The effects of drug and alcohol consumption on driver injury severities in single-vehicle crashes

Objective: It is well known that alcohol and drugs influence driving behavior by affecting the central nervous system, awareness, vision, and perception/reaction times, but the resulting effect on driver injuries in car crashes is not fully understood. The purpose of this study was to identify factors affecting the injury severities of unimpaired, alcohol-impaired, and drug-impaired drivers.

Method: The current article applies a random parameters logit model to study the differences in injury severities among unimpaired, alcohol-impaired, and drug-impaired drivers. Using data from single-vehicle crashes in Cook County, Illinois, over a 9-year period from January 1, 2004, to December 31, 2012, separate models for unimpaired, alcohol-impaired, and drug-impaired drivers were estimated. A wide range of variables potentially affecting driver injury severity was considered, including roadway and environmental conditions, driver attributes, time and location of the crash, and crash-specific factors.

Results: The estimation results show significant differences in the determinants of driver injury severities across groups of unimpaired, alcohol-impaired, and drug-impaired drivers. The findings also show that unimpaired drivers are understandably more responsive to variations in lighting, adverse weather, and road conditions, but these drivers also tend to have much more heterogeneity in their behavioral responses to these conditions, relative to impaired drivers. In addition, age and gender were found to be important determinants of injury severity, but the effects varied significantly across all drivers, particularly among alcohol-impaired drivers.

Conclusions: The model estimation results show that statistically significant differences exist in driver injury severities among the unimpaired, alcohol-impaired, and drug-impaired driver groups considered. Specifically, we find that unimpaired drivers tend to have more heterogeneity in their injury outcomes in the presence potentially adverse weather and road surface conditions. This makes sense because one would expect unimpaired drivers to apply their full knowledge/judgment range to deal with these conditions, and the variability of this range across the driver population (with different driving experiences, etc.) should be great. In contrast, we find, for the most part, that alcohol-impaired and drug-impaired drivers have far less heterogeneity in the factors that affect injury severity, suggesting an equalizing effect resulting from the decision-impairing substance.     

Mathematical modeling of sustainable development goals of India agenda 2030: a Neutrosophic programming approach

Environment, Development and Sustainability - Since 2015, the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) agenda 2030 has been designed with 17 goals, 169 targets, and 232 unique indicators...     

Optimizing different adaptive strategies by using crop growth modeling under IPCC climate change scenarios for sustainable wheat production

Environment, Development and Sustainability - Crop production is highly sensitive to climate. It is affected by long-term trends in average rainfall and temperature, inter-annual climate...     

Strategies to improve aerobic granular sludge stability and nitrogen removal based on feeding mode and substrate

A systemic strategy was proposed to improve aerobic granular sludge(AGS)stability and nitrogen(N)removal efficiency by optimizing feeding mode and substrate aiming at complicated wastewater characteristics.Key functional groups at the genus level identified by high-throughput sequencing were evaluated as well.The results showed that anaerobic feeding mode and acetate promoted the compact AGS formation with excellent total nitrogen(TN)removal efficiency(averaging 91.7%±4.1%)at various dissolved oxygen conditions.While the aerobic feeding mode led to a loose AGS structure with a vulnerable anaerobic core and poor TN removal efficiency(averaging58.8%±7.4%).Simultaneous nitrification and denitrification process played the dominant role in N removal in compact AGS over the alternating nitrification and denitrification process.High-concentration glucose undermined feast-famine condition with filamentous bacteria growth out of granule and decreased TN removal efficiency to 67.3%±15.2%.Lower food to microorganism ratio may result in a lower N removal rate attributed to the sharply increased biomass concentration fed by glucose.Ammonia-oxidizing bacteria,nitrite-oxidizing bacteria,denitrifying bacteria,and denitrifying phosphorus accumulation organisms enriched during AGS granulation also contributed to the efficient N removal.The proposed strategy provided insights into the relationship between various factors and stable AGS formation,and systemic operation methods for various complicated wastewater treatment.     

A fouling suppression system in submerged membrane bioreactors using dielectrophoretic forces

A novel method was developed to suppress membrane fouling in submerged membrane bioreactors. The method is based on the dielectrophoretic (DEP) motion of particles in an inhomogeneous electrical field. Using a real sample of biomass as feed, the fouling-suppression performance using DEP with different electrical field intensities (60-160 V) and different frequencies (50-1000 Hz) was investigated. The fouling-suppression performance was found to relate closely with the intensity and frequency of the electrical field. A stronger electrical field was found to better recover the filtrate flux. This is because of a stronger DEP force acting on the biomass particles close to themembrane's surface. Above an intensity and frequency value of 130 V and 1 kHz, respectively the permeate flux was reduced due to an electrothermal effect.     

A fouling suppression system in submerged membrane bioreactors using dielectrophoretic forces

A novel method was developed to suppress membrane fouling in submerged membrane bioreactors. The method is based on the dielectrophoretic(DEP) motion of particles in an inhomogeneous electrical field. Using a real sample of biomass as feed, the fouling-suppression performance using DEP with different electrical field intensities(60–160 V) and different frequencies(50–1000 Hz) was investigated. The fouling-suppression performance was found to relate closely with the intensity and frequency of the electrical field. A stronger electrical field was found to better recover the filtrate flux. This is because of a stronger DEP force acting on the biomass particles close to the membrane's surface. Above an intensity and frequency value of130 V and 1 k Hz, respectively the permeate flux was reduced due to an electrothermal effect.     

COVID-19 drugs in aquatic systems: a review

Environmental Chemistry Letters - The outbreak of the human coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has induced an unprecedented increase in the use of several old and repurposed therapeutic...     

Adsorption and photocatalytic properties of porphyrin loaded MIL-101 (Cr) in methylene blue degradation

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - In this study for the very first time, zinc tetraphenylporphyrin (ZnTPP) was loaded into MIL-101 (Zn[TPP]@MIL-101) to perform an adsorptive and...     

Hydrological components of groundwater recharge in leaky aquifers adjacent to semipervious streambank: analytical study

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Groundwater resources can be artificially augmented by managed aquifer recharge especially in arid and semi-arid areas. Unlike most of the existing...     

A comprehensive review of heavy metal pollution in the coastal areas of Bangladesh: abundance,bioaccumulation, health implications,and challenges

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The coastal zone of Bangladesh, with a population density of 1278 people per square kilometer, is under serious threat due to heavy metal pollution....