Training Complex for Remote Study of Microcontrollers

This paper describes the use of technology of satellite and mobile communication for remote study of mictocontrollers.

Adaptive power and rate control for QoS guarantee of DSRC based collaborative road safety applications

In this paper we propose an adaptive power and message rate control method for safety applications at road intersections. The design objectives are to firstly provide guaranteed QoS support to both high priority emergency safety applications and low priority routine safety applications and secondly maximize channel utilization. We use an offline simulation based approach to find out the best possible configurations of transmit power and message rate for given numbers of vehicles in the network with certain safety QoS requirements. The identified configurations are then used online by roadside access points (AP) adaptively according to estimated number of vehicles. Simulation results show that this adaptive method could provide required QoS support to safety applications and it significantly outperforms a fixed control method. © 2013 International Information Institute.

E-közigazgatás Európában? Jelen és jövő (E-Government in Europe)

A jövő közigazgatásában az ügyfélbarát ügyfélszolgálat több olyan elektronikus csatornán is jelen lesz, amelyek csoportját jelenleg az on-line internetkapcsolat, a mobiltelefon és az interaktív digitális televízió, a jövőben az on-line interaktív multimédia képviseli. Az európai elektronikus közigazgatási fejlődési trend arra mutat, hogy a jövőben internet, mobilinternet és/vagy intelligens kábel tv technológiát alkalmazva, egy virtuálisan élő ügyintézővel beszélgetve juthat az ügyfél információhoz, foglalhat időpontot és indíthat érdemi ügyintézést. ________ In the course of future’s customer friendly public administration there will be some info-communication channels which are represented today by the on-line Internet accessibility, mobile telephones, and interactive digital television and the forthcoming interactive multimedia. The European trend of the development of public administration relies on Internet mobile Internet and/or intelligent cable television technology employing virtual adminsitrators as real time partner sin obtaining office information, booking appointments or launching adminsitration workflow.

Hatalmi távolság és intézményi kollektivizmus – a versenyképesség előrejelzése szövegelemzéssel (Power distance and institutional collectivism – Forecast of competitiveness by text analysis)

A tárgyalófelek elé kitett mobiltelefon alkalmazása előrejelzi a beszélgetőpartnerek versenyképességét a versenyképesség-mutatók alapján, javaslatokat adva a tárgyalás további menetére. Ez a vízió nyilván még futurisztikus, ám a csúcsvezetői nyilatkozatok rejtett szövegtartalma alapján következtetéseket levonni a képviselt szervezetek versenyképességi orientációira – ez már ma lehetőség. A GLOBE-projekt kultúrakutatási módszertanával, valamint szövegelemzési módszerekkel sikerült kimutatni a versenyképességet előrejelző hatalmi távolság és az intézményi kollektivizmus szövegbeli jeleit. Mindez eszközt jelenthet egyebek mellett a szervezetfejlesztéssel, hírszerzéssel, HR-gazdálkodással foglalkozó szakembereknek is. _______ The use of the mobile telephones laid in front of the negotiators during their conversations forecasts their indicators of competitiveness and gives suggestions for the further course of negotiation. This is obviously a futuristic vision, but drawing conclusions from the hidden content of top management narratives concerning the competitive cultural orientations of the represented organizations is a possibility that is already available. Using the culture research methodology of the GLOBE project as well as text analysis methods, it was possible to reveal narrative patterns both of the power distance, forecasting competitiveness, and of institutional collectivism. These findings may be useful tools for professionals, among others of organizational development, intelligence service and HR management.

Effects of roadway geometric features on run-off road crashes on the Florida State Highway System

Run-off-road (ROR) crashes have increasingly become a serious concern for transportation officials in the State of Florida. These types of crashes have increased proportionally in recent years statewide and have been the focus of the Florida Department of Transportation. The goal of this research was to develop statistical models that can be used to investigate the possible causal relationships between roadway geometric features and ROR crashes on Florida's rural and urban principal arterials. ^ In this research, Zero-Inflated Poisson (ZIP) and Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial (ZINB) Regression models were used to better model the excessive number of roadway segments with no ROR crashes. Since Florida covers a diverse area and since there are sixty-seven counties, it was divided into four geographical regions to minimize possible unobserved heterogeneity. Three years of crash data (2000–2002) encompassing those for principal arterials on the Florida State Highway System were used. Several statistical models based on the ZIP and ZINB regression methods were fitted to predict the expected number of ROR crashes on urban and rural roads for each region. Each region was further divided into urban and rural areas, resulting in a total of eight crash models. A best-fit predictive model was identified for each of these eight models in terms of AIC values. The ZINB regression was found to be appropriate for seven of the eight models and the ZIP regression was found to be more appropriate for the remaining model. To achieve model convergence, some explanatory variables that were not statistically significant were included. Therefore, strong conclusions cannot be derived from some of these models. ^ Given the complex nature of crashes, recommendations for additional research are made. The interaction of weather and human condition would be quite valuable in discerning additional causal relationships for these types of crashes. Additionally, roadside data should be considered and incorporated into future research of ROR crashes. ^

Estimation and prediction of average vehicle occupancies using traffic accident records

As congestion management strategies begin to put more emphasis on person trips than vehicle trips, the need for vehicle occupancy data has become more critical. The traditional methods of collecting these data include the roadside windshield method and the carousel method. These methods are labor-intensive and expensive. An alternative to these traditional methods is to make use of the vehicle occupancy information in traffic accident records. This method is cost effective and may provide better spatial and temporal coverage than the traditional methods. However, this method is subject to potential biases resulting from under- and over-involvement of certain population sectors and certain types of accidents in traffic accident records. In this dissertation, three such potential biases, i.e., accident severity, driver’s age, and driver’s gender, were investigated and the corresponding bias factors were developed as needed. The results show that although multi-occupant vehicles are involved in higher percentages of severe accidents than are single-occupant vehicles, multi-occupant vehicles in the whole accident vehicle population were not overrepresented in the accident database. On the other hand, a significant difference was found between the distributions of the ages and genders of drivers involved in accidents and those of the general driving population. An information system that incorporates adjustments for the potential biases was developed to estimate the average vehicle occupancies (AVOs) for different types of roadways on the Florida state roadway system. A reasonableness check of the results from the system shows AVO estimates that are highly consistent with expectations. In addition, comparisons of AVOs from accident data with the field estimates show that the two data sources produce relatively consistent results. While accident records can be used to obtain the historical AVO trends and field data can be used to estimate the current AVOs, no known methods have been developed to project future AVOs. Four regression models for the purpose of predicting weekday AVOs on different levels of geographic areas and roadway types were developed as part of this dissertation. The models show that such socioeconomic factors as income, vehicle ownership, and employment have a significant impact on AVOs.

Book Review: Dixie Before Disney

Dixie Before Disney: 100 Years of Roadside Fun by Tim Hollis (Jackson, Miss.: University Press of Mississippi, 1999), ISBN 1-57806-117-2, 206 pages, including acknowledgements, tables, index, $25 paperback.

Estimation and Prediction of Average Vehicle Occupancies using Traffic Accident Records

As congestion management strategies begin to put more emphasis on person trips than vehicle trips, the need for vehicle occupancy data has become more critical. The traditional methods of collecting these data include the roadside windshield method and the carousel method. These methods are labor-intensive and expensive. An alternative to these traditional methods is to make use of the vehicle occupancy information in traffic accident records. This method is cost effective and may provide better spatial and temporal coverage than the traditional methods. However, this method is subject to potential biases resulting from under- and over-involvement of certain population sectors and certain types of accidents in traffic accident records. In this dissertation, three such potential biases, i.e., accident severity, driver¡¯s age, and driver¡¯s gender, were investigated and the corresponding bias factors were developed as needed. The results show that although multi-occupant vehicles are involved in higher percentages of severe accidents than are single-occupant vehicles, multi-occupant vehicles in the whole accident vehicle population were not overrepresented in the accident database. On the other hand, a significant difference was found between the distributions of the ages and genders of drivers involved in accidents and those of the general driving population. An information system that incorporates adjustments for the potential biases was developed to estimate the average vehicle occupancies (AVOs) for different types of roadways on the Florida state roadway system. A reasonableness check of the results from the system shows AVO estimates that are highly consistent with expectations. In addition, comparisons of AVOs from accident data with the field estimates show that the two data sources produce relatively consistent results. While accident records can be used to obtain the historical AVO trends and field data can be used to estimate the current AVOs, no known methods have been developed to project future AVOs. Four regression models for the purpose of predicting weekday AVOs on different levels of geographic areas and roadway types were developed as part of this dissertation. The models show that such socioeconomic factors as income, vehicle ownership, and employment have a significant impact on AVOs.

Improved Criteria for Estimating Calibration Factors for Highway Safety Manual (HSM) Applications

The Highway Safety Manual (HSM) estimates roadway safety performance based on predictive models that were calibrated using national data. Calibration factors are then used to adjust these predictive models to local conditions for local applications. The HSM recommends that local calibration factors be estimated using 30 to 50 randomly selected sites that experienced at least a total of 100 crashes per year. It also recommends that the factors be updated every two to three years, preferably on an annual basis. However, these recommendations are primarily based on expert opinions rather than data-driven research findings. Furthermore, most agencies do not have data for many of the input variables recommended in the HSM. This dissertation is aimed at determining the best way to meet three major data needs affecting the estimation of calibration factors: (1) the required minimum sample sizes for different roadway facilities, (2) the required frequency for calibration factor updates, and (3) the influential variables affecting calibration factors. In this dissertation, statewide segment and intersection data were first collected for most of the HSM recommended calibration variables using a Google Maps application. In addition, eight years (2005-2012) of traffic and crash data were retrieved from existing databases from the Florida Department of Transportation. With these data, the effect of sample size criterion on calibration factor estimates was first studied using a sensitivity analysis. The results showed that the minimum sample sizes not only vary across different roadway facilities, but they are also significantly higher than those recommended in the HSM. In addition, results from paired sample t-tests showed that calibration factors in Florida need to be updated annually. To identify influential variables affecting the calibration factors for roadway segments, the variables were prioritized by combining the results from three different methods: negative binomial regression, random forests, and boosted regression trees. Only a few variables were found to explain most of the variation in the crash data. Traffic volume was consistently found to be the most influential. In addition, roadside object density, major and minor commercial driveway densities, and minor residential driveway density were also identified as influential variables.

Older woman volunteers at phone bank service at Dade County

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Woman telephone repair worker

Inscriptions: Verso: [stamped] Photograph by Freda Leinwand. [463 West Street, Studio 229G, New York, NY 10014].

Lawyer at work

Inscriptions: Verso: [stamped] Photograph by Freda Leinwand. [463 West Street, Studio 229G, New York, NY 10014].

Woman makes a telephone call

Inscriptions: Verso: [stamped] Photograph by Freda Leinwand. [463 West Street, Studio 229G, New York, NY 10014].

Teenage girl talking on the telephone

Inscriptions: Verso: [stamped] Photograph by Freda Leinwand. [463 West Street, Studio 229G, New York, NY 10014].

Women at work: telephone repairer

Inscription: Verso: Women at work: miscellaneous occupations. Ilene Goldstein, telephone repairer, New York Telephone Co.