Editorial:Introduction to group research projects developed within an intensive programme in railway and Logistics

This paper introduces a special issue of the Journal Transport Problems on group research projects developed within the RailNewcastle summer school organised and held in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. The participants (both educators and students) worked together in multinational and multidisciplinary groups to produce research projects. The topics of the group research projects were based around railway and logisticsrelated problems. As a result a collection of the best articles is produced for the purposes of this special issue

Rail freight in the EU: A problem-oriented survey (Part I)

This paper consists of a survey on rail freight in the EU, where the prime objective is to reveal the current situation of the rail freight in the EU and raises looming questions for discussion. The paper is organized in three chapters, as follows: 1.Overview reveals the current situation with the European railways and raises questions about the future of these systems; 2.Levels of Operation discusses how the European railways are viewed at both International and National level and suggests some steps for action; and 3.Synthesis. It should be noted that this paper is the Part I of III Problem-Oriented Surveys dedicated to rail freight issues of today

Editorial:Introduction to group research projects developed within an intensive programme in railway and Logistics

This paper introduces a special issue of the Journal Transport Problems on group research projects developed within the RailNewcastle summer school organised and held in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. The participants (both educators and students) worked together in multinational and multidisciplinary groups to produce research projects. The topics of the group research projects were based around railway and logisticsrelated problems. As a result a collection of the best articles is produced for the purposes of this special issue

Editorial

This special issue offers a selection of articles on urban transit and light rail system research-orientated studies. It was produced as a result of the RailNewcastle Scientific Conference 2015, organized by NewRail at Newcastle University. The material presented in this special issue can be used as a main source for transport research and teaching material. It begins with a paper on the circumvention of barriers to urban rail energy efficiency, offering a discussion on the energy efficiency requirements of various stakeholders, and how the success of future energy efficiency projects can be ensured

A Critical Examination Of Connectionist Cognitive Architectures

The dissertation represents a critical evaluation of the major connectionist theories of human cognitive architecture. The central connectionist thesis that artificial neural networks (ANNs) can serve as finitary models of human cognizers is examined and rejected. Connectionist theories, in contrast to the classical symbol-processing theories of cognitive architecture, cannot explain the productivity and systematicity of mental states. The reason for this is that ANN-based cognitive architectures cannot maintain representational states with compositional structure. Chapter One analyzes the implementational connectionism\u27s solution to the problem of compositionality. It is shown that neither the theory of weak nor of strong compositionality can solve this problem.;Chapter Two criticises the attempt to establish connectionism as an alternative theory of human cognitive architecture through the introduction of the symbolic/subsymbolic distinction. The reasons for the introduction of this distinction are examined and found to be unconvincing. Several experimental comparisons between the TDIDT class of symbolic learning systems and the class of artificial neural networks using the error backpropagation algorithm are discussed. It is argued that the differences in the performance of these two classes of learning systems are insignificant and are not systematic. Such evidence contradicts the view that ANNs define a new kind of subsymbolic computation.;Supporters of eliminative connectionism have argued for a pattern association and pattern recognition-based explanation of cognitive processes. They deny that explicit rules and symbolic representations play any role in cognition. Their argument is based to a large extent on Rumelhart and McClelland\u27s and MacWhinney and Leinbach\u27s connectionist models of learning of the past tenses of English verbs. Chapter Three presents an analysis of an experimental comparison between these models and the Symbolic Pattern Associator (SPA)--a learning system based on the classical architecture. It is shown that the SPA outperforms the connectionist models; moreover, the SPA can represent the acquired knowledge in the form of explicit rules. The analysis of this comparison leads to the conclusion that symbol-processing models have a far better chance of explaining complex cognitive phenomena in terms of rules and symbolic representations than eliminative connectionism

A GEOMETRICAL SYNTHESIS OF COMEZ TEXTILE MECHANISMS OF FINALLY REMOVED POSSIBILITIES

A synthesis of the COMEZ spatial knitting mechanism has been developed to convert rotational motion around a moving axle in a reciprocating motion. The synthesis has been done in extremely remote positions. For practical application of the synthesis, a vector-matrix approach is proposed in Math LAB Watt programming environment. With the specific metric parameters of the head mechanism, the function definition of the position is considered and a proposed eight-pointed mechanism replacing the spatial hump of the knitting head is proposed. To establish the authenticity of synthesis is an example

Time–Harmonic Behaviour of a Cracked Piezoelectric Solid by BIEM

ACM Computing Classification System (1998): J.2, G.1.9Time–harmonic behaviour of a cracked piezoelectric finite solid is studied by nonhypersingular traction Boundary Integral Equation Method (BIEM). A numerical solution for Crack Opening Displacement (COD) and Stress Intensity Factor (SIF) is obtained by using Mathematica. Several examples are presented to demonstrate the dependence of the solution on the crack position.The authors acknowledge the support of the Bulgarian NSF under the Grant No. DID 02/15

Organization and management of an innovative intensive programme in rail logistics

In this paper we present an intensive programme in rail logistics that will be organized and delivered in Newcastle University in the summer of 2012. The intensive programme employs an innovative multidisciplinary approach that combines a number of learning methods, such as: Lectures; Project-based learning; and Technical Visits as well as Thematic Seminars. We will work with approximately fifty undergraduate students and twenty professors in railway, transport and logistics from different locations from Europe. The targeted learning outcomes are to develop the undergraduate student's ability to initiate and carry out analysis, research, seminars and workshops with the purpose of solving railway and logistics-related problems