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Public transit agencies face a transformed landscape of rider demand and political support as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes. We explore people's motivations for returning to or avoiding public transit a year into the pandemic. We draw on a March 2021 follow-up survey of over 1,900 people who rode transit regularly prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada, and who took part in a prior survey on the topic in May 2020. We investigate how transit demand changes associated with the pandemic relate to changes in automobile ownership and its desirability. We find that pre-COVID frequent transit users between the ages of 18–29, a part of the so-called "Gen Z," and recent immigrants are more attracted to driving due to the pandemic, with the latter group more likely to have actually purchased a vehicle. Getting COVID-19 or living with someone who did is also a strong and positive predictor of buying a car and anticipating less transit use after the pandemic. Our results suggest that COVID-19 may have increased the attractiveness of auto ownership among transit riders likely to eventually purchase cars anyway (immigrants, twentysomethings), at least in the North American context. We also conclude that getting COVID-19 or living with someone who did is a positive predictor of having bought a car. Future research should consider how having COVID-19 transformed some travelers' views, values, and behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human urine-derived stem cells (hUSCs) process self-renewal and multilineage differentiation ability. Due to their non-invasive and easily available clinical source, hUSCs represent a promising alternative source of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) for application potential in cytotherapy. However, technical limitations, such as stemness property maintenance, have hindered hUSCs' clinical application. Certain some small molecules have been recognized with advantage in maintaining the stemness of stem cells. In this study, we identified stemness-regulated key targets of hUSCs based on the StemCellNet database, CMAP database and literature mining. Furthermore, we identified a small molecule compound, boldine, which may have the potential to promote the stemness of hUSCs. It promotes cell proliferation, multilineage differentiation and maintains stemness of hUSCs by cell viability assay, single-cell clone formation, osteogenic differentiation and stemness marker expression (OCT-4 and C-MYC). We identified that boldine may be a potential GSK-3β inhibitor by molecular docking and confirmed that it can upregulate the level of β-catenin and promote translocation of β-catenin into nucleus of hUSCs using Western blotting and immunofluorescence analysis. Our study indicates boldine activates the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway in hUSCs and provides an effective strategy for MSCs research and application of small molecules in maintaining the stemness of hUSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demand-responsive technologies are rapidly changing the transportation landscape. The City of Belleville, Ontario has recently replaced its evening and nighttime fixed route bus service with an on-demand transit (ODT) service. Preliminary reports have found a 300% increase in nighttime bus ridership since the implementation of this service, yet to fully understand the social return on the investment in on-demand services, we must also quantify whether and for whom these new services have enabled time savings and increased levels of activity participation. Furthermore, it remains unclear whether riders are satisfied with the service, and whether satisfaction levels have an impact on activity participation. As such, this study explores the determinants of activity participation of ODT users using a custom ridership survey instrument. We collect information on travel experience, satisfaction, and perceived changes in activity participation due to ODT. We then performed a factor analysis and estimated structural equation models to identify the relationships between aspects of the ODT service and activity participation. Our results show that reliability and service quality are the most important aspects of the ODT services in terms of positively influencing activity participation, and that shorter wait times, are most likely to lead to an increase in activity participation. Our findings further suggest that Belleville can eliminate barriers to nighttime activity participation by providing reliable and affordable ODT service, and that ODT can be an effective solution to provide transit services for transport-poor in low demand areas or during low demand periods of the day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are a large number of concrete bonding interfaces in assembled concrete structures. Moreover, the problems of deformation and coordination at the interfaces lead to weak bonding under shrinkage and creep. The theoretical methods and analytical solutions for the long-term performance of composite structures in recent literatures are relatively complicated for the review or optimization in the design stage. Hence, a method for calculating the mid-span deflection of and the cross-sectional stress on composite beams under shrinkage and creep was developed based on the average curvature method. The calculation method was then verified by the experiments and the numerical simulations. Further, factors affecting the deflection of and the stress on the assembled concrete composite beams, including the loading age, the reinforcement ratio, the section dimensions, and the surface area in contact with the atmosphere were analyzed by using the developed method. The results revealed that the adjustment of the section dimensions and the loading time is the effective optimization approach. A framework for review or optimization of composite concrete beams based on the sensitivity analysis is proposed and a case study is carried out. The results of this work can helpfully be used to control the risk of additional deflections or cracking during the long-term operation of buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]