Evaluation of FHWA Technology Transfer Program at HERPICC, Purdue University

An evaluation of the FHWA technology transfer program at HERPICC, Purdue University based on a questionnaire sent to operation and management personnel of the highway road system. Future courses of action are also suggested

The Mobility Enterprise - Improving Auto Productivity

The Mobility Enterprise is a particular version of a shared vehicle fleet, aimed at solving the problem of low automobile productivity. The automobile consumes a large portion of America’s transportation energy supply. It also operates much of the time with unused capacity: vacant seats and empty cargo space. Since programs to fill those vacant seats —ride sharing and high occupancy vehicle incentives —have fallen so far short of their objectives, a new approach is warranted. The enterprise’s central concept is matching vehicle attributes to travel needs. Generally, a household purchases vehicles for those few trips that require a large capacity, rather than for the majority of trips (usually to work) that have minimal vehicular needs. If a household could tailor its “immediate access” fleet to these frequent trips and still retain reasonable access to larger-capacity special purpose vehicles (SPV’s), considerable economies could be achieved. The household is relieved of owning seldom-used excess capacity, and automobile productivity and efficiency are greatly improved. Having easy access to a shared fleet of SPV’s also affords a household an increase in the quality and economy of its travel experiences. This paper describes a research project recently begun at Purdue that involves a comprehensive investigation of the Mobility Enterprise concept. Questions of institutional barriers, consumer response, and organization and management are discussed here as keys to the fate of the enterprise in the transportation climate of the foreseeable future

Inter-practice variation in diagnosing hypertension and diabetes mellitus: a cross-sectional study in general practice

BACKGROUND: Previous studies of inter-practice variation of the prevalence of hypertension and diabetes mellitus showed wide variations between practices. However, in these studies inter-practice variation was calculated without controlling for clustering of patients within practices and without adjusting for patient and practice characteristics. Therefore, in the present study inter-practice variation of diagnosed hypertension and diabetes mellitus prevalence rates was calculated by 1) using a multi-level design and 2) adjusting for patient and practice characteristics. METHODS: Data were used from the Netherlands Information Network of General Practice (LINH) in 2004. Of all 168.045 registered patients, the presence of hypertension, diabetes mellitus and all available ICPC coded symptoms and diseases related to hypertension and diabetes, were determined. Also, the characteristics of practices were used in the analyses. Multilevel logistic regression analyses were performed. RESULTS: The 95% prevalence range for the practices for the prevalence of diagnosed hypertension and diabetes mellitus was 66.3 to 181.7 per 1000 patients and 22.2 to 65.8 per 1000 patients, respectively, after adjustment for patient and practice characteristics. The presence of hypertension and diabetes was best predicted by patient characteristics. The most important predictors of hypertension were obesity (OR = 3.5), presence of a lipid disorder (OR = 3.0), and diabetes mellitus (OR = 2.6), whereas the presence of diabetes mellitus was particularly predicted by retinopathy (OR = 8.5), lipid disorders (OR = 2.8) and hypertension (OR = 2.7). CONCLUSION: Although not the optimal case-mix could be used in this study, we conclude that even after adjustment for patient (demographic variables and risk factors for hypertension and diabetes mellitus) and practice characteristics (practice size and presence of a practice nurse), there is a wide difference between general practices in the prevalence rates of diagnosed hypertension and diabetes mellitu

A Computational Investigation on the Connection between Dynamics Properties of Ribosomal Proteins and Ribosome Assembly

Assembly of the ribosome from its protein and RNA constituents has been studied extensively over the past 50 years, and experimental evidence suggests that prokaryotic ribosomal proteins undergo conformational changes during assembly. However, to date, no studies have attempted to elucidate these conformational changes. The present work utilizes computational methods to analyze protein dynamics and to investigate the linkage between dynamics and binding of these proteins during the assembly of the ribosome. Ribosomal proteins are known to be positively charged and we find the percentage of positive residues in r-proteins to be about twice that of the average protein: Lys+Arg is 18.7% for E. coli and 21.2% for T. thermophilus. Also, positive residues constitute a large proportion of RNA contacting residues: 39% for E. coli and 46% for T. thermophilus. This affirms the known importance of charge-charge interactions in the assembly of the ribosome. We studied the dynamics of three primary proteins from E. coli and T. thermophilus 30S subunits that bind early in the assembly (S15, S17, and S20) with atomic molecular dynamic simulations, followed by a study of all r-proteins using elastic network models. Molecular dynamics simulations show that solvent-exposed proteins (S15 and S17) tend to adopt more stable solution conformations than an RNA-embedded protein (S20). We also find protein residues that contact the 16S rRNA are generally more mobile in comparison with the other residues. This is because there is a larger proportion of contacting residues located in flexible loop regions. By the use of elastic network models, which are computationally more efficient, we show that this trend holds for most of the 30S r-proteins

A checklist for health research priority setting: nine common themes of good practice

Health research priority setting processes assist researchers and policymakers in effectively targeting research that has the greatest potential public health benefit. Many different approaches to health research prioritization exist, but there is no agreement on what might constitute best practice. Moreover, because of the many different contexts for which priorities can be set, attempting to produce one best practice is in fact not appropriate, as the optimal approach varies per exercise. Therefore, following a literature review and an analysis of health research priority setting exercises that were organized or coordinated by the World Health Organization since 2005, we propose a checklist for health research priority setting that allows for informed choices on different approaches and outlines nine common themes of good practice. It is intended to provide generic assistance for planning health research prioritization processes. The checklist explains what needs to be clarified in order to establish the context for which priorities are set; it reviews available approaches to health research priority setting; it offers discussions on stakeholder participation and information gathering; it sets out options for use of criteria and different methods for deciding upon priorities; and it emphasizes the importance of well-planned implementation, evaluation and transparency

Development of a Congestion Management System for Indiana

This study details a procedure used in determinng links with deficiencies. A procedure was developed by means of which congestion on raodways links can be identified as being congested will be subjected to a more detailed study to determine extent, duration, and severity of congestion. The procedure was developed by the use of the Highway C apacity Manual (HCM) and the Indiana Department of Transportation\u27s (INDOT) Road Inventory Data Base

Automation of Overweight Truck Permit Process for Michigan Trains

Technical guidance was provided by Purdue University to the Indiana Department of Transportation regarding specific issues around automation of permit issuance for overweight and oversized vehicles on a specific piece of highway in Northwest Indiana. Supporting this guidance were four commentaries which were: 1. Functional Specification for Automation of Michigan Trains 2. Draft Commentary on Touch ToneTM/Voice Response System Security for Michigan Trains 3. Draft Commentary on Touch ToneTM/Voice Response System Vendor for Michigan Trains 4. Draft Commentary on Touch ToneTM/Voice Response System Auditability for Michigan Trains These are included as appendices to this report

Development of Annual Permit Procedure for Overweight Trucks on Indiana Highways

Overweight truck permitting in Indiana is presently done on a per trip basis. This study evaluated alternatives to each trip having to make a call to the INDOT permit office to gain a permit. The study was originally requested by the Indiana State Legislature under P.L. 122-1993 section 7 in response to delays in getting permits. The report’s six chapters are 1. Introduction and Summary 2. Review of Other States’ Permitting Systems 3. Framework for Policy Evaluation 4. Permits for Michigan Truck-Trains 5. Overweight and Overweight/Oversized Trucks 6. Implementation Suggestions – PLUS -- 7. Appendices. A Michigan Truck-Train is a special dual-trailer configuration permitted for only one short “Extra Heavy Duty Highway” in northern Indiana. The report presents a methodology for evaluating various possible alternatives and then does that evaluation. It suggests that the per-call basis is fundamentally the correct mechanism, but that the present implementation of per-call permitting needs some improvements. Some suggestions are offered for those improvements

Fundamentals of transportation engineering : A multimodal systems approach

xvi, 776 p : ill

Multichannel cochlear implantation in children: a summary of current work at The University of Melbourne

This is a publisher’s version of an article published in American Journal of Otology 1991. This version is reproduced with permission of Lippincott Wilkins & Williams.This paper summarizes research work relating to multichannel cochlear implantation in children at the University of Melbourne. Ongoing safety studies relating to the implantation of young children are discussed. Results of these studies suggest that special design considerations are necessary for a prosthesis to be implanted in children under the age of 2 years. Results of clinical assessment of implanted children and adolescents are also discussed in terms of speech perception, speech production, and language development, and some possible predictive factors are suggested. Preliminary data suggests that a high proportion of young children can achieve open-set speech perception with the cochlear implant given appropriate training and support. Initial results with adults using new speech processing hardware and a new coding scheme are also presented. These suggest that improved speech perception in quiet and competing noise is possible with the new system