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At least 919 records · Page 51Linked to original sources
PubMed1994

Lunar base CELSS design and analysis.

This paper describes the conceptual development of a hybrid biological-physical/chemical (P/C) life support system model for a lunar outpost. It presents steps that lead to loop closure and determines mass flow characteristics for an inedible biomass enzyme reactor and an activated sludge bioreactor. Computer modeling techniques were used to determine that the cellulose reactor has the design capabilities to provide significant increases in the plant harvest index. Activated sludge was found to fit design demands for a small, continuous-flow, steady-state system. Systems analysis and component sizing for these two bioreactors and information regarding supporting bioregenerative and physical/chemical components are presented.

Biomass↗
PubMed1991

Development and validation of an instrument to measure satisfaction of participants at breast screening programmes.

A reliable and valid questionnaire has been developed to measure the satisfaction of participants with service offered at mammography screening programmes. The questionnaire measures five specific aspects: convenience and accessibility, staffs' interpersonal skills, information transfer between staff and client, physical surroundings and perceived technical competence of staff. A general satisfaction dimension was also included. Systematic procedures were followed to ensure that the initial pool of items met the criteria for satisfactory content validity. These procedures included extensive literature review and interviews with participants and service providers. Discriminant validity was assessed by a modified Q-sort procedure, where eight expert judges sorted items into relevant dimensions. The sample for other validity and reliability testing consisted of 584 women who were participants at a breast X-ray programme in Melbourne, Australia. Concurrent validity was demonstrated by considering the correlation of the sum of the subscale scores for each respondent with their score on the general subscale (r = 0.76; P less than 0.001). Multiple regression was used to provide further evidence for the discriminant validity of the proposed subscales and support for the multidimensional conceptualism of satisfaction. Scores on the general satisfaction subscale were used as an outcome variable and other subscale scores were predictor variables. All subscale scores significantly contributed to the prediction of satisfaction, over and above that of other subscales (R2 = 0.59). This indicates that these subscales are measuring distinct dimensions of satisfaction. Cronbach's alpha of each subscale was over 0.50, indicating that the subscales are reliable. The instrument is a potentially useful tool for assessing the quality of care at mammographic screening services and could be used routinely by such services to monitor satisfaction.

Australia↗
PubMed1995

Virtually-augmented interfaces for tactical aircraft.

The term Fusion Interface is defined as a class of interface which integrally incorporates both virtual and non-virtual concepts and devices across the visual, auditory and haptic sensory modalities. A fusion interface is a multi-sensory virtually-augmented synthetic environment. A new facility has been developed within the Human Engineering Division of the Armstrong Laboratory dedicated to exploratory development of fusion-interface concepts. One of the virtual concepts to be investigated in the Fusion Interfaces for Tactical Environments facility (FITE) is the application of EEG and other physiological measures for virtual control of functions within the flight environment. FITE is a specialized flight simulator which allows efficient concept development through the use of rapid prototyping followed by direct experience of new fusion concepts. The FITE facility also supports evaluation of fusion concepts by operational fighter pilots in a high fidelity simulated air combat environment. The facility was utilized by a multi-disciplinary team composed of operational pilots, human-factors engineers, electronics engineers, computer scientists, and experimental psychologists to prototype and evaluate the first multi-sensory, virtually-augmented cockpit. The cockpit employed LCD-based head-down displays, a helmet-mounted display, three-dimensionally localized audio displays, and a haptic display. This paper will endeavor to describe the FITE facility architecture, some of the characteristics of the FITE virtual display and control devices, and the potential application of EEG and other physiological measures within the FITE facility.

Aerospace Medicine↗
PubMed1995

Computerised transient hyperaemic response test--a method for the assessment of cerebral autoregulation.

A simple bedside test has been developed to assess the state of autoregulation in subarachnoid haemorrhage patients. Transcranial Doppler was used to measure blood flow velocity in the middle cerebral artery after a brief common carotid compression. Acceleration of blood flow postcompression was interpreted as evidence of intact cerebral autoregulation. A program using the Windows environment was designed for signal analysis of the transient hyperaemic response test (THRT). The flow velocity signal from the TCD was recorded, carotid compression and release automatically detected and the test results immediately displayed and stored in a database. The program was verified in 614 tests; 552 of them were analysed off-line using previously recorded data and 62 on-line during the examination. A significant correlation was found between the results of computerised testing and the patient's neurological state.

Adult↗
PubMed1976

Motivation for alcohol in rats: position and bottle preferences do not cause drinking.

Position preference, i.e., the tendency to drink from onelocation rather than the other, was found to be relatively unimportant in determining the drinking behavior of rats presented with a choice between water and a 7% (v/v) ethanol solution in typical two-bottle choice situations. It accounted for essentially none of the variance in rats generally drinking more alcohol solution than water after prolonged previous alcohol experience, and in rats consuming very little alcohol; only in rats drinking slightly less alcohol solution than water was it found to have an influence. Similarly, bottle preference, i.e., the tendency to drink from one of the two bottles regardless of its position or contents, andposition preference were found to have almost no effect on heavy-drinking rats even on their first day of exposure and on low-drinking rats after about three days of access to alcohol.

Alcohol Drinking↗
PubMed1993

Environmental deprivation delays the maturation of motor pyramids during the early postnatal period.

The effects of environmental deterioration upon the development of motor cortex was studied in 30 Sprague-Dawley albino rats during lactation (1st-18th postnatal days). The use of Golgi-Cox-Sholl methodology allowed qualitative and particularly quantitative evaluations since impregnation of neurons take place at random without any selectivity. Morphometric studies were assessed by measuring layers II-III pyramidal neurons, basal dendritic branching, under camera lucida. Early environmental impoverishment results in a highly significant decrease in the number and length of peripherical branches and terminal dendrites. These results extend previous observations made predominantly in non-motor cortices which indicate that during early postnatal life restrictions or enrichments of the environment may be associated with quantitative changes in the differentiation of cerebrocortical neurons. It is of upmost importance to consider that the potential effects of different types of epigenetic cues are highly selective since pyramids of pups subjected to mild nutritional manipulation during the same developmental period remained unaffected.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

Sources of error in road safety scheme evaluation: a method to deal with outdated accident prediction models.

This paper considers the errors that arise in using outdated accident prediction models in road safety scheme evaluation. Methods to correct for regression-to-mean (RTM) effects in scheme evaluation normally rely on the use of accident prediction models. However, because accident risk tends to decline over time, such models tend to become outdated and the estimated treatment effect is then exaggerated. A new correction procedure is described which can effectively eliminate such errors.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed2004

Impact of infrastructure and local environment on road unsafety. Logistic modeling with spatial autocorrelation.

This article aims at modeling the impact of road characteristics and local spatial environment on road (un)safety. The study applies to Belgium where some 1,500 people are killed annually on the roads. This statistic corresponds to one of the highest risks in Europe. Road unsafety is expressed here as whether an hectometer of road belongs to a black zone; a black zone is defined as a segment of road where roads accidents are concentrated. Logistic modeling including spatial autocorrelation is used and compared to non-spatial regression. It is shown that a spatial model is needed to avoid biased estimated parameters. Results show that local environment and road infrastructure play a substantial role in the co-occurrence of road accidents. Hence, education and enforcement cannot be the only measures taken to reach a sustainable road safety. To attain their objectives of accident reduction, public authorities should also take their responsibilities in the matter of securing road infrastructure.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed2004

Crash reduction following installation of centerline rumble strips on rural two-lane roads.

Rural two-lane roads generally lack physical measures such as wide medians or barriers to separate opposing traffic flows. As a result, a major crash problem on these roads involves vehicles crossing the centerline and either sideswiping or striking the front ends of opposing vehicles. These types of opposing-direction crashes account for about 20% all fatal crashes on rural two-lane roads and result in about 4,500 fatalities annually in the US. The present study evaluated a potential engineering countermeasure for such crashes-installation of rumble strips along the centerlines of undivided rural two-lane roads to alert distracted, fatigued, or speeding motorists whose vehicles are about to cross the centerlines and encroach into opposing traffic lanes. Data were analyzed for approximately 210 miles of treated roads in seven states before and after installation of centerline rumble strips. An empirical Bayes before-after procedure was employed to properly account for regression to the mean while normalizing for differences in traffic volume and other factors between the before and after periods. Overall results indicated significant reductions for all injury crashes combined (14%, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) = 5-23%) as well as for frontal and opposing-direction sideswipe injury crashes (25%, 95% CI = 6-44%)--the primary target of centerline rumble strips. In light of their effectiveness and relatively low installation costs, consideration should be given to installing centerline rumble strips more widely on rural two-lane roads to reduce the risk of frontal and opposing-direction sideswipe crashes.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed2005

Optimal working zone division for safe track maintenance in The Netherlands.

After a sequence of serious accidents, the safety of rail track workers became an urgent and political problem in The Netherlands. It turned out that the rail track workers had one of the most dangerous jobs. The board of the Dutch Railways decided that the Dutch railway infrastructure had to be divided into so-called working zones. Moreover, to carry out maintenance activities, that particular working zone of the railway system had to be taken out of service. An essential problem was how to divide the Dutch railway infrastructure into working zones such that all parties involved are satisfied. Since many parties with conflicting interests were involved, this problem was extremely difficult. In this paper we show the division rules we developed, and which had been implemented in The Netherlands.

Accidents, Occupational↗
PubMed2005

Experimental evaluation of hotspot identification methods.

Identifying crash "hotspots", "blackspots", "sites with promise", or "high risk" locations is standard practice in departments of transportation throughout the US. The literature is replete with the development and discussion of statistical methods for hotspot identification (HSID). Theoretical derivations and empirical studies have been used to weigh the benefits of various HSID methods; however, a small number of studies have used controlled experiments to systematically assess various methods. Using experimentally derived simulated data--which are argued to be superior to empirical data, three hot spot identification methods observed in practice are evaluated: simple ranking, confidence interval, and Empirical Bayes. Using simulated data, sites with promise are known a priori, in contrast to empirical data where high risk sites are not known for certain. To conduct the evaluation, properties of observed crash data are used to generate simulated crash frequency distributions at hypothetical sites. A variety of factors is manipulated to simulate a host of 'real world' conditions. Various levels of confidence are explored, and false positives (identifying a safe site as high risk) and false negatives (identifying a high risk site as safe) are compared across methods. Finally, the effects of crash history duration in the three HSID approaches are assessed. The results illustrate that the Empirical Bayes technique significantly outperforms ranking and confidence interval techniques (with certain caveats). As found by others, false positives and negatives are inversely related. Three years of crash history appears, in general, to provide an appropriate crash history duration.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed2005

Characteristics of rear-end accidents at signalized intersections using multiple logistic regression model.

Multi-vehicle rear-end accidents constitute a substantial portion of the accidents occurring at signalized intersections. To examine the accident characteristics, this study utilized the 2001 Florida traffic accident data to investigate the accident propensity for different vehicle roles (striking or struck) that are involved in the accidents and identify the significant risk factors related to the traffic environment, the driver characteristics, and the vehicle types. The Quasi-induced exposure concept and the multiple logistic regression technique are used to perform this analysis. The results showed that seven road environment factors (number of lanes, divided/undivided highway, accident time, road surface condition, highway character, urban/rural, and speed limit), five factors related to striking role (vehicle type, driver age, alcohol/drug use, driver residence, and gender), and four factors related to struck role (vehicle type, driver age, driver residence, and gender) are significantly associated with the risk of rear-end accidents. Furthermore, the logistic regression technique confirmed several significant interaction effects between those risk factors.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed2005

Signals are informative but slow down responses when drivers meet bicyclists at road junctions.

Three experiments used a laboratory analogue to the task of driving to look at drivers' responses to encounters with a bicyclist at a T-junction. In particular, a comparison was made between the bicyclist indicating an upcoming turn with an arm signal, an informal signal of intent, or no signal. Overall, arm signals worked relatively well to inform drivers of the bicyclist's intentions and were easier to perceive than informal signals. It was also found that simple failures to react to the bicyclist in time were more common at shorter thinking times whereas incorrect positive responses were unaffected by thinking time. Most interestingly, these experiments showed that arm signals often slowed down the participants' decision-making processes, leading to a lower probability of their stopping in time when the bicyclist was at risk. Moreover, the same was true for informal signals in which there was eye-contact between the bicyclist and the participant. It is suggested that these effects come about because both arm signals and eye-contact are communicative acts and therefore invoke extra stages of involuntary cognitive processing in the drivers, thereby slowing their reactions.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Individual cyclists' probability distributions of severe/fatal crashes in large French urban areas.

The present article deals with individual cyclists' probabilities of severe injury or death from a bicycle accident. We use an empirical Bayesian method to conduct an analysis of the fatal/severe probability distribution of a bicycle accident, at the level of individuals, in dense French urban areas. Among intuitive results, it is found that wearing a helmet lowers the average probability of such a crash; it is also shown that young bicyclists are, on average, more exposed to severe and/or fatal crashes. Finally, the results highlight a decrease of attention paid by all types of road users following road infrastructure improvements in favor of cyclists.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed2005

Driver's exposure to distractions in their natural driving environment.

Unobtrusive video camera units were installed in the vehicles of 70 volunteer drivers over 1-week time periods to study drivers' exposure to distractions. The video data were coded based on a detailed taxonomy of driver distractions along with important contextual variables and driving performance measures. Results show distractions to be a common component of everyday driving. In terms of overall event durations, the most common distractions were eating and drinking (including preparations to eat or drink), distractions inside the vehicle (reaching or looking for an object, manipulating vehicle controls, etc.), and distractions outside the vehicle (often unidentified). Distractions were frequently associated with decreased driving performance, as measured by higher levels of no hands on the steering wheel, eyes directed inside rather than outside the vehicle, and lane wanderings or encroachments. Naturalistic driving studies can provide a useful supplement to more controlled laboratory and field studies to further our understanding of the effects of all types of distractions on driving safety.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Predicting the effect of various ISA penetration grades on pedestrian safety by simulation.

Intelligent speed adaption (ISA) is one type of vehicle-based intelligent transportation systems (ITS), which warns and regulates driving speed according to the speed limits of the roads. Early field studies showed that ISA could reduce general mean speed levels and their variances in different road environments. This paper studies the effects of various ISA penetration grades on pedestrian safety in a single lane road. A microscopic traffic simulation tool, TPMA, was further developed and used to implement different ISA penetration grades. Momentary spot speed and traffic flow data are first logged in the traffic simulation for later prediction of pedestrian safety. Then a hypothetical vehicle-pedestrian collision model is extended from early researches in order to estimate two safety indicators: probability of collision, and risk of death. Finally, Monte Carlo method is applied iteratively to compute those safety indices. The computational result shows that raising ISA penetration in traffic flow will reduce both the probability of mid-block collision between vehicle and pedestrian and the risk of death in the collision accidents. Furthermore, the decrease of the risk of death will be more prominent than that of the collision probability according to this method.

Acceleration↗