Modeling the Effect of a Road Construction Project on Transportation System Performance

Road construction projects create physical changes on roads that result in capacity reduction and travel time escalation during the construction project period. The reduction in the posted speed limit, the number of lanes, lane width and shoulder width at the construction zone makes it difficult for the road to accommodate high traffic volume. Therefore, the goal of this research is to model the effect of a road construction project on travel time at road link-level and help improve the mobility of people and goods through dissemination or implementation of proactive solutions. Data for a resurfacing construction project on I-485 in the city of Charlotte, North Carolina (NC) was used evaluation, analysis, and modeling. A statistical t-test was conducted to examine the relationship between the change in travel time before and during the construction project period. Further, travel time models were developed for the freeway links and the connecting arterial street links, both before and during the construction project period. The road network characteristics of each link, such as the volume/ capacity (V/C), the number of lanes, the speed limit, the shoulder width, the lane width, whether the link is divided or undivided, characteristics of neighboring links, the time-of-the-day, the day-of-the-week, and the distance of the link from the road construction project were considered as predictor variables for modeling. The results obtained indicate that a decrease in travel time was observed during the construction project period on the freeway links when compared to the before construction project period. Contrarily, an increase in travel time was observed during the construction project period on the connecting arterial street links when compared to the before construction project period. Also, the average travel time, the planning time, and the travel time index can better explain the effect of a road construction project on transportation system performance when compared to the planning time index and the buffer time index. The influence of predictor variables seem to vary before and during the construction project period on the freeway links and connecting arterial street links. Practitioners should take the research findings into consideration, in addition to the construction zone characteristics, when planning a road construction project and developing temporary traffic control and detour plans

Nematic - Isotropic Transition in Porous Media - a Monte Carlo Study

We propose a lattice model to simulate the influence of porous medium on the Nematic - Isotropic transition of liquid crystal confined to the pores. The effects of pore size and pore connectivity are modelled through a disorder parameter. Monte Carlo calculations based on the model leads to results that compare well with experiments.Comment: 11 pages; 4 figure

Nonlinearity Induced Critical Coupling

We study a critically coupled system (Opt. Lett., \textbf{32}, 1483 (2007)) with a Kerr-nonlinear spacer layer. Nonlinearity is shown to inhibit null-scattering in a critically coupled system at low powers. However, a system detuned from critical coupling can exhibit near-complete suppression of scattering by means of nonlinearity-induced changes in refractive index. Our studies reveal clearly an important aspect of critical coupling as a delicate balance in both the amplitude and the phase relations, while a nonlinear resonance in dispersive bistability concerns only the phase

X-ray crystallography and its role in understanding physicochemical properties of pharmaceutical cocrystals

YesProperties of a matter are intrinsically dependent upon the internal arrangement of molecules in the solid state. Therefore, knowledge of 3-dimensional structure of the matter is prerequisite for structure-property correlations and design of functional materials. Over the past century, X-ray crystallography has evolved as a method of choice for accurate determination of molecular structure at atomic resolution. The structural information obtained from crystallographic analysis paved the way for rapid development in electronic devices, mineralogy, geosciences, materials science, pharmaceuticals, etc. Knowledge of the structural information of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) is prerequisite for rational drug design and synthesis of new chemical entities for development as new medicines. Over the past two decades, X-ray crystallography has played a key role in the design of pharmaceutical cocrystals-crystalline solids containing an API and one or more of pharmaceutically acceptable coformers. These materials have proved promising for fine-tuning several important properties of APIs. This short review highlights the history of crystallography, early breakthroughs, and the role of crystallography in understanding physicochemical properties of pharmaceutical cocrystals.S. Aitipamula gratefully acknowledges the financial support from the Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences of A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research), Singapore. V. R. Vangala thanks Royal Society of Chemistry for Researcher Mobility Grant (2015/17)

Electronic Measurement of Milk Adulteration using Microwave Frequencies

Food adulteration is an act for debasing the quality of food with an admixture or through the substitution of inferior substances or by removing some invaluable ingredients from the food product. Milk could be adulterated by adding water or by removing the cream or by adding artificial coloring agents like Annatto, caramel, coal tar, preservatives like formaldehyde, boric and other acids. There are several ways of identifying whether the milk has been adulterated or not and most of these techniques use chemicals. In this paper a method is proposed which is based on the change in the dielectric constant of the milk when it is adulterated. This change in the dielectric constant or the attenuation constant is frequency dependent and can be measured at microwave frequencies. In this paper an experimental set up has been proposed using a microwave frequency source and Arduino board is used

A survey study on the effect of Ratrijagarana on health status in night shift workers

Background: Sleep is a natural physiological phenomenon of human life. Research is revealing that sleep is a dynamic activity, during which many processes vital to health and wellbeing take place. Sleep deprivation can cause ill effects both physically and psychologically. Out of total global employees, nearly 1/5th of them are shift workers. In the present scenario, our society demands round the clock services in order to meet their needs. The present study was opted to analyse the health status of the individuals who do Ratrijagarana due to their work pattern. Objective: To Evaluate the effect of Ratrijagarana on Health Status in night shift workers. Methods: 208 night shift workers were selected for this Survey study. WHO-QOL BREF Questionnaire and Questionnaire on Ratrijagarana was used for analysing the health status of individuals (as per inclusion and exclusion criteria). Results: Maximum of 28.8% had 56 percent of physical health status, 27.9% had 56 percent of psychological health status, 30.3% had 75 percent of socio-economic health status, 30.8% had 50 percent of environmental health status. The Chi-square test is significant (p<0.0005) with WHO Bref questionnaires. Conclusion: Ratrijagarana has an impact on the health status of the individual by decreasing the physical, psychological and socio-economic health. Circadian misalignment is the cause for Shift Work Sleep Disorder (SWSD) and lead to Cognitive risks, Health risks and Social Risks of the individuals