Roadside vegetation barriers are used in many urban areas to restrict air and noise pollution from reaching roadside pedestrians, but their effectiveness in limiting the movement of nanoparticles is not yet known. This study investigates the influence of a roadside vegetation barrier on particle number distribution (PND) and concentration (PNC) and associated exposure under different wind direc...

BACKGROUND An estimated one in five drivers will be over 65 by 2030. Compared with their younger counterparts, older adults are more likely to experience health and functional impairments, including cognitive dysfunction, which may interfere with their ability to drive safely. Law enforcement officers, as part of the public safety community, need help in developing the necessary skills to ident...

The dispersion of motorcycle related injuries and deaths might be a result of disparity in motorcycle helmet use. This study uses national roadside survey data, injury sentinel surveillance data and other national data sets in 2010 of Thailand, a country with high mortality related to motorcycle injuries, to explore the disparity in helmet use, explanatory factors of the disparity. It also asse...

We present a routing guidance approach that can be used in Intelligent Vehicle Highway Systems (IVHS). We consider IVHS consisting of automated highway systems on which intelligent vehicles organized in platoons drive to their destination, controlled by a hierarchical control framework. In this framework there are roadside controllers that provide speed and lane allocation instructions to the p...

Background In an effort to change drinking and driving behaviour and reduce the number of serious crashes attributable to alcohol, in the spring of 2010 the Government of British Columbia, Canada announced new measures to deal with drinking drivers. Aim This paper presents evidence of the impact of new immediate roadside prohibitions (IRP) for drinking drivers as assessed by random roadside sur...

BACKGROUND Gasoline station workers are exposed to volatile organic compounds such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX). OBJECTIVE To determine the level of exposure to BTEX compounds among gasoline station workers and measure the roadside concentrations of these compounds in the inner and outer areas of Bangkok, Thailand. METHODS 49 workers at 6 gasoline stations in the inne...

Roadside billboards containing negative and positive emotional content have been shown to influence driving performance, however, the impact of highly arousing taboo information is unknown. Taboo information more reliably evokes emotional arousal and can lead to greater attentional capture due to its inherent 'shock value.' The objective of the present study was to examine driver distraction as...

The development of organisms is changing drastically because of anthropogenic changes in once-limited nutrients. Although the importance of changing macronutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, is well-established, it is less clear how anthropogenic changes in micronutrients will affect organismal development, potentially changing dynamics of selection. We use butterflies as a study system ...