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South Korea is ranked as 4th among 34 nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development with 102 deaths in road accidents per one million population. This paper aims to investigate the factors associated with road accidents in South Korea. The rainfall data of the Korea Meteorological Administration and road accidents data of Traffic Accident Analysis System of Korea Road Traffic Authority is analyzed for this purpose. In this connection, multivariate regression analysis and ratio analysis with the descriptive analysis are performed to uncover the catastrophic factors involved. In turn, the results reveal that traffic volume is the leading factor in road accidents. The limited road extension of 1.47% compared to the 4.14% per annum growth of the vehicles is resulting in road accidents at such a large scale. The increasing proportion of passenger cars accelerate road accidents as well. 56% of accidents occur by the infringement of safety driving violations. The drivers with higher driving experience tend to have a higher accident ratio. The collected data is analyzed in terms of gender, driver experience, type of violations and accidents as well as the associated time of the accidents when they happen. The results indicate that 36.29% and 53.01% of accidents happen by male drivers in the day and night time, respectively. 29.15% of crashes happen due to safety infringement and violations of 41 to 60 years old drivers. The results demonstrate that population density is associated with the accidents frequency and lower density results in an increased number of accidents. The necessity of the state-of-the-art regulations to govern the urban road traffic is beyond dispute, and it becomes even more crucial for citizens’ relief since in our daily lives road accidents are getting more diverse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicles can be classified by configuration as either bonnet-type or cab-over type according to engine location. Compared to bonnet-type, the front compartment of cab-over type vehicles is considerably shorter; thus, it may be less likely to absorb the energy generated in a collision, and in turn be unable to prevent deformation of the occupant space and protect occupants from injury. This study was a cohort study involving 943 occupants of mini-vehicles who were injured in frontal collision accidents between 2001 and 2015 and transferred to Ohta Nishinouchi Hospital. The vehicle configuration was divided into bonnet-type and cab-over type (i.e., truck-type and wagon-type). The tested outcomes were anatomical-specific severe injury of the pelvis and extremities, the head and neck, the abdomen, and the chest. To estimate adjusted odds ratios (AOR) for associations between vehicle configuration and anatomical-specific severe injury, we fitted generalized estimating equations for each outcome. Compared with bonnet-type vehicles, a greater risk of serious pelvis and extremities injury was found for both truck (AOR: 2.21; 95% Confidence Interval [95% CI]: 1.22–4.00) and wagon-type vehicles (AOR: 3.43; 95%CI 1.60–7.39). For serious head and neck injury, truck-type vehicles were associated with greater risk (AOR: 2.04; 95% CI: 1.10–3.79) than bonnet-type vehicles, whereas wagon-type vehicles were not. Compared with the occupants of bonnet-type vehicles, cab-over type vehicle occupants were more likely to have serious pelvis and extremities injury during frontal collisions. Additionally, truck-type vehicle occupants were more likely to have serious head and neck injury than bonnet-type vehicle occupants. These findings are expected to promote safer behaviors for vehicle occupants and the automobile industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While road safety in the United States (U.S.) has been continually improving since the 1970's, there are indications that these improvements are becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. Strategic Highway Safety Plans (SHSPs) are prepared by States to guide road safety management, however assessing the appropriateness of these plans remains a significant challenge, especially for the future in which they are to be applied. This study developed a new methodology to assess SHSPs from the perspectives of comprehensive system-based safety management and relevant future issues that can be applied before SHSPs are implemented, thereby avoiding long periods after implementation before assessing the appropriateness of the plans. A rating scale was developed and applied to assess 48 U.S. SHSPs against two key criteria: 1. a comprehensive framework for road safety, and 2. the anticipated changing, difficult and unpredictable nature of future transport and its context. The analysis concluded that current SHSPs have good national oversight with several strengths but were weak in some areas of content and did not address future challenges. Improvements are suggested to strengthen the plans’ thoroughness by being consistent with systems theory and practice, as well as ways that these SHSPs can be more resilient to future circumstances. Implementing the recommendations in this paper provides the opportunity to adopt a system-based safety management practice that has been successful in other hazardous industries. Doing so is expected to most efficiently and effectively continue the recent improvements to road safety, which is likely to be increasingly difficult otherwise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To provide population-based reference values for cervical spinal canal parameters and vertebral body (VB) width and to study their associations with sex, age, body height, body weight and body mass index (BMI) using MRI. Methods: Cross-sectional analyses included data from 2,453 participants, aged 21–89 years, of the population-based Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP) who underwent whole-body MRI at 1.5 Tesla between July 2008 and March 2011. A standardised reading was performed for the C2-C7 cervical spine levels at sagittal T2 TSE weighted sequences. Results: Reference intervals for spinal canal parameters were similar in males and females, while VB width was on average 2.1–2.2 mm larger in males. Age effects were only substantial regarding VB width with a 0.5 mm per ten-year age increase. Body height effects were only substantial regarding the osseous spinal canal and VB width. Body weight and BMI effects are mostly not substantial. Conclusions: Our study provides MRI-based reference values for the cervical spinal canal parameters in an adult Caucasian population. Except for VB width, associations with sex, age and somatometric measures are mostly small and thus have only limited clinical implications. Some available cut-off values may need a revision because they likely overestimate risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Road Traffic Accidents have become an enormous global public health problem killing approximately 1.25 million people and injuring 20 to 50 million others yearly. It is the 10th leading cause of death universally and the number one cause of mortality of the young population between the ages of 5 and 29. Only few studies have been conducted on the severity of road traffic injuries in Ethiopia hence the need for the study. Objective: To assess injury severity level and associated factors among road traffic accident victims. Methods: A cross-sectional study of patients involved in road traffic accident and attended Tirunesh Beijing hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Victims were consecutively recruited until sample size (164) attained during the study period. Data collectors administered a structured questionnaire. The collected data was then entered and cleaned using Epi info and exported to IBM SPSS for statistical analysis. Independent factors associated with injury severity were assessed using bivariate and multivariate logistic regression. Results: A total of 164 road traffic injury victims were included to the study. Prevalence of severe injury accounted for 36.6% of cases. “can read and write” educational status OR 35.194(95% CI; 3.325–372.539), sustaining multiple injury OR 18.400(95% CI; 5.402–62.671), sustaining multiple injury type OR 6.955(95% CI; 1.716–28.185) and being transported by ambulance from the scene of accident OR 13.800(95% CI; 1.481–128.635) were the explanatory variables found to have a statistically significant association with severe injury. Conclusion: This study showed road traffic accident is predominantly affecting the economically active, male young population. Not a single victim received pre-hospital care, majority were extracted by bystanders and most used commercial vehicle to be transported to a health institution reflecting the need for improvements in pre-hospital emergency services and socio-economic related infrastructures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motorcyclists are involved in an exceptionally high number of crashes for the distance they travel, with one of the most common incidents being where another road user pulls out into the path of an oncoming motorcycle frequently resulting in a fatal collision. These instances have previously been interpreted as failures of visual attention, sometimes termed ‘Look but Fail to See’ (LBFTS) crashes, and interventions have focused on improving drivers’ visual scanning and motorcycles’ visibility. Here we show from a series of three experiments in a high-fidelity driving simulator, that when drivers’ visual attention towards and memory for approaching vehicles is experimentally tested, drivers fail to report approaching motorcycles on between 13% and 18% of occasions. This happens even when the driver is pulling out into a safety-critical gap in front of the motorcycle, and often happens despite the driver having directly fixated on the oncoming vehicle. These failures in reporting a critical vehicle were not associated with how long the driver looked at the vehicle for, but were associated with drivers’ subsequent visual search and the time that elapsed between fixating on the oncoming vehicle and pulling out of the junction. Here, we raise the possibility that interference in short-term memory might prevent drivers holding important visual information during these complex manoeuvres. This explanation suggests that some junction crashes on real roads that have been attributed to LBFTS errors may have been misclassified and might instead be the result of ‘Saw but Forgot’ (SBF) errors. We provide a framework for understanding the role of short-term memory in such situations, the Perceive Retain Choose (PRC) model, as well as novel predictions and proposals for practical interventions that may prevent this type of crash in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Heart of Borneo initiative has promoted the integration of protected areas and sustainably-managed forests across Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. Recently, however, member states of the Heart of Borneo have begun pursuing ambitious unilateral infrastructure-development schemes to accelerate economic growth, jeopardizing the underlying goal of trans-boundary integrated conservation. Focusing on Sabah, Malaysia, we highlight conflicts between its Pan-Borneo Highway scheme and the regional integration of protected areas, unprotected intact forests, and conservation-priority forests. Road developments in southern Sabah in particular would drastically reduce protected-area integration across the northern Heart of Borneo region. Such developments would separate two major clusters of protected areas that account for one-quarter of all protected areas within the Heart of Borneo complex. Sabah has proposed forest corridors and highway underpasses as means of retaining ecological connectivity in this context. Connectivity modelling identified numerous overlooked areas for connectivity rehabilitation among intact forest patches following planned road development. While such ‘linear-conservation planning’ might theoretically retain up to 85% of intact-forest connectivity and integrate half of the conservation-priority forests across Sabah, in reality it is very unlikely to achieve meaningful ecological integration. Moreover, such measure would be exceedingly costly if properly implemented–apparently beyond the operating budget of relevant Malaysian authorities. Unless critical road segments are cancelled, planned infrastructure will fragment important conservation landscapes with little recourse for mitigation. This likelihood reinforces earlier calls for the legal recognition of the Heart of Borneo region for conservation planning as well as for enhanced tri-lateral coordination of both conservation and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper quantifies the effect of speed cameras on road traffic collisions using an approximate Bayesian doubly-robust (DR) causal inference estimation method. Previous empirical work on this topic, which shows a diverse range of estimated effects, is based largely on outcome regression (OR) models using the Empirical Bayes approach or on simple before and after comparisons. Issues of causality and confounding have received little formal attention. A causal DR approach combines propensity score (PS) and OR models to give an average treatment effect (ATE) estimator that is consistent and asymptotically normal under correct specification of either of the two component models. We develop this approach within a novel approximate Bayesian framework to derive posterior predictive distributions for the ATE of speed cameras on road traffic collisions. Our results for England indicate significant reductions in the number of collisions at speed cameras sites (mean ATE = -15%). Our proposed method offers a promising approach for evaluation of transport safety interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensuring access to healthcare in emergency health situations is a persistent concern for health system planners. Emergency services, including critical care units for severe burns and coronary events, are amongst those for which travel time is the most crucial, potentially making a difference between life and death. Although it is generally assumed that access to healthcare is not an issue in densely populated urban areas due to short distances, we prove otherwise by applying improved methods of assessing accessibility to emergency services by the urban poor that take traffic variability into account. Combining unique data on emergency health service locations, traffic flow variability and informal settlements boundaries, we generated time-cost based service areas to assess the extent to which emergency health services are reachable by urban slum dwellers when realistic traffic conditions and their variability in time are considered. Variability in traffic congestion is found to have significant impact on the measurement of timely access to, and availability of, healthcare services for slum populations. While under moderate traffic conditions all slums in Dhaka City are within 60-minutes travel time from an emergency service, in congested traffic conditions only 63% of the city’s slum population is within 60-minutes reach of most emergency services, and only 32% are within 60-minutes reach of a Burn Unit. Moreover, under congested traffic conditions only 12% of slums in Dhaka City Corporation comply with Bangladesh’s policy guidelines that call for access to 1 health service per 50,000 population for most emergency service types, and not a single slum achieved this target for Burn Units. Emergency Obstetric Care (EmOC) and First Aid & Casualty services provide the best coverage, with nearly 100% of the slum population having timely access within 60-minutes in any traffic condition. Ignoring variability in traffic conditions results in a 3-fold overestimation of geographic coverage and masks intra-urban inequities in accessibility to emergency care, by overestimating geographic accessibility in peripheral areas and underestimating the same for central city areas. The evidence provided can help policy makers and urban planners improve health service delivery for the urban poor. We recommend that taking traffic conditions be taken into account in future GIS-based analysis and planning for healthcare service accessibility in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Magnetic loops are one of the most popular and used traffic sensors because of their widely extended technology and simple mode of operation. Nevertheless, very simple models have been traditionally used to simulate the effect of the passage of vehicles on these loops. In general, vehicles have been considered simple rectangular metal plates located parallel to the ground plane at a certain height close to the vehicle chassis. However, with such a simple model, it is not possible to carry out a rigorous study to assess the performance of different models of vehicles with the aim of obtaining basic parameters such as the vehicle type, its speed or its direction in traffic. For this reason and because computer simulation and analysis have emerged as a priority in intelligent transportation systems (ITS), this paper aims to present a more complex vehicle model capable of characterizing vehicles as multiple metal plates of different sizes and heights, which will provide better results in virtual simulation environments. This type of modeling will be useful when reproducing the actual behavior of systems installed on roads based on inductive loops and will also facilitate vehicle classification and the extraction of basic traffic parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: While drink driving continues to be significantly more common among male drivers, there is evidence from many countries that shows a growing trend of women engaging in this risky behaviour. The aims of the current study were threefold: (i) determine to what extent a sample of women drivers reported engaging in drink driving behaviour by expanding the construct into a range of definitions, (ii) determine if there were significant differences in self-reported engagement in drink driving behaviours in accordance with hazardous drinking behaviour, and (iii) identify which situational or personal factors would increase women drivers’ likelihood to engage in drink driving through presenting a range of scenarios. Method: Data were collected using an on-line, purpose-designed survey and promoted to reach women aged 17 years and older, living in Queensland, Australia. In addition to questions relating to demographic characteristics, participants completed items relating to engagement in seven drink driving related behaviours in the previous 12-month period, hazardous drinking as measured by the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, and likelihood of driving when unsure if over the legal limit for licence type across a range of scenarios manipulating different situational factors. A total of 644 valid responses were received in the two-week period the study was advertised. Results: The results demonstrate women’s self-reported engagement in drink driving behaviour ranged from 12.6% (driving when they believed they were over the legal limit) to over 50.0% (driving when unsure if over the legal limit the morning after drinking alcohol) and was significantly more likely among those who reported hazardous levels of alcohol use. Circumstances in which women reported they would drive when unsure if over the legal BAC limit were when they were a few blocks from home, if they subjectively felt they were not too intoxicated, or if they needed their car to get somewhere the next morning. Conclusion: Examining drink driving behaviour by way of responses to nuanced definitions provided valuable insight into self-reported engagement in the behaviour and highlights the usefulness of multi-measure dependent variables in order to illuminate a more accurate acknowledgement into both the type (and extent) of drink driving behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study aimed at analyzing the cycling safety-related factors and the mental health indicators of elderly cyclists in comparison with other age groups. Methods: For this cross-sectional study, we analyzed the data of 911 bicyclists from two Latin American countries that have been experiencing a substantial growth of urban cycling during the last few years: Colombia and Argentina. Participants responded to an e-questionnaire on bicycling behaviors, mental health and cycling safety. Results: Aging adults reported lower rates of risky behaviors and traffic crashes (around .38 in five years), and, on the other hand, more cycling protective behaviors, a higher risk perception and a better knowledge of traffic norms than both other adults (26–50 years old) and young cyclists (<26). Cycling behaviors and crashes were found to be significantly related to mental health indicators, the latter being higher in aging cyclists. However, this population remains more prone to distractions experienced while cycling than other age groups. Conclusions: Although the behavioral features of aging adults were comparatively “safer” than the ones displayed by other age groups, factors such as cycling distractions and this population’s over-representation in traffic crashes suggest the need of enforcing policymaking for a better integration of this age segment in alternative transportation dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Path planning for electric vehicles (EVs) can alleviate the limited cruising range and “range anxiety”. Many existing path optimization models cannot produce satisfactory solutions due to the imposition of too many assumptions and simplifications. The targeted optimal-path problem for electric vehicles (EV-TOP), which is proposed in the paper, aims at identifying the targeted optimal path for EVs under the limited battery level. It minimizes the travel cost, which is composed of the travel time and the total time that is spent at charging stations (CSs). The model is much more realistic due to the prediction and the consideration of the waiting times at CSs and more accurate approximations of the electricity consumption function and the charging function. Charging station information and the road traffic state are utilized to calculate the travel cost. The EV-TOP is decomposed into two subproblems: a constrained optimal path problem in the network (EV1-COP) and a shortest path problem in the meta-network (EV2-SP). To solve the EV1-COP, the Lagrangian relaxation algorithm, the simple efficient approximation (SEA) algorithm, and the Martins (MS) deletion algorithm are used. The EV2-SP is solved using Dijkstra’s algorithm. Thus, a polynomial-time approximation algorithm for the EV-TOP is developed. Finally, two computational studies are presented. The first study assesses the performance of the travel cost method. The second study evaluates the performance of our EV-TOP by comparing it with a well-known method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Viral load (VL) monitoring programs have been scaled up rapidly, but are now facing the challenge of providing access to the most remote facilities (the “last mile”). For the hardest-to-reach facilities in Zambia, we compared the cost of placing point of care (POC) viral load instruments at or near facilities to the cost of an expanded sample transportation network (STN) to deliver samples to centralized laboratories. Methods: We extended a previously described geospatial model for Zambia that first optimized a STN for centralized laboratories for 90% of estimated viral load volumes. Amongst the remaining 10% of volumes, facilities were identified as candidates for POC placement, and then instrument placement was optimized such that access and instrument utilization is maximized. We evaluated the full cost per test under three scenarios: 1) POC placement at all facilities identified for POC; 2)an optimized combination of both on-site POC placement and placement at facilities acting as POC hubs; and 3) integration into the centralized STN to allow use of centralized laboratories. Results: For the hardest-to-reach facilities, optimal POC placement covered a quarter of HIV-treating facilities. Scenario 2 resulted in a cost per test of $39.58, 6% less than the cost per test of scenario 1, $41.81. This is due to increased POC instrument utilization in scenario 2 where facilities can act as POC hubs. Scenario 3 was the most costly at $53.40 per test, due to high transport costs under the centralized model ($36 per test compared to $12 per test in scenario 2). Conclusions: POC VL testing may reduce the costs of expanding access to the hardest-to-reach populations, despite the cost of equipment and low patient volumes. An optimal combination of both on-site placement and the use of POC hubs can reduce the cost per test by 6–35% by reducing transport costs and increasing instrument utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intelligent Transport System (ITS) uses the IEEE 802.11P standard for the wireless communication among vehicles. A wireless ad hoc network of vehicles is established to improve road safety, comfort, security, and traffic efficiency. Wireless communication in ITS leads to many security and privacy challenges. Security and privacy of ITS are important issues that demand incorporation of confidentiality, privacy, authentication, integrity, non-repudiation, and restrictive obscurity. In order to ensure the privacy of vehicles during communication, it is required that the real identity of vehicles should not be revealed. There must be robust and efficient security and privacy mechanisms for the establishment of a reliable and trustworthy network. Therefore, we propose Advanced Strong Pseudonym based Authentication (ASPA), which is a distributed framework to handle the security and privacy issues of vehicle communications in ITS. ASPA only allows vehicles with valid pseudonyms to communicate in ITS. Pseudonyms are assigned to vehicles in a secure manner. The pseudonym mappings of vehicles are stored at different locations to avoid any chance of vehicle pseudonyms certificates linkability. In addition, the most recent communication pseudonyms of a malicious vehicle are revoked and are stored in the Certificate Revocation List (CRL) that results in small size of the CRL. Therefore, the CRL size does not increase exponentially. The distributed framework of ASPA guarantees, the vehicles privacy preservation in the real identities mapping and revocation phase. The empirical results prove that ASPA is robust and efficient with low computational cost, overhead ratio, average latency, and an increased delivery ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an evaluation of the effectiveness of two types of deceleration markings on freeways in China: fishbone-shaped (FS) markings and edge-rate (ER) markings. An actual 4-lane, 6-km long freeway in Province Hebei was created in a driving simulator and used for the experiments. Three scenarios of deceleration markings were adopted: one without markings, one with FS markings, and the third with ER markings. For each scenario, three traffic flow levels were adopted (low, medium, and heavy). The appropriate dimensions of deceleration markings were first established using relevant design guidelines and then used to develop the simulation scenarios using Multigen Creator software. Sixty drivers carried out the simulation experiments with eye tracker equipment. The adequacy of deceleration markings was analyzed with respect to speed, perceived distance, pupil diameter, and geometric parameters. The results showed that both types of deceleration markings made a certain effect on vehicle speed, drivers’visual behavior, and mental characteristics. However, the effect of the FS markings was more pronounced than that of the ER marking. Specifically, the FS markings showed a speed reduction of 12.3 km/h to 15.2 km/h and a perceived distance of 70 m to 90 m, compared with 6.7 km/h to 9.9 km/h and 40 m to 60 m, respectively, for the ER markings. Application comments of the results are provided in the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Egypt’s National Road Project is a large infrastructure project which presently aims to upgrade 2500 kilometers of road networks as well as construct 4000 kilometers of new roads to meet today’s need. This leads to an increase in the number of work zones on highways and therefore a rise in hazardous traffic conditions. This is why highways agencies are shifting towards night construction in order to reduce the adverse traffic impacts on the public. Although many studies have investigated work zone crashes, only a few studies provide comparative analysis of the difference between nighttime and daytime work zone crashes. Methods: Data from Egyptian long-term highway work zone projects between 2010 and 2016 are studied with respect to the difference in injury severity between nighttime and daytime crashes by using separate mixed logit models. Results: The results indicate that significant differences exist between factors contributing to injury severity. Four variables are found significant only in the nighttime model and four other variables significant in the daytime model. The results show that older and male drivers, the number of lane closures, sidewise crashes, and rainy weather have opposite effects on injury severity in nighttime and daytime crashes. The findings presented in this paper could serve as an aid for transportation agencies in development of efficient measures to improve safety in work zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past 40 years of reform and opening-up, China has developed from an economically closed country to a country that is highly dependent on foreign trade. From the perspective of spatiotemporal evolution, we analyze how port opening promoted China's reform and opening-up process. First, the port development process is divided into four periods. In the start-up period, the pilot open port policy created a platform for foreign cooperation and exchange. During the expansion period, port openings promoted the continuous optimization of the trade structure. In the cooperation period, port openings corresponded with the adjustment of China's overall industrial structure. During the optimization period, port openings provided guarantees for the implementation of a national development strategy. Second, we analyze the distribution of ports and their relationship with cross-border logistics and passenger flow. Based on data of foreign trade and passenger flow, a port openness degree measurement model includes port logistics intensity, passenger flow intensity and port city foreign-trade volume is constructed. There are significant types, geographical differences and grade differences of ports' openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Perceived as a minor transportation mode mainly for recreation, cycling and its related safety issues have not been treated as a citywide concern in Hong Kong and have thus received inadequate research efforts. Our study aimed to illuminate the safety challenges faced by cyclists in Hong Kong. Methods: We examined the police crash records from 1998 to 2017 and developed a Bayesian Poisson state space model to evaluate the longitudinal change in traffic injuries to cyclists. We then used quasi-induced exposure to measure the annual relative risk of crash involvement for cycling. Based on an officially published travel characteristics survey, we further measured the risk of injury for cycling per minutes cycled. Results: Between 1998 and 2017, Hong Kong witnessed a more than twofold increase in the number of cyclist injuries, with an average annual increase rate of 5.18% (95% CI: 0.53%–12.77%). By 2017, cyclists were 2.21 (1.82–2.69) times more likely to be involved in traffic crashes than in 1998. Per 10 million minutes, the injury rates for cycling were 28.64 (27.43–29.70) and 42.54 (41.07–44.02) on weekdays during 2001–2003 and 2010–2012. After adjusting for sex and age groups, cyclists were 1.95 (1.43–2.61) times more likely to be injured in 2010–2012 than in 2001–2003. Per minutes traveled, cyclists also sustained significantly higher risks of fatality and injury than pedestrians, private car drivers and passengers, taxi passengers, public bus passengers, and minibus passengers. A comparison of Hong Kong with other regions suggests that Hong Kong is among the most dangerous areas for cycling in terms of fatality rate per minutes cycled. Conclusions: Cyclist injuries have become a substantial public health burden in Hong Kong. A range of countermeasures with proven effectiveness should be promptly implemented to improve the safety of these vulnerable road users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To investigate cycling participation and barriers, and facilitators in adults with a lower limb amputation in Thailand. Method: Questionnaires were given to 424 adults with uni/bilateral lower limb amputation from midfoot to hip disarticulation level at five public hospitals in Bangkok and prosthetic mobile units in Thailand. Participant characteristics were summarized using descriptive statistics. Variables associated with cycling (p<0.1) were entered in a logistic regression model. Results: Participants who cycled (46.7%, N = 197), mostly used their walking prostheses (91.9%, n = 188). Of cyclists, 92.4% had cycled before the amputation. Cyclists started cycling after the amputation by themselves (86.7%) mostly in order to increase/maintain health (67.0%). Most cyclists cycled on quiet roads. The most frequent destination was shops/market (64.1%). More facilitators were reported than barriers. Most reported barriers were related to health problems and negative attitudes toward cycling. Most reported facilitators were related to perceived health benefits and positive attitude toward cycling. The likelihood of cycling after the amputation increased in people who cycled before the amputation, were amputated lower than the knee, used a prosthetic foot with axis/axes, were amputated due to trauma, had income higher than 415 euro/month, and who reported a higher numbers of facilitators. Conclusion: After a lower limb amputation, nearly half of people cycled. People with a below knee amputation due to trauma with prior cycling experience and higher income tended to cycle after the amputation. People who perceived more facilitators were more likely to cycle. Although cyclists could use a walking prosthesis to cycle, a prosthetic foot with a greater range of motion than the SACH increased the cycling likelihood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The island of New Guinea hosts the third largest expanse of tropical rainforest on the planet. Papua New Guinea—comprising the eastern half of the island—plans to nearly double its national road network (from 8,700 to 15,000 km) over the next three years, to spur economic growth. We assessed these plans using fine-scale biophysical and environmental data. We identified numerous environmental and socioeconomic risks associated with these projects, including the dissection of 54 critical biodiversity habitats and diminished forest connectivity across large expanses of the island. Key habitats of globally endangered species including Goodfellow’s tree-kangaroo (Dendrolagus goodfellowi), Matchie’s tree kangaroo (D. matschiei), and several birds of paradise would also be bisected by roads and opened up to logging, hunting, and habitat conversion. Many planned roads would traverse rainforests and carbon-rich peatlands, contradicting Papua New Guinea’s international commitments to promote low-carbon development and forest conservation for climate-change mitigation. Planned roads would also create new deforestation hotspots via rapid expansion of logging, mining, and oil-palm plantations. Our study suggests that several planned road segments in steep and high-rainfall terrain would be extremely expensive in terms of construction and maintenance costs. This would create unanticipated economic challenges and public debt. The net environmental, social, and economic risks of several planned projects—such as the Epo-Kikori link, Madang-Baiyer link, Wau-Malalaua link, and some other planned projects in the Western and East Sepik Provinces—could easily outstrip their overall benefits. Such projects should be reconsidered under broader environmental, economic, and social grounds, rather than short-term economic considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trade in live animals and animal products is considered one of the major drivers of zoonotic disease emergence. Schiphol airport in the Netherlands is one of the largest European airports and is considered a main hub for legal and illegal import of exotic animals. However, so far there is little information about what pathogens these imported animals might carry with them. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the zoonotic risks of exotic animals imported into the Netherlands through Schiphol airport in 2013 and 2014. Based on a previous list of highly prioritised emerging zoonoses for the Netherlands (EmZoo list), WAHID and Promed databases, literature and expert opinions, a list of 143 potentially relevant zoonotic pathogens was compiled. In a step-wise selection process eighteen pathogen-host combinations that may pose a public health risk by the import of exotic animals via Schiphol airport were identified and these were assessed by expert elicitation. The five pathogens with the highest combined scores were Salmonella spp., Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus, West Nile virus, Yersinia pestis and arenaviruses, but overall, the public health risk of the introduction of these exotic pathogens into the Netherlands via the legal import of exotic animals was considered low. However, the vast majority of imported exotic animals were imported by trade companies, increasing the risk for specific groups such as retail and hobbyists/pet owners. It is expected that the risk of introduction of exotic zoonotic pathogens via illegal import is substantial due to the unknown health status. Due to changing trade patterns combined with changing epidemiological situation in the world and changing epidemiological features of pathogens, this risk assessment needs regular updating. The results could give directions for further adjusting of health requirements and risk based additional testing of imported exotic animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Physical inactivity contributes substantively to disease burden, especially in highly car dependent countries such as New Zealand (NZ). We aimed to quantify the future health gain, health-sector cost-savings, and change in greenhouse gas emissions that could be achieved by switching short vehicle trips to walking and cycling in New Zealand. Methods: We used unit-level survey data to estimate changes in physical activity, distance travelled by mode, and air pollution for: (a) switching car trips under 1km to walking and (b) switching car trips under 5km to a mix of walking and cycling. We modelled uptake levels of 25%, 50%, and 100%, and assumed changes in transport behaviour were permanent. We then used multi-state life table modelling to quantify health impacts as quality adjusted life years (QALYs) gained and changes in health system costs over the rest of the life course of the NZ population alive in 2011 (n = 4.4 million), with 3% discounting. Findings: The modelled scenarios resulted in health gains between 1.61 (95% uncertainty interval (UI) 1.35 to 1.89) and 25.43 (UI 20.20 to 30.58) QALYs/1000 people, with total QALYs up to 112,020 (UI 88,969 to 134,725) over the remaining lifespan. Healthcare cost savings ranged between NZ$127million (UI $101m to 157m) and NZ$2.1billion (UI $1.6b to 2.6b). Greenhouse gas emissions were reduced by up to 194kgCO2e/year, though changes in emissions were not significant under the walking scenario. Conclusions: Substantial health gains and healthcare cost savings could be achieved by switching short car trips to walking and cycling. Implementing infrastructural improvements and interventions to encourage walking and cycling is likely to be a cost-effective way to improve population health, and may also reduce greenhouse gas emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the way in which traveling paths in ancient cultures are characterized by the relationship between nonlinear shapes and path lengths in terms of distances. In particular, we analyze the case of trade routes that connected Aztec settlements around 1521 CE in central Mexico. Based on the complex systems perspective, we used the least cost path approximation to reconstruct a hypothetical large-scale map of routes reproducing physical connections among ancient places. We compared these connections with different spatial configurations and identified the probability distribution functions of path lengths. We evaluated the nonlinearity using the mean absolute error based on the path fitness of simple linear models. We found asymmetrical distributions and positive relationships between those measures. If a path length increases, so does its nonlinearity. Thus, the simple pattern of traveling in the Aztec region is fairly unlikely to be straight and short. Complex pathways can represent most of the ancient routes in central Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a rapid deterministic algorithm for identification of the most critical links which are capable of causing network disruptions. The algorithm is based on searching for the shortest cycles in the network and provides a significant time improvement compared with a common brute-force algorithm which scans the entire network. We used a simple measure, based on standard deviation, as a vulnerability measure. It takes into account the importance of nodes in particular network components. We demonstrate this approach on a real network with 734 nodes and 990 links. We found the worst scenarios for the cases with and without people living in the nodes. The evaluation of all network breakups can provide transportation planners and administrators with plenty of data for further statistical analyses. The presented approach provides an alternative approach to the recent research assessing the impacts of simultaneous interruptions of multiple links. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Car traffic in urban systems has been studied intensely in past decades but models are either limited to a specific aspect of traffic or applied to a specific region. Despite the importance and urgency of the problem we have a poor theoretical understanding of the parameters controlling urban car use and congestion. Here, we combine economical and transport ingredients into a statistical physics approach and propose a generic model that predicts for different cities the share of car drivers, the CO2 emitted by cars and the average commuting time. We confirm these analytical predictions on 25 major urban areas in the world, and our results suggest that urban density is not the most relevant variable controlling car-related quantities but rather are the city’s area size and the density of public transport. Mitigating the traffic (and its effect such as CO2 emissions) can then be obtained by reducing the urbanized area size or, more realistically, by improving either the public transport density or its access. In particular, increasing the population density is a good idea only if it also increases the fraction of individuals having access to public transport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Enterococcus faecalis is a key pathogen recovered from root canals when conventional treatment fails. Phage therapy has generated new interest in combating pathogens. A sustained-release formulation using specific phages against E. faecalis may offer an alternative approach. Objectives: To evaluate the efficacy of anti-E. faecalis phages formulated in a thermo- sustained-release system against E. faecalis in vitro and in vivo. Methods: EFDG1 and EFLK1 phages were formulated with poloxamer P407. Gelation time, phage survival, activity and toxicity were evaluated. Lytic activity was evaluated in vitro against E. faecalis at various growth phases, including anti-biofilm activity. Methods included viable bacterial count (CFU/mL), biofilm biomass determination and electron microscopy (live/dead staining). Further evaluation included infected incisors in an in vivo rat model. Anti-E. faecalis phage-cocktail suspension and sustained-release phage formulation were evaluated by viable bacterial count (CFU/mL), histology, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and 16S genome sequencing of the microbiota of the root canal. Results: Gelation time for clinical use was established. Low toxicity and a high phage survival rate were recorded. Sustained-release phages reduced E. faecalis in logarithmic (4 logs), stationary (3 logs) and biofilm (4 logs) growth phases. Prolonged anti-biofilm activity of 88% and 95% reduction in biomass and viable counts, respectively, was recorded. Reduction of intracanal viable bacterial counts was observed (99% of enterococci) also seen in SEM. Phage treatment increased Proteobacteria and decreased Firmicutes. Histology showed reduced periapical inflammation and improved healing following phage treatment. Conclusion: Poloxamer P407 formulated with phages has an effective and long-lasting effect in vitro and in vivo targeting E. faecalis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Caatinga is an ecologically unique semi-arid region of northeast Brazil characterized by high levels of endemism and severe anthropogenic threats from agricultural development and climate change. It is also one of the least known biomes in Brazil due to a combination of inadequate investment, low regional research capacity and difficult working conditions. However, while the lack of scientific knowledge of the Caatinga is well known, the spatial and temporal distribution of knowledge production has not been investigated. This is important because such biases undermine the development of effective conservation policy and practice and increase the uncertainty associated with conservation actions. Here, we map the geography of conservation knowledge production in the Caatinga and use an innovative hurdle model to identify the presumptive factors driving these patterns. Our analysis revealed strong geographic patterns, with research sites concentrated in the east of the region and in areas close to roads and research centres. There was also a positive association between conservation knowledge production and risk of desertification, indicating that conservation scientists are responding to conservation challenges faced by Caatinga’s fauna and flora arising from climate change. Our results also highlight the pivotal role of pioneer scientists (those who develop research sites in previously unstudied/understudied areas) in determining the future geographic patterns of knowledge production. We conclude our article with a brief discussion of potential policies for increasing the spatial representativeness of conservation research in this remarkable ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robust inventories are vital for improving assessment of and response to deadly and costly landslide hazards. However, collecting landslide events in inventories is difficult at the global scale due to inconsistencies in or the absence of landslide reporting. Citizen science is a valuable opportunity for addressing some of these challenges. The new Cooperative Open Online Landslide Repository (COOLR) supplements data in a NASA-developed Global Landslide Catalog (GLC) with citizen science reports to build a more robust, publicly available global inventory. This manuscript introduces the COOLR project and its methods, evaluates the initial citizen science results from the first 13 months, and discusses future improvements to increase the global engagement with the project. The COOLR project () contains Landslide Reporter, the first global citizen science project for landslides, and Landslide Viewer, a portal to visualize data from COOLR and other satellite and model products. From March 2018 to April 2019, 49 citizen scientists contributed 162 new landslide events to COOLR. These events spanned 37 countries in five continents. The initial results demonstrated that both expert and novice participants are contributing via Landslide Reporter. Citizen scientists are filling in data gaps through news sources in 11 different languages, in-person observations, and new landslide events occurring hundreds and thousands of kilometers away from any existing GLC data. The data is of sufficient accuracy to use in NASA susceptibility and hazard models. COOLR continues to expand as an open platform of landslide inventories with new data from citizen scientists, NASA scientists, and other landslide groups. Future work on the COOLR project will seek to increase participation and functionality of the platform as well as move towards collective post-disaster mapping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worldwide, roads are a main driver of deforestation and degradation as they increase forest access along the forest edge. In many tropical areas, unofficial roads go unreported and unrecorded, resulting in inaccurate estimates of intact forested areas. This is the case in central Sumatra, which boasts populations of critically endangered Sumatran elephants (Elephas maximus sumatrensis), tigers (Panthera tigris sumatrae) and other endemic flora and fauna that make the area globally unique. However, maps do not reflect the reality of forest loss in the area. Here we present new maps from 2002 and 2016 of digitized and ground-truthed roads in one of Sumatra’s unique lowland tropical protected areas, Tesso Nilo National Park. Using our newly created roads dataset, we examine the distribution of forest with respect to distance to roads. Our data show >2,400 km of roads within the national park in 2016 –nearly a 10-fold increase from roads known in 2002. Most forest (82–99%) within Tesso Nilo falls within 100 m, 500 m, and 1000 m of road edges. Length of road increased 157% and road density increased from 1.06 km/km2 to 2.63 km/km2 from 2002–2016. Our results suggest that this endemic ecosystem is facing substantial threat from roads and their associated impacts. Without swift management action, such as road closures and increased enforcements by park management, this ecosystem, and its endemic wildlife, could be lost. It is imperative that protected areas worldwide more rigorously consider roads and road effects on ecosystem fragmentation in their conservation plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: In Taiwan, light motorcycles (LMCs) with cylinder capacities between 50 and 250 cc are widely used for daily commute. These vehicles are operated in a mixed traffic environment and prohibited on highways. In light of increasing motorcycle casualties, we conducted a multicentre study to analyse rider factors affecting injury severity. Methods: Riders hospitalised upon LMC crashes were contacted. Information on demographics, comorbidities, and riding behaviours was collected through questionnaires and linked to hospital data. The injury severity score (ISS) and length of hospitalisation (LOH) were used as injury severity measures. Results: In total, 725 patients (mean age: 37.7 years; 64% men) completed their questionnaires. Multivariate analysis results showed that age ≥ 65 years, half-face helmets, protective clothing, collisions with a bus/truck or car, and fatigue riding were risk factors for having an ISS of ≥9. Age ≥ 65 years; motorcycle crashes ≥2 times in the previous year; anaemia; rural crashes; half-face helmets; protective boots; collisions with a bus/truck, car, or a stationary object; alcohol/stimulating refreshment consumption; and fatigue riding were risk factors for increased LOH. A protective factor was individuals working in commerce. Collisions with opening car doors caused low risks of having an ISS of ≥9 and a short LOH. Conclusion: Certain factors were significantly associated with riders’ injury severity and related medical resource consumption. Because of differences in the power output, use, and riding environment, risk factors for severe injuries in LMC crashes are dissimilar from those for heavy motorcycles (cylinder capacities > 250 cc) in developed countries and deserve more attention for injury prevention. Further in-depth evaluation of significant factors based on this study’s results can yield valuable information to reduce severe injuries after LMC crashes in countries and areas with a high dependency on motorcycles, even considering the popularity of electric motorcycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most important challenges in live video streaming in mobile vehicular networks is the optimal use of broadband and point-to-point packet delay. Recent studies show that the sheer use of frames flow compression methods (such as H.264 or HEVC) and the proper communication overlay, such as Peer-to-Peer (P2P), has no absolute influence on increasing the quality of received video in VANET networks. Therefore, the use of an appropriate data exchange method, such as network coding, seems to be of great importance. Compared to Random Network Coding (RNC), XoR Network Coding (XNC) method has the least computational load for the network which is an important factor in optimal use of limited energy of nodes in a wireless network. The basic problem in XNC is that when a node is supposed to combine several frames and transmit them through an encoded frame, how this combination could be made to enable other nodes of the network to be broadcasted through receiving this packet and how can the available packets in their buffers decode as well as extract the largest number of frames in order to experience a higher video quality. To fulfil this aim, an encoding intelligent method is required which is based on the buffers’ status of neighbours. In the proposed method in this article, the best frame combination is reached through buffers status of neighbours and AHP methods or AHP-TOPSIS methods, and the encoded frames are broadcasted through XNC. Simulation results show that due to the reduction in number of transmitted packets in the network, parameters such as congestion and point-to-point delay are significantly reduced and vehicles experience a higher video quality compared with other similar methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mangroves play an essential ecological role in the maintenance of the coastal zone and are extremely important for the socioeconomics of coastal communities. However, mangrove ecosystems are impacted by a range of anthropogenic pressures, and the loss of this habitat can be attributed primarily to the human occupation of the coastal zone. In the present study, we analyzed the spatial patterns of land use in the mangrove of the Brazilian Amazon coast, and evaluated the anthropogenic drivers of this impact, using a remote sensing approach. We mapped the road network using RapidEye images, and human settlements using global data. The results of these analyses indicate that the Brazilian Amazon coast has a low population density and low rates of anthropogenic impact in most of the coastal microregions investigated, factors that contribute to the maintenance and conservation of the region’s mangrove. The study also revealed that the paved road network is one of the principal drivers of land use in the mangrove, whereas other factors, such as population density, urban centers, and the number of settlements are much less important. While the region has 2024 km of paved highways, unpaved roads (17,496 km) facilitate access to the mangrove, with approximately 90% of anthropogenic impact being recorded within a 3 km radius of these roads. While the network of paved highways is relatively reduced in extension, preventive measures are urgently required to impede any major shift in the current scenario, caused by the expansion of major development programs. The results of the study indicate that biophysical, economic, and political factors may also contribute to the reduction, stability, and development of one of the world’s largest areas of mangrove forest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluated the influence of silver nanoparticle on mechanical properties of the components of underlying dentin and resin cement in different regions of intraradicular dentin. Ninety extracted single-rooted human teeth were used in this study. After endodontic preparation, the teeth were divided into five groups, according to the irrigating agents: distilled water, 5.25% sodium hypochlorite, 25% polyacrylic acid, 2% chlorhexidine and 23 ppm silver nanoparticles dispersion. Then, the groups were divided in 3 subgroups (n = 6) according to the technique adopted for adhesive cementation: SUA group: Scotchbond Universal Adhesive + RelyX ARC; U200 group: RelyX U200; and MCE group: MaxCem Elite. The mechanical properties of hardness and elastic modulus were measured in resin cement and underlying dentin in ultra-micro hardness tester in different thirds of radicular dentin surface. Data were subjected to ANOVA and Fisher’s test (p = 0.05). In the underlying dentin, in general, there was no statistically significant difference in different thirds of intraradicular dentin according to the different solutions used. In the resin cements, higher hardness values were found, in general, for the cervical third. When silver nanoparticle solution was used, higher mechanical properties were generally obtained for resin cement for the SBU and U200 groups, with little or no changes in mechanical properties for the dentin. Silver nanoparticle application is a viable option for irrigation the intraradicular dentin previously through the cementation process of glass fiber posts. The mechanical properties are influenced by irrigant solutions used and the depth intraradical analyzed area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Many studies focused on reasons behind the increasing incidence and the spread of human brucellosis in mainland China, yet most of them lacked comprehensive consideration with quantitative evidence. Hence, this study aimed to further investigate the epidemic mechanism and associated factors of human brucellosis so as to provide thoughts for future countermeasures in China and the rest of the world. Methods: Data of human brucellosis incidence and some associated factors in economy, animal husbandry, transportation as well as health and hygiene were collected at provincial level from 2005–2016. Time series plots were first used to visualize the annual incidence and annual rate of change of human brucellosis for each province, then cluster analysis categorized all the 31 provinces of mainland China based on their incidence time series during the study period. In addition, according to the characteristics of data, the dynamic panel data model in combination with supervised principal component analysis was proposed to explore effects of associated factors on human brucellosis. Results: 1. The incidence rate of human brucellosis in mainland China increased three-fold from 1.41 per 100,000 people in 2005 to 4.22 per 100,000 people in 2014, though it went down a little in 2015 and 2016. Incidence rates in the north have always been higher than those in the south, but the latter also experienced an upward trend especially between 2012 and 2016. 2. The 31 provinces of mainland China were categorized into three clusters, and each cluster had its own characteristics of incidence time series. 3. The impact of health and hygiene situations on the prevention and control work of human brucellosis was still very limited and trivial (regression coefficient = -0.02). Therefore, it was plausible to presume that improving the personal average number of medical institutes and the proportion of rural medical expenditure might be helpful in preventing and controlling human brucellosis. Conclusions: The epidemic status of human brucellosis has changed in both spatial and temporal dimensions in recent years in mainland China. Apart from traditional control measures, more attention should be paid to the improvement of medical healthcare especially in rural areas in the hope of enhancing the control effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we propose a method for predicting the supporting pressure required for shallow tunnels in layered soils, based on a curved roof collapse mechanism with multi-failure surfaces. In this method, the effect of the number and thickness of soil layers, pore water pressure, arbitrary roof profile, and ground additional load is considered simultaneously. A nonlinear power-law failure criterion is employed to describe the failure characteristics of the roof soils. The internal energy dissipation rate and the work rates produced by external forces are obtained based on the associated flow rule and plasticity potential theory. The analytical expressions of the required supporting pressure and roof collapse surfaces are obtained with the upper bound method. Furtherly, a shallow rectangular tunnel in two soil layers is selected for parametric investigation. The change laws of the required supporting pressure and collapse curves under varying parameters are obtained. Furthermore, the corresponding engineering recommendations are given, which may potentially provide references for the support design and construction of shallow tunnels in layered strata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicle movements at signalized intersections should follow the guidance of lane marking arrows. Turns are permitted or banned depending on the existence of lane marking arrows establishing network link connectivity. Lane markings are the interface that joins consecutive upstream and downstream intersections. Traffic flows from origins to destinations across intersections should be governed by lane markings. In this study, conventionally fixed lane markings are relaxed as binary variables to be optimized by maximizing the green bandwidths. The proposed methodology is innovative in that it extends the lane-based design framework to incorporate green band maximization for enhancing traffic signal coordination. Path flows are controlled to satisfy flow conservations and to compile turning flows at intersections. With these turning flows as inputs, lane markings can be optimized together with the coordinated traffic signal settings. Path flows, path travel times, and path choices are evaluated through new linear constraints. For path travel times, cruise times along lanes and total delays at the ends of lanes are evaluated. The non-linear total delays are approximated by the proposed linearized delay function. The model coefficients are calibrated by network data as in a previous study. The problem is formulated as a binary-mixed-integer-linear-program and solved by standard branch-and-bound techniques using a CPLEX solver. To avoid non-linearity in the problem formulation, the bandwidth maximization approach is adopted instead of minimizing the total network delay in the design of the signalized network. A network with four intersections is provided to demonstrate how optimized lane markings can create efficient network link configurations. The numerical results are promising compared with those obtained in previous studies and show that the overall network performance can be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mongolian Gobi-Eastern Steppe Ecosystem is one of the largest remaining natural drylands and home to a unique assemblage of migratory ungulates. Connectivity and integrity of this ecosystem are at risk if increasing human activities are not carefully planned and regulated. The Gobi part supports the largest remaining population of the Asiatic wild ass (Equus hemionus; locally called “khulan”). Individual khulan roam over areas of thousands of square kilometers and the scale of their movements is among the largest described for terrestrial mammals, making them particularly difficult to monitor. Although GPS satellite telemetry makes it possible to track animals in near-real time and remote sensing provides environmental data at the landscape scale, remotely collected data also harbors the risk of missing important abiotic or biotic environmental variables or life history events. We tested the potential of animal born camera systems (“camera collars”) to improve our understanding of the drivers and limitations of khulan movements. Deployment of a camera collar on an adult khulan mare resulted in 7,881 images over a one-year period. Over half of the images showed other khulan and 1,630 images showed enough of the collared khulan to classify the behaviour of the animals seen into several main categories. These khulan images provided us with: i) new insights into important life history events and grouping dynamics, ii) allowed us to calculate time budgets for many more animals than the collared khulan alone, and iii) provided us with a training dataset for calibrating data from accelerometer and tilt sensors in the collar. The images also allowed to document khulan behaviour near infrastructure and to obtain a day-time encounter rate between a specific khulan with semi-nomadic herders and their livestock. Lastly, the images allowed us to ground truth the availability of water by: i) confirming waterpoints predicted from other analyses, ii) detecting new waterpoints, and iii) compare precipitation records for rain and snow from landscape scale climate products with those documented by the camera collar. We discuss the added value of deploying camera collars on a subset of animals in remote, highly variable ecosystems for research and conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional geometric design methods for pre-signal systems usually use the expected traffic demand, which may obtain a short sorting area distance and lead to frequent queue spillbacks due to stochastic traffic arrivals. On the other hand, if one selects a longer sorting area distance, the geometric design will suffer from low spatial utilization with higher delay and lower capacity. In this paper, we propose a geometric design method for intersections with pre-signal systems using a phase swap strategy. The geometric design can balance the desire of storing more vehicles to prevent spillbacks and improve the spatial utilization of the road. We model the traffic dynamic within the pre-signal system using queue theory and shockwave theory to determine the furthest point a queue can reach. The length of the pre-signal system should be short enough to improve spatial utilization but longer than the furthest point of the queue to prevent queue spillback. The effectiveness of the pre-signal system is evaluated by the VISSIM Signal Control Application Programming Interfaces (SCAPI). The results indicate that the proposed design plan increases the spatial utilization of the pre-signal system by 7.5% while maintaining a similar delay, queue length and ratio of flow to saturation flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have explored the relationship between housing prices and environmental characteristics using the hedonic price model (HPM). However, few studies have deeply examined the impact of scene perception near residential units on housing prices. This article used house purchasing records from and open access geolocation data (including massive street view pictures, point of interest (POI) data and road network data) and proposed a framework named “open-access-dataset-based hedonic price modeling (OADB-HPM)” for comprehensive analysis in Beijing and Shanghai, China. A state-of-the-art deep learning framework and massive Baidu street view panoramas were employed to visualize and quantify three major scene perception characteristics (greenery, sky and building view indexes, abbreviated GVI, SVI and BVI, respectively) at the street level. Then, the newly introduced scene perception characteristics were combined with other traditional characteristics in the HPM to calculate marginal prices, and the results for Beijing and Shanghai were explored and compared. The empirical results showed that the greenery and sky perceptual elements at the property level can significantly increase the housing price in Beijing (RMB 39,377 and 6011, respectively) and Shanghai (RMB 21,689 and 2763, respectively), indicating an objectively higher willingness by buyers to pay for houses that provide the ability to perceive natural elements in the surrounding environment. This study developed quantification tools to help decision makers and planners understand and analyze the interaction between residents and urban scene components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate Origin-Destination (OD) prediction is significant for effective traffic monitor, which can support operation decision in traffic planning and management field. The enclosed expressway network system like toll gates system in China can collect mounts of trip records which can be gathered for OD prediction. The paper develops a novel neural network, which is named Expressway OD Prediction Neural Network (EODPNN) for toll data-based prediction. The network consists of the following three modules: The Feature Extension Module, the Memory Module, and the Prediction Module. In the process, the attributes data which can reflect the city attribute such as GDP, population, and the number of vehicles are considered to embeded into the notwork to increase the accuracy of the model. For the applicability improvment of the model, we categorize the cities in multiple classes based on their economy and population scales in this paper, which can provide a higher accurate prediction of OD by EODPNN. The results shows that, comparing to the traditional model like ARIMA and SVM, or typical neural networks like Bidirectional Long Short-term Memory, the EODPNN delivers a better prediction performance. The method proposed in this paper has been fully verified and has a potential to transplant to the other OD data-based management systems for a more accurate and flexible prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human population growth and anthropogenic activities are exacerbating pressures on biodiversity globally. Land conversion is aggravating habitat fragmentation and non-human primates are increasingly compelled to live in forest-agricultural mosaics. In Sierra Leone, more than half of the wild chimpanzee population (Pan troglodytes verus) occurs outside protected areas and competes for resources with farmers. Our study area, in the Moyamba district in south-western Sierra Leone, is practically devoid of forest and is dominated by cultivated and fallow fields, swamps and mangroves. In this region, traditional slash-and-burn agriculture modifies annually the landscape, sparing swamps and mangroves and semi-domesticated oil palms (Elaeis guineensis). This study aimed to explore ecological and anthropogenic factors influencing chimpanzee relative abundance across this highly degraded and human-impacted landscape. Between 2015 and 2016, we deployed 24 camera traps systematically across 27 1.25x1.25 km grid cells. Cameras were operational over a period of 8 months. We used binomial iCAR models to examine to what extent anthropogenic (roads, settlements, abandoned settlements and human presence) and habitat variables (swamps, farmland and mangroves) shape chimpanzee relative abundance. The best model explained 43.16% of the variation with distance to roads and swamps emerging as the best predictors of chimpanzee relative abundance. Our results suggest that chimpanzees avoid roads and prefer to maintain proximity to swamps. There was no significant effect of settlements, abandoned settlements, mangroves or human presence. It appears that chimpanzees do not avoid areas frequented by people; although, our findings suggest temporal avoidance between the two species. We highlight the importance of studying chimpanzee populations living in anthropogenic habitats like agricultural-swamp matrixes to better understand factors influencing their distribution and inform conservation planning outside protected areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual appeals are widely used in advertising to attract consumers’ attention. It has already been proved that they influence the addressee’s cognitive processing, which in turn raises the question if sexual appeals may pose a serious threat for road safety when used in roadside advertising. Three studies were designed to answer this question. Study I was a nationwide survey (N = 1095) which revealed that drivers subjectively perceive sexual contents in roadside advertising as distracting and dangerous. Study II was a modified version of the Attentional Network Test (N = 1063) which proved that in cognitive tasks reaction time increases in line with the sexual content of advertisements. Study III was a simulator study (N = 55) which confirmed that driving characteristics change when sexually-oriented advertisements are located along the road. These studies have led us to a conclusion that sexually appealing cues in roadside advertising may pose a threat for road safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent evidence suggests the existence of Pre-Hispanic fisheries in savanna areas of the Amazon basin. How these fisheries may have functioned is still poorly known. Although many studies have drawn attention to how Pre-Hispanic inhabitants of these savannas managed to deal with excess water, little attention has been paid to understanding how large and permanent populations were sustained during long periods of drought. In the Llanos de Mojos, one of the largest savannas in South America, the landscape is greatly affected by the impacts of annual, seasonal flooding and inundations, alternating with a dry period that can last 4–6 months. The fishing practices in this area were studied on the basis of analysis of more than 17,000 fish remains recovered at Loma Salvatierra, a monumental mound located in an interfluvial area 50 km from the Mamoré River and occupied between 500 and 1400 AD. In Loma Salvatierra, a network of circular walled ponds connected to a system of canals has been identified, raising questions about a possible use of these structures for fishing. The exceptional conservation of the bone material has enabled precise taxonomic identification of more than 35 taxa, the richest fish spectrum thus far documented in the Mojos region. The dominant fish, swamp-eels (Synbranchus spp.), armored catfishes (Hoplosternum spp.), lungfish (Lepidosiren paradoxa), and tiger-fish (Hoplias malabaricus) are characteristic of shallow and stagnant waters. Our work documents the first zooarchaeological evidence of a dryland, interfluvial fishing system in the Bolivian Amazon that incorporates distinct species and fishing practices, demonstrating that these regions contain year round resources. Research is taking its first steps toward understanding landscape modifications, fish environments, and specific cultural technologies employed on this and other lowland neotropical savannas that differ from those for fishing in open waters and rivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Map-matching technology is a key and difficult technology in the development of vehicle navigation systems. Only by correctly identifying the road segment on which the vehicle is traveling can the navigation system make the right decision. At the same time, the complexity of the road network structure and a variety of error factors have introduced great challenges to map matching and have attracted the attention of many researchers as well. This paper analyzes various map-matching algorithms, determines that the key to the matching performance is the junction matching, performs an in-depth study on the junction-matching problem, and puts forward the junction decision domain model. The model mainly involves information regarding the width of the road segment, the angle between two road segments, the accuracy of GPS and the accuracy of the road network. In this paper, we use this model to improve the map-matching algorithm based on a hidden Markov model (HMM). The experimental results show that the improved matching algorithm can effectively reduce the error rate of junction matching and improve the matching performance of a navigation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Numerous urban villages (UVs) and frequent infectious disease outbreaks are major environmental and public health concerns in highly urbanized regions, especially in developing countries. However, the spatial and quantitative associations between UVs and infections remain little understood on a fine scale. Methodology and principal findings: In this study, the relationships between reported dengue fever (DF) epidemics during 2012–2017, gross domestic product (GDP), the traffic system (road density, bus and/or subway stations), and UVs derived from high-resolution remotely sensed imagery in the central area of Guangzhou, were explored using geographically weighted regression (GWR) models based on a 1 km × 1 km grid scale. Accounting for 16.53%–18.07% of residential area and 16.84%–18.02% of population, UVs possessed 28.55%–38.24% of total reported DF cases in the core area of Guangzhou. The density of DF cases and the DF incidence rates in UVs were 1.81–3.13 and 1.82–3.06 times of that of normal construction land. Approximately 90% of the total cases were concentrated in the UVs and their buffering zones of radius ranged from 0 to 500 m. Significantly positive associations were observed between gridded DF incidence rates and UV area (r = 0.33, P = 0.000), the number of bus stops (r = 0.49, P = 0.000) and subway stations (r = 0.27, P = 0.000), and road density (r = 0.39, P = 0.000). About 60% of spatial variations in the gridded DF incidence rates were interpreted by the different variables of GDP, UVs, and bus stops integrated in GWR models. Conclusions: UVs likely acted as special transfer stations, receiving and/or exporting DF cases during epidemics. This work increases our understanding of the influences of UVs on vector-borne diseases in highly urbanized areas, supplying valuable clues to local authorities making targeted interventions for the prevention and control of DF epidemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Road Detection is a basic task in automated driving field, in which 3D lidar data is commonly used recently. In this paper, we propose to rearrange 3D lidar data into a new organized form to construct direct spatial relationship among point cloud, and put forward new features for real-time road detection tasks. Our model works based on two prerequisites: (1) Road regions are always flatter than non-road regions. (2) Light travels in straight lines in a uniform medium. Based on prerequisite 1, we put forward difference-between-lines feature, while ScanID density and obstacle radial map are generated based on prerequisite 2. According to our method, we construct an array of structures to store and reorganize 3D input firstly. Then, two novel features, difference-between-lines and ScanID density, are extracted, based on which we construct a consistency map and an obstacle map in Bird Eye View (BEV). Finally, the road region is extracted by fusing these two maps and refinement is used to polish up our outcome. We have carried out experiments on the public KITTI-Road benchmark, achieving one of the best performances among the lidar-based road detection methods. To further prove the efficiency of our method on unstructured road, the visual outcomes in rural areas are also proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Direct road mortality and the barrier effect of roads are typically identified as one of the greatest threats to wildlife. In addition, collisions with large mammals are also a threat to human safety and represent an economic cost to society. We documented and explored the effects of animal-vehicle crashes on human safety in São Paulo State, Brazil. We estimated the costs of these crashes to society, and we summarized the legal perspectives. On average, the Military Highway Police of São Paulo reported 2,611 animal-vehicle crashes per year (3.3% of total crashes), and 18.5% of these resulted in human injuries or fatalities. The total annual cost to society was estimated at R$ 56,550,642 (US $ 25,144,794). The average cost for an animal-vehicle crash, regardless of whether human injuries and fatalities occurred, was R$ 21,656 (US $ 9,629). The Brazilian legal system overwhelmingly (91.7% of the cases) holds the road administrator liable for animal-vehicle collisions, both with wild and domestic species. On average, road administrators spent R$ 2,463,380 (US $ 1,005,051) per year compensating victims. The logical conclusion is that the Brazilian legal system expects road administrators to keep animals, both wild and domestic species, off the road. We suggest an improved coordination between the laws that relate to animal-vehicle collisions and human safety, and the process for environmental licenses that focusses on reducing collisions with wildlife and providing habitat connectivity. In addition, we suggest better management practices, raising awareness and social change with regard to abandoned domesticated animals including horses, cattle, and dogs. This should ultimately result in a road system with improved human safety, reduced unnatural mortality for both domestic and wild animal species, safe crossing opportunities for wildlife, and reduced monetary costs to society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional U-turn design has significantly improved traffic operations for relieving traffic congestion. However, the U-turn diversion and merge segments still cause traffic conflicts and delays. In this paper, an exclusive spur dike U-turn lane (ESUL) is proposed with the aim of addressing the disadvantages of the traditional U-turn design. ESUL provides a separate U-turn lane to diverge, decelerate, U-turn, accelerate and merge without interacting with through traffic. The effectiveness of ESUL is demonstrated through a field data investigation, simulation and analysis with VISSIM software. The proposed design is evaluated in terms of three parameters: travel time, delay and number of stops. Compared to the traditional U-turn design, ESUL can reduce travel time by 29.15%, delay by 66.70% and the number of stops by 100% at most. The results showed that ESUL has better performance than the traditional U-turn design and could be implemented to reduce traffic congestion and the potential hazards caused by U-turn maneuvers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To systematically review the literature on women’s experiences traveling for abortion and assess how this concept has been explored and operationalized, with a focus on travel distance, cost, delays, and other barriers to receiving services. Background: Increasing limitations on abortion providers and access to care have increased the necessity of travel for abortion services around the world. No systematic examination of women’s experiences traveling for abortion has been conducted; this mixed-methods review provides a summary of the qualitative and quantitative literature on this topic. Methods: A systematic search was conducted using PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Popline, and Google Scholar in July 2016 and updated in March 2017 (PROSPERO registration # CRD42016046007). We included original research studies that described women’s experiences traveling for abortion. Two reviewers independently performed article screening, data extraction and determination of final inclusion for analysis. Critical appraisal was conducted using CASP, STROBE, and MMAT checklists. Results: We included 59 publications: 46 quantitative studies, 12 qualitative studies, and 1 mixed-methods study. Most studies were published in the last five years, relied on data from the US, and discussed travel as a secondary outcome of interest. In quantitative studies, travel was primarily conceptualized and measured as road or straight-line distance to abortion provider, though some studies also incorporated measures of burdens related to travel, such as financial cost, childcare needs, and unwanted disclosure of their abortion status to others. Qualitative studies explored regional disparities in access to abortion care, with a focus on the burdens related to travel, the impact of travel on abortion method choice, and women’s reasons for travel. Studies generally were of high quality, though many studies lacked information on participant recruitment or consideration of potential biases. Conclusions: Standardized measurements of travel, including burdens associated with travel and more nuanced considerations of travel costs, should be implemented in order to facilitate comparison across studies. More research is needed to explore and accurately capture different dimensions of the burden of travel for abortion services on women’s lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]