Direct and indirect costs of nonfatal road traffic injuries in Iran: A population-based study

Objectives: The objective of this study was to assess the incidence rate as well as direct and indirect costs of nonfatal road traffic injuries (RTIs) in Iran in 2011.

Methods: Data from the 2011 national household survey were used. In this survey, data on demographics, history, and costs of injury were obtained in 2 steps: first, direct face-to-face interview and second, telephone calls. We estimated the incidence rate of nonfatal RTIs in this year. The direct costs included medical care as well as nonmedical costs paid by the patient or insurance services. The indirect costs were estimated by considering the cost of absence from work or education. We also used logistic regression analyses to investigate risk factors of nonfatal RTIs.

Results: We found 76 nonfatal RTI cases (0.96%) out of 7,886 whole reference study cases. These 76 injured patients had a history of RTI in the preceding 3 months. The annual incidence of RTIs was estimated at 3.84%. The mean age of RTI cases was 28.5 ± 10.6 and 88.16% of them were male. Male gender was a major risk factor (odds ratio [OR] = 9.64, 95% confidence interval [CI], 4.79–19.41) and marriage was a protective factor (OR = 0.44, 95% CI, 0.28–0.70) for RTI. The medians of direct, indirect, and total costs were US$214, US$163, and US$387, respectively. The total cost of nonfatal RTIs in Iran was estimated at 1.29% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2011.

Conclusions: In Iran, nonfatal RTIs imposed a total cost of almost US$7 billion to the country for one year. Extension and more serious implementation of preventive measurements seem necessary to decrease this notable burden of RTIs.     

四川升钟水库经济和环境协调发展研究

大型水库以灌溉为主兼有防洪、发电、饮用、游览、航运、水产养殖、降低局部地域的气温.净化环境、土壤持留等综合效益.文章以我国西南地区库容最大的四川升钟水库为例,概要的介绍了该库区建造前后环境与经济发展的情况,分析了水库建成后库区环境污染的原因,评估了库区的服务功能与经济价值,给出了实现库区经济与环境发展的措施.     

FPSO泡沫灭火系统的有效性研究

从泡沫灭火剂的选择、种类特性、取样送检要求、兼容性等几方面对FPSD泡沫灭火系统的有效性进行了研究,旨在从泡沫灭火系统的设计、采办、布局、安装、调试、操作及日常维护等整个生产周期出发,确保FPSO泡沫灭火系统的完整、可用和有效,以期为油田的安全开发提供参考。     

层次分析法在消防部队灭火救援战斗力评估中的应用

在研究消防专家测评和问卷抽样调查的基础上,建立了消防部队灭火救援战斗力评估指标体系,运用层次分析法确定了各指标的权重以及相应的评估模型,并通过实例计算,证明了该方法的可行性,为科学、有效地建设和管理消防部队、合理规范部队编制、不断发展和提高其作战力提供了依据.     

Investigating the effectiveness of safety countermeasures at highway-rail at-grade crossings using a competing risk model

Introduction: Highway-rail at-grade crossings (HRGCs) are critical locations where a railway and a roadway intersect with one another. Crashes at those locations often result in fatalities and economic and social damages due to the impacts on both road and rail users. The main purpose of countermeasures at HRGCs is to permit safe and efficient rail and highway operations. Method: Countermeasures at highway-rail grade crossings (HRGCs) considered in this study include all traffic control devices and other warning and barrier devices at or on approaches to crossings. In general, active devices are commonly accepted as more effective countermeasures than passive devices. However, many of the previous effectiveness studies are either at the project level or were conducted without considering the before-improvement condition. This study focuses on the network-level marginal effectiveness of countermeasures on crash rate and severity levels during the 29-year study period from 1990 to 2018 by fully considering before-improvement control levels. A competing risk model (CRM) is able to accommodate the competing nature of crash severities as multiple outcomes from the same event of interest, which is crash occurrence in this study. Subsequently, CRM is used in this study as an integrated one-step estimation approach that investigates both crash frequency and severity likelihood over time. Results: The study findings indicate that adding audible devices to crossings already equipped with gates will result in a considerable annual decline in crash occurrence likelihood (0.25%). The same device installed at crossings already controlled by gates and flashing lights results in less reduction in crash occurrence likelihood of 0.14%. Moreover, adding a stop sign to the active crossing controls of gates, standard flashing lights, and audible devices will lead to a decrease in the probability of crash occurrence and severe crashes (injury and fatal). However, adding stop signs to crossings equipped only with crossbucks will increase the crash occurrence.     

Sustainability Appraisal in neighbourhood planning in England

The preparation of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) inclusive sustainability appraisals (SAs) for neighbourhood plans (NPs) in England may be required when significant environmental effects are expected to arise from an NP. In this paper, we report on the result of a Ph.D. project, conducted between 2012 and 2015, in which all 15 NP SEA inclusive SAs that had been completed at the time were evaluated. In this context, the quality of SA practice was found to differ substantially. SAs were prepared either ‘in-house’ (i.e. by neighbourhood planning steering groups) or by consultants. The quality of SAs was found to be associated with their overall perceived degree of influence on the underlying NPs. Whilst the focus of this paper is on practice in England, findings are expected to be of interest to a wider international audience, in particular to those experimenting with voluntary neighbourhood/local level plan SA/SEA.     

Importance of awareness in improving performance of emergency medical services (EMS) systems in enhancing traffic safety: A lesson from India

Objective: India has been slow in implementing a central emergency medical services (EMS) system across the country. “108 services” is one of the most popular services that is functional under the public–private partnership model. Limited available literature shows that despite access to services, many traffic crash victims are transported using private vehicles. The objective of this study is to understand the effectiveness of 108 services from a traffic safety perspective.

Method: A questionnaire survey is conducted to understand the awareness of EMS and their function. Using traffic-related fatalities as the dependent variable, a fixed effect panel data model is developed to analyze the effectiveness of the 108 services in improving the traffic safety.

Results: The results from the survey show that, in general, people are not aware of the 108 services. A majority of the population prefers taking victims to the hospital using their personal vehicles or any other vehicles available compared to calling an ambulance. Results from panel data analysis show that despite having an efficient system, these services failed to make significant improvement in the safety of road users in the states in which their services were subscribed.

Discussion: The lack of awareness of an important safety service is alarming. This could be a major reason for lower utilization of 108 services for transporting victims of traffic crashes. This article shows the importance of having efficient awareness campaigns to improve the efficiency of any similar programs that are aimed to enhance the safety of a region.     

国外快速测定化学消油剂消油效果的几种方法

化学消油剂消油效果的现场评定方法必须满足适合现场操作、材料价廉易得、结果可靠准确等条件。对国外现有的现场快速测定消油剂效果的5种方法进行比较,结果表明,英国的佩内特鉴别法、挪威的菲勒溢出油检测装置和加拿大的梅蒂现场测定法存在一定的缺陷,不推荐使用。美国环保局的现场测定法(EPA FDET)简单、快速、准确。加拿大渥太华一家环境研究机构研制出的现场试验法比EPA FDET法耗时多,但原材料价格低廉,操作简单,结果可靠,值得推广应用。     

Fire use: Is it really the cheaper land preparation method for large-scale plantations?

During the last two decades Indonesia has experienced immense forest and land fires. Often these fires are associated with extended drought and widespread use of fire to clear previously logged forest and other degraded land in preparation for oil palm, rubber, or pulpwood plantations. There are many reasons for the use of fire in land clearing activities, but probably the most important one is economics. There is still acceptance that fire is the cheapest, fastest, and most effective land clearing method with the added benefit of providing nutrients from ash residues. This paper provides a review of existing information on the financial costs and benefits of using fire for land clearing in agriculture and forestry plantations as compared with zero-burning techniques. The findings indicate that the economic advantage of fire use varies widely and depends on many factors, such as soil fertility, vegetation density, labour cost, equipment and training costs, and the costs of fire management. For large-scale land clearing, the financial analysis of the costs and benefits of fire versus zero-burning shows that when applied to low-volume vegetation, zero-burning methods are not more expensive than burning – and may actually be more cost effective in the long term. This is the case for clearing oil palm or rubber plantations for replanting, low secondary vegetation, and heavily logged-over forest. Under high-volume forest conditions, burning remains less expensive because it is more difficult, time consuming, and costly to dispose of high volumes of piled wood mechanically.     

气泡雾化细水雾灭火有效性实验研究

气泡雾化技术是一种双流体的细水雾发生方法。作者根据气泡雾化的雾化机理自行设计了一种气泡雾化喷嘴，并通过先进的实验诊断手段和模拟实验，对该喷嘴产生的细水雾的雾场特性进行了测量，研究了其熄灭煤油火和酒精火的有效性，为发展新型的细水雾发生方法积累了必要的实验数据。