Parental supervision and discomfort with children walking to school in low-income communities in Cape Town,South Africa

Objective: The risk of pedestrian injury is compounded for children living in low-income communities due to factors such as poor road and pedestrian infrastructure, reliance on walking as a means of transport, and compromised supervision. Parents play an important role in child pedestrian safety. The primary objective of this study was to examine the effects of child pedestrian variables on parental discomfort with regard to letting their child walk to and from school and on the frequency of adult supervision.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using a convenience sample from 3 schools participating in a pedestrian safety school initiative. The schools are situated in low-income, high-risk communities in the City of Cape Town. A parent survey form was translated into isiXhosa and sent home with learners to those parents who had consented to participate. The response rate was 70.4%, and only parents of children who walk to and from school were included in the final sample (n = 359). Child pedestrian variables include the time taken to walk to school, parental rating of the child's ability to safely cross the road, and the frequency of adult supervision.

Results: More than half of parents reported that their child walked to and from school without adult supervision. About 56% of children took less than 20 min to walk to school. Most parents (61%) were uncomfortable with their child walking to school, although the majority of parents (55.7%) rated their child's ability to cross the road safely as better or significantly better than average (compared to peers). The parents did not perceive any differences in pedestrian risk factors between boys and girls or between younger (6–9 years) and older (10–15 years) children. The time spent by a child walking to school and parents' perceptions of their child's road-crossing ability were found to be significant predictors of parental discomfort (in letting their child walk). Younger children and children who spent less time walking were more likely to be supervised by an adult.

Conclusions: Many South African schoolchildren have to navigate the roads without adult supervision from a young age. Caregivers, especially in low-income settings, often have limited options with regard to getting their child to school safely. Regardless of the child's age and gender, the time that they spend on the roads is an important factor for parents in terms of pedestrian safety.     

Trends and applications of multi-criteria decision analysis in environmental sciences: literature review

Approximately 3000 papers concerning multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) in the environmental field were identified through a series of queries in the Web of Science database and classified by MCDA method and environmental application using text mining in R. Stemming and stop word removal techniques were used to remove irrelevant text from the literature. Trends in MCDA methods (AHP/ANP, TOPSIS, outranking, MAUT/MAVT) associated with specific environmental applications (water, air, energy, natural resources, and waste management) or interventions/tools applications (stakeholders, strategies, sustainability, and GIS) were identified. The results show a linear growth in the share of MCDA papers in environmental science across all application areas. Furthermore, the results show that AHP/ANP and MAUT/MAVT are the most frequently mentioned MCDA methods in the literature. For environmental applications, the results showed that natural resource and waste management keywords were, respectively, the most and least commonly discussed applications within the MCDA papers. For intervention/tool applications, we found that keywords associated with ‘strategy’ and ‘GIS’ applications are, respectively, the most and least commonly discussed keywords within the MCDA papers. The authors found that MCDA method keywords were evenly distributed across the environmental and intervention/tool applications, indicating a lack of preference in the environmental field for use of specific MCDA methods. This paper demonstrates that text mining is an applicable tool to assess specific textual trends and patterns when analyzing larger bodies of MCDA literature.     

Bacterial community profiles from sediments of the Anacostia River using metabolic and molecular analyses

Background aim and scope  

Though the tidal Anacostia River, a highly polluted riverine system, has been well characterized with regard to contaminants, its overall resident bacterial populations have remained largely unknown. Improving the health of this system will rely upon enhanced understanding of the diversity and functions of these communities. Bacterial DNA was extracted from archived (AR, year 2000) and fresh sediments (RE, year 2006) collected from various locations within the Anacostia River. Using a combination of metabolic and molecular techniques, community snapshots of sediment bacterial diversity and activity were produced.     

A comparative assessment of waste incinerators in the UK

The uptake in Europe of Energy from Waste (EfW) incinerator plants has increased rapidly in recent years. In the UK, 25 municipal waste incinerators with energy recovery are now in operation; however, their waste supply chains and business practices vary significantly. With over a hundred more plant developments being considered it is important to establish best business practices for ensuring efficient environmental and operational performance. By reviewing the 25 plants we identify four suitable case study plants to compare technologies (moving grate, fluidised bed and rotary kiln), plant economics and operations. Using data collected from annual reports and through interviews and site visits we provide recommendations for improving the supply chain for waste incinerators and highlight the current issues and challenges faced by the industry. We find that plants using moving grate have a high availability of 87–92%. However, compared to the fluidised bed and rotary kiln, quantities of bottom ash and emissions of hydrogen chloride and carbon monoxide are high. The uptake of integrated recycling practices, combined heat and power, and post incineration non-ferrous metal collections needs to be increased among EfW incinerators in the UK. We conclude that one of the major difficulties encountered by waste facilities is the appropriate selection of technology, capacity, site, waste suppliers and heat consumers. This study will be of particular value to EfW plant developers, government authorities and researchers working within the sector of waste management.     

Potential Impact of Climate Change on Hurricane Flooding Inundation,Population Affected and Property Damages in Corpus Christi1

Frey, Ashley E., Francisco Olivera, Jennifer L. Irish, Lauren M. Dunkin, James M. Kaihatu, Celso M. Ferreira, and Billy L. Edge, 2010. Potential Impact of Climate Change on Hurricane Flooding Inundation, Population Affected and Property Damages in Corpus Christi. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 1–11. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2010.00475.x Abstract: The effect of climate change on storm-surge flooding and the implications for population and structural damages on the city of Corpus Christi, Texas, was investigated. The study considered the influence of sea level rise and hurricane intensification, both influenced by climate change. Combinations of future carbon dioxide equivalent emission rates and carbon dioxide doubling sensitivities, based on findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, were considered to define future climate scenarios. A suite of physically based numerical models for hurricane winds and the resulting waves, surge, and morphological change at the coast were used to determine flooded areas, population affected, and property damages for Hurricanes Bret, Beulah, and a version of Carla shifted south from its original track, under present and predicted future climate conditions. A comparison of the economic damages for current climate conditions and for the 2080s climate scenario shows that, for Carla (shifted), there will be an increase in the range of $270-1,100 million; for Beulah, of $100-390 million; and, for Bret, of $30-280 million. A similar analysis was also conducted for 2030s predicted climate scenarios. Overall, the comparison of the results for the different climate conditions indicates what the destructive consequences of climate change could be, even within the somewhat short time frame of 80 years considered here.     

Sustainability Criteria for Decision Support in the UK Water Industry

The incorporation of sustainability assessment into decision-making processes is a key task for water service providers in the UK and elsewhere. This paper describes the development and application of a set of sustainability criteria, which have been developed and tested with project partners in the UK and Romania. They will be used in a 'guidebook' that will set out a framework to facilitate the inclusion of sustainability in the decision-making process. This work is part of the Sustainable Water Industry Asset Resource Decisions project to develop a multi-criteria analysis decision support system to assist water service providers to assess the relative sustainability of water/wastewater system asset development decisions.     

Estimated Injury Risk for Specific Injuries and Body Regions in Frontal Motor Vehicle Crashes

Objective: Injury risk curves estimate motor vehicle crash (MVC) occupant injury risk from vehicle, crash, and/or occupant factors. Many vehicles are equipped with event data recorders (EDRs) that collect data including the crash speed and restraint status during a MVC. This study's goal was to use regulation-required data elements for EDRs to compute occupant injury risk for (1) specific injuries and (2) specific body regions in frontal MVCs from weighted NASS-CDS data.

Methods: Logistic regression analysis of NASS-CDS single-impact frontal MVCs involving front seat occupants with frontal airbag deployment was used to produce 23 risk curves for specific injuries and 17 risk curves for Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) 2+ to 5+ body region injuries. Risk curves were produced for the following body regions: head and thorax (AIS 2+, 3+, 4+, 5+), face (AIS 2+), abdomen, spine, upper extremity, and lower extremity (AIS 2+, 3+). Injury risk with 95% confidence intervals was estimated for 15–105 km/h longitudinal delta-Vs and belt status was adjusted for as a covariate.

Results: Overall, belted occupants had lower estimated risks compared to unbelted occupants and the risk of injury increased as longitudinal delta-V increased. Belt status was a significant predictor for 13 specific injuries and all body region injuries with the exception of AIS 2+ and 3+ spine injuries. Specific injuries and body region injuries that occurred more frequently in NASS-CDS also tended to carry higher risks when evaluated at a 56 km/h longitudinal delta-V. In the belted population, injury risks that ranked in the top 33% included 4 upper extremity fractures (ulna, radius, clavicle, carpus/metacarpus), 2 lower extremity fractures (fibula, metatarsal/tarsal), and a knee sprain (2.4–4.6% risk). Unbelted injury risks ranked in the top 33% included 4 lower extremity fractures (femur, fibula, metatarsal/tarsal, patella), 2 head injuries with less than one hour or unspecified prior unconsciousness, and a lung contusion (4.6–9.9% risk). The 6 body region curves with the highest risks were for AIS 2+ lower extremity, upper extremity, thorax, and head injury and AIS 3+ lower extremity and thorax injury (15.9–43.8% risk).

Conclusions: These injury risk curves can be implemented into advanced automatic crash notification (AACN) algorithms that utilize vehicle EDR measurements to predict occupant injury immediately following a MVC. Through integration with AACN, these injury risk curves can provide emergency medical services (EMS) and other patient care providers with information on suspected occupant injuries to improve injury detection and patient triage.     

New Methodology for an Expert-Designed Map From International Classification of Diseases (ICD) to Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) 3+ Severity Injury

Objective: There has been a longstanding desire for a map to convert International Classification of Diseases (ICD) injury codes to Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) codes to reflect the severity of those diagnoses. The Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM) was tasked by European Union representatives to create a categorical map classifying diagnoses codes as serious injury (Abbreviated Injury Scale [AIS] 3+), minor/moderate injury (AIS 1/2), or indeterminate. This study's objective was to map injury-related ICD-9-CM (clinical modification) and ICD-10-CM codes to these severity categories.

Methods: Approximately 19,000 ICD codes were mapped, including injuries from the following categories: amputations, blood vessel injury, burns, crushing injury, dislocations/sprains/strains, foreign body, fractures, internal organ, nerve/spinal cord injury, intracranial, laceration, open wounds, and superficial injury/contusion. Two parallel activities were completed to create the maps: (1) An in-person expert panel and (2) an electronic survey. The panel consisted of expert users of AIS and ICD from North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The panel met in person for 5 days, with follow-up virtual meetings to create and revise the maps. Additional qualitative data were documented to resolve potential discrepancies in mapping. The electronic survey was completed by 95 injury coding professionals from North America, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand over 12 weeks. ICD-to-AIS maps were created for: ICD-9-CM and ICD-10-CM. Both maps indicated whether the corresponding AIS 2005/Update 2008 severity score for each ICD code was AIS 3+, 1/2, or indeterminable. Though some ICD codes could be mapped to multiple AIS codes, the maximum severity of all potentially mapped injuries determined the final severity categorization.

Results: The in-person panel consisted of 13 experts, with 11 Certified AIS specialists (CAISS) with a median of 8 years and an average of 15 years of coding experience. Consensus was reached for AIS severity categorization for all injury-related ICD codes. There were 95 survey respondents, with a median of 8 years of injury coding experience. Approximately 15 survey responses were collected per ICD code. Results from the 2 activities were compared, and any discrepancies were resolved using additional qualitative and quantitative data from the in-person panel and survey results, respectively.

Conclusions: Robust maps of ICD-9-CM and ICD-10-CM injury codes to AIS severity categories (3+ versus <3) were successfully created from an in-person panel discussion and electronic survey. These maps provide a link between the common ICD diagnostic lexicons and the AIS severity coding system and are of value to injury researchers, public health scientists, and epidemiologists using large databases without available AIS coding.