Bilateral Protection and Other Determinants of Trade: A Gravity Model Approach

Replaced with revised version of paper 10/03/07.International Relations/Trade,

Evaluating Cycling Routes in a Bicycle Simulator

Although cycling becomes more and more popular, many people are still deterred from cycling by various aspects including a lack of perceived safety [1 ]. To o:ffer preferable infrastructure and, hence, to better promote cycling. it is therefore crucial to examine how cyclists evahmte their routes, and to figure out what makes an infrastructure seem unsafe or unattractive. Some studies have already identified i.mportant route criteria 1ike safety or comfort, and have connected them to certain route attributes. High traffic volumes and cycling on no or poor cycling facilities are experienced as stressful by cyclists [2], [3], and they try to avoid these routes in order to reduce possible interactions with motor vehicles [4]. In contrast, a separated cycling facility, low speed, and low traflic volumes are evaluated as safe and stress-ftee [2], [5]. Furthennore, cyclists prefer oomfortable routes, that is, routes with low gradient and few stops and traffic lights as weil as attractive routes with a green and pleasant su:rrounding [6], [7]. Most ofthe studies investigated those criteria deductively, that is, the researchers analyzed the results theorydriven and in terms of predetermined criteria. In a previous study, we examined them in an inductive and qualitative approach that allowed us to collect criteria with the participants' individual wording and content [8]. We found that cyclists evaluate their route attributes in terms of Mental Comfort, possible interactions with other road users, Physical Comfort, the Base of Use of the infrastructure, and the pleasanlness of the surrounding. Safety and stress were found to be sub-aspects of Mental Comfort, whereas Interaction was associated with attention and concentration due to other road users. The term comfort, however, was mentioned by participants only in terms of physical comfort. The aim of the present study is to validate these evaluation criteria found in our previous study, and to connect them to certain route attributes using the experimental approach of a bicycle simulator in combination with qualitative surveys

Global Growth, Macroeconomic Change, and U.S. Agricultural Trade

After a decade of uneven export growth and rapidly growing imports, U.S. agriculture has begun to reassert its position in global trade markets. Rising exports and signs of moderating demand for imports mark a departure from previous trends. This report places past trends and emerging developments in perspective by spotlighting the role of two specific factors that help steer U.S. agricultural trade patterns: global growth and shifts in foreign economic activity that affect U.S. exports, and macroeconomic factors underlying the growth of U.S. imports. Consistent with actual changes in the level and destination of U.S. exports, model simulations corroborate the contention that renewed export growth can be sustained by expanding incomes and growing food import demand in emerging economies. In contrast, the rapid growth of U.S. agricultural imports appears less related to domestic income growth than to changing consumer preferences and other, perhaps less sustainable, macroeconomic conditions that fostered the growth of U.S. current account deficits.agricultural trade, trade balance, income growth, economic development, population, macroeconomics, exchange rates, current account, growth projections., Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, International Development, International Relations/Trade,

Enhancing Nonprofit Governance through Better Information Flow to Directors

To counteract the ability of a nonprofit’s chief executive officer to control information reaching the board of directors, we recommend that a nonprofit board consider requiring leaders of the organization’s various functions to provide operational reports directly to the board on at least an annual basis. Additionally, we recommend that a board discuss these reports directly with management members, preferably without the participation of the CEO. Implementing such a protocol should strengthen the board’s ability to make decisions based on information from sources in addition to that of the CEO, improve the directors’ ability to independently evaluate members of the management team, and increase the directors’ understanding of the nonprofit’s activities and performance

MARKET ACCESS FOR HIGH-VALUE FOODS

Market access remains a major impediment for expansion of global trade in high-value foods, particularly processed foods. Countries use tariffs and other measures that effectively stimulate imports of relatively unprocessed agricultural commodities at the expense of processed products. Tariff escalation, in which tariffs rise with the level of processing, discourages trade in high-value foods, and trade remedy measures, such as antidumping duties, are concentrated among high-value products. Globalization has provided countries with easier access to capital and technology needed to produce processed food, further affecting trade patterns and markets for high-value foods. A uniform cut in tariffs increases trade in high-value foods more than trade in raw agricultural commodities and improves real wages in developing and developed countries.Food trade, processed food, high-value foods, tariff, tariff escalation, trade remedy measures, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, safeguard measures, revealed comparative advantage, trade complementarities, International Relations/Trade,

Similarity Queries for Temporal Toxicogenomic Expression Profiles

We present an approach for answering similarity queries about gene expression time series that is motivated by the task of characterizing the potential toxicity of various chemicals. Our approach involves two key aspects. First, our method employs a novel alignment algorithm based on time warping. Our time warping algorithm has several advantages over previous approaches. It allows the user to impose fairly strong biases on the form that the alignments can take, and it permits a type of local alignment in which the entirety of only one series has to be aligned. Second, our method employs a relaxed spline interpolation to predict expression responses for unmeasured time points, such that the spline does not necessarily exactly fit every observed point. We evaluate our approach using expression time series from the Edge toxicology database. Our experiments show the value of using spline representations for sparse time series. More significantly, they show that our time warping method provides more accurate alignments and classifications than previous standard alignment methods for time series

EDGE3: A web-based solution for management and analysis of Agilent two color microarray experiments

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The ability to generate transcriptional data on the scale of entire genomes has been a boon both in the improvement of biological understanding and in the amount of data generated. The latter, the amount of data generated, has implications when it comes to effective storage, analysis and sharing of these data. A number of software tools have been developed to store, analyze, and share microarray data. However, a majority of these tools do not offer all of these features nor do they specifically target the commonly used two color Agilent DNA microarray platform. Thus, the motivating factor for the development of EDGE³was to incorporate the storage, analysis and sharing of microarray data in a manner that would provide a means for research groups to collaborate on Agilent-based microarray experiments without a large investment in software-related expenditures or extensive training of end-users.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>EDGE³has been developed with two major functions in mind. The first function is to provide a workflow process for the generation of microarray data by a research laboratory or a microarray facility. The second is to store, analyze, and share microarray data in a manner that doesn't require complicated software. To satisfy the first function, EDGE³has been developed as a means to establish a well defined experimental workflow and information system for microarray generation. To satisfy the second function, the software application utilized as the user interface of EDGE³is a web browser. Within the web browser, a user is able to access the entire functionality, including, but not limited to, the ability to perform a number of bioinformatics based analyses, collaborate between research groups through a user-based security model, and access to the raw data files and quality control files generated by the software used to extract the signals from an array image.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Here, we present EDGE³, an open-source, web-based application that allows for the storage, analysis, and controlled sharing of transcription-based microarray data generated on the Agilent DNA platform. In addition, EDGE³provides a means for managing RNA samples and arrays during the hybridization process. EDGE³is freely available for download at <url>http://edge.oncology.wisc.edu/</url>.</p

Müdigkeit und lange Fahrtdauer als Einflussfaktoren auf die Sicherheit nach einer Übernahmeaufforderung

MÜDIGKEIT UND LANGE FAHRTDAUER ALS EINFLUSSFAKTOREN AUF DIE SICHERHEIT NACH EINER ÜBERNAHMEAUFFORDERUNG Übergabe von hochautomatisiertem Fahren zu manueller Steuerung (Rights reserved) (-) IssueTeil 1 Review der Literatur und Studie zu Übernahmezeiten (Rights reserved) ( - ) IssueTeil 2 Müdigkeit und lange Fahrtdauer als Einflussfaktoren auf die Sicherheit nach einer Übernahmeaufforderung (Rights reserved) ( -

I bet you feel safe! assessing cyclists’ subjective safety by objective scores

Feeling safe is a major issue for cyclists, and some potential cyclists are still deterred from using the bicycle because they feel too unsafe. Assessing the subjective safety of existing cycling infrastructures and locations can be done by questionnaires that show pictures of infrastructures and ask participants for their safety ratings. However, future cycling infrastructures should also be evaluated as safe even before they are implemented. Therefore, it is desirable to have a method that is able to predict safety from infrastructural information. This study aims to propose two different ways for such a method and to test both ways in a use case. We first developed two scores, namely the Repertory Grid (RG) Score and the FixMyBerlin (FMB) Score, which predict subjective safety from objective environmental information but use different data bases and different methodologies. In a second step, we validated these scores by comparing them to questionnaire ratings that evaluated cyclists’ subjective safety at 20 locations in the city of Braunschweig, Germany. Finally, we compared the two scores as well as the questionnaire ratings with objective safety measures, namely crash statistics, at the respective locations. The results show that the RG Score has a moderate agreement and the FMB Score has a fair agreement with the questionnaire ratings. All methods agree on the overall safety evaluation of various cycling facilities. However, the RG Score showed less variance in the safety ratings, whereas the FMB Score rated most locations more unsafe than the participants in the questionnaire. Interestingly, neither the scores nor the questionnaire ratings could sufficiently deduce the occurrence of a crash at one of the locations. The findings strengthen the importance of subjective safety as a construct independent of objective safety. Furthermore, they provide insights into aspects of subjective safety that can easily be measured by objective scores, and into aspects that are important for cyclists but were not yet covered by the scores. This study, therefore, provides a basis for future considerations and future evaluation methods to assess the subjective safety of cyclists