rdquo; must be understood in the automotive industry to describe a network of roads where cars communicate with the infrastructure and among themselves for the purpose of avoiding congestion and performing the seamless operation of services, and a space where cars and infrastructure cooperatively process information for obtaining better road safety, less pollution, and efficient energy management. With the recent recession of conventional fuel availability and the increase in prices, a solution to improving autonomy of both cars and infrastructure might be welcomed

An Experimental Assessment of People’s Location Efficiency Using Low-Energy Communications-Based Movement Tracking

(1) Background: public transport demand dynamics represents important information for fleet managers and is also a key factor in making public transport attractive to reduce the environmental footprint of urban traffic. This research presents some experimental results on the assessment of low-energy communication technologies, such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, as support for people density and/or movement tracking sensing technologies. (2) Methods: the research is based on field measurements to determine the percentage of discoverable devices carried by people, in relation to the total number of physical persons in interest, different scenarios of mobile devices usage and evaluation of influences on radio signals’ propagation, RSSI / RX read values, and efficiency of indoor localization, or in similar GPS-denied environments. Different situations are investigated, especially public transport-related ones, such as subway stations, indoors of commuting hubs, railway stations and trains. (3) Results: diagrams and experiments are presented, and models of signal behavior are also proposed. (4) Conclusions: recommendations on the efficiency of these non-conventional traveler and passenger flow tracking solutions and models are presented at the end of the paper