Rail Infrastructure Pricing For Intercity Passenger Services In Europe: Possible Impacts On The Railways Competitive Framework

At the beginning of the 90’s, the European Union initiated a railways reform with the aim to face the decline of railway transport, as well as to increase railway competitiveness and interoperability at European scale. The First Railway Package of this reform focused on the split between infrastructure management and operation and, therefore, on the establishment of pricing systems. Due to lack of straight definition, the application of the Directives on infrastructure charges in the different European countries has given rise to a large spectrum of charging systems. It is a direct consequence of the differences in the charging philosophies (MC –marginal cost, MC+ - marginal cost with mark-ups, FC –Full Cost recovery, etc.), the charging types (single tariff, two-parts tariff) and the parameters (or variables) chosen for defining the amount of the charge in each particular case. This paper analyses the rail infrastructure charges in 23 European countries from the point of view of the parameters used for defining them. The analysis deepens the knowledge of qualitative differences between these countries’ pricing structure. Furthermore, it analyses its consequences in the total amount of the charge to be paid by passenger services running through links considered to be the best national railways relations in each one of the countries studied. Concerning the qualitative analysis, forty-six different types of variables were identified for the whole of the systems analysed. With regard to the quantitative field,calculations reveal that infrastructure charges range from 14,6 €/train-km to 0,6 €/train-km for “comparable” national links. The last part of this paper discusses the weight of those fares for the use of infrastructure for intercity rail passenger services with regard to its competitor mode. Results from an analysis of 100 national and international links allow drawing some conclusions on the possible impacts of railway infrastructure pricing on the railways competitive framework in Europe.Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies. Faculty of Economics and Business. The University of Sydne

Rail Infrastructure Pricing For Intercity Passenger Services In Europe: Possible Impacts On The Railways Competitive Framework

At the beginning of the 90’s, the European Union initiated a railways reform with the aim to face the decline of railway transport, as well as to increase railway competitiveness and interoperability at European scale. The First Railway Package of this reform focused on the split between infrastructure management and operation and, therefore, on the establishment of pricing systems. Due to lack of straight definition, the application of the Directives on infrastructure charges in the different European countries has given rise to a large spectrum of charging systems. It is a direct consequence of the differences in the charging philosophies (MC –marginal cost, MC+ - marginal cost with mark-ups, FC –Full Cost recovery, etc.), the charging types (single tariff, two-parts tariff) and the parameters (or variables) chosen for defining the amount of the charge in each particular case. This paper analyses the rail infrastructure charges in 23 European countries from the point of view of the parameters used for defining them. The analysis deepens the knowledge of qualitative differences between these countries’ pricing structure. Furthermore, it analyses its consequences in the total amount of the charge to be paid by passenger services running through links considered to be the best national railways relations in each one of the countries studied. Concerning the qualitative analysis, forty-six different types of variables were identified for the whole of the systems analysed. With regard to the quantitative field,calculations reveal that infrastructure charges range from 14,6 €/train-km to 0,6 €/train-km for “comparable” national links. The last part of this paper discusses the weight of those fares for the use of infrastructure for intercity rail passenger services with regard to its competitor mode. Results from an analysis of 100 national and international links allow drawing some conclusions on the possible impacts of railway infrastructure pricing on the railways competitive framework in Europe.Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies. Faculty of Economics and Business. The University of Sydne

Plans for laser spectroscopy of trapped cold hydrogen-like HCI

Laser spectroscopy studies are being prepared to measure the 1s ground state hyperfine splitting in trapped cold highly charged ions. The purpose of such experiments is to test quantum electrodynamics in the strong electric field regime. These experiments form part of the HITRAP project at GSI. A brief review of the planned experiments is presented.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication (NIMB

Plans for laser spectroscopy of trapped cold hydrogen-like HCI

Laser spectroscopy studies are being prepared to measure the 1s ground state hyperfine splitting in trapped cold highly charged ions. The purpose of such experiments is to test quantum electrodynamics in the strong electric field regime. These experiments form part of the HITRAP project at GSI. A brief review of the planned experiments is presented.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication (NIMB

Plans for laser spectroscopy of trapped cold hydrogen-like HCI

Laser spectroscopy studies are being prepared to measure the 1s ground state hyperfine splitting in trapped cold highly charged ions. The purpose of such experiments is to test quantum electrodynamics in the strong electric field regime. These experiments form part of the HITRAP project at GSI. A brief review of the planned experiments is presented.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication (NIMB

Effect of diagnostic delay on survival in patients with colorectal cancer: a retrospective cohort study

[Abstract] Background. Disparate and contradictory results make studies necessary to investigate in more depth the relationship between diagnostic delay and survival in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. The aim of this study is to analyse the relationship between the interval from first symptom to diagnosis (SDI) and survival in CRC. Methods. Retrospective study of n = 942 CRC patients. SDI was calculated as the time from the diagnosis of cancer and the first symptoms of CRC. Cox regression was used to estimate five-year mortality hazard ratios as a function of SDI, adjusting for age and gender. SDI was modelled according to SDI quartiles and as a continuous variable using penalized splines. Results. Median SDI was 3.4 months. SDI was not associated with stage at diagnosis (Stage I = 3.6 months, Stage II-III = 3.4, Stage IV = 3.2; p = 0.728). Shorter SDIs corresponded to patients with abdominal pain (2.8 months), and longer SDIs to patients with muchorrhage (5.2 months) and rectal tenesmus (4.4 months). Adjusting for age and gender, in rectum cancers, patients within the first SDI quartile had lower survival (p = 0.003), while in colon cancer no significant differences were found (p = 0.282). These results do not change after adjusting for TNM stage. The splines regression analysis revealed that, for rectum cancer, 5-year mortality progressively increases for SDIs lower than the median (3.7 months) and decreases as the delay increases until approximately 8 months. In colon cancer, no significant relationship was found between SDI and survival. Conclusions. Short diagnostic intervals are significantly associated with higher mortality in rectal but not in colon cancers, even though a borderline significant effect is also observed in colon cancer. Longer diagnostic intervals seemed not to be associated with poorer survival. Other factors than diagnostic delay should be taken into account to explain this “waiting-time paradox”.Instituto de Salud Carlos III; PI14/ 00781Xunta de Galicia; PGIDIT06BTF91601P

Electro-enzymatic ATP regeneration coupled to biocatalytic phosphorylation reactions

Funding Information: A.L.D, M.P. and M.V. thank grants RTI2018-095090-B-I00 and PID2021-1241160B-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union, and 2021AEP014 funded by CSIC. G.G.M. thanks grant BES-2016-078815 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union. I.L.-M. and M.V. acknowledge financial support through grant S2018/BAA-4403 SINOXPHOS-CM (EU-FEDER). I.A.C.P. and A.M.C. thank support from the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia through fellowship SFRH/BD/146475/2019 and MOSTMICRO-ITQB R&D Unit (UIDB/04612/2020, UIDP/04612/2020) and LS4FUTURE Associated Laboratory (LA/P/0087/2020). Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s)Adenosine-5-triphosphate (ATP) is the main energy vector in biological systems, thus its regeneration is an important issue for the application of many enzymes of interest in biocatalysis and synthetic biology. We have developed an electroenzymatic ATP regeneration system consisting in a gold electrode modified with a floating phospholipid bilayer that allows coupling the catalytic activity of two membrane-bound enzymes: NiFeSe hydrogenase from Desulfovibrio vulgaris and F1Fo-ATP synthase from Escherichia coli. Thus, H2 is used as a fuel for producing ATP. This electro-enzymatic assembly is studied as ATP regeneration system of phosphorylation reactions catalysed by kinases, such as hexokinase and NAD+-kinase for respectively producing glucose-6-phosphate and NADP+.publishersversionpublishe

Railway infrastructure asset management: the whole-system life cost analysis

Delivering the railway infrastructure whose functionality is sustainable and uncompromised in terms of safety and availability under ever decreasing budget constraints is a great challenge. The successful accomplishment of this task relies on the effective management of individual assets within a wider whole system perspective. This is a highly complex decision-making task where mathematical models are required to enable well-informed choices. In this study, a novel modelling framework is proposed for performing the whole system lifecycle cost analysis. The framework is based on two models: railway network performance and costs. Using the former model investigations of the effects of decisions can be carried out for the individual asset and the whole system. A Petri net modelling technique is used to construct the model. A form of Monte Carlo simulation is then used to obtain model results. The infrastructure performance model is then integrated with the cost model to perform the lifecycle cost analysis. A superstructure example is presented to demonstrate the application of the approach. The results show that taking into account interdependencies among the intervention activities greatly influences, not only the performance of the infrastructure, but also its lifecycle costs and thus should be included in the cost analysis

Progress in Monte Carlo design and optimization of the Cherenkov Telescope Array

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will be an instrument covering a wide energy range in very-high-energy (VHE) gamma rays. CTA will include several types of telescopes, in order to optimize the performance over the whole energy range. Both large-scale Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of CTA super-sets (including many different possible CTA layouts as sub-sets) and smaller-scale simulations dedicated to individual aspects were carried out and are on-going. We summarize results of the prior round of large-scale simulations, show where the design has now evolved beyond the conservative assumptions of the prior round and present first results from the on-going new round of MC simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. In Proceedings of the 33rd International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2013), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). All CTA contributions at arXiv:1307.223

High-Speed Rail Versus Air Transportation: Case Study of Madrid–Barcelona, Spain.

Travel time savings, better quality of the supplied services, greater comfort for the users, and improved accessibility are the main factors of success of High Speed Rail(HSR)links. This paper presents the results from a revealed and stated preference survey conducted to both HSR and air transport users in the Madrid Barcelona corridor. The data gathered from the stated preference survey was used to calibrate a modal choice model aiming at explaining competition between HSR and air transportation in the corridor. From the model, the authors obtain that prices and service frequency are the most important variables to compete with the other mode. In addition, they found that check-in and security controls at the airport are a crucial variable for the users in their modal choice. Other policies, such as the improvement of parking facilities at the train stations, play a secondary role