Congestion Pricing: Long-Term Economic and Land-Use Effects

We employ a spatially disaggregated general equilibrium model of a regional economy that incorporates decisions of residents, firms, and developers integrated with a spatially disaggregated strategic transportation planning (START) model that features mode, time period, and route choice to evaluate economic effects of congestion pricing. First, we evaluate the long-run effects of a road-pricing policy based on the integrated model of land use, strategic transport, and regional economy (LUSTRE) and compare them with the short-term effects obtained from the START model alone. We then look at distributional effects of the policy in question and point out differences and similarities in the short run versus the long run. Finally, we analyze the mechanisms at the source of the economic and land-use effects induced by the road-pricing policy.traffic congestion, welfare analysis, CGE modeling, cordon tolls, distributional effects

Long-Term Consequences of Congestion Pricing: A Small Cordon in the Hand Is Worth Two in the Bush

We evaluate and compare the long-term economic effects of three cordon-based road pricing schemes applied to the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. To conduct this analysis, we employ a spatially disaggregated general equilibrium model of a regional economy that incorporates the decisions of residents, firms, and developers, integrated with a spatially disaggregated strategic transportation planning model that features mode, time period, and route choice. We find that all cordon pricing schemes increase welfare of the residents, as well as lead to GDP growth. At the optimum, the larger cordon and a double cordon lead to higher benefits than the small cordon encompassing downtown core. Nevertheless, the small cordon seems to be a safer bet because when the toll charge is set suboptimally, the net benefits from the small cordon compared to the optimum change negligibly, while the net benefits from the larger cordon decline sharply as the charge deviates from the optimal level.traffic congestion, cordon tolls, land use, welfare analysis, road pricing, general equilibrium, simulation, Washington DC

Algorithms to automatically quantify the geometric similarity of anatomical surfaces

We describe new approaches for distances between pairs of 2-dimensional surfaces (embedded in 3-dimensional space) that use local structures and global information contained in inter-structure geometric relationships. We present algorithms to automatically determine these distances as well as geometric correspondences. This is motivated by the aspiration of students of natural science to understand the continuity of form that unites the diversity of life. At present, scientists using physical traits to study evolutionary relationships among living and extinct animals analyze data extracted from carefully defined anatomical correspondence points (landmarks). Identifying and recording these landmarks is time consuming and can be done accurately only by trained morphologists. This renders these studies inaccessible to non-morphologists, and causes phenomics to lag behind genomics in elucidating evolutionary patterns. Unlike other algorithms presented for morphological correspondences our approach does not require any preliminary marking of special features or landmarks by the user. It also differs from other seminal work in computational geometry in that our algorithms are polynomial in nature and thus faster, making pairwise comparisons feasible for significantly larger numbers of digitized surfaces. We illustrate our approach using three datasets representing teeth and different bones of primates and humans, and show that it leads to highly accurate results.Comment: Changes with respect to v1, v2: an Erratum was added, correcting the references for one of the three datasets. Note that the datasets and code for this paper can be obtained from the Data Conservancy (see Download column on v1, v2

Monitoring the premalignant potential of Barrett's oesophagus'.

The landscape for patients with Barrett's oesophagus (BE) has changed significantly in the last decade. Research and new guidelines have helped gastroenterologists to better identify those patients with BE who are particularly at risk of developing oesophageal adenocarcinoma. In parallel, developments in endoscopic image enhancement technology and optical biopsy techniques have improved our ability to detect high-risk lesions. Once these lesions have been identified, the improvements in minimally invasive endoscopic therapies has meant that these patients can potentially be cured of early cancer and high-risk dysplastic lesions without the need for surgery, which still has a significant morbidity and mortality. The importance of reaching an accurate diagnosis of BE remains of paramount importance. More work is needed, however. The vast majority of those undergoing surveillance for their BE do not progress towards cancer and thus undergo a regular invasive procedure, which may impact on their psychological and physical well-being while incurring significant cost to the health service. New work that explores cheaper endoscopic or non-invasive ways to identify the at-risk individual provides exciting avenues for research. In future, the diagnosis and monitoring of patients with BE could move away from hospitals and into primary care

Uniting to end the TB epidemic: advances in disease control from prevention to better diagnosis and treatment.

Tuberculosis is a major global cause of morbidity and mortality. Despite recent advances in containing the epidemic, several challenges continue to slow progress towards elimination including the continuing impact of drug resistant disease, and the lack of appropriate tools. Curtailing the transmission of tuberculosis remains a challenge especially in high burden countries. New developments in measuring correlates of protection are urgently needed to support the evaluation of vaccines. Similarly, despite progress in molecular diagnostics, better tools are required to identify resistance to antibiotics in multi and extensively drug resistant tuberculosis. Whole Genome Sequencing may lead to the next generation of assays to rapidly detect resistance and evaluate transmission. Advances on shortening treatment are hampered by the lack of a biomarker of cure which obviates the current long wait for relapses in trials. New research is urgently needed to support development of new vaccines and better diagnostics tools and shorter treatment for drug sensitive and resistant tuberculosis

Singular projective varieties and quantization

By the quantization condition compact quantizable Kaehler manifolds can be embedded into projective space. In this way they become projective varieties. The quantum Hilbert space of the Berezin-Toeplitz quantization (and of the geometric quantization) is the projective coordinate ring of the embedded manifold. This allows for generalization to the case of singular varieties. The set-up is explained in the first part of the contribution. The second part of the contribution is of tutorial nature. Necessary notions, concepts, and results of algebraic geometry appearing in this approach to quantization are explained. In particular, the notions of projective varieties, embeddings, singularities, and quotients appearing in geometric invariant theory are recalled.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figure

Geometric motivic Poincar\'e series of quasi-ordinary singularities

The geometric motivic Poincar\'e series of a germ $(S,0)$ of complex algebraic variety takes into account the classes in the Grothendieck ring of the jets of arcs through $(S,0)$. Denef and Loeser proved that this series has a rational form. We give an explicit description of this invariant when $(S,0)$ is an irreducible germ of quasi-ordinary hypersurface singularity in terms of the Newton polyhedra of the logarithmic jacobian ideals. These ideals are determined by the characteristic monomials of a quasi-ordinary branch parametrizing $(S,0)$

Experimental evidence of a {\phi} Josephson junction

We demonstrate experimentally the existence of Josephson junctions having a doubly degenerate ground state with an average Josephson phase \psi=\pm{\phi}. The value of {\phi} can be chosen by design in the interval 0<{\phi}<\pi. The junctions used in our experiments are fabricated as 0-{\pi} Josephson junctions of moderate normalized length with asymmetric 0 and {\pi} regions. We show that (a) these {\phi} Josephson junctions have two critical currents, corresponding to the escape of the phase {\psi} from -{\phi} and +{\phi} states; (b) the phase {\psi} can be set to a particular state by tuning an external magnetic field or (c) by using a proper bias current sweep sequence. The experimental observations are in agreement with previous theoretical predictions