Precise vehicle location as a fundamental parameter for intelligent selfaware rail-track maintenance systems

The rail industry in the UK is undergoing substantial changes in response to a modernisation vision for 2040. Development and implementation of these will lead to a highly automated and safe railway. Real-time regulation of traffic will optimise the performance of the network, with trains running in succession within an adjacent movable safety zone. Critically, maintenance will use intelligent trainborne and track-based systems. These will provide accurate and timely information for condition based intervention at precise track locations, reducing possession downtime and minimising the presence of workers in operating railways. Clearly, precise knowledge of trains’ real-time location is of paramount importance. The positional accuracy demand of the future railway is less than 2m. A critical consideration of this requirement is the capability to resolve train occupancy in adjacent tracks, with the highest degree of confidence. A finer resolution is required for locating faults such as damage or missing parts, precisely. Location of trains currently relies on track signalling technology. However, these systems mostly provide an indication of the presence of trains within discrete track sections. The standard Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), cannot precisely and reliably resolve location as required either. Within the context of the needs of the future railway, state of the art location technologies and systems were reviewed and critiqued. It was found that no current technology is able to resolve location as required. Uncertainty is a significant factor. A new integrated approach employing complimentary technologies and more efficient data fusion process, can potentially offer a more accurate and robust solution. Data fusion architectures enabling intelligent self-aware rail-track maintenance systems are proposed

Cost modelling for cloud computing utilisation in long term digital preservation

The rapid increase in volume of digital information can cause concern among organisations regarding manageability, costs and security of their information in the long-term. As cloud computing technology is often used for digital preservation purposes and is still evolving, there is difficulty in determining its long-term costs. This paper presents the development of a generic cost model for public and private clouds utilisation in long term digital preservation (LTDP), considering the impact of uncertainties and obsolescence issues. The cost model consists of rules and assumptions and was built using a combination of activity based and parametric cost estimation techniques. After generation of cost breakdown structures for both clouds, uncertainties and obsolescence were categorised. To quantify impacts of uncertainties on cost, three-point estimate technique was employed and Monte Carlo simulation was applied to generate the probability distribution on each cost driver. A decision support cost estimation tool with dashboard representation of results was developed

Verification and validation of a Work Domain Analysis with turing machine task analysis

International audienc

Effects of color codes used on marine supervision HMI on mental workload and information retrieval: Experimentations with novices and experts

International audienc

Experimental Verification of Ecological Interface Prototype Issued by an Automated Generation Tool

International audienceVicente and Rasmussen have developed a method called Ecological Interface Design (EID) in the field of cognitive engineering[1]. In this context, we proposed a software tool named Anaxagore, that can assist the EID processfor a rapid implementation of user interface prototypes. In a first stage, models based on standardized structure-functional diagramare computed[2]. In a second stage, these diagrams as inputs are transformed through a model-driven engineering process, involving a library of ecological graphical representations and an interface background. Then, an ecological interface prototypecan be generated. Previously, Anaxagore was used to generate conventional synoptic representation[3]. To validate its EID extended version, an experimental protocol has been established. The experiment was conducted at the National Maritime College, with 14 naval officers randomly divided into two groups according to the used interface. After a preliminary training of participants to the use of the interfaces, four scenarios were simulated during the experiment. For each scenario, the performance was evaluated by a success score and by measuring the time to detect and understand failure. With the EID interface generated by Anaxagore, faster detection time and betterdiagnosis accuracy were observed. Anaxagore seems to constitute a response forassisting the rapid prototyping of ecological interface

A highly virulent variant of HIV-1 circulating in the Netherlands

We discovered a highly virulent variant of subtype-B HIV-1 in the Netherlands. One hundred nine individuals with this variant had a 0.54 to 0.74 log10 increase (i.e., a ~3.5-fold to 5.5-fold increase) in viral load compared with, and exhibited CD4 cell decline twice as fast as, 6604 individuals with other subtype-B strains. Without treatment, advanced HIV-CD4 cell counts below 350 cells per cubic millimeter, with long-term clinical consequences-is expected to be reached, on average, 9 months after diagnosis for individuals in their thirties with this variant. Age, sex, suspected mode of transmission, and place of birth for the aforementioned 109 individuals were typical for HIV-positive people in the Netherlands, which suggests that the increased virulence is attributable to the viral strain. Genetic sequence analysis suggests that this variant arose in the 1990s from de novo mutation, not recombination, with increased transmissibility and an unfamiliar molecular mechanism of virulence