52 research outputs found
AREA WIDE TRAFFIC DEMAND MANAGEMENT BY ROAD PRICING
Cities and governments spent a tremendous amount of money to ease traffic congestion,
but the problems are yet unsolved. The difficulties are well-known: increase of costs and
time spent on travelling in cities; noise nuisance, air pollution, vibration; increase of urban
accident rates; deforming land use patterns.
Recent research suggests to apply some form of Road Pricing as an important
tool among many others to manage demand on motorized traffic. Road Pricing may
be effective as it reduces costs of traffic; regulates and reduces car use in peak hours
and pricing contributes to maintaining better environmental and living conditions in city
centres.
Road Pricing system should be included within a comprehensive Land Use and
Transport Policy.
Car ownership in Budapest will double to about 400 cars/l000 inhabitants within
30 years. It seems clear that some regulation and restriction on car use cannot be avoided.
Simultaneous, coordinated elements of traffic demand management in Budapest may be
the following: land use policy: development of public transport; area wide traffic control
and route guidance systems: parking policy; other instruments and Road Pricing as a
major tool to manage demand for car traffic.
There are several reasonable solutions how to locate charging stations in Budapest.
In the far future it seems necessary to charge drivers entering the city area within the M0
circular motorway.
In the first phase outer cordon may be established in line of 'Hungarian Ringroad'
after its southern end with 'Lágymányosi Bridge' across the River Danube will have been
completed. On the 'Buda' side cordon can be put on the ring road (that cannot be so
complete as on the 'Pest' side), and additional charging stations can be located on the
Danube Bridges. This preliminary suggestion must be controlled and changed by results
of precise and detailed application of traffic models, and interdisciplinary preparation
Analyzing models of work addiction: single factor and bi-factor models of the Bergen Work Addiction Scale
Work addiction ('workaholism') has become an increasingly studied topic in the behavioral addictions literature and had led to the development of a number of instruments to assess it. One such instrument is the Bergen Work Addiction Scale (BWAS - Andreassen et al. 2012 Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 53, 265-272). However, the BWAS has never been investigated in Eastern-European countries. The goal of the present study was to examine the factor structure, the reliability and cut-off scores of the BWAS in a comprehensive Hungarian sample. This study is a direct extension of the original validation of BWAS by providing results on the basis of representative data and the development of appropriate cut-off scores The study utilized an online questionnaire with a Hungarian representative sample including 500 respondents (F = 251; M age = 35.05 years) who completed the BWAS. A series of confirmatory factor analyses were carried out leading to a short, 7-item first-order factor structure and a longer 14-item seven-factor nested structure. Despite the good validity of the longer version, its reliability was not as high as it could have been. One-fifth (20.6 %) of the Hungarians who used the internet at least weekly were categorized as work addicts using the BWAS. It is recommended that researchers use the original seven items from the Norwegian scale in order to facilitate and stimulate cross-national research on addiction to work
Can stellar mass black holes be quark stars?
We investigate the possibility that stellar mass black holes, with masses in
the range of and , respectively, could be in fact
quark stars in the Color-Flavor-Locked (CFL) phase. Depending on the value of
the gap parameter, rapidly rotating CFL quark stars can achieve much higher
masses than standard neutron stars, thus making them possible stellar mass
black hole candidates. Moreover, quark stars have a very low luminosity and a
completely absorbing surface - the infalling matter on the surface of the quark
star is converted into quark matter. A possibility of distinguishing CFL quark
stars from stellar mass black holes could be through the study of thin
accretion disks around rapidly rotating quark stars and Kerr type black holes,
respectively. Furthermore, we show that the radiation properties of accretion
disks around black holes and CFL quark stars are also very similar. However,
strange stars exhibit a low luminosity, but high temperature bremsstrahlung
spectrum, which, in combination with the emission properties of the accretion
disk, may be the key signature to differentiate massive strange stars from
black hole.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Global optical/infrared - X-ray correlations in X-ray binaries: quantifying disc and jet contributions
The optical/near-infrared (OIR) region of the spectra of low-mass X-ray
binaries appears to lie at the intersection of a variety of different emission
processes. In this paper we present quasi-simultaneous OIR - X-ray observations
of 33 XBs in an attempt to estimate the contributions of various emission
processes in these sources, as a function of X-ray state and luminosity. A
global correlation is found between OIR and X-ray luminosity for low-mass black
hole candidate XBs (BHXBs) in the hard X-ray state, of the form L_OIR is
proportional to Lx^0.6. This correlation holds over 8 orders of magnitude in Lx
and includes data from BHXBs in quiescence and at large distances (LMC and
M31). A similar correlation is found in low-mass neutron star XBs (NSXBs) in
the hard state. For BHXBs in the soft state, all the near-infrared (NIR) and
some of the optical emission is suppressed below the correlation, a behaviour
indicative of the jet switching off/on in transition to/from the soft state. We
compare these relations to theoretical models of a number of emission
processes. We find that X-ray reprocessing in the disc and emission from the
jets both predict a slope close to 0.6 for BHXBs, and both contribute to the
OIR in BHXBs in the hard state, the jets producing ~90 percent of the NIR
emission at high luminosities. X-ray reprocessing dominates the OIR in NSXBs in
the hard state, with possible contributions from the jets (only at high
luminosity) and the viscously heated disc. We also show that the optically
thick jet spectrum of BHXBs extends to near the K-band. (abridged)Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS; 19 pages, 7 figure
High energy emission from microquasars
The microquasar phenomenon is associated with the production of jets by X-ray
binaries and, as such, may be associated with the majority of such systems. In
this chapter we briefly outline the associations, definite, probable, possible,
and speculative, between such jets and X-ray, gamma-ray and particle emission.Comment: Contributing chapter to the book Cosmic Gamma-Ray Sources, K.S. Cheng
and G.E. Romero (eds.), to be published by Kluwer Academic Publishers,
Dordrecht, 2004. (19 pages
The relationships between workaholism and symptoms of psychiatric disorders: a large-scale cross-sectional study
Despite the many number of studies examining workaholism, large-scale studies have been lacking. The present study utilized an open web-based cross-sectional survey assessing symptoms of psychiatric disorders and workaholism among 16,426 workers (Mage = 37.3 years, SD = 11.4, range = 16–75 years). Participants were administered the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale, the Obsession-Compulsive Inventory-Revised, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and the Bergen Work Addiction Scale, along with additional questions examining demographic and work-related variables. Correlations between workaholism and all psychiatric disorder symptoms were positive and significant. Workaholism comprised the dependent variable in a three-step linear multiple hierarchical regression analysis. Basic demographics (age, gender, relationship status, and education) explained 1.2% of the variance in workaholism, whereas work demographics (work status, position, sector, and annual income) explained an additional 5.4% of the variance. Age (inversely) and managerial positions (positively) were of most importance. The psychiatric symptoms (ADHD, OCD, anxiety, and depression) explained 17.0% of the variance. ADHD and anxiety contributed considerably. The prevalence rate of workaholism status was 7.8% of the present sample. In an adjusted logistic regression analysis, all psychiatric symptoms were positively associated with being a workaholic. The independent variables explained between 6.1% and 14.4% in total of the variance in workaholism cases. Although most effect sizes were relatively small, the study’s findings expand our understanding of possible psychiatric predictors of workaholism, and particularly shed new insight into the reality of adult ADHD in work life. The study’s implications, strengths, and shortcomings are also discussed
Problematic Facebook use and problematic video gaming as mediators of relationship between impulsivity and life satisfaction among female and male gamers
Over the past few decades, many new technologies have emerged, such as portable computers, the internet and smartphones, which have contributed to improving the lives of individuals. While the benefits of these new technologies are overwhelmingly positive, negative consequences are experienced by a minority of individuals. One possible negative aspect of new technologies is their problematic use due to impulsive use which may lead to lower life satisfaction. The present study investigated the mediating role of problematic video gaming (PVG) and problematic Facebook use (PFU) in the relationship between impulsivity dimensions and life satisfaction as well as the relationship between impulsivity dimensions and problematic behaviors. Additionally, the potential impact of gender differences was also examined. The study comprised 673 gamers (391 females) aged 17–38 years (M = 21.25 years, SD = 2.67) selected from 1365 individuals who completed an offline survey. PFU was assessed using the Facebook Intrusion Scale, and PVG was assessed using the nine-item Internet Gaming Disorder Scale–Short-Form (IGDS9-SF). Impulsivity dimensions such as attention, cognitive instability, motor, perseverance, self-control, and cognitive complexity were assessed using the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11), and life satisfaction was assessed using the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Depending on the specific impulsivity dimension, findings showed both positive and negative relationships between impulsivity and life satisfaction. Attention and perseverance subtypes of impulsivity were primarily associated with problematic behaviors. Additionally, cognitive complexity was associated with PFU among female gamers, whereas cognitive instability was associated with PVG among male gamers. Additionally, PVG was primarily associated with lower life satisfaction. However, there was no mediation effects between impulsivity dimensions and life satisfaction via PFU or PVG. These findings provide a better understanding of the relationship between problematic behaviors, life satisfaction, and impulsivity among gamers and the differences between male and female gamers
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