Objective: There have been substantial reductions in motor vehicle crash–related child fatalities due to advances in legislation, public safety campaigns, and engineering. Less is known about non-traffic injuries and fatalities to children in and around motor vehicles. The objective of this study was to describe the frequency of various non-traffic incidents, injuries, and fatalities to children using a unique surveillance system and database.
Methods: Instances of non-traffic injuries and fatalities in the United States to children 0–14 years were tracked from January 1990 to December 2014 using a compilation of sources including media reports, individual accounts from families of affected children, medical examiner reports, police reports, child death review teams, coroner reports, medical professionals, legal professionals, and other various modes of publication.
Results: Over the 25-year period, there were at least 11,759 events resulting in 3,396 deaths. The median age of the affected child was 3.7 years. The incident types included 3,115 children unattended in hot vehicles resulting in 729 deaths, 2,251 backovers resulting in 1,232 deaths, 1,439 frontovers resulting in 692 deaths, 777 vehicles knocked into motion resulting in 227 deaths, 415 underage drivers resulting in 203 deaths, 172 power window incidents resulting in 61 deaths, 134 falls resulting in 54 deaths, 79 fires resulting in 41 deaths, and 3,377 other incidents resulting in 157 deaths.
Conclusions: Non-traffic injuries and fatalities present an important threat to the safety and lives of very young children. Future efforts should consider complementary surveillance mechanisms to systematically and comprehensively capture all non-traffic incidents. Continued education, engineering modifications, advocacy, and legislation can help continue to prevent these incidents and must be incorporated in overall child vehicle safety initiatives. 相似文献
Background, Aim and Scope Air quality is an field of major concern in large cities. This problem has led administrations to introduce plans and regulations
to reduce pollutant emissions. The analysis of variations in the concentration of pollutants is useful when evaluating the
effectiveness of these plans. However, such an analysis cannot be undertaken using standard statistical techniques, due to
the fact that concentrations of atmospheric pollutants often exhibit a lack of normality and are autocorrelated. On the other
hand, if long-term trends of any pollutant’s emissions are to be detected, meteorological effects must be removed from the
time series analysed, due to their strong masking effects.
Materials and Methods The application of statistical methods to analyse temporal variations is illustrated using monthly carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations
observed at an urban site. The sampling site is located at a street intersection in central Valencia (Spain) with a high traffic
density. Valencia is the third largest city in Spain. It is a typical Mediterranean city in terms of its urban structure and
climatology. The sampling site started operation in January 1994 and monitored CO ground level concentrations until February
2002. Its geographic coordinates are W0°22′52″ N39°28′05″ and its altitude is 11 m. Two nonparametric trend tests are applied.
One of these is robust against serial correlation with regards to the false rejection rate, when observations have a strong
persistence or when the sample size per month is small. A nonparametric analysis of the homogeneity of trends between seasons
is also discussed. A multiple linear regression model is used with the transformed data, including the effect of meteorological
variables. The method of generalized least squares is applied to estimate the model parameters to take into account the serial
dependence of the residuals of this model. This study also assesses temporal changes using the Kolmogorov-Zurbenko (KZ) filter.
The KZ filter has been shown to be an effective way to remove the influence of meteorological conditions on O3 and PM to examine underlying trends.
Results The nonparametric tests indicate a decreasing, significant trend in the sampled site. The application of the linear model
yields a significant decrease every twelve months of 15.8% for the average monthly CO concentration. The 95% confidence interval
for the trend ranges from 13.9% to 17.7%. The seasonal cycle also provides significant results. There are no differences in
trends throughout the months. The percentage of CO variance explained by the linear model is 90.3%. The KZ filter separates
out long, short-term and seasonal variations in the CO series. The estimated, significant, long-term trend every year results
in 10.3% with this method. The 95% confidence interval ranges from 8.8% to 11.9%. This approach explains 89.9% of the CO temporal
variations.
Discussion The differences between the linear model and KZ filter trend estimations are due to the fact that the KZ filter performs the
analysis on the smoothed data rather than the original data. In the KZ filter trend estimation, the effect of meteorological
conditions has been removed. The CO short-term componentis attributable to weather and short-term fluctuations in emissions.
There is a significant seasonal cycle. This component is a result of changes in the traffic, the yearly meteorological cycle
and the interactions between these two factors. There are peaks during the autumn and winter months, which have more traffic
density in the sampled site. There is a minimum during the month of August, reflecting the very low level of vehicle emissions
which is a direct consequence of the holiday period.
Conclusions The significant, decreasing trend implies to a certain extent that the urban environment in the area is improving. This trend
results from changes in overall emissions, pollutant transport, climate, policy and economics. It is also due to the effect
of introducing reformulated gasoline. The additives enable vehicles to burn fuel with a higher air/fuel ratio, thereby lowering
the emission of CO. The KZ filter has been the most effective method to separate the CO series components and to obtain an
estimate of the long-term trend due to changes in emissions, removing the effect of meteorological conditions.
Recommendations and Perspectives Air quality managers and policy-makers must understand the link between climate and pollutants to select optimal pollutant
reduction strategies and avoid exceeding emission directives. This paper analyses eight years of ambient CO data at a site
with a high traffic density, and provides results that are useful for decision-making. The assessment of long-term changes
in air pollutants to evaluate reduction strategies has to be done while taking into account meteorological variability 相似文献
The increasing use of sea water for industrial cooling presents a real threat to the ecological environment in the ocean. in Taiwan where many electric power plants along the coast take sea water for cooling, people are concerned seriously about nuclear power plants. There are three nuclear power plants in Taiwan. Each plant has two units for generating power. the first two are located along the northern coast of Taiwan. the third is located in Kenting National Park along the coast of southernmost Taiwan. the plants take sea water for cooling, and discharge their heated effluents to the ocean surface from the coast. the thermal effluents have variable effects on the ecological environment near the plants. Fishermen living near the power plants complain that the heated water affects the inshore fishery catch. in addition, the thermal water from the second plant is easily accumulated near the coastal zone to influence the nearby swimming area in the summer-time. the thermal water from the third plant bleaches or kills some corals in shallow water near the outlet, and this conflicts with the interests of Kenting National Park. 相似文献
Studies on paleosols under an archaeological landmark of a rare type (a complex of kurgans with “whiskers”) dating from the Early Iron Age (the fourth century AD) have been performed in the steppe zone of the Transural Plateau. The size and shape of third-order soil polygons under stony ridges (“whiskers”) between the kurgans have been described in detail. The results have shown that the paleosol under the kurgans erected at the turn of the Late Sarmatian and Hun times (1600 years ago) is characterized by a higher humus content and deeper location of the carbonate horizon, compared to the recent soil. This indicates that an increase in atmospheric humidity took place in the fourth century AD. 相似文献
Results of groundwater and seawater analyses for radioactive (3H, 222Rn, 223Ra, 224Ra, 226Ra, and 228Ra) and stable (D and 18O) isotopes are presented together with in situ spatial mapping and time series 222Rn measurements in seawater, direct seepage measurements using manual and automated seepage meters, pore water investigations using different tracers and piezometric techniques, and geoelectric surveys probing the coast. This study represents first time that such a new complex arsenal of radioactive and non-radioactive tracer techniques and geophysical methods have been used for simultaneous submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) investigations. Large fluctuations of SGD fluxes were observed at sites situated only a few meters apart (from 0 cm d−1 to 360 cm d−1; the unit represents cm3/cm2/day), as well as during a few hours (from 0 cm d−1 to 110 cm d−1), strongly depending on the tidal fluctuations. The average SGD flux estimated from continuous 222Rn measurements is 17 ± 10 cm d−1. Integrated coastal SGD flux estimated for the Ubatuba coast using radium isotopes is about 7 × 103 m3 d−1 per km of the coast. The isotopic composition (δD and δ18O) of submarine waters was characterised by significant variability and heavy isotope enrichment, indicating that the contribution of groundwater in submarine waters varied from a small percentage to 20%. However, this contribution with increasing offshore distance became negligible. Automated seepage meters and time series measurements of 222Rn activity concentration showed a negative correlation between the SGD rates and tidal stage. This is likely caused by sea level changes as tidal effects induce variations of hydraulic gradients. The geoelectric probing and piezometric measurements contributed to better understanding of the spatial distribution of different water masses present along the coast. The radium isotope data showed scattered distributions with offshore distance, which imply that seawater in a complex coast with many small bays and islands was influenced by local currents and groundwater/seawater mixing. This has also been confirmed by a relatively short residence time of 1–2 weeks for water within 25 km offshore, as obtained by short-lived radium isotopes. The irregular distribution of SGD seen at Ubatuba is a characteristic of fractured rock aquifers, fed by coastal groundwater and recirculated seawater with small admixtures of groundwater, which is of potential environmental concern and has implications on the management of freshwater resources in the region. 相似文献
Abstract: Few studies exist that evaluate or apply pesticide transport models based on measured parent and metabolite concentrations in fields with subsurface drainage. Furthermore, recent research suggests pesticide transport through exceedingly efficient direct connections, which occur when macropores are hydrologically connected to subsurface drains, but this connectivity has been simulated at only one field site in Allen County, Indiana. This research evaluates the Root Zone Water Quality Model (RZWQM) in simulating the transport of a parent compound and its metabolite at two subsurface drained field sites. Previous research used one of the field sites to test the original modification of the RZWQM to simulate directly connected macropores for bromide and the parent compound, but not for the metabolite. This research will evaluate RZWQM for parent/metabolite transformation and transport at this first field site, along with evaluating the model at an additional field site to evaluate whether the parameters for direct connectivity are transferable and whether model performance is consistent for the two field sites with unique soil, hydrologic, and environmental conditions. Isoxaflutole, the active ingredient in BALANCE® herbicide, was applied to both fields. Isoxaflutole rapidly degrades into a metabolite (RPA 202248). This research used calibrated RZWQM models for each field based on observed subsurface drain flow and/or edge of field conservative tracer concentrations in subsurface flow. The calibrated models for both field sites required a portion (approximately 2% but this fraction may require calibration) of the available water and chemical in macropore flow to be routed directly into the subsurface drains to simulate peak concentrations in edge of field subsurface drain flow shortly after chemical applications. Confirming the results from the first field site, the existing modification for directly connected macropores continually failed to predict pesticide concentrations on the recession limbs of drainage hydrographs, suggesting that the current strategy only partially accounts for direct connectivity. Thirty‐year distributions of annual mass (drainage) loss of parent and metabolite in terms of percent of isoxaflutole applied suggested annual simulated percent losses of parent and metabolite (3.04 and 1.31%) no greater in drainage than losses in runoff on nondrained fields as reported in the literature. 相似文献