In railway planning, effective disruption management tools can limit the impact of a disruption. A key challenge is that disruption durations are typically uncertain, leading to inefficiencies such as unnecessary shunting, seat-shortages, end-of-day inventory mismatches, and trip cancellations. To address this challenge, we propose two different approaches for incorporating robustness in real-time rolling stock rescheduling under uncertain disruption duration, an aspect that is typically assumed to be known in existing rescheduling models.The first approach, Light trip robustness (LTR) requires that a pre-specified percentage of critical trips are robust with respect to their incoming composition across different disruption durations. The second approach, Strict composition robustness (STR), ensures feasibility across all possible disruption durations without further changes to compositions or shunting operations. Both methods extend a well-known rolling stock rescheduling model by explicitly accounting for multiple possible disruption durations.We develop an online evaluation framework and conduct a computational study using real-world data from the Dutch railway network. Our results demonstrate that explicitly accounting for disruption duration uncertainty can significantly reduce rescheduling costs when disruptions last longer than initially expected. For instance, the STR model achieves up to 21% lower total costs compared to models that do not consider robustness, while the LTR model offers flexibility and performs well under moderate uncertainty. However, these benefits can come at a cost when the initially expected disruption duration is accurate. Overall, our results show that robust rolling stock rescheduling can significantly improve operational resilience and reduces the need for reactive updates. The appropriate level of robustness should be chosen based on the likelihood of disruption duration extensions.
Agricultural intensification is a major driver of farmland biodiversity loss. In Chinese smallholder systems, intensification involves increased insecticide use and farmland edge sealing, i.e. the transformation of vegetated field margins into concrete borders. However, the effects of these stressors on important natural enemies of crop pests like spiders remain unknown. We investigated how insecticide use and edge sealing affect spider assemblages along a gradient of landscape-scale semi-natural habitat cover across 55 fields comprising three main crops (maize, rice and tobacco) in a southern Chinese smallholder farming system. Farmland edge sealing reduced spider richness and functional diversity across all crops, while increasing insecticide use decreased spider densities. The stressors imposed different trait-based filters on spider assemblages: Under edge sealing, spider assemblages became on average smaller with fewer active hunters, while assemblages became on average larger with fewer passive hunters and good dispersers under increased insecticide use. Increasing landscape seminatural habitat cover benefitted the functional diversity of spiders, indicating that offsetting the functional homogenization caused by edge sealing would require a 29.2% increase within 400 m. We demonstrate that farmland edge sealing and increased insecticide use are detrimental to spider numbers and the composition of spider assemblages, which may ultimately threaten natural pest regulation. Mitigating species losses caused by edge sealing with semi-natural habitats is unfeasible as it requires the dedication of large areas. We thus see a pressing need to reduce insecticide use and halt field margin conversion to conserve the functionality of farmland spider assemblages.
Boron-doped diamond, an outstanding electrode material, is commonly synthesised via chemical vapour deposition (CVD) using expensive and toxic boron-containing gases. Alternative boron sources are therefore attractive; however, their use in the growth of phase-pure diamond films is so far limited. This study presents how trimethyl borate (TMBT; B(OCH3)3) can be used as a liquid precursor of boron for the growth of high-quality, heavily boron-doped diamond films in a custom-made, microwave plasma-assisted CVD system. These polycrystalline films were deposited on Si plates at a very high boron-to-carbon molar ratio (105,000 ppm) with homogeneous distribution throughout the film. The films exhibit an uncommon surface morphology, composed of {110} and {100} crystallographic facets. Typical growth rates of about 1.5 mu m/h were achieved for the process carried out without bias enhancement. The average concentration of boron in the films was determined to be 6.48 & times; 1021 cm-3. Moreover, the films are characterised by negative electron affinity. The availability of these diamond films from a highly reproducible and very accessible procedure is opening new possibilities for electrochemistry, sensing and photo-electrocatalytic applications.
Background Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been linked to obesity and type 2 diabetes, suggesting heightened cardiovascular risk. Whether adults with ADHD also show increased rates of metabolic syndrome (MetS), a cluster of central obesity, dyslipidemia, impaired glucose regulation, and hypertension, remains unclear. Methods We examined a young to middle-aged adult cohort of 83 patients and 82 healthy controls (HC). The primary objective was to test whether MetS (Joint Interim Statement criteria) was more prevalent in ADHD than in HC. To explore potential pathways linking ADHD with cardiovascular risk, we additionally assessed anthropometric indices, 24-h blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR), and inflammatory markers (interleukin-6, C-reactive protein). Finally, we fitted a serial mediation model examining whether hyperactivity/impulsivity (HI), eating behavior, and body mass index (BMI) mediated the association between ADHD and BP. Results A higher proportion of ADHD patients fulfilled MetS criteria (OR 2.29). Adults with ADHD showed higher waist circumference, BMI, and overweight/obesity rates but did not differ in glucose and blood lipid levels. Non-stimulant medication and psychiatric comorbidity were more common among patients with MetS. Inflammatory markers were unrelated to ADHD. However, ADHD patients demonstrated slightly higher mean 24-h HR and nighttime systolic BP. The association between ADHD and nighttime systolic BP was mediated by obesity as a MetS constituent, and by HI and disordered eating as behavioral risk factors. Conclusion Young to middle-aged adults with ADHD displayed increased MetS prevalence and subtle elevations in nighttime BP and HR, suggesting an early cardiovascular risk trajectory. Behavioral factors, particularly overeating and weight gain, and psychiatric comorbidity appear to contribute to this risk. These findings support early cardiovascular screening and weight-management interventions in adults with ADHD.
The Higgs mode, originally proposed in the context of superconductivity, corresponds to oscillations of the amplitude of the superconducting order parameter. Recent terahertz-domain optical studies have found signatures consistent with the Higgs mode, but its unambiguous detection is still challenging. We predict that the existence of the Higgs mode can be unambiguously revealed by standard measurements of the transport characteristics in microwave-irradiated asymmetric and transparent Josephson junctions. One signature of the Higgs mode in a Josephson junction is the microwave-induced enhancement of the second harmonic of the equilibrium currentphase relation (at zero dc bias voltage), whose sign differs from its expected value in the absence of the Higgs mode. As the radiation frequency is varied, this enhancement exhibits resonant behavior when the microwave frequency is tuned across the Higgs mass. The second signature that we propose is the enhancement of the second harmonic of the ac Josephson current at finite dc voltage bias, which can be probed in a customary analysis of the Shapiro steps in a microwave-irradiated junction.
