The effect of safety modifications on head kinematics experienced during common skills in women's artistic gymnastics.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of skill modifications on head motion experienced during women's artistic gymnastics skills. Nine gymnasts (four beginner and five advanced) completed three trials of up to 24 skill progressions, each consisting of a skill and two progressive safety modifications. Gymnasts were instrumented with mouthpiece sensors embedded with an accelerometer and gyroscope collecting motion data at 200, 300, and 500 Hz during each skill performance. Peak-to-peak linear and rotational kinematics during contact phases and peak rotational kinematics during non-contact phases were computed. A mixed-effects model was used to compare differences in modification status nested within skill categories. Timer skills (i.e. drills that simulate performance of a gymnastics skill) resulted in the highest median ΔLA and ΔRA of all skill categories, and 132 skill performances exceeded 10 g ΔLA during a contact phase. Modifications were associated with significant reductions in head kinematics during contact phases of timers, floor skills, bar releases, and vault skills. Gymnasts can be exposed to direct and indirect head accelerations at magnitudes consistent with other youth contact sports, and common safety modifications may be effective at reducing head motion during contact and non-contact phases of gymnastics skills.

Meta-analysis of the safety effect of electronic stability control.

OBJECTIVE: Electronic Stability Control (ESC) is a standard feature on most modern cars, due to its reported efficiency to reduce the number of crashes of several types. However, empirical studies of safety effects of ESC for passenger vehicles have not considered some methodological problems that might have inflated the effects. This includes self-selection of drivers who buy/use ESC and behavioral adaptation to the system over long time periods, but also the dominant method of induced exposure. This study aimed to investigate whether such methodological problems might have influenced the results. METHOD: A meta-analysis was undertaken to investigate whether there are systematic differences between published studies. Moderators tested included when the study was undertaken, the type of vehicle studied, the percent ESC in the sample, size of sample, the length of the study, whether matched or un-matched vehicles were studied, whether induced exposure was used, and two variants of types of crashes used as controls. RESULTS: The effects found ranged from 38% to 75% reduction of crashes for the main targets of singles, running off road and rollover crashes. However, these effects were heterogeneous, and differed depending on the methods used. Most importantly, information that could have allowed more precise analyses of the moderators were missing in most publications. CONCLUSIONS: Although average effects were large and in agreement with previous meta-analyses, heterogeneity of the data was large, and lack of information about important moderators means that firm conclusions about what kind of mechanisms were influencing the effects cannot be drawn. The available data on ESC efficiency are not unanimous, and further investigations into the effects of ESC on safety using different methodologies are warranted.

Effects of extension ladder fly configuration on climbing safety.

Fall injuries often occur on extension ladders. The extendable fly section of an extension ladder is typically closer to the user than the base section, though this design is minimally justified. This study investigates the effects of reversing the fly on foot placement, frictional requirements, adverse stepping events (repositioning the foot or kicking the rung), and user preferences. Participant foot placement was farther posterior (rung contacted nearer to toes) in the traditional ladder compared to the reversed fly condition during descent, with farther anterior foot placements during ascent. The reversed configuration had similar friction requirements during early/mid stance and significantly lower frictional requirements during late stance. Increased friction requirements during late stance were associated with farther anterior foot placement and further plantar flexed foot orientation. The reversed fly had 5 adverse stepping events versus 22 that occurred in the traditional configuration. Users typically preferred the reversed fly. These results suggest that a reversed extension ladder configuration offers potential benefits in reducing fall-related injuries that should motivate future research and development work.

Gauging road safety advances using a hybrid EWM-PROMETHEE II-DBSCAN model with machine learning.

Introduction: Enhancing road safety conditions alleviates socioeconomic hazards from traffic accidents and promotes public health. Monitoring progress and recalibrating measures are indispensable in this effort. A systematic and scientific decision-making model that can achieve defensible decision outputs with substantial reliability and stability is essential, particularly for road safety system analyses. Methods: We developed a systematic methodology combining the entropy weight method (EWM), preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluation (PROMETHEE), and density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN)-referred to as EWM-PROMETHEE II-DBSCAN-to support road safety monitoring, recalibrating measures, and action planning. Notably, we enhanced DBSCAN with a machine learning algorithm (grid search) to determine the optimal parameters of neighborhood radius and minimum number of points, significantly impacting clustering quality. Results: In a real case study assessing road safety in Southeast Asia, the multi-level comparisons validate the robustness of the proposed model, demonstrating its effectiveness in road safety decision-making. The integration of a machine learning tool (grid search) with the traditional DBSCAN clustering technique forms a robust framework, improving data analysis in complex environments. This framework addresses DBSCAN's limitations in nearest neighbor search and parameter selection, yielding more reliable decision outcomes, especially in small sample scenarios. The empirical results provide detailed insights into road safety performance and potential areas for improvement within Southeast Asia. Conclusion: The proposed methodology offers governmental officials and managers a credible tool for monitoring overall road safety conditions. Furthermore, it enables policymakers and legislators to identify strengths and drawbacks and formulate defensible policies and strategies to optimize regional road safety.

Standard Safety Procedure Before Therapeutic Administration of 223Ra-Dichloride.

223Ra-dichloride is an α-emitter therapy approved for the treatment of castration-resistant prostate cancer with symptomatic bone metastases. 223Ra-dichloride is the first targeted α-therapy for this indication with evidence of benefit in overall survival. The administration is intravenous, and extravasation can cause severe injuries such as tissue necrosis. To prevent this side effect, some procedures can be performed according to the guideline of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine. Ionizing radiation is a well-established risk factor for the development of cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, but surprisingly there are few reports of local adverse effects related to extravasation of radiotherapies at the injection sites. Recently, a possible case of cutaneous cancer was observed after 223Ra-dichloride extravasation. Methods: To complement the prevention of extravasation, we developed a standardized technique to be performed before the injection of 223Ra. Results: Our technique was successfully applied to the study population, and no apparent extravasation was seen. Conclusion: Our study suggests that use of this standardized technique before administration of 223Ra is helpful in preventing extravasation during this treatment.

Auditing learner driver information about floodwaters: An environmental scan of government issued resources in Australia.

INTRODUCTION: Vehicles driving, or being swept, into floodwaters is a leading cause of flood-related death. Establishing safe behaviors among learner drivers may reduce risk throughout their driving lifetime. METHODS: An environmental scan of publicly available government issued learner and driver handbooks across the eight Australian jurisdictions was conducted to identify information provided regarding floodwaters. Search terms included 'flood,' 'rain,' 'water,' and 'wet.' A visual audit of flood-related signage was also conducted. RESULTS: Twelve documents, across eight jurisdictions, were analyzed. Four jurisdictions' documents provided no information on flooding. Of the four jurisdictions that provided information, content varied. This included highlighting risks and discouraging entering floodwaters in a vehicle, including penalties associated with travel on closed roads, to advising depth and current checks if crossing a flooded roadway, with recommendations based on vehicle size (preference given to bigger vehicles, i.e., 4wds). Information on flood-related signage was found in one jurisdiction. DISCUSSION: Learner and driver handbooks represent a missed opportunity to provide flood safety information. Currently, information is not provided in all jurisdictions, despite flood-related vehicle drowning deaths of drivers and passengers being a national issue. Where information is presented, it is limited, often lacks practical guidance on how to assess water depth, current, and road base stability, and could better use evidence regarding the psychological factors underpinning, and behavioral prompts for performing, or avoiding, risky driving behavior during floods. CONCLUSIONS: The provision and content of information in learner driver and driver handbooks must be improved, particularly within the context of increasing flooding and extreme weather associated with the effects of climate change. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: We encourage all jurisdictions to provide practical information that draws on evidence-based risk factors and empirically established psychological factors for behavioral change to help establish safe driver behaviors around floods in the formative years of learning to drive.

Cognitive load during driving: EEG microstate metrics are sensitive to task difficulty and predict safety outcomes.

Engaging in phone conversations or other cognitively challenging tasks while driving detrimentally impacts cognitive functions and has been associated with increased risk of accidents. Existing EEG methods have been shown to differentiate between load and no load, but not between different levels of cognitive load. Furthermore, it has not been investigated whether EEG measurements of load can be used to predict safety outcomes in critical events. EEG microstates analysis, categorizing EEG signals into a concise set of prototypical functional states, has been used in other task contexts with good results, but has not been applied in the driving context. Here, this gap is addressed by means of a driving simulation experiment. Three phone use conditions (no phone use, hands-free, and handheld), combined with two task difficulty levels (single- or double-digit addition and subtraction), were tested before and during a rear-end collision conflict. Both conventional EEG spectral power and EEG microstates were analyzed. The results showed that different levels of cognitive load influenced EEG microstates differently, while EEG spectral power remained unaffected. A distinct EEG pattern emerged when drivers engaged in phone tasks while driving, characterized by a simultaneous increase and decrease in two of the EEG microstates, suggesting a heightened focus on auditory information, potentially at a cost to attention reorientation ability. The increase and decrease in these two microstates follow a monotonic sequence from baseline to hands-free simple, hands-free complex, handheld simple, and finally handheld complex, showing sensitivity to task difficulty. This pattern was found both before and after the lead vehicle braked. Furthermore, EEG microstates prior to the lead vehicle braking improved predictions of safety outcomes in terms of minimum time headway after the lead vehicle braked, clearly suggesting that these microstates measure brain states which are indicative of impaired driving. Additionally, EEG microstates are more predictive of safety outcomes than task difficulty, highlighting individual differences in task effects. These findings enhance our understanding of the neural dynamics involved in distracted driving and can be used in methods for evaluating the cognitive load induced by in-vehicle systems.

What would affect drivers' stop-and-go decisions at yellow dilemma zones? A driving simulator study in Hong Kong.

Yellow dilemma, at which a driver can neither stop nor go safely after the onset of yellow signals, is one of the major crash contributory factors at the signal junctions. Studies have visited the yellow dilemma problem using observation surveys. Factors including road environment, traffic conditions, and driver characteristics that affect the driver behaviours are revealed. However, it is rare that the joint effects of situational and attitudinal factors on the driver behaviours at the yellow dilemma zone are considered. In this study, drivers' propensity to stop after the onset of yellow signals is examined using the driving simulator approach. For instances, the association between driver propensity, socio-demographics, safety perception, traffic signals, and traffic and weather conditions are measured using a binary logit model. Additionally, variations in the effect of influencing factors on driver behaviours are accommodated by adding the interaction terms for driver characteristics, traffic flow characteristics, traffic signals, and weather conditions. Results indicate that weather conditions, traffic volume, position of yellow dilemma in the sequence, driver age and safety perception significantly affect the drivers' propensity to stop after the onset of yellow signals. Furthermore, there are remarkable interactions for the effects of driver gender and location of yellow dilemma.

Once a driver, always a driver - Manual driving style persists in automated driving takeover.

As automated vehicles require human drivers to resume control in critical situations, predicting driver takeover behaviour could be beneficial for safe transitions of control. While previous research has explored predicting takeover behaviour in relation to driver state and traits, little work has examined the predictive value of manual driving style. We hypothesised that drivers' behaviour during manual driving is predictive of their takeover behaviour when resuming control from an automated vehicle. We assessed 38 drivers with varying experience in a high-fidelity driving simulator. After completing manual driving sessions to assess their driving style, participants performed an automated driving task, typically on a subsequent date. Measures of driving style from manual driving sessions, including headway and lane change speed, were found to be predictive of takeover behaviour. The level of driving experience was associated with the behavioural measures, but correlations between measures of manual driving style and takeover behaviour remained after controlling for driver experience. Our findings demonstrate that how drivers reclaim control from their automated vehicle is not an isolated phenomenon but is associated with manual driving behaviour and driving experience. Strategies to improve takeover safety and comfort could be based on driving style measures, for example by the automated vehicle adapting its behaviour to match a driver's driving style.

A comparison of factors influencing the safety of pedestrians accessing bus stops in countries of differing income levels.

Pedestrian fatalities comprise a quarter of all traffic deaths in Low-and-Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). The use of safer modes of transport such as buses can reduce road trauma as well as air pollution and traffic congestion. Although travelling by bus is safer than most other modes, accessing bus stops can be risky for pedestrians. This paper systematically reviews factors contributing to the safety of pedestrians near bus stops in countries of differing income levels. The review included forty-one studies from high (20), upper-middle (13) and lower-middle income countries (8) during the last two decades. The earliest research was conducted in high-income countries (HICs), but research has spread in the last decade. The factors influencing pedestrian safety fell into three groups: (a) characteristics of road users, (b) characteristics of bus stops and (c) characteristics of the road traffic environment. Pedestrians near bus stops are frequently exposed to a high risk of collisions and fatalities due to factors such as unsafe pedestrian behaviours (e.g., hurrying to cross the road), lack of bus stop amenities such as safe footpaths, high traffic speeds and traffic volumes, multiple lanes, and roadside hazards (e.g., parked cars obscuring pedestrians). Road crash statistics are commonly used to identify unsafe bus stops in HICs but the unavailability and unreliability of data have prevented more widespread use in LMICs. Future research is recommended to focus on surrogate safety measures to identify hazardous bus stops for pedestrians.

Children's ability to estimate approaching vehicle time-to-arrival following training in a virtual pedestrian environment.

OBJECTIVES: Child pedestrian injuries represent a significant public health challenge. Understanding the most complex cognitive skills required to cross streets helps us understand, improve, and protect children in traffic, as underdeveloped cognitive skill likely impacts children's pedestrian safety. One complex component of street-crossing is the cognitive-perceptual task of judging time-to-arrival of oncoming traffic. We examined capacity of 7- and 8-year-olds to judge time-to-arrival for vehicles approaching from varying distances and speeds, as well as improvement in those judgments following intensive street-crossing training in a virtual reality (VR) pedestrian simulator. METHODS: 500 seven- and eight-year-olds participated in a randomized trial evaluating use of a large kiosk VR versus smartphone-based VR headset to teach street-crossing skills. Prior to randomization into VR training condition and also prior to initiation of any training, children engaged in a video-based vehicle approach estimation task to assess ability to judge traffic time-to-arrival. They then engaged in multiple VR-based pedestrian safety training sessions in their randomly assigned condition until achieving adult functioning. Soon after training and again 6 months later, children repeated the vehicle estimation task. RESULTS: Prior to randomization or training, children were more accurate judging time to arrival for closer versus farther traffic, and rapidly-moving versus slower-moving traffic, but those results were subsumed by a speed x distance interaction. The interaction suggested distance cues were used more prominently than speed cues, and speed had varying effects at different distances. Training group had minimal effect on learning and all children became significantly better at judging vehicle arrival times following training. CONCLUSIONS: Children tend to underestimate vehicle arrival times. Distance cues are more impactful on time-to-arrival judgments than speed cues, but children's estimations based both on manipulations of vehicle speed and manipulations of vehicle distance improved post-training. Improvements were retained six months later. This finding is consistent with psychophysics research suggesting vehicle approach judgments rely on optical size and looming, which are impacted both by vehicle speeds and distances. Implementation of VR-based training for child pedestrian safety is recommended, as it may improve children's judgment of vehicle time-to-arrival, but it must be conducted cautiously to avoid iatrogenic effects.

Toward Safe and Confident Silver Drivers: Interview Study Investigating Older Adults' Driving Practices.

BACKGROUND: As the aging population in the United States continues to increase rapidly, preserving the mobility and independence of older adults becomes increasingly critical for enabling aging in place successfully. While personal vehicular transport remains a popular choice among this demographic due to its provision of independence and control over their lives, age-related changes may heighten the risk of common driving errors and diminish driving abilities. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to investigate the driving practices of older adults and their efforts to maintain safe and confident driving habits. Specifically, we sought to identify the factors that positively and negatively influence older adults' driving performance and confidence, as well as the existing efforts put into sustaining their driving abilities. METHODS: We recruited 20 adults aged ≥65 years who remained active drivers during the recruitment from the greater New York area. Then, we conducted semistructured interviews with them to examine their perceptions, needs, and challenges regarding safe and confident driving. RESULTS: Our findings uncovered a notable disparity between older adults' self-perceived driving skills and the challenges they face, particularly caused by age-related limitations and health conditions such as vision and memory declines and medication routines. Drawing on these findings, we proposed strategies to bridge this gap and empower older adults to drive safely and confidently, including fostering a realistic understanding of their capabilities, encouraging open dialogue regarding their driving, encouraging regular assessments, and increasing awareness of available resources. CONCLUSIONS: This study uncovered a noticeable disparity between the perceived driving competence of older adults and the actual challenges they confront while driving. This divergence underscores a significant need for better support beyond the existing aid available to preserve older adults' driving skills. We hope that our recommendations will offer valuable insights for practitioners and scholars committed to enhancing the overall well-being and quality of life for older adults as they age in their homes.

Road safety attitude and behaviour among motorcycle riders in Ghana: A focus on traffic locus of control and health belief.

Road traffic accident is a leading cause of death and various life deformities worldwide. This burden is even higher among motorcycle riders in lower-to-middle-income countries. Despite the various interventions made to address the menace, the fatalities continue to be on the ascendency. One major area that has received little attention is the attitude and behaviour of motorcycle riders. The present study aimed to examine the contribution of traffic Locus of Control (LoC) and health belief on road safety attitude and behaviour. 317 motorcycle riders participated in the study. The participants completed a questionnaire comprising various sections such as motorcycle riding behaviour, road safety attitude, risk perception, the intention to use helmets, and traffic LoC. The results showed a significant positive correlation between road safety attitude and behaviour (r (295) = .33, p < .001). Drifting towards internal LoC was associated with more positive behaviour on the roads (r (295) = -.23, p < .001). Intention to use helmet, health motivation, perceived susceptibility, perceived benefits, and perceived barriers were the factors in the health belief model that were associated with road safety attitude (r (295) = .404, p < .001). Finally, the multiple linear regression model showed that road safety attitude and traffic LoC made significant contributions to road user behaviour [F(3, 293) = 13.73, p < .001]. These findings have important implications towards shaping responsible behaviour among motorcycle riders.

A method for evaluating safety reliability of descend/ascend drop-weight system and mission abort decision for deep-ocean scientific human submersibles.

Descend and ascend of deep-water human-occupied submersibles based on buoyancy changes are enabled using a denomination of dispensable drop-weights, and loss of buoyancy are managed using emergency drop-weights and jettisoning identified systems. Failing to release the drop weights or jettison results in submersible stranding on the sea floor, leads to emergency recovery, and hence the drop-weight configuration has to be highly reliable. The paper, for the first time, based on hydrostatic stability, descend/ascend velocity needs, ocean salinity profile and loss-of-buoyancy situations, proposes a novel on-demand reliability based methodology for determining the safe drop-weight configuration and degradation-based mission abort strategy for deep-ocean human submersibles. Probabilistic on-demand reliability analysis based on IEC61508 standards for safety-critical systems using component field-failure data is carried out and the drop-weight configuration essential to meet the human-rated safety integrity level 3 during all stages of the subsea mission is identified for the deep-ocean human scientific submersible Matsya6000, based on which a mission abort protocol is evolved.

LERCause: Deep learning approaches for causal sentence identification from nuclear safety reports.

Identifying causal sentences from nuclear incident reports is essential for advancing nuclear safety research and applications. Nonetheless, accurately locating and labeling causal sentences in text data is challenging, and might benefit from the usage of automated techniques. In this paper, we introduce LERCause, a labeled dataset combined with labeling methods meant to serve as a foundation for the classification of causal sentences in the domain of nuclear safety. We used three BERT models (BERT, BioBERT, and SciBERT) to 10,608 annotated sentences from the Licensee Event Report (LER) corpus for predicting sentence labels (Causal vs. non-Causal). We also used a keyword-based heuristic strategy, three standard machine learning methods (Logistic Regression, Gradient Boosting, and Support Vector Machine), and a deep learning approach (Convolutional Neural Network; CNN) for comparison. We found that the BERT-centric models outperformed all other tested models in terms of all evaluation metrics (accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score). BioBERT resulted in the highest overall F1 score of 94.49% from the ten-fold cross-validation. Our dataset and coding framework can provide a robust baseline for assessing and comparing new causal sentences extraction techniques. As far as we know, our research breaks new ground by leveraging BERT-centric models for causal sentence classification in the nuclear safety domain and by openly distributing labeled data and code to enable reproducibility in subsequent research.

Personalizing driver safety interfaces via driver cognitive factors inference.

Recent advances in AI and intelligent vehicle technology hold the promise of revolutionizing mobility and transportation through advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Certain cognitive factors, such as impulsivity and inhibitory control have been shown to relate to risky driving behavior and on-road risk-taking. However, existing systems fail to leverage such factors in assistive driving technologies adequately. Varying the levels of these cognitive factors could influence the effectiveness and acceptance of ADAS interfaces. We demonstrate an approach for personalizing driver interaction via driver safety interfaces that are are triggered based on the inference of the driver's latent cognitive states from their driving behavior. To accomplish this, we adopt a data-driven approach and train a recurrent neural network to infer impulsivity and inhibitory control from recent driving behavior. The network is trained on a population of human drivers to infer impulsivity and inhibitory control from recent driving behavior. Using data collected from a high-fidelity vehicle motion simulator experiment, we demonstrate the ability to deduce these factors from driver behavior. We then use these inferred factors to determine instantly whether or not to engage a driver safety interface. This approach was evaluated using leave-one-out cross validation using actual human data. Our evaluations reveal that our personalized driver safety interface that captures the cognitive profile of the driver is more effective in influencing driver behavior in yellow light zones by reducing their inclination to run through them.

Evaluation of the effectiveness of three different interventions on older driver safety over a 12-month period: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

INTRODUCTION: The growing population of older drivers presents challenges for road safety attributed to age-related declines and increased crash fatality rates. However, enabling older people to maintain their health and independence through continued safe driving is important. This study focuses on the urgent need for cost-effective interventions that reduce crash risk while supporting older drivers to remain driving safely for longer. Our study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of three behavioural interventions for older driver safety. These include an online road-rules refresher workshop, tailored feedback on driving performance and two tailored driving lessons. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: A single-blind three-parallel group superiority randomised controlled trial will be conducted with 198 urban licensed drivers aged 65 years and older, allowing for 4% attrition. This sample size provides 80% power to detect a difference with an alpha of 0.05. Participants will be selected based on a standardised on-road test that identifies them as moderately unsafe drivers. Interventions, spanning a 3-month period, aim to improve driving safety. Their effectiveness will be assessed through a standardised on-road assessment of driving safety at 3 months (T1) and 12 months postintervention (T2). Additionally, monthly self-reported driving diaries will provide data on crashes and incidents.This trial has the potential to identify cost-effective approaches for improving safety for older drivers and contribute to evidence-based health policy, clinical practice and guidelines. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval was obtained by the University of New South Wales Human Research Ethics Committee (HC190439, 22 August 2019). The results of the study will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journals and research conferences. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ACTRN12622001515785.