Are there higher pedestrian fatalities in larger cities?: A scaling analysis of 115 to 161 largest cities in the United States

Objective: In 2012, 4,743 pedestrians were killed in the United States, representing 14% of total traffic fatalities. The number of pedestrians injured was higher at 76,000. Therefore, 36 out of 52 of the largest cities in the United States have adopted a citywide target of reducing pedestrian fatalities. The number of cities adopting the reduction goal during 2011 and 2012 increased rapidly with 8 more cities. We examined the scaling relationship of pedestrian fatality counts as a function of the population size of 115 to 161 large U.S. cities during the period of 1994 to 2011. We also examined the scaling relationship of nonpedestrian and total traffic fatality counts as a function of the population size.

Methods: For the data source of fatality measures we used Traffic Safety Facts Fatality Analysis Reporting System/General Estimates System annual reports published each year from 1994 to 2011 by the NHTSA. Using the data source we conducted both annual cross-sectional and panel data bivariate and multivariate regression models. In the construction of the estimated functional relationship between traffic fatality measures and various factors, we used the simple power function for urban scaling used by Bettencourt et al. (2007 Bettencourt LMA, Lobo J, Helbing D, Kühnert C, West GB. Growth, innovation, scaling and the pace of life in cities. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2007;104:7301–7306.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2010 Bettencourt LMA, Lobo J, Strumsky D, West GB. Urban scaling and its deviations: revealing the structure of wealth, innovation and crime across cities. PLoS ONE. 2010;5:e13541.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and the refined STIRPAT (stochastic impacts by regression on population, affluence, and technology) model used in Dietz and Rosa (1994 Dietz T, Rosa EA. Rethinking the environmental impacts of population, affluence and technology. Human Ecology Review. 1994;1:277–300. [Google Scholar], 1997 Dietz T, Rosa EA. Effects of population and affluence on CO₂ emissions. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 1997;94:175–179.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and York et al. (2003 York R, Rosa EA, Dietz T. STIRPAT, IPAT and IMPACT: analytic tools for unpacking the driving forces of environmental impacts. Ecol Econ. 2003;46:351–365.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).

Results: We found that the scaling relationship display diseconomies of scale or sublinear for pedestrian fatalities. However, the relationship displays a superlinear relationship in case of nonpedestrian fatalities. The scaling relationship for total traffic fatality counts display a nearly linear pattern. When the relationship was examined by the 4 subgroups of cities with different population sizes, the most pronounced sublinear scaling relationships for all 3 types of fatality counts was discovered for the subgroup of megacities with a population of more than 1 million.

Conclusions: The scaling patterns of traffic fatalities of subgroups of cities depend on population sizes of the cities in subgroups. In particular, 9 megacities with populations of more than 1 million are significantly different from the remaining cities and should be viewed as a totally separate group. Thus, analysis of the patterns of traffic fatalities needs to be conducted within the group of megacities separately from the other cities with smaller population sizes for devising prevention policies to reduce traffic fatalities in both megacities and smaller cities.     

Successful outcome following prenatal intervention in a female fetus with bladder outlet obstruction

Bladder outlet obstructions are a diverse and heterogeneous group of developmental abnormalities that generally involve obstruction of the proximal urethra in the male fetus. Indications for prenatal intervention are few and are usually restricted to the male fetus because bladder outlet obstruction in female fetuses is usually caused by complex cloacal development anomalies. We report on a female fetus with an enlarged bladder and a dilated proximal urethra (known as typical keyhole sign). A vesicoamniotic shunt was performed despite non-reassuring prognostic factors, but the procedure resulted in a successful outcome. We propose that in selected cases of bladder outlet obstruction, fetal intervention should be considered even when the fetus is female. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Recovery of iron oxide and calcium chloride from an iron-rich chloride waste using calcium carbonate

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - The ilmenite-chloride process has used for the production of TiCl4 from the ilmenite (FeTiO3) ore, which produces cyclone dust containing mostly...     

Significance of adverse outcome pathways in biomarker-based environmental risk assessment in aquatic organisms

In environmental risk assessments (ERA), biomarkers have been widely used as an early warning signal of environmental contamination. However, biomarker responses have limitation due to its low relevance to adverse outcomes (e.g., fluctuations in community structure, decreases in population size, and other similar ecobiologically relevant indicators of community structure and function). To mitigate these limitations, the concept of adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) was developed. An AOP is an analytical, sequentially progressive pathway that links a molecular initiating event (MIE) to an adverse outcome. Recently, AOPs have been recognized as a potential informational tool by which the implications of molecular biomarkers in ERA can be better understood. To demonstrate the utility of AOPs in biomarker-based ERA, here we discuss a series of three different biological repercussions caused by exposure to benzo(a)pyrene (BaP), silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), and selenium (Se). Using mainly aquatic invertebrates and selected vertebrates as model species, we focus on the development of the AOP concept. Aquatic organisms are suitable bioindicator species whose entire lifespans can be observed over a short period; moreover, these species can be studied on the molecular and population levels. Also, interspecific differences between aquatic organisms are important to consider in an AOP framework, since these differences are an integral part of the natural environment. The development of an environmental pollutant-mediated AOP may enable a better understanding of the effects of environmental pollutants in different scenarios in the diverse community of an ecosystem.     

Behavior of buoyancy and momentum controlled hydrogen jets and flames emitted into the quiescent atmosphere

As an effort to improve the prediction of hydrogen dispersion in the atmosphere, effects of buoyancy acting on the hydrogen jets formed by releasing from high pressure vessels are investigated analytically and experimentally. For the analytical study, an integral analysis for buoyant jets and flames is carried out to yield the closed formula describing the jet and flame shapes, including their trajectory and horizontal and vertical lengths corresponding to the critical concentrations. Because the density of hydrogen after releasing from high pressure storage conditions is much close to that of helium than that of hydrogen at room temperature, helium is used as the hydrogen surrogate for the buoyant jet experiments, which were performed by visualizing the jet dispersing in the atmosphere up to the jet Reynolds number Re ～ 2400. The trajectories obtained by the integral analysis and experiments agree relatively well until the transition to turbulence occurs. A further estimate for jets and flames is made by using the integral analysis as a preliminary design to the experiments involving a much greater hydrogen release. Once the comparative investigation of the larger scale experiments with the integral analysis, we anticipate that a more universal hydrogen jet and flame data can be obtained, which perhaps leads to a better safety distance of hydrogen stations.     

Development of a SWAT Patch for Better Estimation of Sediment Yield in Steep Sloping Watersheds1

Abstract: The watershed scale Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model divides watersheds into smaller subwatersheds for simulation of rainfall‐runoff and sediment loading at the field level and routing through stream networks. Typically, the SWAT model first needs to be calibrated and validated for accurate estimation through adjustment of sensitive input parameters (i.e., Curve Number values, USLE P, slope and slope‐length, and so on). However, in some instances, SWAT‐simulated results are greatly affected by the watershed delineation and Digital Elevation Models (DEM) cell size. In this study, the SWAT ArcView GIS Patch II was developed for steep sloping watersheds, and its performance was evaluated for various threshold values and DEM cell size scenarios when delineating subwatersheds using the SWAT model. The SWAT ArcView GIS Patch II was developed using the ArcView GIS Avenue program and Spatial Analyst libraries. The SWAT ArcView GIS Patch II improves upon the SWAT ArcView GIS Patch I because it reflects the topographic factor in calculating the field slope‐length of Hydrologic Response Units in the SWAT model. The simulated sediment value for 321 subwatersheds (watershed delineation threshold value of 25 ha) is greater than that for 43 subwatersheds (watershed delineation threshold value of 200 ha) by 201% without applying the SWAT ArcView GIS Patch II. However, when the SWAT ArcView GIS Patch II was applied, the difference in simulated sediment yield decreases for the same scenario (i.e., difference in simulated sediment with 321 subwatersheds and 43 subwatersheds) was 12%. The simulated sediment value for DEM cell size of 50 m is greater than that for DEM cell size of 10 m by 19.8% without the SWAT ArcView GIS Patch II. However, the difference becomes smaller (3.4% difference) between 50 and 10 m with the SWAT ArcView GIS Patch II for the DEM scenarios. As shown in this study, the SWAT ArcView GIS Patch II can reduce differences in simulated sediment values for various watershed delineation and DEM cell size scenarios. Without the SWAT ArcView GIS Patch II, variations in the SWAT‐simulated results using various watershed delineation and DEM cell size scenarios could be greater than those from input parameter calibration. Thus, the results obtained in this study show that the SWAT ArcView GIS Patch II should be used when simulating hydrology and sediment yield for steep sloping watersheds (especially if average slope of the subwatershed is >25%) for more accurate simulation of hydrology and sediment using the SWAT model. The SWAT ArcView GIS Patch II is available at http://www.EnvSys.co.kr/~swat for free download.     

Development of freshwater sediment management standards for organic matters, nutrients, and metals in Korea

Korean water quality managers are required to promptly develop national assessment standards for freshwater sediment quality due to the Four Major River Restoration Project in Korea in 2009. We conducted this study to develop sediment management standards (SMSs), determining obviously and severely polluted sediment, which could have adverse impacts on water quality and aquatic ecosystem. The SMSs values were derived from the 95th percentile of concentration distribution for organic matter and nutrients in sediment quality database. For the SMSs of metals, foreign sediment quality guidelines (SQGs) were adopted. As a result, 13 % for loss on ignition (LOI), 1,600 mg/kg for total phosphorus (TP), and 5,600 mg/kg for total nitrogen (TN) were set as the SMSs for freshwater sediment in Korea. These values were higher than the range of heavily polluted sediment from USEPA Region 5 guideline derived by the similar approaches for the Great Lakes harbor sediments, and similar or lower than the severe effect level (SEL) from provincial sediment quality guideline (PSQG) of Ontario, Canada by screening level concentration (SLC) approach. However, SMSs in the present study are appropriate considering the concentration ranges and the Korean SMSs’ definition for freshwater sediments in Korea. The Puget Sound marine sediment cleanup screening level (CSL) in Washington State, USA were adopted as the Korean SMSs for As (93 mg/kg), Cd (6.7 mg/kg), Cr (270 mg/kg), Cu (390 mg/kg), Pb (530 mg/kg), and Zn (960 mg/kg) in freshwater sediments. Hg concentration (0.59 mg/kg) of CSL was too low to determine the polluted freshwater sediments in Korea, and the SEL of Ontario, Canada for mercury concentration (2 mg/kg) was selected as the SMS for Hg. These values were found reasonable through the assessment of applicability with the datasets from locations directly affected by obvious point sources. These results indicate that SMSs for organic matter, nutrient, and metals derived within the present study can successfully determine obviously and severely polluted sediment in Korea. However, the SMSs have limits to specifically determine the effects of polluted sediment on water quality and aquatic ecosystem in Korea. Thus, we will revise and specify SMSs considering those effects and further sediment quality assessment framework in the near future.     

Mass Load-Based Pollution Management of the Han River and Its Tributaries, Korea

Spatio-temporal variations of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and total coliform (TC) in the Han River, Korea, were investigated in terms of concentration-based and mass loading-based approaches. Considering the river water quality criteria regulated by the Ministry of Environment in Korea, the tributaries linked to the mainstream of the Han River were found to be highly contaminated with respect to both BOD and TC and, in fact, most of the tributaries exceeded the maximum water quality criteria. To evaluate the pollution impact of tributaries on the mainstream, the monthly water quality monitoring data for six years (from 1995 to 2000) were collected from the Han River basin, and statistically analyzed using Pearson’s correlation coefficient. The results revealed that mass loading-based approach was superior to the concentration-based approach for effective Han River watershed management. Overall results supported that the mass loading-based approach associated with total maximum daily loads (TMDL) management would be a useful and suitable protocol in watershed management for improving the water quality of the Han River and protecting public health. Therefore, this study supporting TMDL management can be applicable to a wide array of contaminants and watershed settings in Korea.     

Influence of HCl on oxidation of gaseous elemental mercury by dielectric barrier discharge process

The influence of HCl on the oxidation of gaseous elemental mercury (Hg0) has been investigated using a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma process, where the temperature of the plasma reactor and the composition of gas mixtures of HCl, H2O, NO, and O2 in N2 balance have been varied. We observe that Cl atoms and Cl2 molecules, created by the DBD process, play important roles in the oxidation of Hg0 to HgCl2. The addition of H2O to the gas mixture of HCl in N2 accelerates the oxidation of Hg0, although no appreciable effect of H2O alone on the oxidation of Hg0 has been observed. The increase of the reaction temperature in the presence of HCl results in the reduction of Hg0 oxidation efficiency probably due to the deterioration of the heterogeneous chemical reaction of Hg0 with chlorinated species on the reactor wall. The presence of NO shows an inhibitory effect on the oxidation of Hg0 under DBD of 16% O2 in N2, indicating that NO acts as an O and O3 scavenger. At the composition of Hg0 (280 microg m(-3)), HCl (25 ppm), NO (204 ppm), O2 (16%) and N2 (balance) and temperature 90 degrees C, we obtain the nearly complete oxidation of Hg0 at a specific energy density of 8 J l(-1). These results lead us to suggest that the DBD process can be viable for the treatment of mercury released from coal-fired power plants.