A general framework to testing the effect of transport policy measures to achieve a modal shift: a sequental hybrid model

In order to achieve to minimize car-based trips, transport planners have been particularly interested in understanding the factors that explain modal choices. In the transport modelling literature there has been an increasing awareness that socioeconomic attributes and quantitative variables are not sufficient to characterize travelers and forecast their travel behavior. Recent studies have also recognized that users? social interactions and land use patterns influence travel behavior, especially when changes to transport systems are introduced, but links between international and Spanish perspectives are rarely deal. In this paper, factorial and path analyses through a Multiple-Indicator Multiple-Cause (MIMIC) model are used to understand and describe the relationship between the different psychological and environmental constructs with social influence and socioeconomic variables. The MIMIC model generates Latent Variables (LVs) to be incorporated sequentially into Discrete Choice Models (DCM) where the levels of service and cost attributes of travel modes are also included directly to measure the effect of the transport policies that have been introduced in Madrid during the last three years in the context of the economic crisis. The data used for this paper are collected from a two panel smartphone-based survey (n=255 and 190 respondents, respectively) of Madrid.

Testing of Android testing tools: development of a benchmark for the evaluation

With the ever growing trend of smart phones and tablets, Android is becoming more and more popular everyday. With more than one billion active users i to date, Android is the leading technology in smart phone arena. In addition to that, Android also runs on Android TV, Android smart watches and cars. Therefore, in recent years, Android applications have become one of the major development sectors in software industry. As of mid 2013, the number of published applications on Google Play had exceeded one million and the cumulative number of downloads was more than 50 billionii. A 2013 survey also revealed that 71% of the mobile application developers work on developing Android applicationsiii. Considering this size of Android applications, it is quite evident that people rely on these applications on a daily basis for the completion of simple tasks like keeping track of weather to rather complex tasks like managing one’s bank accounts. Hence, like every other kind of code, Android code also needs to be verified in order to work properly and achieve a certain confidence level. Because of the gigantic size of the number of applications, it becomes really hard to manually test Android applications specially when it has to be verified for various versions of the OS and also, various device configurations such as different screen sizes and different hardware availability. Hence, recently there has been a lot of work on developing different testing methods for Android applications in Computer Science fraternity. The model of Android attracts researchers because of its open source nature. It makes the whole research model more streamlined when the code for both, application and the platform are readily available to analyze. And hence, there has been a great deal of research in testing and static analysis of Android applications. A great deal of this research has been focused on the input test generation for Android applications. Hence, there are a several testing tools available now, which focus on automatic generation of test cases for Android applications. These tools differ with one another on the basis of their strategies and heuristics used for this generation of test cases. But there is still very little work done on the comparison of these testing tools and the strategies they use. Recently, some research work has been carried outiv in this regard that compared the performance of various available tools with respect to their respective code coverage, fault detection, ability to work on multiple platforms and their ease of use. It was done, by running these tools on a total of 60 real world Android applications. The results of this research showed that although effective, these strategies being used by the tools, also face limitations and hence, have room for improvement. The purpose of this thesis is to extend this research into a more specific and attribute-­‐ oriented way. Attributes refer to the tasks that can be completed using the Android platform. It can be anything ranging from a basic system call for receiving an SMS to more complex tasks like sending the user to another application from the current one. The idea is to develop a benchmark for Android testing tools, which is based on the performance related to these attributes. This will allow the comparison of these tools with respect to these attributes. For example, if there is an application that plays some audio file, will the testing tool be able to generate a test input that will warrant the execution of this audio file? Using multiple applications using different attributes, it can be visualized that which testing tool is more useful for which kinds of attributes. In this thesis, it was decided that 9 attributes covering the basic nature of tasks, will be targeted for the assessment of three testing tools. Later this can be done for much more attributes to compare even more testing tools. The aim of this work is to show that this approach is effective and can be used on a much larger scale. One of the flagship features of this work, which also differentiates it with the previous work, is that the applications used, are all specially made for this research. The reason for doing that is to analyze just that specific attribute in isolation, which the application is focused on, and not allow the tool to get bottlenecked by something trivial, which is not the main attribute under testing. This means 9 applications, each focused on one specific attribute. The main contributions of this thesis are: A summary of the three existing testing tools and their respective techniques for automatic test input generation of Android Applications. • A detailed study of the usage of these testing tools using the 9 applications specially designed and developed for this study. • The analysis of the obtained results of the study carried out. And a comparison of the performance of the selected tools.

Molecular Genetic Basis of Opposite Gene by Environment Interactions in Reading Disability and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

The goal of this study is to better understand the genetic basis of Reading Disability (RD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) by examining molecular G x E interactions with parental education for each disorder. Research indicates that despite sharing genetic risk factors, RD and ADHD are influenced by different types of G x E interactions with parental education - a diathesis stress interaction in the case of ADHD and a bioecological interaction in RD. In order to resolve this apparent paradox, we conducted a preliminary study using behavioral genetic methods to test for G x E interactions in RD and the inattentive subtype of ADHD (ADHD-I) in the same sample of monozygotic and dizygotic Colorado Learning Disabilities Research Center same-sex twin pairs (DeFries et al., 1997), and our findings were consistent with the literature. We posited a genetic hypothesis for this opposite pattern of interactions, which suggests that only genes specific to each disorder enter into these opposite interactions, not the shared genes underlying their comorbidity. This study sought to further investigate this paradox using molecular genetics methods. We examined multiple candidate genes identified for RD or related language phenotypes and those identified for ADHD for G x E interactions with parental education. The specific aims of this study were as follows: 1) partition known risk alleles for RD and/or related language phenotypes and ADHD-I into those which are pleiotropic and non-pleiotropic by testing each risk allele for association with both RD and ADHD-I, 2) explore the main effects of parental education on both RD and ADHD-I, 3) address G-E correlations, and 4) conduct exploratory G x E interaction analyses in order to test the genetic hypothesis. Analyses suggested a number of pleiotropic genes that influence both RD and ADHD; however, results did not remain after correcting for multiple comparisons. Although exploratory G x E interaction findings were not significant after multiple comparison correction, results suggested a G x E interaction in the bioecological direction with KIAA0319, parental education, and ADHD-I. Given the limited power in the current study, replication of these findings with larger samples is necessary.

Metodologia para a homologação dos equipamentos do Sistema Canal Azul da Carne - MHECAC.

Este trabalho de pesquisa apresenta a Metodologia para a Homologação dos Equipamentos do Sistema Canal Azul da Carne - MHECAC. Esta proposta de metodologia é complementar ao desenvolvimento do Sistema Canal Azul da Carne e tem o objetivo de apoiar o MAPA (Ministério da Agricultura, Pecuária e Abastecimento) no estabelecimento de um processo de verificação da conformidade de equipamentos, buscando garantir a interoperabilidade, o desempenho e a segurança de seus componentes de hardware. O Sistema Canal Azul é uma realização do MAPA em conjunto com o GAESI da Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo (EPUSP) e a iniciativa privada, e tem o objetivo de reduzir o tempo empregado nos processos de exportação de carnes no Brasil. A MHECAC baseia-se na estrutura de processo de avaliação de conformidade estabelecida pelo Sistema Brasileiro de Avaliação da Conformidade - SBAC e seus requisitos gerais podem ser aplicados à avaliação de conformidade de produtos em setores variados. No desenvolvimento da MHECAC foram aplicadas as principais referências técnicas e normativas correspondentes aos equipamentos que compõe a arquitetura do sistema Canal Azul. Além disto, foram definidos os modelos de homologação, auditoria e inspeção, os planos de amostragem, os requisitos mínimos e a metodologia de ensaio. A MHECAC subdivide-se em dois segmentos principais. O primeiro apresenta os requisitos gerais para o estabelecimento de sistemas de avaliação da conformidade e certificação de produtos, a aplicação destes requisitos não se limita ao Sistema Canal Azul, e o segundo apresenta requisitos específicos ao sistema estabelecido pelo MAPA. A aplicação da MHECAC favorece o tratamento isonômico de fornecedores e é um importante balizador para a seleção de equipamentos, pois permite a qualificação e a comparação de soluções, por meio de um embasamento técnico, pautado pela qualidade.

Tracing the Origins of Athlete Development Models in Sport: a Citation Path Analysis

Reviews of the sport psychology literature have identified a number of models of athlete development in sport (Alfermann & Stambulova, 2007; Durand-Bush &Salmela, 2001). However, minimal research has investigated the origins of knowledge from which each model was developed. The purpose of this study was to systematically examine the influential texts responsible for providing the basis of athlete development models in sport. A citation path analysis of the sport psychology literature was used to generate a knowledge development path of seven athlete development models in sport. The analysis identified influential texts and authors in the conceptualization of athlete development. The popula-tion of 229 texts (articles, books, book chapters) was selected in two phases. Phase1 texts were articles citing seven articles depicting models of athlete development(n  75). Phase 2 included texts cited three or more times by Phase 1 articles (n  154). The analysis revealed how the scholarship of Benjamin Bloom (1985) has been integrated into the field of sport psychology, and how two articles appearing in 1993 and 2003 helped shape present conceptualizations of athlete development

Testing for Subsidiarity. Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 13/2006

In the EU circuit (especially the European Parliament, the Council and Coreper) as well as in national parliaments of the EU Member States, one observes a powerful tendency to regard 'subsidiarity' as a 'political' issue. Moreover, subsidiarity is frequently seen as a one-way street : powers going 'back to' Member States. Both interpretations are at least partly flawed and less than helpful when looking for practical ways to deal with subsidiarity at both EU and Member states' levels. The present paper shows that subsidiarity as a principle is profoundly 'functional' in nature and, hence, is and must be a two-way principle. A functional subsidiarity test is developed and its application is illustrated for a range of policy issues in the internal market in its widest sense, for equity and for macro-economic stabilisation questions in European integration. Misapplications of 'subsidiarity' are also demonstrated. For a good understanding, subsidiarity being a functional, two-way principle neither means that elected politicians should not have the final (political!) say (for which they are accountable), nor that subsidiarity tests, even if properly conducted, cannot and will not be politicised once the results enter the policy debate. Such politicisation forms a natural run-up to the decision-making by those elected for it. But the quality and reasoning of the test as well as structuring the information in a logical sequence ( in accordance with the current protocol and with the one in the constitutional treaty) is likely to be directly helpful for decisionmakers, confronted with complicated and often specialised proposals. EU debates and decision-making is therefore best served by separating the functional subsidiarity test (prepared by independent professionals) from the final political decision itself. If the test were accepted Union-wide, it would also assist national parliaments in conducting comparable tests in a relatively short period, as the basis for possible joint action (as suggested by the constitutional treaty). The core of the paper explains how the test is formulated and applied. A functional approach to subsidiarity in the framework of European representative democracy seeks to find the optimal assignment of regulatory or policy competences to the various tiers of government. In the final analysis, this is about structures facilitating the highest possible welfare in the Union, in the fundamental sense that preferences and needs are best satisfied. What is required for such an analysis is no less than a systematic cost/benefit framework to assess the (de)merits of (de)centralisation in the EU.

Farm/Household-Level Simulation: Results of Testing Policy and Other Scenarios. Factor Markets Working Document No. 54, June 2013

Among the different production factors, land is the one that most often limits farm development and one of the most studied. The connection between policy and other context variables and land markets is at the core of the policy debate, including the present reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. The proposal of the latter has been published in October 2011 and in Italy it will include the switch of the payment regime from an historical to a regional basis. The authors’ objective is to simulate the impact of the proposed policy reform on the land market, particularly on land values and propensity to transaction. They combine insights and data from a farm household investment model revised and extended in order to simulate the demand curve for land in different policy scenarios and a survey of farmers stated intention carried out in the province of Bologna (Italy) in 2012. Based on these results, the authors calibrate a mathematical programming model of land market exchanges for the province of Bologna and use this model form simulation. The results of the model largely corroborate the results from the survey and both hint at a relevant reaction of the land demand and supply to the shift from the historical to the regionalised payments. As effect, the regionalisation would result in increased rental prices and in a tendency to the re-allocation of land.

Structural basis for control of secondary vessels in the long-finned eel, Anguilla reinhardtii

Histological sections of primary segmental arteries and associated interarterial anastomoses and secondary vessels from the long-finned eel Anguilla reinhardtii were examined by light and transmission electron microscopy. Interarterial anastomoses were found to originate from the primary vasculature as depressions through the tunica intima and media, from where they ran perpendicularly to the adventitial layer, before coiling extensively. From here the anastomoses travelled a relatively linear path in the outer margin of the adventitia to anastomose with a secondary vessel running in parallel with the primary counterpart. In contrast to findings from other species, secondary vessels had a structure quite similar to that of primary vessels; they were lined by endothelial cells on a continuous basement membrane, with a single layer of smooth muscle cells surrounding the vessel. Smooth muscle cells were also found in the vicinity of interarterial anastomoses in the adventitia, but these appeared more longitudinally orientated. The presence of smooth muscle cells on all aspects of the secondary circulation suggests that this vascular system is regulated in a similar manner as the primary vascular system. Because interarterial anastomoses are structurally integrated with the primary vessel from which they originate, it is anticipated that flow through secondary vessels to some extent is affected by the vascular tone of the primary vessel. Immunohistochemical studies showed that primary segmental arteries displayed moderate immunoreactivity to antibodies against 5-hydroxytryptamine and substance P, while interarterial anastomoses and secondary vessels showed dense immunoreactivity. No immunoreactivity was observed on primary or secondary arteries against neuropeptide Y or calcitonin gene-related peptide.

Recommendations for animal DNA forensic and identity testing

Genetic analysis in animals has been used for many applications, such as kinship analysis, for determining the sire of an offspring when a female has been exposed to multiple males, determining parentage when an animal switches offspring with another dam, extended lineage reconstruction, estimating inbreeding, identification in breed registries, and speciation. It now also is being used increasingly to characterize animal materials in forensic cases. As such, it is important to operate under a set of minimum guidelines that assures that all service providers have a template to follow for quality practices. None have been delineated for animal genetic identity testing. Based on the model for human DNA forensic analyses, a basic discussion of the issues and guidelines is provided for animal testing to include analytical practices, data evaluation, nomenclature, allele designation, statistics, validation, proficiency testing, lineage markers, casework files, and reporting. These should provide a basis for professional societies and/or working groups to establish more formalized recommendations.

Drug testing: a way to weed out users?

The aim of this paper is to provide managers and Human Resource executives with the basis for making drug testing policy in their organisations by presenting a critical review of existing literature on Workplace Drug Testing (WDT) and related areas which have been structured into the key areas.The key finding is whilst WDT is becoming more and more widely used, the rationale for this in terms of organizational effectiveness and safety is far from clear. Also there are significant ethical issues associated with WDT which are not always fully considered by organisations. Similarly, a cost/benefit analysis for particular organisations may well show little reason to embark on a testing policy. As a result of our review, we recommend that practitioners take a critical view of proposals introducing WDT since in many cases there is little upside to such a policy and a largely under-researched downside. There are also wider implications for society as a whole since the issue of drug taking as a whole is clearly a matter of great importance to practically every country in the world. The workplace is not at all immune from the impact of drug taking and perhaps a knee-jerk response by managers is to attempt to exclude anyone with any sort of drug habit through the use of WDT. This type of review with a specific HR focus has not been carried out before despite several calls for a more rational approach to the area.

Elaboration and testing of new methodologies for automatic abstracting

The primary objective of this research was to understand what kinds of knowledge and skills people use in `extracting' relevant information from text and to assess the extent to which expert systems techniques could be applied to automate the process of abstracting. The approach adopted in this thesis is based on research in cognitive science, information science, psycholinguistics and textlinguistics. The study addressed the significance of domain knowledge and heuristic rules by developing an information extraction system, called INFORMEX. This system, which was implemented partly in SPITBOL, and partly in PROLOG, used a set of heuristic rules to analyse five scientific papers of expository type, to interpret the content in relation to the key abstract elements and to extract a set of sentences recognised as relevant for abstracting purposes. The analysis of these extracts revealed that an adequate abstract could be generated. Furthermore, INFORMEX showed that a rule based system was a suitable computational model to represent experts' knowledge and strategies. This computational technique provided the basis for a new approach to the modelling of cognition. It showed how experts tackle the task of abstracting by integrating formal knowledge as well as experiential learning. This thesis demonstrated that empirical and theoretical knowledge can be effectively combined in expert systems technology to provide a valuable starting approach to automatic abstracting.

Differentiating human NT2/D1 neurospheres as a versatile in vitro 3D model system for developmental neurotoxicity testing

Developmental neurotoxicity is a major issue in human health and may have lasting neurological implications. In this preliminary study we exposed differentiating Ntera2/clone D1 (NT2/D1) cell neurospheres to known human teratogens classed as non-embryotoxic (acrylamide), weakly embryotoxic (lithium, valproic acid) and strongly embryotoxic (hydroxyurea) as listed by European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM) and examined endpoints of cell viability and neuronal protein marker expression specific to the central nervous system, to identify developmental neurotoxins. Following induction of neuronal differentiation, valproic acid had the most significant effect on neurogenesis, in terms of reduced viability and decreased neuronal markers. Lithium had least effect on viability and did not significantly alter the expression of neuronal markers. Hydroxyurea significantly reduced cell viability but did not affect neuronal protein marker expression. Acrylamide reduced neurosphere viability but did not affect neuronal protein marker expression. Overall, this NT2/D1 -based neurosphere model of neurogenesis, may provide the basis for a model of developmental neurotoxicity in vitro.

Testing competing HRM-performance linkage models:evidence from the Greek manufacturing sector

This paper proposes an integrative framework for the conduct of a more thorough and robust analysis regarding the linkage between Human Resource Management (HRM) and business performance. In order to provide the required basis for the proposed framework, initially, the core aspects of the main HRM models predicting business performance are analysed. The framework proposes both the principle of mediation (i.e. HRM outcomes mediate the relationship between organisational strategies and business performance) and the perspective of simultaneity of decision-making by firms with regard to the consideration of business strategies and HRM policies. In order to empirically test this framework the methodological approach of 'structural equation models' is employed. The empirical research is based on a sample of 178 organisations operating in the Greek manufacturing sector. The paper concludes that both the mediation principle and the simultaneity perspective are supported, emphasising further the positive role of HRM outcomes towards organisational performance.

Programming and Testing a Two-Tree Algorithm

ACM Computing Classification System (1998): G.2.2, F.2.2.

Aerodynamic Load Characteristics Evaluation and Tri-Axial Performance Testing on Fiber Reinforced Polymer Connections and Metal Fasteners to Promote Hurricane Damage Mitigation

Damages during extreme wind events highlight the weaknesses of mechanical fasteners at the roof-to-wall connections in residential timber frame buildings. The allowable capacity of the metal fasteners is based on results of unidirectional component testing that do not simulate realistic tri-axial aerodynamic loading effects. The first objective of this research was to simulate hurricane effects and study hurricane-structure interaction at full-scale, facilitating better understanding of the combined impacts of wind, rain, and debris on inter-component connections at spatial and temporal scales. The second objective was to evaluate the performance of a non-intrusive roof-to-wall connection system using fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) materials and compare its load capacity to the capacity of an existing metal fastener under simulated aerodynamic loads. The Wall of Wind (WoW) testing performed using FRP connections on a one-story gable-roof timber structure instrumented with a variety of sensors, was used to create a database on aerodynamic and aero-hydrodynamic loading on roof-to-wall connections tested under several parameters: angles of attack, wind-turbulence content, internal pressure conditions, with and without effects of rain. Based on the aerodynamic loading results obtained from WoW tests, sets of three force components (tri-axial mean loads) were combined into a series of resultant mean forces, which were used to test the FRP and metal connections in the structures laboratory up to failure. A new component testing system and test protocol were developed for testing fasteners under simulated tri-axial loading as opposed to uni-axial loading. The tri-axial and uni-axial test results were compared for hurricane clips. Also, comparison was made between tri-axial load capacity of FRP and metal connections. The research findings demonstrate that the FRP connection is a viable option for use in timber roof-to-wall connection system. Findings also confirm that current testing methods of mechanical fasteners tend to overestimate the actual load capacities of a connector. Additionally, the research also contributes to the development a new testing protocol for fasteners using tri-axial simultaneous loads based on the aerodynamic database obtained from the WoW testing.