scholarly journals 2 + 1 Highways: Overview and Future Directions

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Manuel Romana ◽  
Marilo Martin-Gasulla ◽  
Ana T. Moreno

Most of the rural transportation system is composed of two-lane highways, and many of them serve as the primary means for rural access to urban areas and freeways. In some highways, traffic volumes can be not high enough to justify a four-lane highway but higher than can be served by isolated passing lanes, or can present high number of head-on collisions. In those conditions, 2 + 1 highways are potentially applicable. This type of highway is used to provide high-performance highways as intermediate solution between the common two-lane highway and the freeway. Successful experiences reported in Germany, Sweden, Finland, Poland, or Texas (US) may suggest that they are potentially applicable in other countries. The objective of this white paper is to provide an overview of the past practice in 2 + 1 highways and discuss the research directions and challenges in this field, specially focusing on, but not limited to, operational research in association with the activities of the Subcommittee on Two-Lane Highways (AHB40 2.2) of the Transportation Research Board. The significance of this paper is twofold: (1) it provides wider coverage of past 2 + 1 highways design and evaluation, and (2) it discusses future directions of this field.

2001 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. T. Blythe ◽  
Paul Knight ◽  
John Walker

Following the publication of the Government's White Paper on Integrated Transport in July 1998, and a shift in emphasis by Local Authorities away from road building to demand management techniques, the current trend is to a more balanced approach, whereby the use of road-space may be charged to vehicle drivers, i.e. road users pay to use (at least some) roads, just as public transport passengers pay each time they travel. Key to this is the introduction of some form of road user charging or vehicle access control. In urban areas, this may be achieved using paper licences (as in Singapore, 1975–1998), electronic (microwave) tags and transponders (as in Trondheim and Oslo, Norway and in Singapore since 1998) or by the use of automatic video-based licence-plate recognition (ALPR). The use of video-based registration to check whether a vehicle has purchased (or been granted) some form of licence rights to use a particular road or cordoned area on a particular day seems both logical and attractive. However, this form of urban road use pricing has not been operated in anything other than small-scale pilot schemes, and there are a significant number of technical, organisational and operational issues that need to be researched before such a system could safely be implemented for everyday use. This paper is specifically aimed at addressing such key issues, to determine whether in the short term (next 5 years) ALPR could deliver a practical tool for use by local authorities, whether in isolation or as part of a package of applications, to reduce traffic congestion within urban areas.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinglin Lu ◽  
Menachem Elimelech

This tutorial review covers the history, current progress, and future research directions of interfacial polymerization for making high-performance desalination membranes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e632
Author(s):  
Ward Ahmed Al-Hussein ◽  
Miss Laiha Mat Kiah ◽  
Por Lip Yee ◽  
B B. Zaidan

In the plan and development of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), understanding drivers behaviour is considered highly valuable. Reckless driving, incompetent preventive measures, and the reliance on slow and incompetent assistance systems are attributed to the increasing rates of traffic accidents. This survey aims to review and scrutinize the literature related to sensor-based driver behaviour domain and to answer questions that are not covered so far by existing reviews. It covers the factors that are required in improving the understanding of various appropriate characteristics of this domain and outlines the common incentives, open confrontations, and imminent commendations from former researchers. Systematic scanning of the literature, from January 2014 to December 2020, mainly from four main databases, namely, IEEEXplore, ScienceDirect, Scopus and Web of Science to locate highly credible peer-reviewed articles. Amongst the 5,962 articles found, a total of 83 articles are selected based on the author’s predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Then, a taxonomy of existing literature is presented to recognize the various aspects of this relevant research area. Common issues, motivations, and recommendations of previous studies are identified and discussed. Moreover, substantial analysis is performed to identify gaps and weaknesses in current literature and guide future researchers into planning their experiments appropriately. Finally, future directions are provided for researchers interested in driver profiling and recognition. This survey is expected to aid in emphasizing existing research prospects and create further research directions in the near future.


Author(s):  
Philip James

The focus of this chapter is an examination of the diversity of living organisms found within urban environments, both inside and outside buildings. The discussion commences with prions and viruses before moving on to consider micro-organisms, plants, and animals. Prions and viruses cause disease in plants and animals, including humans. Micro-organisms are ubiquitous and are found in great numbers throughout urban environments. New technologies are providing new insights into their diversity. Plants may be found inside buildings as well as in gardens and other green spaces. The final sections of the chapter offer a discussion of the diversity of animals that live in urban areas for part or all of their life cycle. Examples of the diversity of life in urban environments are presented throughout, including native and non-native species, those that are benign and deadly, and the common and the rare.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (15) ◽  
pp. 6736
Author(s):  
Ong Heo ◽  
Yeowon Yoon ◽  
Jinung Do

When underground space requires excavation in areas below the water table, the foundation system suffers from buoyancy, which leads to the uplifting of the superstructure. A deep foundation system can be used; however, in cases where a hard layer is encountered, high driving forces and corresponding noises cause civil complaints in urban areas. Micropiles can be an effective alternative option, due to their high performance despite a short installation depth. Pressurized grouting is used with a packer to induce higher interfacial properties between micropile and soil. In this study, the field performance of micropiles installed using gravitational grouting or pressure-grouted using either a geotextile packer or rubber packer was comparatively evaluated by tension and creep tests. Micropiles were installed using pressure grouting in weak and fractured zones. As results, the pressure-grouted micropiles showed more stable and stronger behaviors than ones installed using the gravitational grouting. Moreover, the pressure-grouted micropile installed using the rubber packer showed better performance than the one using the geotextile packer.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Zhang ◽  
Changjiu Sun ◽  
Tingwei He ◽  
Yuanzhi Jiang ◽  
Junli Wei ◽  
...  

AbstractQuasi-two-dimensional (quasi-2D) perovskites have attracted extraordinary attention due to their superior semiconducting properties and have emerged as one of the most promising materials for next-generation light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The outstanding optical properties originate from their structural characteristics. In particular, the inherent quantum-well structure endows them with a large exciton binding energy due to the strong dielectric- and quantum-confinement effects; the corresponding energy transfer among different n-value species thus results in high photoluminescence quantum yields (PLQYs), particularly at low excitation intensities. The review herein presents an overview of the inherent properties of quasi-2D perovskite materials, the corresponding energy transfer and spectral tunability methodologies for thin films, as well as their application in high-performance LEDs. We then summarize the challenges and potential research directions towards developing high-performance and stable quasi-2D PeLEDs. The review thus provides a systematic and timely summary for the community to deepen the understanding of quasi-2D perovskite materials and resulting LED devices.


Author(s):  
Gert Kootstra ◽  
Xin Wang ◽  
Pieter M. Blok ◽  
Jochen Hemming ◽  
Eldert van Henten

Abstract Purpose of Review The world-wide demand for agricultural products is rapidly growing. However, despite the growing population, labor shortage becomes a limiting factor for agricultural production. Further automation of agriculture is an important solution to tackle these challenges. Recent Findings Selective harvesting of high-value crops, such as apples, tomatoes, and broccoli, is currently mainly performed by humans, rendering it one of the most labor-intensive and expensive agricultural tasks. This explains the large interest in the development of selective harvesting robots. Selective harvesting, however, is a challenging task for a robot, due to the high levels of variation and incomplete information, as well as safety. Summary This review paper provides an overview of the state of the art in selective harvesting robotics in three different production systems; greenhouse, orchard, and open field. The limitations of current systems are discussed, and future research directions are proposed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 8789
Author(s):  
Giovanni Bianco ◽  
Barbara Bonvini ◽  
Stefano Bracco ◽  
Federico Delfino ◽  
Paola Laiolo ◽  
...  

As reported in the “Clean energy for all Europeans package” set by the EU, a sustainable transition from fossil fuels towards cleaner energy is necessary to improve the quality of life of citizens and the livability in cities. The exploitation of renewable sources, the improvement of energy performance in buildings and the need for cutting-edge national energy and climate plans represent important and urgent topics to be faced in order to implement the sustainability concept in urban areas. In addition, the spread of polygeneration microgrids and the recent development of energy communities enable a massive installation of renewable power plants, high-performance small-size cogeneration units, and electrical storage systems; moreover, properly designed local energy production systems make it possible to optimize the exploitation of green energy sources and reduce both energy supply costs and emissions. In the present paper, a set of key performance indicators is introduced in order to evaluate and compare different energy communities both from a technical and environmental point of view. The proposed methodology was used in order to assess and compare two sites characterized by the presence of sustainable energy infrastructures: the Savona Campus of the University of Genoa in Italy, where a polygeneration microgrid has been in operation since 2014 and new technologies will be installed in the near future, and the SPEED2030 District, an urban area near the Campus where renewable energy power plants (solar and wind), cogeneration units fed by hydrogen and storage systems are planned to be installed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhuoqun Fang ◽  
Penghong Chen ◽  
Shijie Tang ◽  
Aizhen Chen ◽  
Chaoyu Zhang ◽  
...  

AbstractRadiation-induced skin injury (RISI) is one of the common serious side effects of radiotherapy (RT) for patients with malignant tumors. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are applied to RISI repair in some clinical cases series except some traditional options. Though direct replacement of damaged cells may be achieved through differentiation capacity of MSCs, more recent data indicate that various cytokines and chemokines secreted by MSCs are involved in synergetic therapy of RISI by anti-inflammatory, immunomodulation, antioxidant, revascularization, and anti-apoptotic activity. In this paper, we not only discussed different sources of MSCs on the treatment of RISI both in preclinical studies and clinical trials, but also summarized the applications and mechanisms of MSCs in other related regenerative fields.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanzeel Rehman Charan ◽  
Muhammad Aqeel Bhutto ◽  
Mihr Ali Bhutto ◽  
Azhar Ali Tunio ◽  
Ghulam Murtaza Khuhro ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Nanomaterials of curcumin with hyaluronic acid have gained a lot of attention for potential therapeutic applications of curcumin and hyaluronic acid with or without other additional drugs. Overall studies of curcumin and hyaluronic acid show that nanomaterials of curcumin with hyaluronic acid accelerate the efficacy of curcumin in the treatment of various disorders like arthritis, cancer, hepatic fibrosis, neural disorders, wound healing, and skin regeneration, it is largely due to the combined effect of hyaluronic acid and curcumin. However, due to limited clinical trials and experiments on humans and animals, there is a substantial gap in research for the safety and efficacy of nanomaterials of curcumin-hyaluronic acid in the treatment of curcumin and hyaluronic acid targeted diseases and disorders. Main body of the abstract In this current review, we have first described various reported synthetic nanomaterials of curcumin-hyaluronic acid, then in the next section, we have described various fields, disorders, and diseases where these are being applied and in the final section of this review, we discussed the research gap, and future research directions needed to propose the fabricated nanocurcumin-hyaluronic acid biomaterials. Short conclusion There are substantial gaps in research for the safety and efficacy of nanomaterials of curcumin with hyaluronic acid due to limited available data of clinical trials and experiments of nanocurcumin-hyaluronic acid biomaterials on humans and animals. So, it entirely requires serious and committed efforts through the well-organized system of practical and clinical trials which provide results, data, and detections that lead to the formulation of the best drug from curcumin with hyaluronic acid for the treatment of curcumin and hyaluronic acid targeted diseases and disorders.


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