Repeatability of on-road routes and a comparison of on-road routes to the federal test procedure

West Virginia University has developed a Mobile Emissions Measurement System that recorded vehicle, engine, and exhaust behavior during in-use testing. This system obtained data from numerous vehicles over specified on-road routes. A study was conducted on on-road route repeatability. A methodology for finding repeatability had to be established, and factors influencing repeatability were identified. It was found that routes and drivers significantly influenced repeatability, and that further study of a larger sample group needs to be conducted before specific conclusions could be drawn about the influences of the vehicle on repeatability.;A further study was conducted on how well the on-road routes compare to the federal emissions test. Engine behavior for on road testing was binned and compared to the federal certification test. It was found that routes that contained substantial portions of urban traffic were more representative of the federal test procedure than routes with mostly freeway driving

Comment on: On the role of data, statistics and decisions in a pandemic statistics for climate protection and health-dare (more) progress!

In the Corona pandemic, it became clear with burning clarity how much good quality statistics are needed, and at the same time how unsuccessful we are at providing such statistics despite the existing technical and methodological possibilities and diverse data sources. It is therefore more than overdue to get to the bottom of the causes of these issues and to learn from the findings. This defines a high aspiration, namely that firstly a diagnosis is carried out in which the causes of the deficiencies with their interactions are identified as broadly as possible. Secondly, such a broad diagnosis should result in a therapy that includes a coherent strategy that can be generalised, i.e. that goes beyond the Corona pandemic

Attract-Motivate-Retain Millennials: A Job Design Perspective from Thern, Inc.

The process of defining the way work will be performed, called job design, is one of the most important aspects of a running an efficient and effective business. Not only is job design imperative to the success of a business, but also to the overall satisfaction of employees. We will be focusing our research of job design on Thern Inc. To specify the aspect of the company’s job design, we will be analyzing the company’s employee retention, the balance between work and life, college recruiting the company does, and how the company appeals to the younger generation. We will be using theories such as the Job Characteristics Model to analyze the performance of Thern’s job design methods. This performance will be determined by interviewing employees, communicating with the company’s head of HR, and comparing this information we find to current industry trends.https://openriver.winona.edu/urc2019/1014/thumbnail.jp

Renal Athersosclerotic reVascularization Evaluation (RAVE Study): Study protocol of a randomized trial [NCT00127738]

BACKGROUND: It is uncertain whether patients with renal vascular disease will have renal or mortality benefit from re-establishing renal blood flow with renal revascularization procedures. The RAVE study will compare renal revascularization to medical management for people with atherosclerotic renal vascular disease (ARVD) and the indication for revascularization. Patients will be assessed for the standard nephrology research outcomes of progression to doubling of creatinine, need for dialysis, and death, as well as other cardiovascular outcomes. We will also establish whether the use of a new inexpensive, simple and available ultrasound test, the renal resistance index (RRI), can identify patients with renal vascular disease who will not benefit from renal revascularization procedures[1]. METHODS/DESIGN: This single center randomized, parallel group, pilot study comparing renal revascularization with medical therapy alone will help establish an infrastructure and test the feasibility of answering this important question in clinical nephrology. The main outcome will be a composite of death, dialysis and doubling of creatinine. Knowledge from this study will be used to better understand the natural history of patients diagnosed with renal vascular disease in anticipation of a Canadian multicenter trial. Data collected from this study will also inform the Canadian Hypertension Education Program (CHEP) Clinical Practice Guidelines for the management of Renal and Renal Vascular Disease. The expectation is that this program for ARVD, will enable community based programs to implement a comprehensive guidelines based diagnostic and treatment program, help create an evidence based approach for the management of patients with this condition, and possibly reduce or halt the progression of kidney disease in these patients. DISCUSSION: Results from this study will determine the feasibility of a multicentered study for the management of renovascular disease

Climate Policy after Doha: Turning Obstacles into Solutions

The international climate policy is in big trouble. The governments of the world cannot agree on a reasonable, enforceable cap on global CO2 emissions – not today and not in the future. Concerning a strict enough cap, this issue is politically not handleable today, because this would directly interfere with the options of countries to generate future economic growth. Problems in this respect are politically unfeasible.The present text, therefore, argues for a new approach, for thinking out of the box, for overcoming the traps the negotiations are stuck in at the moment. The idea is to have governments agreeing only on a relaxed instead of a strict cap. This is politically much easier to achieve. In the text, we show that a relaxed cap is sufficient to solve the climate issue, if the private sector can be motivated to do the rest, given that there is an enforceable relaxed cap in place. The private sector can use at least two wild cards to contribute to this aim, and it can do this within the framework of climate neutrality for companies, organizations, and individuals to take legal CO2 certificates out of order on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to plant trees (all over the world for the purpose of biological sequestration) and to do this in huge volumes