Profile Update Research Articles

Facebook advertising’s influence on intention-to-purchase and purchase amongst Millennials

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of behavioural attitudes towards the most popular social medium in the world, Facebook, amongst Millennials in South Africa (SA), and to determine whether various usage and demographic variables have an impact on intention-to-purchase and purchase perceptions. Design/methodology/approach – Quantitative research was conducted by means of a survey among a sample of over 3,500 respondents via self-administered structured questionnaires in SA. A generalised linear model was used to analyse the data. Findings – The results confirm that advertising on Facebook has a positive influence on the behavioural attitudes (intention-to-purchase and purchase) of Millennials who reside in SA. The usage characteristics, log on duration and profile update incidence, as well as the demographic influence of ethnic orientation also resulted in more favourable perceptions of Facebook advertising. Research limitations/implications – Research on Facebook advertising was only conducted in SA, whereas other emerging countries warrant further investigation to establish if they share the slight positive sentiment towards intention-to-purchase and purchase. This inquiry only provides a “snap shot” of behavioural attitudes, usage and demographic factors towards social media advertising, whereas future research could consider the development of cognitive, affective and behavioural attitudes towards Facebook advertising by employing longitudinal and qualitative research designs. Practical implications – Organisations and managers should consider that their existing Facebook advertising strategies may only have a limited effect on intention-to-purchase and purchase in SA. However, certain usage characteristics, namely the more time spent logged on to Facebook and the greater frequency of profile update incidence, as well as the demographic variable, namely black and coloured Millennials, resulted in more favourable behavioural attitudes towards Facebook advertising. Hence, organisations and managers should be prepared to alter or adapt their Facebook advertising tactics accordingly when targeting the notoriously fickle Millennials. Originality/value – This investigation found that Facebook advertising has a nominal positive influence on behavioural attitudes among Millennials, which is in congruence with the communications of the effect pyramid model that was established through traditional advertising research. This paper also makes a noteworthy contribution to attitudinal research in emerging countries where there is a dearth of research in social media advertising.

Cohort Profile Update: Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health

In 1996 the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health recruited a nationally representative sample of more than 40,000 women in three age cohorts, born in 1973-78, 1946-51 and 1921-26. At least six waves of 3-yearly surveys have been completed. Although the focus remains on factors affecting the health and well-being of women and their access to and use of health services across urban, rural and remote areas of Australia, the study has now been considerably expanded by linkage to other health data sets. For most women who have ever participated in the study, linked records are now available for: government-subsidized non-hospital services (e.g. all general practitioner visits); pharmaceutical prescriptions filled; national death index, including codes for multiple causes of death; aged care assessments and services; cancer registries; and, for most states and territories, hospital admissions and perinatal data. Additionally, a large cohort of women born in 1989-95 have been recruited. The data are available to approved collaborators, with more than 780 researchers using the data so far. Full details of the study materials and data access procedures are available at [http://www.alswh.org.au/].

Cohort Profile Update: The British Regional Heart Study 1978-2014: 35 years follow-up of cardiovascular disease and ageing.

Cohort Profile Update: The British Regional Heart Study 1978-2014: 35 years follow-up of cardiovascular disease and ageing.

Cohort Profile Update: The Mater-University of Queensland Study of Pregnancy (MUSP).

The Mater-University of Queensland Study of Pregnancy (MUSP) and its outcomes began in 1981 with data collected on 7223 pregnant woman-child pairs (6753 mothers, of whom 520 had 2 study children, less 50 who had multiple births). These women, and their children, were initially followed for up to 21 years. Since then there have been additional follow-ups of the mothers (27 years) and their children (30 years). There has also been a substantial increase in the breadth of topics addressed, with the collection of biological samples, the administration of structured clinical assessments of mental health and cognitive capacity, and markers of physical health such as lung function and blood pressure. MUSP was originally developed as a birth cohort study. It has become a longitudinal study of growth, development and ageing with an emphasis on the generational transmission of a wide range of factors impacting on adult health outcomes. We welcome interest in our study; for study background and publications visit [www.socialscience.uq.edu.au/musp] or contact [j.najman@uq.edu.au].

Cohort profile update: the Danish HIV Cohort Study (DHCS).

The DHCS is a cohort of all HIV-infected individuals seen in one of the eight Danish HIV centres after 31 December 1994. Here we update the 2009 cohort profile emphasizing the development of the cohort. Every 12-24 months, DHCS is linked with the Danish Civil Registration System (CRS) in order to extract an age- and sex-matched comparison cohort from the general population, as well as cohorts of family members of the HIV-infected patients and of the comparison cohort. The combined cohort is linked with CRS, the Danish Cancer Registry, the Danish National Hospital Registry, the Danish Registry of Causes of Death, the Danish National Prescription Registry, the Attainment Register and the Integrated Database for Labour Market Research to get information on vital status, migration, cancer, hospital contacts, causes of death, dispensed prescriptions, education and employment. Using this design, rates of a range of outcomes have been compared between HIV-infected patients and the comparison cohort, as well as between families of these two cohorts in order to disaggregate the effects of HIV infection and familial/environmental factors. Data can be shared with foreign institutions following approval from the Danish Data Protection Agency. Potential collaborators can contact the study director, Niels Obel (e-mail: niels.obel@regionh.dk).

Cohort profile update: 2004 Pelotas (Brazil) Birth Cohort Study. Body composition, mental health and genetic assessment at the 6 years follow-up.

This is an update of the 2004 Pelotas Birth Cohort profile, originally published in 2011. In view of the high prevalence of overweight and mental health problems among Brazilian children, together with the availability of state-of-the-art equipment to assess body composition and diagnostic tests for mental health in childhood, the main outcomes measured in the fifth follow-up (mean age 6.8 years) included child body composition, mental health and cognitive ability. A total of 3722 (90.2%) of the original mothers/carers were interviewed and their children examined in a clinic where they underwent whole-body dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), air displacement plethysmography and a 3D photonic scan. Saliva samples for DNA were obtained. Clinical psychologists applied the Development and Well-Being Assessment questionnaire and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children to all children. Results are being compared with those of the two earlier cohorts to assess the health effects of economic growth and full implementation of public policies aimed at reducing social inequalities in the past 30 years. For further information visit the programme website at [http://www.epidemio-ufpel.org.br/site/content/coorte_2004/questionarios.php]. Applications to use the data should be made by contacting 2004 cohort researchers and filling in the application form available at [http://www.epidemio-ufpel.org.br/site/content/estudos/formularios.php].

Novel ways of improving communication with members of health professional associations

The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) supported the Nepal Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (NESOG) to help influence national health policy and practice through FIGO’s Leadership in Obstetrics and Gynecology for Impact and Change (LOGIC) Initiative in Maternal and Newborn Health. An Organizational Capacity Improvement Framework, developed by the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC), was used to evaluate NESOG’s initial baseline organizational capacity in 2010. Communication among NESOG members was rated as moderate (39%). Several initiatives, such as the use of high-speed internet access, group SMS texts and emails for information sharing, member profile updates, use of social media, and regular updates to the NESOG website were examples of interventions that resulted in improved participation of members in NESOG’s activities. Members were impressively active in reciprocating via Facebook, and via participation in online voting in the NESOG elections (84%).

Cohort profile update: The 1993 Pelotas (Brazil) birth cohort follow-up visits in adolescence.

In this paper we update the profile of the 1993 Pelotas (Brazil) Birth Cohort Study, with emphasis on a shift of priority from maternal and child health research topics to four main categories of outcome variables, collected throughout adolescence: (i) mental health; (ii) body composition; (iii) risk factors for non-communicable diseases (NCDs); (iv) human capital. We were able to trace 81.3% (n = 4106) of the original cohort at 18 years of age. For the first time, the 18-years visit took place entirely on the university premises, in a clinic equipped with state-of-the-art equipment for the assessment of body composition. We welcome requests for data analyses from outside scientists. For more information, refer to our website (http://www.epidemio-ufpel.org.projetos_de_pesquisas/estudos/coorte_1993) or e-mail the corresponding author.

Prediction of wheel and rail profile wear on complex railway networks

The modelling and the reduction of wear due to wheel-rail contact represents a crucial issue in railway applications, mainly correlated to safety, maintenance interventions and definition of strategies aimed at wheel profile optimization. A model for evaluating wheel and rail profile evolution due to wear developed for complex railway networks is presented in this paper. The model layout is composed of two mutually interacting but separate parts: a vehicle model (composed of multibody model and global contact model) for the dynamical simulations and a unit for wear computation (composed of the local contact model, the wear evaluation procedure and the profile update strategy). In order to achieve general significant accuracy results in reasonable computational effort, a suitable statistical approach for the railway track description is used, aimed at studying complex railway lines: in fact, the exhaustive analysis of vehicle dynamics and wear evolution on all the railway network is too expensive in terms of computational time for each practical purpose. The wear model has been validated in collaboration with Trenitalia S.P.A and Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI), which have provided technical documentation and experimental data relative to some tests performed on a environment exhibiting serious problems in terms of wear: the vehicle ALn 501 Minuetto operated on the Aosta-Pre Saint Didier Italian line.

Development of a wear model for the analysis of complex railway networks

In railway applications, the estimation of wear at the wheel–rail interface is an important field of study, mainly correlated to the planning of maintenance interventions, vehicle stability and the possibility of carrying out specific strategies for the wheel profile optimization. In this work the authors present a model for the evaluation of wheel and rail profile evolution due to wear specifically developed for complex railway networks. The model layout is made up of two mutually interactive but separate units: a vehicle model (composed of the multibody model and the global contact model) for the dynamical analysis and a model for the wear evaluation (composed of the local contact model, the wear evaluation procedure and the profile update strategy).The authors propose a statistical approach for the railway track description to study complex railway lines in order to achieve general significant accuracy results in a reasonable time: in fact the exhaustive simulation of the vehicle dynamics and of wear evolution on all the railway network turn out to be too expensive in terms of computational effort for each practical purpose.The wear model has been validated in collaboration with Trenitalia S.P.A and RFI, which have provided the technical documentation and the experimental data relating to some tests performed on a scenario that exhibits serious problems in terms of wear: the vehicle ALn 501 “Minuetto” circulating on the Aosta-Pre Saint Didier Italian line.

Development of a wear model for the wheel profile optimisation on railway vehicles

The modelling and the reduction of wear due to wheel–rail interaction is a fundamental aspect in the railway field, mainly correlated to safety, maintenance interventions and costs. In this work, the authors present two innovative wheel profiles, specifically designed with the aim of improving the wear and stability behaviour of the standard ORE S1002 wheel profile matched with the UIC60 rail profile canted at 1/20 rad, which represents the wheel–rail combination adopted in the Italian railway line. The two wheel profiles, conventionally named CD1 and DR2, have been developed by the authors in collaboration with Trenitalia S.p.A. The CD1 profile has been designed with the purpose of spreading the contact points in the flange zone on a larger area in order to reduce wear phenomena and having a constant equivalent conicity for small lateral displacements of the wheelset with respect to the centred position in the track. The DR2 wheel profile is instead designed to guarantee the same kinematic characteristics of the matching formed by ORE S1002 wheel profile and UIC60 rail profile with laying angle α p equal to 1/40 rad, widely common in European railways and characterised by good performances in both wear and kinematic behaviour. The evolution of wheel profiles due to wear has been evaluated through a wear model developed and validated by the authors in previous works. The wear model comprises two mutually interactive units: a vehicle model for the dynamic simulations and a model for the wear assessment. The whole model is based on a discrete process: each discrete step consists in one dynamic simulation and one profile update by means of the wear model while, within the discrete step, the profiles are supposed to be constant. The choice of an appropriate step is crucial in terms of precision and computational effort: the particular strategy adopted in the current work has been chosen for its capacity in representing the nonlinear wear evolution and for the low computational time required. In the present research, the investigated trainset is the passenger vehicle ALSTOM ALn 501 ‘Minuetto’, which is usually equipped with the standard ORE S1002 wheel profile in Italian railways. The entire model has been simulated on a virtual track specifically developed to represent a statistical description of the whole Italian line. The data necessary to build the virtual track and the vehicle model were provided by Trenitalia S.p.A. and Rete Ferroviaria Italiana. The CD1 and DR2 wheel profiles, matched to the UIC60 rail with cant 1/20 rad, have shown a good behaviour in terms of wear resistance if compared with the old ORE S1002 wheel profile, consequently assuring a more uniform distribution of the removed material and a prolongation of the mean time between two subsequent re-profiling interventions.

Pycnogenol® in Chronic Venous Insufficiency and Related Venous Disorders

The present review provides an update of the biological profile of Pycnogenol in the light of its use in the treatment of chronic venous insufficiency (CVI) and related venous disorders such as deep vein thrombosis (DVT), post-thrombotic syndrome, long haul air-travel-related leg oedema, venous ulcers and acute haemorrhoids. Pycnogenol is a French maritime pine bark extract produced from the outer bark of Pinus pinaster Ait. subsp. atlantica. Its strong antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and vasodilator activities, antithrombotic effects and collagen stabilizing properties make it uniquely able to target the multi facet pathophysiology of CVI and related venous disorders. Clinical studies have shown that it can reduce oedema of the legs in CVI, reduce the incidence of deep venous thrombosis during long haul flights and enhance the healing of venous ulcers and haemorrhoidal episodes by topical application and/or oral administration. This review highlights clinical research findings on the safety, compliance and efficacy of Pycnogenol, including its use in combination products.

Hybrid Scheme with Adaptive Replication and Mobility Anchoring Point (MAP) in Wireless Networks

Replication strategy is mostly useful for replicating the mobile user's profile at selected locations from which some callers have higher calling rate. Location management scheme also include replication strategy to reduce the location lookup cost of called mobile user. It plays important role in personal communication services in order to reduce call setup cost, call setup time, and increases the QoS (quality of service). In prior replication schemes, called user's location profile is placed at some fixed and limited number of visitor location registers (VLRs) based on call history of the caller. In prior hybrid schemes location update and replication strategies are combined together. These prior hybrid schemes apply pointer forwarding strategy and replication. But these schemes have limitations like holding "loose" form of location profile and higher location update cost. We have proposed a new hybrid scheme which includes adaptive replication of updated user's location profile and mobility anchoring point (MAP) for location update. The main objective of the proposed scheme is to reduce call setup cost and call setup time. In order to achieve the objective, adaptive replication is applied at certain visitor location registers (VLRs) according to movement of caller. The replica is kept updated at MAP and replicated to neighbor VLRs as per movement of the caller. We have presented fluid-flow based analytical modeling which shows that proposed scheme outperforms the prior hybrid scheme.

Wheel profile optimization on railway vehicles from the wear viewpoint

The modelling and the reduction of wear due to wheel–rail interaction is a fundamental aspect in the railway field, mainly correlated to running stability and safety, maintenance interventions and costs. In this work the authors present two innovative wheel profiles, specifically designed with the aim of improving the wear and stability behaviour of the standard ORE S1002 wheel profile matched with the UIC60 rail profile canted at 1/20rad, which represents the wheel–rail combination adopted in Italian railway line.The two wheel profiles, conventionally named CD1 and DR2, have been developed by the authors in collaboration with Trenitalia S.p.A. The CD1 wheel profile has been designed with the purpose of spreading the contact points in the flange zone on a larger area in order to reduce wear phenomena and having a constant equivalent conicity for small lateral displacements of the wheelset with respect to the centred position in the track. The DR2 wheel profile is instead designed in order to guarantee the same kinematic characteristics of the matching formed by ORE S1002 wheel profile and UIC60 rail profile with laying angle αp equal to 1/40rad, widely common in European railways and characterized by good performances in both wear and kinematic behaviour.Wheel profiles evolution has been calculated through a wear model developed and validated by the authors in previous works with experimental data relative to the Italian Aosta-Pre Saint Didier railway line. This model comprises two mutually interactive units: a vehicle model for the dynamic simulations and a model for the wear assessment. The whole model is based on a discrete process: each discrete step consists in one dynamic simulation and one profile update by means of the wear model while, within the discrete step, the profiles are supposed to be constant. The choice of an appropriate step is crucial in terms of precision and computational effort: the particular strategy adopted in the current work has been chosen for its capacity in representing the non-linear wear evolution and for the low computational time required.In the present research the investigated trainset is the passenger vehicle ALSTOM ALn 501 “Minuetto”, which is usually equipped with the standard ORE S1002 wheel profile and UIC60 rail profile canted at 1/20rad in Italian railways. The entire model has been simulated on a virtual track specifically developed to represent a statistical description of the whole Italian line. The data necessary to build the virtual track and the vehicle model were provided by Trenitalia S.p.A. and Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI). Both the innovative wheel profiles developed in this research activity for the UIC60 rail with cant 1/20rad have proven to work fine in terms of resistance to wear if compared with the old ORE S1002 wheel profile.

The irresistible rise of the Cohort Profile

In recognition that cohort studies are the backbone of epidemiology, the International Journal of Epidemiology’s (IJE’s) Cohort Profile series was launched in December 2004. Then, as now, the purpose of the series was to describe a particular cohort in sufficient detail to enable readers to form collaborations, learn from each other and, where appropriate, maximize the use of existing resources through data sharing. The first cohort profiled was the British Regional Heart Study and in the Editor’s Choice heralding its appearance Shah Ebrahim wrote ‘We plan to profile a cohort study in each issue, . . . ’. Clearly, we underestimated the response. Had we stuck to that original plan, a profile accepted today would have made it into print by 2030. By the end of last year, with an inclusion rate of three profiles per issue, 4100 profiles were already in print. However, with another 50 published online or in the final stages of the submission process, it was obvious a new approach for reducing the time from acceptance to print was overdue. We decided to do two things: revise our instructions to authors and limit the number of full profiles appearing in print. The current instructions can be found at http://mc. manuscriptcentral.com/ije. Slightly more prescriptive than before, they additionally require each profile to include a Summary and a Key Messages box. Whereas the Summary should describe the rationale, methods, data and data access, the Key Messages should highlight the main scientific findings to date. Together, they should provide a succinct overview of the cohort, at the same time as enticing those interested to read the full profile. The Summary and Key Messages of every profile accepted for publication will appear in the print version of the journal. However, as for cohort profile updates, the full version of some profiles will only be published online. The Summary and Key Messages for the first of these, the QSkin Sun and Health Study, appears in this issue. Queensland in Australia has the highest rate of melanoma and skin cancer in the world, and QSkin was set up prospectively to examine the role of environment and host/genetic characteristics in their aetiology. Recruitment to QSkin closed at the end of 2011, with 23 874 women and 19 920 men aged 40–69 years enrolled from the general population of Queensland. On recruitment, 23% of these participants reported a family history of melanoma, 39% the surgical removal of one or more skin cancers and 19%410 skin cancers/ solar keratoses burnt or frozen. In addition to QSkin, this issue of IJE presents full profiles for five cohorts that cover the lifecourse from the pre-natal period, through childhood and adolescence into adulthood. The highly productive Infancia y Medio Ambiente (INMA or Environment and Childhood) Project is of particular personal interest— one of the projects I worked on in my days as a lab technician was the mother to child transfer of pesticides in breast milk. INMA is a network of birth cohorts in Spain that aims to describe exposure to environmental pollutants during pregnancy, at birth and during childhood, and to evaluate their impact and the interaction between pollutants, nutrients and genetic variants on growth, health and development. Focusing on the period from birth to adolescence, the 1987 Finnish Birth Cohort has linked data for all births in Finland in 1987 (460 000) to health registers and registers that provide information on induced abortions, criminality and state benefits. Also founded in 1987, the Ugandan–Canadian TASO-CAN Collaboration follows a nationally representative cohort of 424 000 HIV-infected patients, who initiated combination anti-retroviral therapy with the AIDS support organisation (TASO), the oldest and largest community-based provider in Africa. Findings have been reported on treatment adherence and outcomes across the lifecourse from infancy to old age and have influenced international policies on provision of therapy, for example, in conflict settings. The remaining two cohorts focus on disease risk factors in adulthood. In Australia, the PATH through life project has used data from three cohorts of people born in 1937–41, 1956–60 and 1975– 79 to identify risk factors for the common mental disorders. It has also examined cognitive development, the transition to cognitive impairment and gene–environment interactions in relation to mental health outcomes, and undertaken brain imaging in participants aged460 years. Finally, the Tromso study in Northern Norway, set up to examine risk factors for cardiovascular disease, includes data from440 000 participants in six surveys between 1974 and 2008. The cohort has produced a wealth of innovative findings, an example of Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association

Significance of Patient Registries for Dermatological Disorders

Patient registries for dermatological disorders are important sources of data for researchers, clinicians, and patients. The majority of registries are maintained by academic investigators with funding from federal agencies. However, these registries are fragmented and are maintained only as long as federal funding exists. Patient organizations and companies can serve as alternative sources of funding for registries.

Development of a Model for the Prediction of Wheel and Rail Wear in the Railway Field

Abstract The wear prediction at the wheel-rail interface is a fundamental problem in the railway field, mainly correlated to the planning of maintenance interventions, vehicle stability, and the possibility of researching strategies for the design of optimal wheel and rail profiles from the wear point of view. The authors in this work present a model specifically developed for the evaluation of the wheel and rail wear and of the wheel and rail profiles evolution. The model layout is made up of two mutually interactive parts: a vehicle model for the dynamical analysis and a model for the wear estimation. The first one is a 3D multibody model of a railway vehicle where the wheel-rail interaction is implemented in a C/C++ user routine. Particularly, the research of the contact points between wheel and rail is based on an innovative algorithm developed by authors in previous works, while normal and tangential forces in the contact patches are calculated according to the Hertz and Kalker’s global theory, respectively. The wear model is mainly based on experimental relationships found in literature between the removed material by wear and the energy dissipated by friction at the contact. It starts from the outputs of the dynamical simulations (position of contact points, contact forces, and global creepages) and calculates the pressures inside the contact patches through a local contact model; then, the material removed by wear is evaluated and the worn profiles of wheel and rail are obtained. In order to reproduce the wear evolution, the overall mileage traveled by the vehicle is divided into discrete steps, within which the wheel and rail profiles are constant; after carrying out the dynamical simulations relative to one step, the profiles are updated by means of the wear model. Therefore, the two models work alternately until completing the whole mileage. Moreover, the different time scales characterizing the wheel and rail wear evolutions require the development of a suitable strategy for the profile update; the strategy proposed by the authors is based both on the total distance traveled by the vehicle and on the total tonnage burden on the track. The entire model has been developed and validated in collaboration with Trenitalia S.p.A. and Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI), which have provided the technical documentation and the experimental results relating to some tests performed with the vehicle DMU Aln 501 Minuetto on the Aosta-Pre Saint Didier line.

Development of a wear model for the prediction of wheel and rail profile evolution in railway systems

The prediction of the wear at the wheel–rail interface is a fundamental problem in the railway field, mainly correlated to the planning of maintenance interventions, vehicle stability and the possibility of researching specific strategies for the wheel and rail profile optimization. In this work the Authors present a model specifically developed for the evaluation of the wheel and rail profile evolution due to wear, whose layout is made up of two mutually interactive but separate units: a vehicle model for the dynamic analysis and a model for the wear estimation. The first one is made up of two parts that interact online during the dynamic simulations: a 3D multibody model of the railway vehicle implemented in Simpack Rail (a commercial software for the analysis of multibody systems) and an innovative 3D global contact model (developed by the Authors in previous works) for the detection of the contact points between wheel and rail and for the calculation of the forces in the contact patches (implemented in C/C++ environment). The wear model, implemented in the Matlab environment, is mainly based on experimental relationships found in literature between the removed material and the energy dissipated by friction at the contact. It starts from the outputs of the dynamic simulations (position of contact points, contact forces and global creepages) and calculates the pressures inside the contact patches through a local contact model (FASTSIM algorithm); then the material removed due to wear is evaluated and the worn profiles of wheel and rail are obtained. This approach allows the evaluation of both the quantity of removed material and its distribution along the wheel and rail profiles in order to analyze the development of the profiles shape during their lifetime.The whole model is based on a discrete process: each discrete step consists in one dynamic simulation and one profile update by means of the wear model while, within the discrete step, the profiles are supposed to be constant. The choice of an appropriate step is fundamental in terms of precision and computational load. Moreover the different time scales characterizing the wheel and rail wear evolution require the development of a suitable strategy for the profile update: the strategy proposed by the Authors is based both on the total distance traveled by the considered vehicle and on the total tonnage burden on the track. The entire model has been developed and validated in collaboration with Trenitalia S.p.A. and Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI), which have provided the technical documentation and the experimental results relating to some tests performed with the vehicle DMU Aln 501 Minuetto on the Aosta-Pre Saint Didier line.

Enhancing meta-portals using dynamic user context personalization techniques

The Internet is flooded with information and the last decade its size has grown so many times that information search and presentation have become tedious tasks even for experienced users. Minor changes to existing resources can alter the situation and lead to major changes to the end user experience. In this manuscript we present the dynamic web personalization and document grouping infrastructure for meta-portals and the evaluation of our mechanism on a meta-portal. A meta-portal is an informational node where articles from different sources are collected and presented in a categorized and personalized manner. The web personalization mechanism is based on dynamic creation and update of user profiles according to the users preferences when browsing. In parallel a user's profile is affected by user grouping details, which are constructed by users with similar profiles. Assuming that required information, such as article tagging, keywords to categories matching and articles to categories relation is already part of the meta-portal we present a novel mechanism that can build and maintain a user profile which is formed without disturbing the user. Furthermore, we describe the real-time user-centred document grouping mechanism that is implemented to support the web personalization system and present the experimental evaluation of the whole system.

DEM modelling of liner evolution and its influence on grinding rate in ball mills

Wear of grinding mill liners and lifters plays a major role in the overall efficiency and economics of mineral processing. Change in the shape of lifters as they wear has a significant influence on grinding efficiency, and the annual cost of maintenance and mill down-time depends on the life of both liners and lifters. The Discrete Element Method (DEM) is a computational method for simulating the dynamics of particle processes. This paper presents an analysis of 3D simulation of a grinding mill carried out using the EDEM software package customised to predict the rate of wear of lifter geometry and to enable progressive updating of worn lifter geometry profiles. A simplified breakage rate model is developed as a tool to correlate liner profile to mill performance. The combination of the prediction of liner profile and grinding rate shows promise to provide a powerful tool for advanced mill liner design – providing a means to balance liner life and mill performance over the life of the liner at the liner design stage.