High speed trains are an indispensable part of rapid transportation systems in many countries. As the fastest means of transport on the ground, these trains are extremely sensitive to the terrain and track conditions. Geometrical irregularities and mechanical characteristics of the track, together with inconsistencies in the lane (including bridges that support the track) are considered importa...

As tape recording density increases, high-frequency track following capability of the tape head actuator becomes more important. This paper details the mechanical design and experimental analysis of a dual state actuator tape head. The dual stage actuator design combines a traditional voice coil motor for low frequency track following with a piezoelectric actuator for high-frequency track follo...

The Association of American Railroads wished to determine the effect of a maintenance practice known as grinding on the occurrence of rail fatigue defects and on the subsequent total traffic usage before a track must be replaced. Because a designed experiment was not practical, an analysis of historical data from the Canadian Northern Railroad is presented. In the analysis, certain covariate da...

In this paper, we introduce tracks. A track is a global constraint for parallelizing the execution of task sets in non-preemptive scheduling. We give algorithms for bound as well as for domain reasoning, we propose applications in school timetabling, and we report results of a large-scale empirical study. Section 2 introduces concepts and notations we rely on. Section 3 defines tracks in terms ...

Rationale: This paper reports our initial experience in converting a conventional curriculum into a problem-based learning model (PBL) for teaching psychopathology. As part of a wide initiative in curriculum reform, psychopathology, which was a six-week course in the secondyear medical school curriculum, became integrated into a combined Neuroscience block. We also review the experiences at oth...