Building Logistics in Urban Areas; Innovations and Solutions to Decrease GHG Emissions

Construction logistics in urban areas are negatively impacting the livability in city centers. Inefficient logistics are impacting the environment, causing congestion and increasing traffic accidents. Construction workers, municipalities, and construction material suppliers should work closely to modernize the construction logistic industry. This can be achieved by innovative government policies, modernizing the transportation fleet, and the consolidation of construction materials for last-mile deliveries. A condition for successful improvements is that construction workers need to change the methods of approaching renovation construction projects. The conservative behavior of construction workers will be the biggest challenge for modernizing construction logistics

Persuasive Ways to Change Entrance Use of Buildings

People tend to use the same door every time they enter and exit a building. When certain entrances are widely preferred over others, congestion can occur. This paper describes two interventions to persuade visitors to use another entrance. The first intervention used sensory deprivation (darkness), and the second used guidance paths. The first intervention on sensory deprivation had the expected outcome. This intervention resulted in an avoidance of the darkened door. The second intervention had a result contrary to the expectations; it resulted in an increased preference for the door without guidance paths

Tire-road noise: an experimental study of tire and road design parameters

It is widely known that road traffic noise has negative influences on human health. Hence, as tire-road noise is considered to be the most dominant cause of road traffic noise above 30-50 km/h, a lot of research is performed by the two involving industries: road authorities/manufacturers and tire manufacturers. Usually, the parameters influencing exterior tire-road noise are often examined separately, whereas it is the tire-road interaction which obviously causes the actual noise. An integral approach, i.e. assessing possible measures to reduce tire-road noise from both the road and the tire point of view, is needed to further reduce traffic noise. In a project Silent Safe Traffic, this tire-road interaction is studied in more detail without focusing on either tire or road but looking at the tire-road system. In this publication we present experimental results of tire and road design parameters influencing tire-road noise from a fixed reference tire-road configuration. The influence of tire tread pattern, compound and construction as well as the influence of road roughness, acoustic absorption and driving speed on the exterior tire-road noise, measured by a CPX-set up, is reported. Keywords: Tire, Road, Measuremen

Towards validation of the Internet Census 2012

The reliability of the ``Internet Census 2012'' (IC), an anonymously published scan of the entire IPv4 address space, is not a priori clear. As a step towards validation of this dataset, we compare it to logged reference data on a /16 network, and present an approach to systematically handle uncertainties in timestamps in the IC and reference data. We find evidence the scan indeed took place, and a 93\% match with the /16 reference data

Genetics in heart failure:where are we headed?

Heart failure is a complex disease with many precipitating factors. Novel insights into the genetic background of heart failure have boosted new areas of research that gave rise to the concept of genetic predisposition for heart failure. Various genetic defects and variances have been identified and subsequently linked to the onset of or progression to heart failure. Nevertheless, our understanding of the genetic basis for heart failure is incomplete because we lack knowledge of the functionality of genetic variances. We also do not understand the impact of genetic variances in noncoding DNA because of logistic problems in performing whole-genome scans and difficulties in statistical evaluation of large amounts of data generated by the genetic boom. It is expected that in the future we will be able to overcome these problems and apply the knowledge gained by genetic analyses to target and optimize treatment.</p

Cancer and heart disease:associations and relations

Emerging evidence supports that cancer incidence is increased in patients with cardiovascular (CV) disease and heart failure (HF), and patients with HF frequently die from cancer. Recently, data have been generated showing that circulating factors in relation to HF promote tumour growth and development in murine models, providing proof that a causal relationship exists between both diseases. Several common pathophysiological mechanisms linking HF to cancer exist, and include inflammation, neuro-hormonal activation, oxidative stress and a dysfunctional immune system. These shared mechanisms, in combination with risk factors, in concert may explain why patients with HF are prone to develop cancer. Investigating the new insights linking HF with cancer is rapidly becoming an exciting new field of research, and we herein review the most recent data. Besides insights in mechanisms, we call for clinical awareness, that is essential to optimize treatment strategies of patients having developed cancer with a history of HF. Finally, ongoing and future trials should strive for comprehensive phenotyping of both CV and cancer end points, to allow optimal usefulness of data, and to better describe and understand common characteristics of these two lethal diseases