Seeking factors to increase the public’s acceptability of road-pricing schemes: case study of Spain

User acceptability has become a critical issue for the successful implementation of transport pricing measures and policies. Although several studies have addressed the public acceptability of road pricing, little evidence can be found of the effects of pricing strategies. The acceptability of alternative schemes for a toll network already in operation is an issue to be tackled. This paper contributes to the limited literature in this field by exploring perceptions toward road-pricing schemes among toll road users. On the basis of a nationwide survey of toll road users in Spain, the study developed several binomial logit models to analyze user acceptability of three approaches: express toll lanes, a time-based pricing approach, and a flat fee (vignette) system. The results show notable differences in user acceptability by the type of charging scheme proposed. Express toll lanes were more acceptable by travelers who perceived greater benefits from saving travel time. The acceptability of time-based approaches (peak versus off-peak) decreased for users who felt forced to use the toll road, whereas this was not an aspect that significantly influenced users’ support for flat fee schemes. In addition, a flat fee strategy was more acceptable for long-distance trips and truck drivers who regularly used the toll facilities. The results from this analysis can inform policy makers and planners for the promotion of more efficient, socially inclusive, and publicly acceptable road-pricing schemes

Agent Programming in Ciao Prolog

The agent programming landscape has been revealed as a natural framework for developing “intelligence” in AI. This can be seen from the extensive use of the agent concept in presenting (and developing) AI systems, the proliferation of agent theories, and the evolution of concepts such as agent societies (social intelligence) and coordination

High-order well-balanced methods for systems of balance laws: a control-based approach

In some previous works, two of the authors have introduced a strategy to develop high-order numerical methods for systems of balance laws that preserve all the stationary solutions of the system. The key ingredient of these methods is a well-balanced reconstruction operator. A strategy has been also introduced to modify any standard reconstruction operator like MUSCL, ENO, CWENO, etc. in order to be well-balanced. This strategy involves a non-linear problem at every cell at every time step that consists in finding the stationary solution whose average is the given cell value. So far this strategy has been only applied to systems whose stationary solution are known either in explicit or implicit form. The goal of this paper is to present a general implementation of this technique that can be applied to any system of balance laws. To do this, the nonlinear problems to be solved in the reconstruction procedure are interpreted as control problems: they consist in finding a solution of an ODE system whose average at the computation interval is given. These problems are written in functional form and the gradient of the functional is computed on the basis of the adjoint problem. Newton’s method is applied then to solve the problems. Special care is put to analyze the effects of computing the averages and the source terms using quadrature formulas. To test their efficiency and well-balancedness, the methods are applied to a number of systems of balance laws, ranging from easy academic systems consisting of Burgers equation with some nonlinear source terms to the shallow water equations or Euler equations of gas dynamics with gravity effects

Implicit exactly well-balanced finite volume schemes for balance laws with singular source terms

Política de acceso abierto del editor: http://biblioteca.cchs.csic.es/registro_buscareditoriales.php?id=82

¿Están los marcadores de inflamación asociados con una mayor mortalidad en pacientes con fractura de cadera?

Objetivo: Estudiar el efecto que tiene el tratamiento antiagregante sobre la mortalidad en los ancianos que han sufrido una fractura de cadera, así como de otras variables de riesgo asociadas a los ancianos antiagregados con respecto a los no antiagregados, cuando ingresan por fractura de cadera. Pacientes y método: Sobre 1242 pacientes que ingresaron entre el 1 de enero de 2016 y el 31 de diciembre de 2018 en HCU Lozano Blesa, se recogieron los siguientes datos: edad, sexo, demora quirúrgica, número de comorbilidades, toma de AAS o clopidogrel, y fecha de defunción. Se crearon dos cohortes, pacientes antiagregados y no antiagregados, para el análisis estadístico.Resultados: Los pacientes antiagregados son significativamente más ancianos, sufren de más demora quirúrgica y de mayor número de comorbilidades. Todas estas variables aumentan significativamente la mortalidad post-fractura de cadera, medida al mes y a los 24 meses. Por contra, los pacientes antiagregados no tienen un aumento significativo de la mortalidad, frente a los no antiagregados.Conclusión: La toma de antiagregantes podría ejercer de factor de protección en el estudio de la mortalidad en la fractura de cadera, siendo sus características antinflamatorias una de las posibles causas de este efecto. Aunque este estudio dispone de una muestra grande, se precisa de una investigación más potente para esclarecer definitivamente qué papel ejercen en la evolución de la fractura de cadera.<br /

A new religious complex from the Roman imperial age in Colonia Patricia. The place of worship in Tejón y Marín street 14 (Córdoba)

En este artículo damos a conocer un complejo cultual romano descubierto hace unos años en Córdoba y que, hasta la fecha, ha permanecido inédito. Gracias a la revisión y al estudio crítico de la documentación disponible, hemos podido identificar un recinto sacro público o semipúblico levantado a finales del siglo I a.C. a escasa distancia de la muralla, y que con posterioridad (segunda mitad del siglo I d.C.) fue reformado puntualmente. Se trata de uno de los escasos recintos religiosos urbanos intramuros (al margen de los fora) documentados arqueológicamente hasta la fecha en Hispania, y además uno de los más antiguos. Dicha circunstancia ha motivado un estudio en el que hemos profundizado en aspectos como su inserción topográfica y su caracterización arquitectónica. Asimismo, también hemos optado por examinar su proceso de abandono (siglo IV) y su posterior reocupación funeraria y doméstica (siglos IV-VI), contextualizando la información disponible a escala local y supralocal con el fin de proporcionar una imagen lo más completa posible.The aim of this contribution is to share an unpublished Roman religious complex discovered some years ago in Cordoba. Thanks to the review and the critical analysis of the available information, it has been possible to identify a public or semi-public cult building erected by the end of the first century BC. Located very close to the perimeter wall, it was remodelled in the second half of the first century AD. At this moment, it is one of the few religious buildings in urbe (apart from the fora) archaeologically documented in Hispania, and probably one of the oldest. For these reasons, we have carried out extensive research about some features of the religious complex such as its topographical position and its architectural style. We have also looked into why it was abandoned in the fourth century AD, and its later domestic and funerary reoccupation (fourth to sixth centuries AD). We have put the available local information in its context and taken its wider geographical context into account, in order to give the fullest possible picture of this ancient building

Collocation Methods for High-Order Well-Balanced Methods for Systems of Balance Laws

In some previous works, two of the authors introduced a technique to design high-order numerical methods for one-dimensional balance laws that preserve all their stationary solutions. The basis of these methods is a well-balanced reconstruction operator. Moreover, they introduced a procedure to modify any standard reconstruction operator, like MUSCL, ENO, CWENO, etc., in order to be well-balanced. This strategy involves a non-linear problem at every cell at every time step that consists in finding the stationary solution whose average is the given cell value. In a recent paper, a fully well-balanced method is presented where the non-linear problems to be solved in the reconstruction procedure are interpreted as control problems. The goal of this paper is to introduce a new technique to solve these local non-linear problems based on the application of the collocation RK methods. Special care is put to analyze the effects of computing the averages and the source terms using quadrature formulas. A general technique which allows us to deal with resonant problems is also introduced. To check the efficiency of the methods and their well-balance property, they have been applied to a number of tests, ranging from easy academic systems of balance laws consisting of Burgers equation with some non-linear source terms to the shallow water equations—without and with Manning friction—or Euler equations of gas dynamics with gravity effects

Tratamiento interdisciplinar desde un dispositivo especializado en familia: ejemplificación de un caso

El presente artículo aborda la atención a una familia desde un dispositivo de Tratamiento Familiar inserto en el Sistema Público de Servicios Sociales. En primer lugar se ofrece una visión del contexto, pues determina la tipología de población a la que se atiende y la manera de llevar a cabo la intervención. Posteriormente se muestra la evolución personal de una familia por diferentes dispositivos, a lo largo de un proceso que duraría años, y a través del tratamiento que llevaron a cabo, hacia un cambio que les permitió reconstruirse como personas y posteriormente como familia. De este proceso se deriva una discusión acerca de aspectos que nos sugiere el trabajo realizado, una vez transcurrido el tiempo.This article deals with the attention given to a family from the Family Treatment office which forms part of the Public Social Service System. First we will offer a general overview since this will determine the typology of the population attended to and the way that the intervention is carried out. Then, the personal evolution of a family is described by different criteria, throughout a process that lasts years, and through treatments that were carried out. All of this heading towards a change that allowed them to redefine themselves as people and later as a family. This process lends itself to a discussion about the aspects that came up from the project carried out, once a period of time has passed

Does She Kill Like He Kills? Comparison of Homicides Committed by Women with Homicides Committed by Men in Spain

The homicides committed by women make up between 5 and 15% of the total number of homicides recorded in the world. Studies based on the gender of the perpetrator have been uncommon due to the low level of prevalence of female homicide offenders, but this tendency is currently undergoing a change. Nonetheless, in general, there is still limited knowledge of the role of women in serious crime, which makes the task of criminal policy more difficult. Therefore, the present investigation seeks to perform a comparative analysis of the homicides committed by women (n = 56) with those committed by men (n = 521). The cases in this sample correspond to homicides solved in Spain by the Civil Guard between the years 2013 and 2018. The findings of the study show that homicides by women have distinctive characteristics, with 3 out of every 4 taking place in the family environment, and these being dominated by cases of filicide. The victims are underage males with some type of vulnerability and a mental disorder. The female perpetrators tend to have a partner and live with somebody, have a mental disorder and do not present a prior criminal record. With regard to the crime, homicides perpetrated by women take place in the afternoon, without witnesses and in residences; when it comes to the criminal behaviours, they use weapons of opportunity, above all asphyxiating methods, they alter the scene and do not flee from the scene of the crim