Editorial dynamics and control of aerospace and vertical transportation systems

This Special Issue presents a selection of papers initially presented at the 11th International Conference on Vibration Problems (ICOVP-2013), held from 9 to 12 September 2013 in Lisbon, Portugal. The main topics of this Special Issue are linear and, mainly, nonlinear dynamics, chaos and control of systems and structures and their applications in different field of science and engineering. According to the goal of the Special Issue, the selected contributions are divided into three major parts: ���Vibration Problems in Vertical Transportation Systems���, ���Nonlinear Dynamics, Chaos and Control of Elastic Structures��� and ���New Strategies and Challenges for Aerospace and Ocean Structures Dynamics and Control���.

Medical Malpractice in Public Healthcare Systems: An Empirical Investigation of Scheduled Damages

In the last decades, medical malpractice has been framed as one of the most critical issues for healthcare providers and health policy, holding a central role on both the policy agenda and public debate. The Law and Economics literature has devoted much attention to medical malpractice and to the investigation of the impact of malpractice reforms. Nonetheless, some reforms have been much less empirically studied as in the case of schedules, and their effects remain highly debated. The present work seeks to contribute to the study of medical malpractice and of schedules of noneconomic damages in a civil law country with a public national health system, using Italy as case study. Besides considering schedules and exploiting a quasi-experimental setting, the novelty of our contribution consists in the inclusion of the performance of the judiciary (measured as courts��� civil backlog) in the empirical analysis. The empirical analysis is twofold. First, it investigates how limiting compensations for pain and suffering through schedules impacts on the malpractice insurance market in terms of presence of private insurers and of premiums applied. Second, it examines whether, and to what extent, healthcare providers react to the implementation of this policy in terms of both levels and composition of the medical treatments offered. Our findings show that the introduction of schedules increases the presence of insurers only in inefficient courts, while it does not produce significant effects on paid premiums. Judicial inefficiency is attractive to insurers for average values of schedules penetration of the market, with an increasing positive impact of inefficiency as the territorial coverage of schedules increases. Moreover, the implementation of schedules tends to reduce the use of defensive practices on the part of clinicians, but the magnitude of this impact is ultimately determined by the actual degree of backlog of the court implementing schedules.

Framework for risk assessment for maritime transportation systems

Maritime accidents involving ships carrying passengers may pose a high risk with respect to human casualties. For effective risk mitigation, an insight into the process of risk escalation is needed. This requires a proactive approach when it comes to risk modelling for maritime transportation systems. Most of the existing models are based on historical data on maritime accidents, and thus they can be considered reactive instead of proactive. This paper introduces a systematic, transferable and proactive framework estimating the risk for maritime transportation systems, meeting the requirements stemming from the adopted formal definition of risk. The framework focuses on ship-ship collisions in the open sea, with a RoRo/Passenger ship (RoPax) being considered as the struck ship. First, it covers an identification of the events that follow a collision between two ships in the open sea, and, second, it evaluates the probabilities of these events, concluding by determining the severity of a collision. The risk framework is developed with the use of Bayesian Belief Networks and utilizes a set of analytical methods for the estimation of the risk model parameters. The model can be run with the use of GeNIe software package. Finally, a case study is presented, in which the risk framework developed here is applied to a maritime transportation system operating in the Gulf of Finland (GoF). The results obtained are compared to the historical data and available models, in which a RoPax was involved in a collision, and good agreement with the available records is found.

CompactRIO: advanced data acquisition systems integration in CODAC Core System

Las herramientas de configuraci��n basadas en lenguajes de alto nivel como LabVIEW permiten el desarrollo de sistemas de adquisici��n de datos basados en hardware reconfigurable FPGA muy complejos en un breve periodo de tiempo. La estandarizaci��n del ciclo de dise��o hardware/software y la utilizaci��n de herramientas como EPICS facilita su integraci��n con la plataforma de adquisici��n y control ITER CODAC CORE SYSTEM (CCS) basada en Linux. En este proyecto se propondr�� una metodolog��a que simplificar�� el ciclo completo de integraci��n de plataformas novedosas, como cRIO, en las que el funcionamiento del hardware de adquisici��n puede ser modificado por el usuario para que ��ste se amolde a sus requisitos espec��ficos. El objetivo principal de este proyecto fin de master es realizar la integraci��n de un sistema cRIO NI9159 y diferentes m��dulos de E/S anal��gica y digital en EPICS y en CODAC CORE SYSTEM (CCS). Este ��ltimo consiste en un conjunto de herramientas software que simplifican la integraci��n de los sistemas de instrumentaci��n y control del experimento ITER. Para cumplir el objetivo se realizar��n las siguientes tareas: ��� Desarrollo de un sistema de adquisici��n de datos basado en FPGA con la plataforma hardware CompactRIO. En esta tarea se realizar�� la configuraci��n del sistema y la implementaci��n en LabVIEW para FPGA del hardware necesario para comunicarse con los m��dulos: NI9205, NI9264, NI9401.NI9477, NI9426, NI9425 y NI9476 ��� Implementaci��n de un driver software utilizando la metodolog��a de AsynDriver para integraci��n del cRIO con EPICS. Esta tarea requiere definir todos los records necesarios que exige EPICS y crear las interfaces adecuadas que permitir��n comunicarse con el hardware. ��� Implementar la descripci��n del sistema cRIO y del driver EPICS en el sistema de descripci��n de plantas de ITER llamado SDD. Esto automatiza la creaci��n de las aplicaciones de EPICS que se denominan IOCs. SUMMARY The configuration tools based in high-level programing languages like LabVIEW allows the development of high complex data acquisition systems based on reconfigurable hardware FPGA in a short time period. The standardization of the hardware/software design cycle and the use of tools like EPICS ease the integration with the data acquisition and control platform of ITER, the CODAC Core System based on Linux. In this project a methodology is proposed in order to simplify the full integration cycle of new platforms like CompactRIO (cRIO), in which the data acquisition functionality can be reconfigured by the user to fits its concrete requirements. The main objective of this MSc final project is to develop the integration of a cRIO NI-9159 and its different analog and digital Input/Output modules with EPICS in a CCS. The CCS consists of a set of software tools that simplifies the integration of instrumentation and control systems in the International Thermonuclear Reactor (ITER) experiment. To achieve such goal the following tasks are carried out: ��� Development of a DAQ system based on FPGA using the cRIO hardware platform. This task comprehends the configuration of the system and the implementation of the mandatory hardware to communicate to the I/O adapter modules NI9205, NI9264, NI9401, NI9477, NI9426, NI9425 y NI9476 using LabVIEW for FPGA. ��� Implementation of a software driver using the asynDriver methodology to integrate such cRIO system with EPICS. This task requires the definition of the necessary EPICS records and the creation of the appropriate interfaces that allow the communication with the hardware. ��� Develop the cRIO system���s description and the EPICS driver in the ITER plant description tool named SDD. This development will automate the creation of EPICS applications, called IOCs.

A summary of opportunities to conserve transportation energy. Final report. Revised.

Transportation Department, Office of Transportation Energy Policy, Washington, D.C.

Transportation for older Americans - issues and options for the decade of the 1980's. Final report.

Transportation Department, Washington, D.C.

Innovative financing for transportation: practical solutions and experiences. Final report.

Transportation Department, Office of Technology and Planning Assistance, Washington, D.C.

Mobility of the elderly and handicapped: a methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of transportation improvements for the elderly and handicapped. Final report.

Transportation Department, Office of University Research, Washington, D.C.

A survey of American attitudes toward transportation. Final report.

Transportation Department, Secretary of Transportation, Washington, D.C.

Transportation services, utilization and needs of the elderly in non-urban areas: patterns in two Kentucky communities. Final report.

Federal Transit Administration, Washington, D.C.

Travel mode special reports: based on data from 1990 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey (NPTS).

Federal Highway Administration, Washington, D.C.