The tangent stiffness matrix for an absolute interface coordinates floating frame of reference formulation

Multibody System Dynamics - In this work, a full and complete development of the tangent stiffness matrix is presented, suitable for the use in an absolute interface coordinates floating frame of...     

改造中的全部能耗：避免对资源的过分依赖

建筑物的所有者和使用者需要一些管理来帮助他们在面对那些对建筑物可持续性产生影响的决策时做出适当的选择。在改造项目中这一点尤其重要。本文探讨了如何从建材能耗和运行能耗的角度来评估不同的决策选择产生的影响，并对一个实例在一定时间段内可能的能源情况进行了研究。     

铭琪加特纳维尔癌症关顾中心

正铭琪癌症关顾中心旨在为癌症患者以及他们的家人和朋友提供实际上和情绪上的支援服务。自1996年第一所铭琪中心在爱丁堡成立以来,铭琪癌症关顾中心基金会的规模日益扩展,并透过委托世界知名的建筑师发展一系列开创先河的建筑。不论是刻意还是偶然的,当代建筑有时难免会产生冷漠或拒人于千里之外的观感,但每一所铭琪中心——在格拉斯哥、伦敦抑或香港——都希望营造令人宾至如归的感觉,     

Learning and clustering of fuzzy cognitive maps for travel behaviour analysis

In modern society, more and more attention is given to the increase in public transportation or bike use. In this regard, one of the most important issues is to find and analyse the factors influencing car dependency and the attitudes of people in terms of preferred transport mode. Although the individuals’ transport behavioural modelling is a complex task, it has a notable social and economic impact. Thus, in this paper, fuzzy cognitive maps are explored to represent the behaviour and operation of such complex systems. This soft-computing technique allows modelling how the travellers make decisions based on their knowledge of different transport modes properties at different levels of abstraction. These levels correspond to the hierarchy perception including different scenarios of travelling, different benefits of choosing a specific travel mode, and different situations and attributes related to those benefits. We use learning and clustering of fuzzy cognitive maps to describe travellers’ behaviour and change trends in different abstraction levels. Cluster estimations are done before and after the learning of the maps, in order to compare people’s way of thinking if only considering an initial view of a transport mode decision for a daily activity, and when they really have a deeper reasoning process in view of benefits and consequences. The results of this study will help transportation policy decision makers in better understanding of people’s needs and consequently will help them actualizing different policy formulations and implementations.     

Collective institutional work: the case of Airbnb in Amsterdam,London and New York

ABSTRACT

Given that online platforms disrupt established industries and challenge existing institutions, they can only be successful if their innovation becomes both legal and legitimate. This requires ‘institutional work’ that changes perceptions and regulations within society. Rather than only focussing on the online platform as the sole agent engaging in institutional work, our study analyses institutional work as a collective process. We investigate the case of home-sharing platform Airbnb and the process of institutional change its introduction prompted regarding short-term rental in Amsterdam, London and New York. We find, contrary to the popular view of online platforms as disruptive entrepreneurs, that the platform mainly focusses on creating new institutions rather than disrupting existing ones, and that users and non-users undertake most of the institutional work activities. We also show that different types of actors carry out different types of institutional work suggesting that the process of institutional work is highly distributed.     

Health burden of road traffic accidents,an analysis of clinical data on disability and mortality exposure rates in Flanders and Brussels

Statistics on road traffic accidents (RTAs) mainly come from police records. The police reported RTA statistics however are known to have a large degree of under-registration, underestimating the true risk of being injured in traffic accidents. The use of medical based datasets can provide a more accurate estimate of the actual traffic accident health risk. Exposure-based rates of the actual burden from Flanders and Brussels were calculated, comparing differences between road user, age, gender and type of injury sustained. Minimal Clinical Data (MCD) was selected for the years 2003–2007, as well as data from the mortality statistics. Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) were calculated and put into perspective with the passenger kilometres travelled.     

Exploration of GH94 Sequence Space for Enzyme Discovery Reveals a Novel Glucosylgalactose Phosphorylase Specificity

The substantial increase in DNA sequencing efforts has led to a rapid expansion of available sequences in glycoside hydrolase families. The ever-increasing sequence space presents considerable opportunities for the search for enzymes with novel functionalities. In this work, the sequence-function space of glycoside hydrolase family 94 (GH94) was explored in detail, using a combined approach of phylogenetic analysis and sequence similarity networks. The identification and experimental screening of unknown clusters led to the discovery of an enzyme from the soil bacterium Paenibacillus polymyxa that acts as a 4-O-β-d -glucosyl-d -galactose phosphorylase (GGalP), a specificity that has not been reported to date. Detailed characterization of GGalP revealed that its kinetic parameters were consistent with those of other known phosphorylases. Furthermore, the enzyme could be used for production of the rare disaccharides 4-O-β-d -glucosyl-d -galactose and 4-O-β-d -glucosyl-l -arabinose. Our current work highlights the power of rational sequence space exploration in the search for novel enzyme specificities, as well as the potential of phosphorylases for rare disaccharide synthesis.     

Sequential enzymatic quantification of two sugars in a single microchannel

This paper presents the implementation of a multiple analyte enzyme assay, based on the sequential injection of the different enzyme solutions, in an electrokinetic driven microfluidic chip. The assay methodology for the simultaneous quantification of d-glucose and d-fructose was reported in previous publications but here the real integration of both enzyme assays was achieved. When assays were executed separately, good reproducibility was observed with average CV values of 5.2% and 4.5% for the d-glucose and d-fructose assay, respectively. Next, the assays for the quantification of d-glucose and d-fructose were integrated simultaneously on chip, where each assay was executed consecutively in the same microreactor by applying a specific sequence of potentials at the reservoirs. This article proves the integration of a sequential based quantification approach in continuous microfluidic chips with electrokinetic actuation.