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This paper describes the state of advancement achieved in the OptiYard research project in the use of optimisation algorithms in interaction with microsimulation of the rail-yard and surrounding network towards realtime yard management and communication with the network. Two case studies, a hump marshalling yard (mainly Single Wagon Load traffic) and a flat shunting yard (mainly intermodal traffic), were represented with state-of-the art microsimulation models, combined with innovative optimisation algorithms. Some specialistic information on the nature of the models is provided. However, the focus is oriented to railway engineers, with a description of the interactions between the models in producing outputs that are useful both to the yard dispatcher (decisions on staff, track, locomotive assignment, order of operations) and the infrastructure manager of the surrounding network (expected times of departure, availability of tracks in the yard). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The War Museum in Logatec keeps a group of unprofes-sionally excavated, mostly Roman metal objects from the site of Vodice near Kalce. Among them there is also a supposed late Roman hoard of metal objects, the composition of which is not definitely known any more. A detailed analysis of all objects made it possible to date some of them only to the Ro-man Imperial period, some more precisely to the Late Roman period and four of them assumedly to the Middle Ages or to the modern times. An attempt at reconstruction of the hoard, based on the dating of objects, oral data and comparison with similar contemporary hoards from the present-day territory of Slovenia, set apart as the supposed composition of the hoard a steelyard, three wide axes, two axes, two adzes, a double-bladed adze, a hoe, a woodworking knife, a gimlet, a pair of compasses, an anvil, a bolt, and an awl. It was possible to date the hoard only inexactly to the 4th century or maybe to the end of the 4th century.

The paper presents a dynamic model of demandmodal split in a multimodal freight transport system.It has been devised in order to study the evolution of freighttransport through the Swiss Alps, which in the last decadeshas undergone profound technological transformations, aswell as marked modifications in the demand split amongwagonload rail, road haulage and intermodal transport.The model determines the dynamic characteristics of thetransport system by analyzing a sequence of times, for eachof which the demand using the various transport modes isknown. Then a map is defined and its parameters estimated,which gives the evolution over time of the demand foreach transport mode. By using the sequence of the yearlytransport demand values of the three modes through theSwiss Alps from 1984 to 2011, the model enables determiningthe evolution of transport costs of each mode duringthis time period and forecasting the future evolution of themodal split, under the hypothesis that the dynamic characteristicsof the system remain substantially unchanged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]