Do speed bumps really decrease traffic speed? An Italian experience

Italy introduced the extensive use of speed bumps only in 1990, in an attempt to limit the high number of fatalities involving pedestrians in urban streets caused by the high speed of vehicles. In many countries, such devices have been the subject of careful investigations (in order to assess their effectiveness and disadvantages for the traffic circulation) and this has resulted in a number of modifications in the design to improve their performance. On the contrary, no systematic and scientific studies have been carried out on Italian installations: moreover, the type of undulation adopted is known to produce a series of problems for some categories of users and is not so effective in reducing speed as larger devices such as 'speed humps' or 'speed cushions'. This paper proposes a study of the effectiveness of 23 speed bumps installed in the city of Cagliari; to this aim, a speed analysis was performed at speed bump locations, at the crosswalks protected by the devices and at sections of the streets where bumps are installed but far from them. The results show that in one third of the cases the 85th percentile of speed measured at the speed bumps is higher than the posted speed limit (50 km/h) and an equal percentage of vehicles travel at a speed in the range of 45-50 km/h. No statistically significant differences were found from the comparison of speed values observed in free, bump or crosswalk sections of the same streets, while speed profiles calculated at four sites, where a high percentage of braking vehicles was observed, showed a common trend from which it clearly emerges that the effect of the device on driver's behaviour is restricted to a short spatial range (about 20-30 m before and after the bump). The current situation thus suggests the use of more effective devices such as humps or cushions, or the integration of speed bumps with other traffic calming techniques.     

A Petri-Net Approach to Modular Supervision With Conflict Resolution for Semiconductor Manufacturing Systems

In a semiconductor manufacturing system, particular human operations may violate desired requirements and lead to destructive failure. For such human-in-the-loop systems, this paper proposes a supervisory framework which guarantees that manual operations meet required specifications so as to prevent human errors in operation using Petri nets. Moreover, a modular technique with an intersection mechanism is proposed in order to cope with the state-space explosion problem of large-scale systems. A rapid thermal process in semiconductor manufacturing systems is provided to show the practicability of the proposed approach. Note to Practitioners - This work was motivated by the requirement of remote monitoring and supervision of semiconductor manufacturing systems. In such human-in-the-loop and large-scale systems, certain human operations may violate desired safety requirements and result in catastrophic failure. Moreover, the overall complexity of most existing Petri net modeling and analysis approaches significantly increases with the size of the considered systems. This paper suggests a modular supervisory scheme for modeling and synthesis of supervisory agents using Petri nets. The proposed method contributes a promising tool for preventing abnormal operations from being carried out to semiconductor manufacturing systems which, if appropriately modified, may be also applied to other types of discrete event systems.     

Temperature and emissivity separation from ASTER data for low spectral contrast surfaces

The performance of Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) thermal infrared (TIR) data product algorithms was evaluated for low spectral contrast surfaces (such as vegetation and water) in a test site close to Valencia, Spain. Concurrent ground measurements of surface temperature, emissivity, and atmospheric radiosonde profiles were collected at the test site, which is a thermally homogeneous area of rice crops with nearly full vegetation cover in summer. Using the ground data and the local radiosonde profiles, at-sensor radiances were simulated for the ASTER TIR channels and compared with L1B data (calibrated at-sensor radiances) showing discrepancies up to 3% in radiance for channel 10 at 8.3 μm (equivalently, 2.5 °C in temperature or 7% in emissivity), whereas channel 13 (10.7 μm) yielded a closer agreement (maximum difference of 0.5% in radiance or 0.4 °C in temperature). We also tested the ASTER standard products of land surface temperature (LST) and spectral emissivity generated with the Temperature-Emissivity Separation (TES) algorithm with standard atmospheric correction from both global data assimilation system profiles and climatology profiles. These products showed anomalous emissivity spectra with lower emissivity values and larger spectral contrast (or maximum-minimum emissivity difference, MMD) than expected, and as a result, overestimated LSTs. In this work, a scene-based procedure is proposed to obtain more accurate MMD estimates for low spectral contrast materials (vegetation and water) and therefore a better retrieval of LST and emissivity with the TES algorithm. The method uses various gray-bodies or near gray-bodies with known emissivities and assumes that the calibration and atmospheric correction performed with local radiosonde data are accurate for channel 13. Taking the channel 13 temperature (atmospherically and emissivity corrected) as the true LST, the radiances for the other channels were simulated and used to derive linear relationships between ASTER digital numbers and at-ground radiances for each channel. The TES algorithm was applied to the adjusted radiances and the resulting products showed a closer agreement with the ground measurements (differences lower than 1% in channel 13 emissivities and within ± 0.3 °C in temperature for rice and sea pixels).     

Beyond parallel play: Science befriending the art of method acting to advance healing relationships.

Research underscores the central role of factors in healing that appear to relate to the therapeutic relationship. These nonspecific or common factors and placebo effects are often overshadowed by an emphasis in the field on particular empirically supported therapies. Yet relationship variables account for a greater proportion of the variance in treatment outcomes than the technical intervention employed, representing a notable blind spot in our science and, by extension, our practice. As a consequence, clinical instruction in psychology and in the health professions more broadly generally lacks adequate specificity with respect to how to cultivate a healing relationship. Through the elaboration of several techniques derived from theatrical traditions, the authors propose that method acting and similar schools of drama provide a method for honing clinical skills in these areas that is amenable to empirical scrutiny. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Docosahexaenoic acid production from crude glycerol by <Emphasis Type="Italic">Schizochytrium limacinum</Emphasis> SR21

In our search for a substitute energy source, microalgal biodiesel has presented itself as a potential candidate. However, the development of biodiesel results in the overproduction of crude glycerol, which can cause undesirable environmental issues. The environmental harm can be minimized by converting crude glycerol into value-added products. One solution involves using a microalga Schizochytrium limacinum SR21 to convert crude glycerol into docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). DHA is an essential fatty acid, necessary for developing brain functions in infants and maintaining healthy brain activity in adults. In our study, the highest DHA productivity of 233.73 mg/g biomass was obtained using 3 % crude glycerol in Medium 2 at 20 °C under mixo/heterotrophic cultivation.     

Towards quantifying tropical tree species richness in tropical forests

This letter reports tests of whether the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) and radar backscatter (C‐, L‐ and P‐bands) from Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) imagery can be used to estimate tree species richness from 25 1‐ha plots within continuous lowland forest types (dry, moist, wet) in the Panama Canal Zone Watershed. Species richness for trees ranged from 49 to 98 species per ha. There was no evidence that density, basal area, above‐ground biomass or P‐backscatter was correlated with tree species richness. Mean and standard deviations (SDs) of the NDVI could explain 39% and 37% of the variance in tree species richness, respectively (41% when combined), while mean radar backscatter in the shorter wavelength C‐ and L‐bands could explain 44% and 33% of the variance in tree species richness, respectively (50% when combined).     

In situ validation of MERIS marine reflectance off the southwest Iberian Peninsula: assessment of vicarious adjustment and corrections for near-land adjacency

Water-leaving reflectance (ρ_w) data from the European Space Agency ocean colour sensor Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) was validated with in situ ρ_w between October 2008 and November 2011, off Sagres on the southwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The study area is exceptional, since Stations A, B, and C at 2, 10, and 18 km offshore are in optically deep waters at approximately 40, 100, and 160 m, respectively. These stations showed consistently similar bio-optical properties, characteristic of Case 1 waters, enabling the evaluation of adjacency effects independent of the usual co-varying inputs of coastal waters. Using the third reprocessing of MERIS with the standard MEGS 8.1 processor, four different combinations of procedures were tested to improve the calibration between MERIS products and in situ data. These combinations included no vicarious adjustment (NoVIC), vicarious adjustment (VIC), and, for mitigating the effects of land adjacency on MERIS ρ_w, the improved contrast between ocean and land (ICOL) processor (version 2.7.4) and VIC + ICOL. Out of approximately 130 potential matchups for each station, 38–77%, 74–86%, and 88–90% were achieved at Stations A, B, and C, respectively, depending on which of the four combinations were used. Analyses of ρ_w comparing these various procedures, including statistics, scatter plots, histograms, and MERIS full-resolution images, showed that the VIC procedure compared with NoVIC produced minimal changes to the calibration. For example, at the oceanic Station C, the regression slope was closer to unity at all wavelengths with NoVIC compared to VIC, whereas, with the exception of wavelengths 412 and 443 nm, the intercept, mean ratio (MR), absolute percentage difference (APD), and relative percentage difference (RPD) were better with NoVIC. The differences for MR and APD indicate that there was marginal improvement for these two bands with VIC, and an over-adjustment with RPD. ICOL also showed inconsistent results for improving the retrieval of the near-shore conditions, but under some conditions, such as ρ_w at wavelength 560 nm, the improvement was striking. VIC + ICOL showed results intermediate between those of VIC and ICOL implemented separately. In relation to other validation sites, the offshore Station C at Sagres had much in common with the Mediterranean deep water, BOUSSOLE buoy, although the matchup statistics between MERIS ρ_w and in situ ρ_w were much better for Sagres than for BOUSSOLE. Strikingly, the matchup statistics for ρ_w at Sagres were very similar to those for the Acqua Alta Oceanographic Tower (AAOT), where the AAOT showed more scatter at 412 nm, probably because of the atmospheric correction where the aerosol optical thickness is higher at the AAOT. Conversely, Sagres showed much greater scatter at 665 nm in the red as the values were generally close to the limits of detection owing to the clearer waters at Sagres compared to the more turbid waters at the AAOT.     

Architecture-based resilience evaluation for self-adaptive systems

One of the major challenges related to self-adaptive software systems is the provision of assurances that the system is resilient against changes that may occur either in the system or its environment. These assurances should be based on complementary sources of evidence that collectively justify that the system is able to attain the specified levels of resilience. The contribution of this paper is the definition and development of an architecture-based approach that evaluates by comparison the adaptation mechanisms of a self-adaptive software system. The proposed approach relies on the identification of representative environmental and system changeloads (i.e., sequences of changes) used in the run-time stimulation of the system. The system response obtained from this stimulation is collected and aggregated into a probabilistic model that is employed in the evaluation of system resilience. Our approach is intended to be used before deployment, since the process often involves putting the system through adverse conditions which are not adequate when the system is in production. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated in the context of Rainbow, an architecture-based platform for self- adaptation, and Znn.com, a case study that reproduces the typical infrastructure for a news website.     

Ground measurements for the validation of land surface temperatures derived from AATSR and MODIS data

An experimental site was set up in a large, flat and homogeneous area of rice crops for the validation of satellite derived land surface temperature (LST). Experimental campaigns were held in the summers of 2002-2004, when rice crops show full vegetation cover. LSTs were measured radiometrically along transects covering an area of 1 km². A total number of four thermal radiometers were used, which were calibrated and inter-compared through the campaigns. Radiometric temperatures were corrected for emissivity effects using field emissivity and downwelling sky radiance measurements. A database of ground-based LSTs corresponding to morning, cloud-free overpasses of Envisat/Advanced Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) and Terra/Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) is presented. Ground LSTs ranged from 25 to 32 °C, with uncertainties between ± 0.5 and ± 0.9 °C. The largest part of these uncertainties was due to the spatial variability of surface temperature. The database was used for the validation of LSTs derived from the operational AATSR and MODIS split-window algorithms, which are currently used to generate the LST product in the L2 level data. A quadratic, emissivity dependent split-window equation applicable to both AATSR and MODIS data was checked as well. Although the number of cases analyzed is limited (five concurrences for AATSR and eleven for MODIS), it can be concluded that the split-window algorithms work well, provided that the characteristics of the area are adequately prescribed, either through the classification of the land cover type and the vegetation cover, or with the surface emissivity. In this case, the AATSR LSTs yielded an average error or bias of − 0.9 °C (ground minus algorithm), with a standard deviation of 0.9 °C. The MODIS LST product agreed well with the ground LSTs, with differences comparable or smaller than the uncertainties of the ground measurements for most of the days (bias of + 0.1 °C and standard deviation of 0.6 °C, for cloud-free cases and viewing angles smaller than 60°). The quadratic split-window algorithm resulted in small average errors (+ 0.3 °C for AATSR and 0.0 °C for MODIS), with differences not exceeding ± 1.0 °C for most of the days (standard deviation of 0.9 °C for AATSR and 0.5 °C for MODIS).     

Airway Delivery of Hydrogel-Encapsulated Niclosamide for the Treatment of Inflammatory Airway Disease

Repurposing of the anthelminthic drug niclosamide was proposed as an effective treatment for inflammatory airway diseases such as asthma, cystic fibrosis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Niclosamide may also be effective for the treatment of viral respiratory infections, such as SARS-CoV-2, respiratory syncytial virus, and influenza. While systemic application of niclosamide may lead to unwanted side effects, local administration via aerosol may circumvent these problems, particularly when the drug is encapsulated into small polyethylene glycol (PEG) hydrospheres. In the present study, we examined whether PEG-encapsulated niclosamide inhibits the production of mucus and affects the pro-inflammatory mediator CLCA1 in mouse airways in vivo, while effects on mucociliary clearance were assessed in excised mouse tracheas. The potential of encapsulated niclosamide to inhibit TMEM16A whole-cell Cl⁻ currents and intracellular Ca²⁺ signalling was assessed in airway epithelial cells in vitro. We achieved encapsulation of niclosamide in PEG-microspheres and PEG-nanospheres (Niclo-spheres). When applied to asthmatic mice via intratracheal instillation, Niclo-spheres strongly attenuated overproduction of mucus, inhibited secretion of the major proinflammatory mediator CLCA1, and improved mucociliary clearance in tracheas ex vivo. These effects were comparable for niclosamide encapsulated in PEG-nanospheres and PEG-microspheres. Niclo-spheres inhibited the Ca²⁺ activated Cl⁻ channel TMEM16A and attenuated mucus production in CFBE and Calu-3 human airway epithelial cells. Both inhibitory effects were explained by a pronounced inhibition of intracellular Ca²⁺ signals. The data indicate that poorly dissolvable compounds such as niclosamide can be encapsulated in PEG-microspheres/nanospheres and deposited locally on the airway epithelium as encapsulated drugs, which may be advantageous over systemic application.