Although bus comfort is a crucial indicator of service quality, existing studies tend to focus on passenger load and ignore in-vehicle time, which can also affect passengers' comfort perception. Therefore, by conducting surveys, this study examines passengers' comfort perception while accounting for both factors. Then, using the survey data, it performs a two-way analysis of variance and shows ...

Kenneth A. Smith wTe Corporation Bedford, Massachusetts The SEMASS waste-to-energy facility has employed the straightforward "Shred Burn" approach to Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) production. The relatively trouble-free start-up seems to indicate that the design­ ers have incorporated the industry learning experience of the past 10 years. In this discussion, questions are raised relative to local p...

One very common criterion used to evaluate feature selection methods is the performance of a chosen classifier trained with the selected features. Another important evaluation criterion that has, until recently, been neglected is the stability of these feature selection methods. While other studies have shown interest in measuring the degree of agreement between the outputs of a technique train...

Background noise is present in many telephone calls and may influence the perceived overall quality of a connection quite significant. Different conversation situations have to be distinguished: Background noise may influence the transmission quality during periods where no speech signal is present, during periods with near end speech and with far end speech. Various analysis procedures are int...

Noise pollution is one of the most serious quality-of-life issues in urban environments. In New York City (NYC), for example, more than 80% of complaints1 registered with NYC’s 311 phone line2 are noise complaints. Noise is not just a nuisance to city dwellers as its negative implications go far beyond the issue of quality-of-life; it contributes to cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment,...