A simple vehicle for the transportation of a humanoid Nao robot

Locomotion and autonomy in humanoid robots is of utmost importance in integrating them into social and community service type roles. However, the limited range and speed of these robots severely limits their ability to be deployed in situations where fast response is necessary. While the ability for a humanoid to drive a vehicle would aide in increasing their overall mobility, the ability to mount and dismount a vehicle designed for human occupants is a non-trivial problem. To address this issue, this paper presents an innovative approach to enabling a humanoid robot to mount and dismount a vehicle by proposing a simple mounting bracket involving no moving parts. In conjunction with a purpose built robotic vehicle, the mounting bracket successfully allowed a humanoid Nao robot to mount, dismount and drive the vehicle.

Recent advances in modeling the vulnerability of transportation networks

It is well known that, for major infrastructure networks such as electricity, gas, railway, road, and urban water networks, disruptions at one point have a knock on effect throughout the network. There is an impressive amount of individual research projects examining the vulnerability of critical infrastructure network. However, there is little understanding of the totality of the contribution made by these projects and their interrelationships. This makes their review a difficult process for both new and existing researchers in the field. To address this issue, a two-step literature review process is used, to provide an overview of the vulnerability of the transportation network in terms of four main themes - research objective, transportation mode, disruption scenario and vulnerability indicator –involving the analysis of related articles from 2001 to 2013. Two limitations of existing research are identified: (1) the limited amount of studies relating to multi-layer transportation network vulnerability analysis, and (2) the lack of evaluation methods to explore the relationship between structure vulnerability and dynamical functional vulnerability. In addition to indicating that more attention needs to be paid to these two aspects in future, the analysis provides a new avenue for the discovery of knowledge, as well as an improved understanding of transportation network vulnerability.

Toward the multilevel older person's transportation and road safety model: A new perspective on the role of demographic, functional, and psychosocial factors

Objectives Self-regulation refers to the practice of using self-imposed restrictions to protect oneself from situations that are, or are perceived to be, unsafe. Within the driving context, self-regulation refers the compensatory practices that some older adults adopt to restrict their driving to situations in which they feel safe. However, the way in which demographic, functional, and psychosocial factors, and the interactions between these factors, influence older adults’ driving self-regulation is not well understood. Improving this understanding could lead to new ways of considering the mobility concerns faced by older drivers. Method A systematic review of the current literature was conducted to explore this issue. Twenty-nine empirical studies investigating the factors associated with older adults’ self-regulatory driving behaviors were examined. Results The review findings were used to construct the Multilevel Older Persons Transportation and Road Safety (MOTRS) model. The MOTRS model proposes that individual and environmental factors such as age, gender, and the availability of alternative transportation predict older adults’ practice of driving-related self-regulation. However, these variables influence self-regulation through psychosocial variables such as driving confidence, affective attitude, and instrumental attitude toward driving. Discussions The MOTRS model extends previous attempts to model older adults’ driving by focusing on a novel target, driving self-regulation, and by including a wider range of predictors identified on the basis of the systematic literature review. This focus enables consideration of broader mobility issues and may inform new strategies to support the mobility of older adults.

A review of hydrothermal liquefaction bio-crude properties and prospects for upgrading to transportation fuels

Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) presents a viable route for converting a vast range of materials into liquid fuel, without the need for pre-drying. Currently, HTL studies produce bio-crude with properties that fall short of diesel or biodiesel standards. Upgrading bio-crude improves the physical and chemical properties to produce a fuel corresponding to diesel or biodiesel. Properties such as viscosity, density, heating value, oxygen, nitrogen and sulphur content, and chemical composition can be modified towards meeting fuel standards using strategies such as solvent extraction, distillation, hydrodeoxygenation and catalytic cracking. This article presents a review of the upgrading technologies available, and how they might be used to make HTL bio-crude into a transportation fuel that meets current fuel property standards.

Automatic surveillance in transportation hubs: No Longer just about catching the bad guy

As critical infrastructure such as transportation hubs continue to grow in complexity, greater importance is placed on monitoring these facilities to ensure their secure and efficient operation. In order to achieve these goals, technology continues to evolve in response to the needs of various infrastructure. To date, however, the focus of technology for surveillance has been primarily concerned with security, and little attention has been placed on assisting operations and monitoring performance in real-time. Consequently, solutions have emerged to provide real-time measurements of queues and crowding in spaces, but have been installed as system add-ons (rather than making better use of existing infrastructure), resulting in expensive infrastructure outlay for the owner/operator, and an overload of surveillance systems which in itself creates further complexity. Given many critical infrastructure already have camera networks installed, it is much more desirable to better utilise these networks to address operational monitoring as well as security needs. Recently, a growing number of approaches have been proposed to monitor operational aspects such as pedestrian throughput, crowd size and dwell times. In this paper, we explore how these techniques relate to and complement the more commonly seen security analytics, and demonstrate the value that can be added by operational analytics by demonstrating their performance on airport surveillance data. We explore how multiple analytics and systems can be combined to better leverage the large amount of data that is available, and we discuss the applicability and resulting benefits of the proposed framework for the ongoing operation of airports and airport networks.

Transportation disadvantage impedance indexing: A methodological approach to reduce policy shortcomings

Access to transport systems and the connection to such systems provided to essential economic and social activities are critical to determine households' transportation disadvantage levels. In spite of the developments in better identifying transportation disadvantaged groups, the lack of effective policies resulted in the continuum of the issue as a significant problem. This paper undertakes a pilot case investigation as test bed for a new approach developed to reduce transportation policy shortcomings. The approach, ‘disadvantage-impedance index’, aims to ease transportation disadvantages by employing representative parameters to measure the differences between policy alternatives run in a simulation environment. Implemented in the Japanese town of Arao, the index uses trip-making behaviour and resident stated preference data. The results of the index reveal that even a slight improvement in accessibility and travel quality indicators makes a significant difference in easing disadvantages. The index, integrated into a four-step model, proves to be highly robust and useful in terms of quick diagnosis in capturing effective actions, and developing potentially efficient policies.

Analysis of avalanche breakdown in bipolar transistors based on majority carrier transportation

This paper describes a new analysis of the avalanche breakdown phenomenon in bipolar transistors for different bias conditions of the emitter-base junction. This analysis revolves around the transportation and storage of majority carriers in the base region. Using this analysis one can compute all the voltage-current characteristics of a transistor under avalanche breakdown.

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A Branch and Bound Algorithm for a Transportation Type Problem with Piecewise Linear Convex Objective Function

A branch and bound type algorithm is presented in this paper to the problem of finding a transportation schedule which minimises the total transportation cost, where the transportation cost over each route is assumed to be a piecewice linear continuous convex function with increasing slopes. The algorithm is an extension of the work done by Balachandran and Perry, in which the transportation cost over each route is assumed to beapiecewise linear discontinuous function with decreasing slopes. A numerical example is solved illustrating the algorithm.

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