A Real-time Information System for Public Transport in Case of Delays and Service Disruptions

AbstractPromoting the use of public transportation and Intelligent Transport Systems, as well as improving transit accessibility for all citizens, may help in decreasing traffic congestion and air pollution in urban areas. In general, poor information to customers is one of the main issues in public transportation services, which is an important reason for allocating substantial efforts to implement a powerful and easy to use and access information tool. This paper focuses on the design and development of a real time mobility information system for the management of unexpected events, delays and service disruptions concerning public transportation in the city of Milan. Exploiting the information on the status of urban mobility and on the location of citizens, commuters and tourists, the system is able to reschedule in real time their movements. The service proposed stems from the state of the art in the field of travel planners for public transportation, available for Milan. Peculiarly, we built a representation of the city transit based on a time-expanded graph that considers the interconnections among all the stops of the rides offered during the day. The structure distinguishes the physical stations and the get on/get off stops of each ride, representing them with two different types of nodes. Such structure allows, with regard to the main focus of the project, to model a wide range of service disruptions, much more meaningful than those possible with approaches currently proposed by transit agencies. One of the most interesting point lies in the expressive capability in describing the different disruptions: with our model it is possible, for instance, to selectively inhibit getting on and/or off at a particular station, avoid specific rides, and model temporary deviations

Mixed strong−-electroweak corrections to the Drell−-Yan process

We report on the first complete computation of the mixed QCD$-$electroweak (EW) corrections to the neutral-current Drell$-$Yan process. Superseding previously applied approximations, our calculation provides the first result at this order that is valid in the entire range of dilepton invariant masses. The two-loop virtual contribution is computed by using semi-analytical techniques, overcoming the technical problems in the evaluation of the relevant master integrals. The cancellation of soft and collinear singularities is achieved by a formulation of the $q_T$ subtraction formalism valid in presence of charged massive particles in the final state. We present numerical results for the fiducial cross section and selected kinematical distributions. At large values of the lepton $p_T$ the mixed QCD$-$EW corrections are negative and increase in size, to about $-15\%$ with respect to the next-to-leading-order QCD result at $p_T=500\,$GeV. Up to dilepton invariant masses of 1 TeV the computed corrections amount to about $-1.5\%$ with respect to the next-to-leading-order QCD result.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures and 1 tabl

Tunneling Trust Into the Blockchain: A Merkle Based Proof System for Structured Documents

The idea of Smart contracts foresees the possibility of automating contractual clauses using hardware and software tools and devices. One of the main perspectives of their implementation is the automation of interactions such as bets, collaterals, prediction markets, insurances. As blockchain platforms, such as Ethereum, offer very strong guarantees of untampered, deterministic execution, that can be exploited as smart contracts substrate, the problem of how to provide reliable information from the "outside world" into the contracts becomes central. In this article, we propose a system based on a Merkle tree representation of structured documents (such as all XML), with which it is possible to generate compact proofs on the content of web documents. The proofs can then be efficiently checked on-chain by a smart contract, to trigger contract action. We provide an end-to-end proof of concept, applying it to real use case scenarios, which allows us to give an estimate of the costs

Caspase-3 is dually regulated by apoptogenic factors mitochondrial release and by SAPK/JNK metabolic pathway in leukemic cells exposed to etoposide-ionizing radiation combined treatment.

Ionizing radiation induces a series of multiple intracellular events which can lead to activation of caspases, cytoplasmic proteases involved in the occurrence of apoptosis. The response of leukemic cells to ionizing radiation is amplified when they have been pre-treated with the anticancer drug etoposide, therefore the aim of this work has been to establish the lowest etoposide concentration combined with the lowest ionizing radiation dose to obtain the best antineoplastic response. Two leukemic cell lines, HL-60 and Jurkat, employed in this study, demonstrated different sensitivities to ionizing radiation and to etoposide treatment, with Jurkat T cells requiring a higher dose (1 μM) to display cell cycle perturbation and apoptotic DNA damage similar to those seen in HL-60. We hypothesize that this kind of response could be mediated by mitochondrial release of apoptogenic factors and by SAPK/JNK metabolic pathway activation, both leading to caspase-3 cleavage. All in all these results provide insight into the sensitivity or resistance of leukemic cells to antineoplastic agents and identify molecular targets for rational therapeutic intervention strategies

Prevalence Rates and Risk Factors for Primary Open Angle Glaucoma in the Middle East

Glaucoma is a multifactorial disease and a leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. Current data has demonstrated the approximate distribution of primary openangle glaucoma (POAG) in patients of European, African, Hispanic, and Eastern Asian descent. However, a significant gap in the literature exists regarding the prevalence of POAG in Middle Eastern (ME) populations. Current studies estimate ME POAG prevalence based on a European model. Herein we screened 65 total publications on ME prevalence of POAG and specific risk factors using keywords: “glaucoma”, “prevalence”, “incidence”, “risk factor”, “Middle East”, “Mideast”, “Persian”, “Far East”, as well as searching by individual ME countries through PubMed, Embase, Ovid, Scopus, and Trip searches with additional reference list searches from relevant articles published up to and including March 1, 2021. Fifty qualifying records were included after 15 studies identified with low statistical power, confounding co-morbid ophthalmic diseases, and funding bias were excluded. Studies of ME glaucoma risk factors that identify chromosomes, familial trend, age/gender, socioeconomic status, lifestyle, intraocular pressure, vascular influences, optic disc hemorrhage, cup-to-disc ratio, blood pressure, obstructive sleep apnea, and diabetes mellitus were included in this systematic review. We conclude that the prevalence of POAG in the ME is likely higher than the prevalence rate that European models suggest, with ME specific risk factors likely playing a role. However, these findings are severely limited by the paucity of population-level data in the ME. Well-designed, longitudinal population-based studies with rigorous inclusion and exclusion criteria are ultimately needed to accurately assess the epidemiology and specific mechanistic risk factors of glaucoma in ME populations

Optimum design of the tuned mass-damper-inerter for serviceability limit state performance in wind-excited tall buildings

Optimally designed tuned mass-damper-inerters (TMDIs) are considered to meet code-prescribed serviceability criteria in typical wind-excited tall buildings subject to vortex shedding effects in a performance-based design context. The TMDI, couples the classical tuned-mass-damper (TMD) with an inerter, a two-terminal device resisting the relative acceleration of its terminals, achieving mass-amplification and higher-modes-damping effects compared to the TMD. A benchmark 74-storey building is considered, where TMDI is added to the structural system assuming ideal linear inerter behavior. The wind action is defined through a non-diagonal power spectral density matrix supporting computationally efficient frequency domain structural analyses. The TMDI is optimally designed for stiffness, damping, and inerter constant parameters via a standard numerical optimization search, for a range of pre-specified attached TMDI mass values. It is shown that the TMDI achieves more lightweight construction in the design of new code-compliant tall buildings against wind

In vivo longitudinal study of rodent skeletal muscle atrophy using ultrasonography

Muscle atrophy is a widespread ill condition occurring in many diseases, which can reduce quality of life and increase morbidity and mortality. We developed a new method using non-invasive ultrasonography to measure soleus and gastrocnemius lateralis muscle atrophy in the hindlimb-unloaded rat, a well-Accepted model of muscle disuse. Soleus and gastrocnemius volumes were calculated using the conventional truncated-cone method and a newly-designed sinusoidal method. For Soleus muscle, the ultrasonographic volume determined in vivo with either method was linearly correlated to the volume determined ex-vivo from excised muscles as muscle weight-To-density ratio. For both soleus and gastrocnemius muscles, a strong linear correlation was obtained between the ultrasonographic volume and the muscle fiber cross-sectional area determined ex-vivo on muscle cryosections. Thus ultrasonography allowed the longitudinal in vivo evaluation of muscle atrophy progression during hindlimb unloading. This study validates ultrasonography as a powerful method for the evaluation of rodent muscle atrophy in vivo, which would prove useful in disease models and therapeutic trials

A Fuzzy Logic Module to Estimate a Driver’s Fuel Consumption for Reality-Enhanced Serious Games

Reality-enhanced gaming is an emerging serious game genre, that could contextualize a game within its real instruction-target environment. A key module for such games is the evaluator, that senses a user performance and provides consequent input to the game. In this project, we have explored an application in the automotive field, estimating driver performance in terms of fuel consumption, based on three key vehicular signals, that are directly controllable by the driver: throttle position sensor (TPS), engine rotation speed (RPM) and car speed. We focused on Fuzzy Logic, given its ability to embody expert knowledge and deal with incomplete information availability. The fuzzy models – that we iteratively defined based on literature expertise and data analysis – can be easily plugged into a reality-enhanced gaming architecture. We studied four models with all the possible combinations of the chosen variables (TPS and RPM; RPM and speed; TPS and speed; TPS, speed and RPM). Input data were taken from the enviroCar database, and our fuel consumption predictions compared with their estimated values. Results indicate that the model with the three inputs outperforms the other models giving a higher coefficient of determination (R2), and lower error. Our study also shows that RPM is the most important fuel consumption predictor, followed by TPS and speed

Farm diversification strategies, dietary diversity and farm size: results from a cross-country sample in South and Southeast Asia

South and Southeast Asia host almost half of the world's undernourished people. Food and agricultural systems in these regions are highly dependent on the production and consumption of staple cereals such as rice, maize and wheat. More diverse farming systems can potentially improve rural people's nutrition, while reducing the environmental impact of agriculture. Yet, it remains uncertain whether farm diversification is always the most suitable and viable strategy for all types of smallholder farms. We use generalised linear regression models to analyse the farm diversification strategies of 4772 rural households in Cambodia, India, Lao PDR and Vietnam. Our analysis is twofold and focuses first on drivers of farm diversification, and second, on the impacts of farm diversification and other livelihood strategies on dietary diversity. We find that (1) farm diversification is significantly influenced by environmental and climate variables, including rainfall patterns, as well as household and farm characteristics such as farm size and education level; and (2) farm diversification, market orientation and off-farm income generation are all strategies that can improve household and individual dietary diversity. However, their relative effects resulted influenced by farm size. Specifically, the positive effect of farm diversification on dietary diversity was larger for smaller farms, while it decreased for farms of larger size that may improve their diet more by increasing their engagement in off-farm activities and markets. These findings highlight that characteristics such as farm size can represent substantial determinants in production and consumption decisions, suggesting the importance of understanding and considering the type of farm and the situational context of analysis when targeting interventions for improving smallholder farm livelihoods