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.     

Hydro-abrasive erosion in hydro turbines: a review

The flow of sediment particles in rivers is a big challenge to develop hydropower plants across the sediment-laden rivers. Hard particles such as quartz and feldspar are available in high amount in the Asian mountain range. The abrasive action of these particles causes the hydro turbines to suffer from erosion in particular at high- and medium-head hydroelectric power plants. This has become a serious economic issue due to maintenance costs and production losses. The treatment without prevention is simply unsustainable. Facilities for sediment exclusion, typically sand traps as well as turbine design, and materials have been improved considerably. In the present paper, studies have been discussed extensively undertaken by several investigators in this field. Based on literature survey several aspects related to reducing the sediment load on turbines, useful ways to improve the turbine surface performance and various erosion models to characterize the effect of erosion on the performance of turbines have been discussed. To calibrate and validate the developed erosion models, more measurements from both physical model tests in laboratories and continuous monitoring of sediment parameters and their impact on the operational hydro turbines are required. As well as the state-of-art in the modeling and simulation using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has made it possible to optimize the hydraulic design of hydro turbines in order to minimize the erosion level without much sacrifice in the efficiency. To mitigate the hydro-abrasive erosion effects on the performance of turbines, significant improvements have been achieved so far and development is ongoing.     

城市大气自动监测系统监测资料的处理及其应用

本文讨论城市大气自动监测系统资料处理及其应用的某些问题。总结了对数正态分布、指数分布、Г分布和Ｗｅｉｂｕｌｌ分布等分布模型对监测资料分布拟合的适用性及分布模型拟合判别指标。介绍了监测资料在监测时空代表性分析、污染物浓度预防研究方面的应用途径。     

A statistical methodology for the evaluation of long-range dispersion models: an application to the ETEX exercise

This paper describes the statistical methodology applied to evaluate the performance of the long-range dispersion models that were used in the modelling activities of ETEX (European Tracer EXperiment). The availability of a large number of models makes this exercise rather unique. These models are used for the practical purpose to quantify the contamination effects over a vast area, following a hypothetical accidental release of harmful material. This makes the quality judgement that could be attributed to the results of each model particularly important.The statistical indicators considered to be the most effective for the evaluation of long-range dispersion models are introduced and commented, with specific examples in the frame of ETEX simulations. The importance of using several indices and critically interpreting the results is discussed.     

Testing the importance of accurate meteorological input fields and parameterizations in atmospheric transport modelling using dream - validation against ETEX-1

A tracer model, the DREAM, which is based on a combination of a near-range Lagrangian model and a long-range Eulerian model, has been developed. The meteorological meso-scale model, MM5V1, is implemented as a meteorological driver for the tracer model. The model system is used for studying transport and dispersion of air pollutants caused by a single but strong source as, e.g. an accidental release from a nuclear power plant. The model system including the coupling of the Lagrangian model with the Eulerian model are described. Various simple and comprehensive parameterizations of the mixing height, the vertical dispersion, and different meterological input data have been implemented in the combined tracer model, and the model results have been validated against measurements from the ETEX-1 release. Several different statistical parameters have been used to estimate the differences between the parameterizations and meterological input data in order to find the best performing solution.     

Validating graph-based connectivity models with independent presence–absence and genetic data sets

Habitat connectivity is a key objective of current conservation policies and is commonly modeled by landscape graphs (i.e., sets of habitat patches [nodes] connected by potential dispersal paths [links]). These graphs are often built based on expert opinion or species distribution models (SDMs) and therefore lack empirical validation from data more closely reflecting functional connectivity. Accordingly, we tested whether landscape graphs reflect how habitat connectivity influences gene flow, which is one of the main ecoevolutionary processes. To that purpose, we modeled the habitat network of a forest bird (plumbeous warbler [Setophaga plumbea]) on Guadeloupe with graphs based on expert opinion, Jacobs’ specialization indices, and an SDM. We used genetic data (712 birds from 27 populations) to compute local genetic indices and pairwise genetic distances. Finally, we assessed the relationships between genetic distances or indices and cost distances or connectivity metrics with maximum-likelihood population-effects distance models and Spearman correlations between metrics. Overall, the landscape graphs reliably reflected the influence of connectivity on population genetic structure; validation R² was up to 0.30 and correlation coefficients were up to 0.71. Yet, the relationship among graph ecological relevance, data requirements, and construction and analysis methods was not straightforward because the graph based on the most complex construction method (species distribution modeling) sometimes had less ecological relevance than the others. Cross-validation methods and sensitivity analyzes allowed us to make the advantages and limitations of each construction method spatially explicit. We confirmed the relevance of landscape graphs for conservation modeling but recommend a case-specific consideration of the cost-effectiveness of their construction methods. We hope the replication of independent validation approaches across species and landscapes will strengthen the ecological relevance of connectivity models.     

基于随机抽样推测法的LPG储槽2次爆炸事故的模型研究

在借鉴LPG储槽2次爆炸事故后果不确定分析成果的基础上,对事故过程中的不确定参数进行重新分析与选择,将孔洞上方液位高度h0,气云的TNT当量系数α,泄漏开始到点火源出现之前的持续时间t亦作为不确定分析的参数,并利用随机抽样推测的不确定分析方法,对VCE与BLEVE 2次事故后果进行重新分析,获得了与前人研究成果差异较大的结果,并由此分析这些参数对于事故后果影响的显著性。同时对2次爆炸事故的伤害距离进行了研究与分析,由于LPG的闪蒸以及参数α的影响,本案例中LPG泄漏量为总量的80%-90%以上时,2次事故的死亡半径相等且达到最小。     

基于质量流率离散方法的液氨储罐泄漏扩散模型的研究

针对高斯模型中忽略物质质量流率的变化导致模拟结果与实际存在偏差的问题,将物质质量流率根据泄漏持续时间进行离散化处理,获得不同时间段的物质泄漏量,以此对高斯烟团叠加模型进行修正,得到若干烟团不同时刻的浓度分布模型,并以液氨储罐泄漏事故为研究对象,获得较恒速泄漏条件具有明显差异的有毒云团危害区域。针对其后果偏差产生的原因——罐内初始压力Pn及储罐的充装水平α进行研究,分别比较在不同的Pn及α取值情况下泄漏后果的变化及差异。研究表明,增大Pn或减小α能够有效减小液氨泄漏的危害距离,并且会减小恒速泄漏条件分析后果的偏差,对液氨等罐区的管理提供依据。     

Evaluating the ability of habitat suitability models to predict species presences

Models predicting species spatial distribution are increasingly applied to wildlife management issues, emphasising the need for reliable methods to evaluate the accuracy of their predictions. As many available datasets (e.g. museums, herbariums, atlas) do not provide reliable information about species absences, several presence-only based analyses have been developed. However, methods to evaluate the accuracy of their predictions are few and have never been validated. The aim of this paper is to compare existing and new presence-only evaluators to usual presence/absence measures.