Traffic forecasting models rely on data that needs to be sensed, processed, and stored. This requires the deployment and maintenance of traffic sensing infrastructure, often leading to unaffordable ...monetary costs. The lack of sensed locations can be complemented with synthetic data simulations that further lower the economical investment needed for traffic monitoring. One of the most common data generative approaches consists of producing real-like traffic patterns, according to data distributions from analogous roads. The process of detecting roads with similar traffic is the key point of these systems. However, without collecting data at the target location no flow metrics can be employed for this similarity-based search. We present a method to discover locations among those with available traffic data by inspecting topological features. These features are extracted from domain-specific knowledge as numerical representations (embeddings) to compare different locations and eventually find roads with analogous daily traffic profiles based on the similarity between embeddings. The performance of this novel selection system is examined and compared to simpler traffic estimation approaches. After finding a similar source of data, a generative method is used to synthesize traffic profiles. Depending on the resemblance of the traffic behavior at the sensed road, the generation method can be fed with data from one road only. Several generation approaches are analyzed in terms of the precision of the synthesized samples. Above all, this work intends to stimulate further research efforts towards enhancing the quality of synthetic traffic samples and thereby, reducing the need for sensing infrastructure.
To determine the main characteristics, reasons and patterns of road traffic injuries (RTIs) in a tertiary care public hospital of Karachi.
It was a hospital based cross sectional study conducted in a ...public tertiary care hospital emergency department with a sample size 425 selected conveniently. Participants included the consenting victims or caretaking attendants of road traffic injuries (RTIs) from 25
May to 28
June in 2019. A structured questionnaire was developed after literature review and was translated into "Urdu" language. The questionnaire collected detailed information on socio-demographic characteristics, possible reasons of RTI's such as condition of vehicle, over speeding and breaking traffic rules. Data was analyzed by using software SPSS version 20.
Almost half of RTI victims (43.1%) belonged to the age group 18-29. Majority of the victims were males (86.6%). The most common vehicle involved was motorbike (87.50%) followed by Rickshaw (6.8%) and Car (2.4%). Majority of RTIs occurred on main road (75.30%). The most common sites of injuries were lower limb (64%), upper limb (37.60%) and head (32.2%). The severe injuries were significantly more likely to happen in events in which direct collision with other vehicle/thing was involved, road conditions were wet and pedestrian were crossing the road.
Motorbikes were involved in majority of RTIs. Main reasons of RTIs included irresponsible road behaviors including over-speeding, careless road crossing, breaking the signal and riding on wet roads which lead to moderate to severe injuries in almost two thirds of participants.
Nitrous oxide (N2O), colloquially known as laughing gas, is a common recreational drug of abuse. The gas is inhaled in its undiluted form from a party balloon. Its intoxicating effects are described ...as dissociative and euphoric, accompanied by ataxia, hypoxia, and attenuated consciousness. Therefore, the recreational use of N2O appears irreconcilable with operating a vehicle in road traffic. However, the Netherlands, one of the leading countries regarding prevalence of recreational N2O use, has seen a sharp increase in police reports of N2O‐related traffic incidents since 2016. Road traffic deaths associated with recreational N2O use have also been reported in the United Kingdom, as well as a recent increase in traffic incidents. Hence, driving under the influence of nitrous oxide (DUINO) is possibly an underreported threat to road traffic safety. Based on the limited information available at this time, the current review considers the prevalence of DUINO, its effects driving performance, and approaches to road‐side detection. It is concluded that DUINO is a potentially significant threat to road traffic safety. Although its prevalence is unclear, it is almost certain that DUINO is accompanied by severe driving impairment, based on its pharmacodynamics and documented cognitive and psychomotor effects in medical studies. The pharmacokinetic profile of N2O lends credibility to the notion that recent use can be demonstrated in breath, blood, and saliva. However, the analytical complexities of such measurements warrant elaborate research into N2O detection techniques.
This article is categorized under:
Toxicology > Drug‐Impaired Driving
The inside of a vehicle involved in a road traffic accident in the Netherlands (courtesy of the police of Amsterdam). The floor and seats are covered in thousands of metal canisters which contain(ed) N2O. The numerous balloons in the vehicle suggest that the metal canisters were emptied into the balloons for recreational inhalation. Although little is known about the prevalence of recreational N2O use in traffic, accident scenes like these leave little room for speculation that the phenomenon exists and poses a threat to traffic safety.
The purpose of the study is to use the example of the Arkhangelsk region to identify conditions affecting the organization of medical care for victims of road accidents on the federal highway in a ...region with a low population density, and to determine the main directions of its improvement. Materials and research methods. Using the method of comparative analysis, the following review was carried out: review of the authors’ studies, the subject of which was the features of road traffic injuries on the federal highway M-8 «Kholmogory» within the Arkhangelsk region; review of domestic and foreign scientific research, review of regulatory documents on the provision of medical assistance to victims of road accidents. Scientific literature search was performed in eLibrary, PubMed, Scopus systems by keywords. Scientific articles published in 1990–2020 were selected for analysis. Using the method of an organizational experiment, a scientific substantiation of a set of measures to improve the efficiency of the provision of medical care in prehospital and hospital periods to victims of road traffic accidents at federal highway in regions of the Russian Federation with a low population density was carried out. Applying the method of system analysis, on the basis of the results of this study, conceptual provisions for a systemic register of health consequences of road accidents in the Russian Federation have been developed and scientifically substantiated. Research results and their analysis. The article describes road traffic injuries on the federal highway M-8 «Kholmogory» in the Arkhangelsk region. The factors that determine the effectiveness of the provision of medical care in prehospital and hospital periods to victims of road traffic accidents are considered. The ways of improving the provision of medical care to victims of road traffic accidents at federal highway in a region with a low population density are formulated and substantiated.
Many previous studies have identified that physiological responses of a driver are significantly associated with driving stress. However, research is limited to identifying the effects of traffic ...conditions (low vs. high traffic) and road types (highway vs. city) on driving stress. The objective of this study is to quantify the relationship between driving stress and traffic conditions, and driving stress and road types, respectively. In this study, electrodermal activity (EDA) signals for a male driver were collected in real road driving conditions for 60 min a day for 21 days. To classify the levels of driving stress (low vs. high), two separate models were developed by incorporating the statistical features of the EDA signals, one for traffic conditions and the other for road types. Both models were based on the application of EDA features with the logistic regression analysis. City driving turned out to be more stressful than highway driving. Traffic conditions, defined as traffic jam also significantly affected the stress level of the driver, when using the criteria of the vehicle speed of 40 km/h and standard deviation of the speed of 20 km/h. Relevance to industry: The classification results of the two models indicate that the traffic conditions and the road types are important features for driving stress and its related applications.
The effect modifying impact of annoyance due to aircraft noise and road traffic noise on the relationships between the aircraft noise level and road traffic noise level on the prevalence of ...hypertension was investigated in 4861 subjects of the HYENA study (HYpertension and Exposure to Noise near Airports).
Different models were investigated either including the noise level and noise annoyance variables separately, or simultaneously, or together with an interaction term referring to the same noise source for the noise level and the noise annoyance.
Significant effect modification was found with respect to the association between aircraft noise and hypertension. The association was stronger in more annoyed subjects. No clear interaction was found with respect to road traffic noise. The comparison of the magnitude of the main effects (per standard deviation or inter-quartile range) of noise level and noise annoyance variables revealed stronger associations with hypertension for the noise levels.
There is some indication that the noise level has a stronger predictive meaning for the relationship between noise exposure and hypertension than the reported noise annoyance (main effects). The results from the Hyena study support the hypothesis that noise annoyance acts as an effect modifier of the relationship between the noise level and hypertension.
► We assessed the associations between aircraft and road traffic noise and hypertension. ► We compared the predictive power of noise level and noise annoyance on hypertension. ► Road traffic noise was associated with a higher risk of hypertension. ► Noise annoyance had no substantial effect modifying impact on the associations. ► The noise level is more predictive for cardiovascular effects than noise annoyance.
Road Traffic Injury (RTI) is major public health concern globally and is excessively affecting vulnerable road users in the pacific Island nations. This study aimed to explore and understand the ...perception of Public Transport Drivers (PTDs) on risk factors and the existing prevention strategy of RTI in Vanuatu.
This study employed qualitative methods that used 31 In-Depth Interviews (IDIs) to gather data from PTDs from 14 October to 30 November 2020. Purposive sampling was used to recruit PTDs from three main municipalities, Luganville, Port Vila and Lenakel. Semi-structured open-ended questionnaire were used to gather data. Interview data was transcribed and manual thematic analysis was performed to analysis the data.
Data saturation was reach from interviewing 31 PTDs who were all male. Five main themes were generated from the study including the trend of RTI, the determinants of RTI, high-risk road users, traffic law enforcement and public education. The respondents perceived that the best measures for preventing RTI include community education, enforcement of road traffic control laws and addressing specific road infrastructure issues.
Changing driver behaviours, community education on road safety and enforcement of traffic laws are essential for preventing RTI in Vanuatu.
Forward Collision Warning (FCW) is a promising Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) to mitigate rear-end collisions. The deterministic FCW approaches may occasionally lead to the issuance of ...annoying false warnings, as they cannot be individualized for different drivers. This application oversight, which may cause the driver to deactivate the system, has been tackled with some adaptive methods. However, driver distraction, which is one of the most influential driver-specific factors on FCW warnings acceptability, has not been considered yet and is analyzed in this paper for the first time. Specifically, the adaptive FCW method proposed in this paper generates the warnings by continuously comparing Time Headway with a flexible threshold. The core of the proposed threshold updating mechanism is a real-time monitoring of the driver reactions against the previously generated warnings using the available indicators such as braking history. This method considers the driver distraction in parallel to fine-tune the calculated threshold in accordance with driver cognitive state. In order to incorporate the driver distraction in the system framework, a learning-based approach is designed which continuously estimates driver distraction by the virtue of different available Controller Area Network (CAN) bus time series, such as throttle pedal position, velocity, acceleration, and yaw rate. Neural network, as a widely adopted classification method, is nominated to detect driver distraction. The framework performance is evaluated over two realistic driving datasets. An approximately 80% false warning reduction is observed in analyzed safe scenarios, while no critical warning is missed in the dangerous ones.
AIMThe aim of the present study was to assess the prevalence, common age, gender, causes, types, treatment modality, and complication of the maxillofacial fractures for the patients admitted to King ...Fahad Central Hospital in Gizan City, Saudi Arabia. MATERIALS AND METHODSThe medical records of all cases admitted to the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (OMFS) ward at King Fahad Central Hospital (KFCH) in Gizan City, Saudi Arabia, were reviewed for presence of maxillofacial fractures. The statistical analysis was done using IBM SPSS version 20. RESULTSA total of 166 patients with maxillofacial fractures were included in this study. There were 140 males and 26 females. The most affected age-group was 21-30 with a mean age of (30.69 ± 14.65 standard deviation, SD) and the male-female ratio was 5.4:1. Road traffic accidents (RTAs) were found to be the most common cause of maxillofacial fractures (52.4%). The mandibular body was fractured more than any other maxillofacial bones (15.7%) followed by mandibular angle (13.3%) and zygomaticomaxillary complex (ZMC) (12.0%). Nine cases (5.4%) of the associated injuries were diagnosed as head injuries. Open reduction with internal fixation (ORIF) was the most common treatment methods (72.3%) utilized in this study. CONCLUSIONMaxillofacial fractures most commonly affected young individuals in the 21-30-year-old age-group, often as a result of RTA, and body of the mandible was the most frequent site of fracture. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCEThe prevalence, common age, gender, causes, types, treatment modality, and complication of the maxillofacial fractures for the patients admitted can be assessed from the present study.
The present study analyzed the effect of noise annoyance due to road traffic based on a comprehensive socio-acoustics survey at a large number of sites in the NCT of Delhi. This study presents the ...development of exposure–effect relationships and noise annoyance models using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The study assesses the traffic noise annoyance caused by road traffic at various sites in NCT of Delhi, India. Exposure–effect relationships correlate the noise annoyance and traffic noise levels. The Structural Equation Model depicts the relationship between noise annoyance and various psychological factors. The effect of noise annoyance and awareness level was determined using a socio-acoustic questionnaire survey among the community of NCT of Delhi. The various parameters undertaken were demographic, honking, health impacts, and psychological perception. The developed PLS (Partial Least Square)–SEM model predicted that noise sensitivity and road traffic noise remarkably affected the noise-induced annoyance.
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