Secondary collisions and injury severity: A joint analysis using structural equation models

Objective: This study aims to investigate the contributing factors to secondary collisions and the effects of secondary collisions on injury severity levels. Manhattan, which is the most densely populated urban area of New York City, is used as a case study. In Manhattan, about 7.5% of crash events become involved with secondary collisions and as high as 9.3% of those secondary collisions lead to incapacitating and fatal injuries.

Methods: Structural equation models (SEMs) are proposed to jointly model the presence of secondary collisions and injury severity levels and adjust for the endogeneity effects. The structural relationship among secondary collisions, injury severity, and contributing factors such as speeding, alcohol, fatigue, brake defects, limited view, and rain are fully explored using SEMs. In addition, to assess the temporal effects, we use time as a moderator in the proposed SEM framework.

Results: Due to its better performance compared with other models, the SEM with no constraint is used to investigate the contributing factors to secondary collisions. Thirteen explanatory variables are found to contribute to the presence of secondary collisions, including alcohol, drugs, inattention, inexperience, sleep, control disregarded, speeding, fatigue, defective brakes, pedestrian involved, defective pavement, limited view, and rain. Regarding the temporal effects, results indicate that it is more likely to sustain secondary collisions and severe injuries at night.

Conclusions: This study fully investigates the contributing factors to secondary collisions and estimates the safety effects of secondary collisions after adjusting for the endogeneity effects and shows the advantage of using SEMs in exploring the structural relationship between risk factors and safety indicators. Understanding the causes and impacts of secondary collisions can help transportation agencies and automobile manufacturers develop effective injury prevention countermeasures.     

含氯苯酚类化合物结构表征与毒性预测

将有机化合物中的不同非氢原子及非氢原子之间的关系参数化得到新的结构描述符,运用该描述符对部分含氯苯酚类化合物分子结构进行了参数化表征。采用偏最小二乘回归(PLS)方法构建了化合物结构与毒性(-lg IC50)之间的关系模型,模型的建模相关系数(R2)为0.948,"留一法"交互检验的相关系数(Q2)为0.922,标准偏差(SD)为0.184。结果表明结构描述符能较好地表征化合物分子结构特征,所建模型稳定性好、预测能力强,对于酚类化合物QSAR研究具有一定的参考价值。     

中国北方地区年降水与气温关系及其时空变异性

降水与气温之间的不同关系类型对植被、水资源、生态环境等有着不同的影响,全面揭示大范围多气候类型区关系类型及其时空变异性和影响成为重要研究内容.文章以范围较广、涵盖气候类型较多的中国北方地区为研究区,利用研究区及其周边的357个高密度气象站点1951—2016年年降水量、气温数据,采用中心聚类等方法,定性、定量揭示了中国...     

酸沉降对马尾松菌根共生蛋白及营养关系影响

研究模拟酸雨及不同Ｃａ／Ａｌ比对马尾松（Ｐｉｎｕｓｍ ａｓｓｏｎｉａｎａ Ｌａｍ ｂ．）菌根中真菌与植物共生及营养关系的影响,在分子水平上揭示污染对生物的作用和生物抗性机理．当ｐＨ２０ 的模拟酸雨与铝共同作用时,马尾松菌根中酸性磷酸酶、硝酸还原酶以及海藻糖酶和甘露醇脱氢酶活性明显下降,即ｐＨ２０ 的模拟酸雨及铝离子对马尾松幼苗根的磷、氮吸收以及两共生生物之间的营养物质交换过程产生了影响,且铝离子在ｐＨ值低的情况下毒性作用更强;而钙能有效地缓解铝的毒性⒚在本实验中当Ｃａ／Ａｌ比为１／１ 时,缓解能力最强;在接种外生菌根真菌彩色豆马勃（Ｐｉｓｏｌｉｔｈｕｓｔｉｎｃｔｏｒｉｕｓ）后,马尾松幼苗根部酶活性仍能保持一定水平,植物对模拟酸雨及铝毒的抗性增强．菌根形成初期,经等点聚焦电泳后分离出在植物及真菌纯培养中均不存在的共生蛋白,其等电点为４７０,经ｐＨ２０的模拟酸雨处理后该蛋白仍存在     

分子连接性指数(mJ)与有机物毒性的相关性

定义原子特征值δ     

In silico prediction of Tetrahymena pyriformis toxicity for diverse industrial chemicals with substructure pattern recognition and machine learning methods

There is an increasing need for the rapid safety assessment of chemicals by both industries and regulatory agencies throughout the world. In silico techniques are practical alternatives in the environmental hazard assessment. It is especially true to address the persistence, bioaccumulative and toxicity potentials of organic chemicals. Tetrahymena pyriformis toxicity is often used as a toxic endpoint. In this study, 1571 diverse unique chemicals were collected from the literature and composed of the largest diverse data set for T. pyriformis toxicity. Classification predictive models of T. pyriformis toxicity were developed by substructure pattern recognition and different machine learning methods, including support vector machine (SVM), C4.5 decision tree, k-nearest neighbors and random forest. The results of a 5-fold cross-validation showed that the SVM method performed better than other algorithms. The overall predictive accuracies of the SVM classification model with radial basis functions kernel was 92.2% for the 5-fold cross-validation and 92.6% for the external validation set, respectively. Furthermore, several representative substructure patterns for characterizing T. pyriformis toxicity were also identified via the information gain analysis methods.     

A novel method dependent only on the mixture information (MIM) for evaluating the toxicity of mixture

Compound contamination and toxicity interaction necessitate the development of models that have an insight into the combined toxicity of chemicals. In this paper, a novel and simple model dependent only on the mixture information (MIM), was developed. Firstly, the concentration-response data of seven groups of binary and multi-component (pseudo-binary) mixtures with different mixture ratios to Vibrio qinghaiensis sp.-Q67 were determined using the microplate toxicity analysis. Then, a desirable non-linear function was selected to fit the data. It was found that there are good linear correlations between the location parameter (α) and mixture ratio (p) of a component and between the steepness (β) and p. Based on the correlations, a mixture toxicity model independent of pure component toxicity profiles was built. The model can be used to accurately estimate the toxicities of the seven groups of mixtures, which greatly simplified the predictive procedure of the combined toxicity.     

Interdependence with the environment: Commitment,interconnectedness, and environmental behavior

Do individuals’ perceptions of their interdependence with the natural environment affect their environmental behaviors? From the perspective of interdependence theory, we introduce a scale to measure commitment to the natural environment. In Study 1, higher levels of commitment to the environment and greater inclusion of nature in the self separately predicted higher levels of pro-environmental behavior, even when controlling for social desirability and ecological worldview. In Study 2, participants primed to experience high commitment to the environment reported greater levels of pro-environmental behavioral intentions as well as pro-environmental behavior relative to participants primed to experience low commitment to the environment. Commitment to the natural environment is a new theoretical construct that predicts environmental behavior.     

Q345(16Mn)钢在恒温加载条件下的应力-应变曲线和弹性模量

为评估和分析钢结构的耐火性能,对我国10个钢厂生产的16Mn钢进行152次恒温加载试验研究。结果表明,钢材的应力-应变曲线随温度升高,应力变小而应变增大,曲线斜率即弹性模量随温度升高和应变增大而趋于零。钢材在高温下的弹塑性性质非常明显,在钢结构高温性能分析中应当考虑这种特性。依据试验结果构建了以表格形式表达的钢材折线应力-应变曲线和弹性模量,为火灾下钢结构的变形和温度应力计算提供参考。