Environmental impact of combined ITS traffic management strategies

Transport was responsible for 20% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in Europe during 2011 (European Environmental Agency 2013) with road transport being the key contributor. To tackle this, targets have been established in Europe and worldwide to curb transport emissions. This poses a significant challenge on Local Government and transport operators who need to identify a set of effective measures to reduce the environmental impact of road transport and at the same time keep the traffic smooth. Of the road transport pollutants, this paper considers NOx, CO2 and black carbon (BC). A particular focus is put on black carbon, which is formed through incomplete combustion of carboneous materials, as it has a significant impact on the Earth’s climate system. It absorbs solar radiation, influences cloud processes, and alters the melting of snow and ice cover (Bond et al. 2013). BC also causes serious health concerns: black carbon is associated with asthma and other respiratory problems, heart attacks and lung cancer (Sharma 2010; United States Environmental Protection Agency 2012). Since BC emissions are mainly produced during the decelerating and accelerating phases (Zhang et al. 2009), ITS actions able to reduce stop&go phases have the potential to reduce BC emissions. This paper investigates the effectiveness of combined ITS actions in urban context in reducing CO2 and BC emissions and improving traffic conditions

Executive and perceptual attention play different roles in visual working memory: Evidence from suffix and strategy effects

Four experiments studied the interfering effects of a to-be-ignored ‘stimulus suffix’ on cued recall of feature bindings for a series of objects. When each object was given equal weight (Experiment 1) or rewards favored recent items (Experiments 2 and 4), a recency effect emerged that was selectively reduced by a suffix. The reduction was greater for a ‘plausible’ suffix with features drawn from the same set as the memory items, in which case a feature of the suffix was frequently recalled as an intrusion error. Changing pay-offs to reward recall of early items led to a primacy effect alongside recency (Experiments 3 and 4). Primacy, like recency, was reduced by a suffix and the reduction was greater for a suffix with plausible features, such features often being recalled as intrusion errors. Experiment 4 revealed a trade-off such that increased primacy came at the cost of a reduction in recency. These observations show that priority instructions and recency combine to determine a limited number of items that are the most accessible for immediate recall and yet at the same time the most vulnerable to interference. We interpret this outcome in terms of a labile, limited capacity ‘privileged state’ controlled by both central executive processes and perceptual attention. We suggest further that this privileged state can be usefully interpreted as the focus of attention in the episodic buffer

Genomic Prediction of Testcross Performance in Canola (Brassica napus)

The work was funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) grant SN14/16-1 to RS and funding to RN, RS, and HJ from the European Union FP7 Marie Curie Initial Training Network INTERCROSSING

Chemical characterization of water-soluble organic carbon aerosols at a rural site in the Pearl River Delta, China, in the summer of 2006

Online measurements of water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) aerosols were made using a particle-into-liquid sampler (PILS) combined with a total organic carbon (TOC) analyzer at a rural site in the Pearl River Delta region, China, in July 2006. A macroporous nonionic (DAX-8) resin was used to quantify hydrophilic and hydrophobic WSOC, which are defined as the fractions of WSOC that penetrated through and retained on the DAX-8 column, respectively. Laboratory calibrations showed that hydrophilic WSOC (WSOCHPI) included low-molecular aliphatic dicarboxylic acids and carbonyls, saccharides, and amines, while hydrophobic WSOC (WSOCHPO) included longer-chain aliphatic dicarboxylic acids and carbonyls, aromatic acids, phenols, organic nitrates, cyclic acids, and fulvic acids. On average, total WSOC (TWSOC) accounted for 60% of OC, and WSOCHPO accounted for 60% of TWSOC. Both WSOC HIP and WSOCHPO increased with photochemical aging determined from the NOx/NOy ratio. In particular, the average WSOCHPO mass was found to increase by a factor of five within a timescale of ∼10 hours, which was substantially larger than that of WSOCHPI (by a factor of 2-3). The total increase in OC mass with photochemical aging was associated with the large increase in WSOCHPO mass. These results, combined with the laboratory calibrations, suggest that significant amounts of hydrophobic organic compounds (likely containing large carbon numbers) were produced by photochemical processing. By contrast, water-insoluble OC (WIOC) mass did not exhibit significant changes with photochemical aging, suggesting that chemical transformation of WIOC to WSOC was not a dominant process for the production of WSOC during the study period. Copyright 2009 by the American Geophysical Union

Day-to-day dynamic traffic assignment model with variable message signs and endogenous user compliance

This paper proposes a dual-time-scale, day-to-day dynamic traffic assignment model that takes into account variable message signs (VMS) and its interactions with drivers’ travel choices and adaptive learning processes. The within-day dynamic is captured by a dynamic network loading problem with en route update of path choices influenced by the VMS; the day-to-day dynamic is captured by a simultaneous route-and-departure-time adjustment process that employs bounded user rationality. Moreover, we describe the evolution of the VMS compliance rate by modeling drivers’ learning processes. We endogenize traffic dynamics, route and departure time choices, travel delays, and VMS compliance, and thereby captur their interactions and interdependencies in a holistic manner. A case study in the west end of Glasgow is carried out to understand the impact of VMS has on road congestion and route choices in both the short and long run. Our main find- ings include an adverse effect of the VMS on the network performance in the long run (the “rebound” effect), and existence of an equilibrium state where both traffic and VMS compliance are stabilized

Bifunctional CD4-DC-SIGN fusion proteins demonstrate enhanced avidity to gp120 and inhibit HIV-1 infection and dissemination.

Early stages of mucosal infection are potential targets for HIV-1 prevention. CD4 is the primary receptor in HIV-1 infection whereas DC-SIGN likely plays an important role in HIV-1 dissemination, particularly during sexual transmission. To test the hypothesis that an inhibitor simultaneously targeting both CD4 and DC-SIGN binding sites on gp120 may provide a potent anti-HIV strategy, we designed constructs by fusing the extracellular CD4 and DC-SIGN domains together with varied arrangements of the lengths of CD4, DC-SIGN and the linker. We expressed, purified and characterized a series of soluble CD4-linker–DC-SIGN (CLD) fusion proteins. Several CLDs, composed of a longer linker and an extra neck domain of DC-SIGN, had enhanced affinity for gp120 as evidenced by molecular-interaction analysis. Furthermore, such CLDs exhibited significantly enhanced neutralization activity against both laboratory-adapted and primary HIV-1 isolates. Moreover, CLDs efficiently inhibited HIV-1 infection in trans via a DC-SIGN-expressing cell line and primary human dendritic cells. This was further strengthened by the results from the human cervical explant model, showing that CLDs potently prevented both localized and disseminated infections. This is the first time that soluble DC-SIGN-based bifunctional proteins have demonstrated anti-HIV potency. Our study provides proof of the concept that targeting both CD4 and DC-SIGN binding sites on gp120 represents a novel antiviral strategy. Given that DC-SIGN binding to gp120 increases exposure of the CD4 binding site and that the soluble forms of CD4 and DC-SIGN occur in vivo, further improvement of CLDs may render them potentially useful in prophylaxis or therapeutics

Ultralow-frequency neural entrainment to pain

Nervous systems exploit regularities in the sensory environment to predict sensory input, adjust behavior, and thereby maximize fitness. Entrainment of neural oscillations allows retaining temporal regularities of sensory information, a prerequisite for prediction. Entrainment has been extensively described at the frequencies of periodic inputs most commonly present in visual and auditory landscapes (e.g., >0.5 Hz). An open question is whether neural entrainment also occurs for regularities at much longer timescales. Here, we exploited the fact that the temporal dynamics of thermal stimuli in natural environment can unfold very slowly. We show that ultralow-frequency neural oscillations preserved a long-lasting trace of sensory information through neural entrainment to periodic thermo-nociceptive input as low as 0.1 Hz. Importantly, revealing the functional significance of this phenomenon, both power and phase of the entrainment predicted individual pain sensitivity. In contrast, periodic auditory input at the same ultralow frequency did not entrain ultralow-frequency oscillations. These results demonstrate that a functionally significant neural entrainment can occur at temporal scales far longer than those commonly explored. The non-supramodal nature of our results suggests that ultralow-frequency entrainment might be tuned to the temporal scale of the statistical regularities characteristic of different sensory modalities

Enhanced Power Conversion Efficiency via Hybrid Ligand Exchange Treatment of p-Type PbS Quantum Dots.

PbS quantum dot solar cells (QDSCs) have emerged as a promising low-cost, solution-processable solar energy harvesting device and demonstrated good air stability and potential for large-scale commercial implementation. PbS QDSCs achieved a record certified efficiency of 12% in 2018 by utilizing an n+-n-p device structure. However, the p-type layer has generally suffered from low carrier mobility due to the organic ligand 1,2-ethanedithiol (EDT) that is used to modify the quantum dot (QD) surface. The low carrier mobility of EDT naturally limits the device thickness as the carrier diffusion length is limited by the low mobility. Herein, we improve the properties of the p-type layer through a two-step hybrid organic ligand treatment. By treating the p-type layer with two types of ligands, 3-mercaptopropionic acid (MPA) and EDT, the PbS QD surface was passivated by a combination of the two ligands, resulting in an overall improvement in open-circuit voltage, fill factor, and current density, leading to an improvement in the cell efficiency from 7.0 to 10.4% for the champion device. This achievement was a result of the improved QD passivation and a reduction in the interdot distance, improving charge transport through the p-type PbS quantum dot film