Understanding How Public Perceptions of Road Diets Are Formed

The success or failure of road diets, where a multi-lane road is altered to better accommodate pedestrians and bicyclists in addition to motor vehicles, is often tied to public opinion. A survey was conducted in Davis, California, prior to capacity reallocation being implemented on a major arterial. Results show that support and opposition are correlated with perceived safety and comfort; bike usage; and expectations regarding traffic congestion on side streets. This research provides a starting point for communities planning outreach and evaluation of similar projects

Plug-In Electric Vehicles: A Case Study of Seven Markets

At the current stage of plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) market development, sales rates vary dramatically across different countries and regions. For policy-makers and other stakeholders it is useful to understand the major social, economic, and policy drivers of vehicle adoption. This paper provides insights into the developing PEV markets in Norway, Netherlands, California, United States, France, Japan, and Germany. This is accomplished by applying a Technological Innovation System (TIS) approach that systematically identifies the role of different factors in promulgating new markets. Our comparison between markets shows that in all studied regions, sales of PEVs are supported through various types of government incentives, government resources, and other legitimation activities. However, regions with relatively strong PEV markets have a greater focus on market formation activities and relatively higher costs savings associated with operating an electric vehicle as compared to a conventional vehicle. To determine whether these factors are the primary determinants of PEV market shares, further research should be undertaken that also incorporates analysis related to the presence and government support for entrepreneurial activities related to electric vehicle innovation

Solving the subset-sum problem with a light-based device

We propose a special computational device which uses light rays for solving the subset-sum problem. The device has a graph-like representation and the light is traversing it by following the routes given by the connections between nodes. The nodes are connected by arcs in a special way which lets us to generate all possible subsets of the given set. To each arc we assign either a number from the given set or a predefined constant. When the light is passing through an arc it is delayed by the amount of time indicated by the number placed in that arc. At the destination node we will check if there is a ray whose total delay is equal to the target value of the subset sum problem (plus some constants).Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, Natural Computing, 200

Exact Cover with light

We suggest a new optical solution for solving the YES/NO version of the Exact Cover problem by using the massive parallelism of light. The idea is to build an optical device which can generate all possible solutions of the problem and then to pick the correct one. In our case the device has a graph-like representation and the light is traversing it by following the routes given by the connections between nodes. The nodes are connected by arcs in a special way which lets us to generate all possible covers (exact or not) of the given set. For selecting the correct solution we assign to each item, from the set to be covered, a special integer number. These numbers will actually represent delays induced to light when it passes through arcs. The solution is represented as a subray arriving at a certain moment in the destination node. This will tell us if an exact cover does exist or not.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, New Generation Computing, accepted, 200

In Patients With Severe Alcoholic Hepatitis, Prednisolone Increases Susceptibility to Infection and Infection-Related Mortality, and Is Associated With High Circulating Levels of Bacterial DNA

Background & Aims Infections are common in patients with severe alcoholic hepatitis (SAH), but little information is available on how to predict their development or their effects on patients. Prednisolone is advocated for treatment of SAH, but can increase susceptibility to infection. We compared the effects of infection on clinical outcomes of patients treated with and without prednisolone, and identified risk factors for development of infection in SAH. Methods We analyzed data from 1092 patients enrolled in a double-blind placebo-controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy of treatment with prednisolone (40 mg daily) or pentoxifylline (400 mg 3 times each day) in patients with SAH. The 2 × 2 factorial design led to 547 patients receiving prednisolone; 546 were treated with pentoxifylline. The trial was conducted in the United Kingdom from January 2011 through February 2014. Data on development of infection were collected at evaluations performed at screening, baseline, weekly during admission, on discharge, and after 90 days. Patients were diagnosed with infection based on published clinical and microbiologic criteria. Risk factors for development of infection and effects on 90-day mortality were evaluated separately in patients treated with prednisolone (n = 547) and patients not treated with prednisolone (n = 545) using logistic regression. Pretreatment blood levels of bacterial DNA (bDNA) were measured in 731 patients. Results Of the 1092 patients in the study, 135 had an infection at baseline, 251 developed infections during treatment, and 89 patients developed an infection after treatment. There was no association between pentoxifylline therapy and the risk of serious infection (P = .084), infection during treatment (P = .20), or infection after treatment (P = .27). Infections classified as serious were more frequent in patients treated with prednisolone (odds ratio [OR], 1.27; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.27−2.92; P = .002). There was no association between prednisolone therapy and infection during treatment (OR, 1.04; 95% CI, 0.78−1.37; P = .80). However, a higher proportion (10%) of patients receiving prednisolone developed an infection after treatment than of patients not given prednisolone (6%) (OR, 1.70; 95% CI, 1.07−2.69; P = .024). Development of infection was associated with increased 90-day mortality in patients with SAH treated with prednisolone, independent of model for end-stage liver disease or Lille score (OR, 2.46; 95% CI, 1.41−4.30; P = .002). High circulating bDNA predicted infection that developed within 7 days of prednisolone therapy, independent of Model for End-Stage Liver Disease and white blood cell count (OR, 4.68; 95% CI, 1.80−12.17; P = .001). In patients who did not receive prednisolone, infection was not independently associated with 90-day mortality (OR, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.54−1.62; P = .82) or levels of bDNA (OR, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.39−1.75; P = .62). Conclusions Patients with SAH given prednisolone are at greater risk for developing serious infections and infections after treatment than patients not given prednisolone, which may offset its therapeutic benefit. Level of circulating bDNA before treatment could identify patients at high risk of infection if given prednisolone; these data could be used to select therapies for patients with SAH. EudraCT no: 2009-013897-42; Current Controlled Trials no: ISRCTN88782125

A Survey on Continuous Time Computations

We provide an overview of theories of continuous time computation. These theories allow us to understand both the hardness of questions related to continuous time dynamical systems and the computational power of continuous time analog models. We survey the existing models, summarizing results, and point to relevant references in the literature

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Brain structural and functional recovery following initiation of combination antiretroviral therapy

NeuroAIDS persists in the era of combination antiretroviral therapies. We describe here the recovery of brain structure and function following 6 months of therapy in a treatment-naive patient presenting with HIV-associated dementia. The patient’s neuropsychological test performance improved and his total brain volume increased by more than 5 %. Neuronal functional connectivity measured by magnetoencephalography changed from a pattern identical to that observed in other HIV-infected individuals to one that was indistinguishable from that of uninfected control subjects. These data suggest that at least some of the effects of HIV on the brain can be fully reversed with treatment

Search for direct stau production in events with two hadronic tau-leptons in root s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of the supersymmetric partners ofτ-leptons (staus) in final stateswith two hadronically decayingτ-leptons is presented. The analysis uses a dataset of pp collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of139fb−1, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LargeHadron Collider at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. No significant deviation from the expected StandardModel background is observed. Limits are derived in scenarios of direct production of stau pairs with eachstau decaying into the stable lightest neutralino and oneτ-lepton in simplified models where the two staumass eigenstates are degenerate. Stau masses from 120 GeV to 390 GeV are excluded at 95% confidencelevel for a massless lightest neutralino