Objectives: The accuracy of self-reported driving exposure has questioned the validity of using self-reported mileage to inform research questions. Studies examining the accuracy of self-reported driving exposure compared to objective measures find low validity, with drivers overestimating and underestimating driving distance. The aims of the current study were to (1) examine the discrepancy between self-reported annual mileage and driving exposure the following year and (2) investigate whether these differences depended on age and annual mileage.
Methods: Two estimates of drivers’ self-reported annual mileage collected during vehicle installation (obtained via prestudy questionnaires) and approximated annual mileage driven (based upon Global Positioning System data) were acquired from 3,323 participants who participated in the Strategic Highway Research Program 2 (SHRP2) Naturalistic Driving Study.
Results: A Wilcoxon signed rank test showed that there was a significant difference between self-reported and annual driving exposure during participation in SHRP 2, with the majority of self-reported responses overestimating annual mileage the following year, irrespective of whether an ordinal or ratio variable was examined. Over 15% of participants provided self-reported responses with over 100% deviation, which were exclusive to participants underestimating annual mileage. Further, deviations in reporting differed between participants who had low, medium, and high exposure, as well as between participants in different age groups.
Conclusions: These findings indicate that although self-reported annual mileage is heavily relied on for research, such estimates of driving distance may be an overestimate of current or future mileage and can influence the validity of prior research that has utilized estimates of driving exposure. 相似文献
This paper presents the technical aspects of a new methodology for assessing the susceptibility of society to drought. The
methodology consists of a combination of inference modelling and fuzzy logic applications. Four steps are followed: (1) model
input variables are selected—these variables reflect the main factors influencing susceptibility in a social group, population
or region, (2) fuzzification—the uncertainties of the input variables are made explicit by representing them as ‘fuzzy membership
functions’, (3) inference modelling—the input variables are used to construct a model made up of linguistic rules, and (4)
defuzzification—results from the model in linguistic form are translated into numerical form, also through the use of fuzzy
membership functions. The disadvantages and advantages of this methodology became apparent when it was applied to the assessment
of susceptibility from three disciplinary perspectives: Disadvantages include the difficulty in validating results and the
subjectivity involved with specifying fuzzy membership functions and the rules of the inference model. Advantages of the methodology
are its transparency, because all model assumptions have to be made explicit in the form of inference rules; its flexibility,
in that informal and expert knowledge can be incorporated through ‘fuzzy membership functions’ and through the rules in the
inference model; and its versatility, since numerical data can be converted to linguistic statements and vice versa through
the procedures of ‘fuzzification’ and ‘defuzzification’. 相似文献
In this paper, it is proposed that water resources should be managed as an integral part of a nation's social and economic development. Water resources managers should broaden their scope of work to include an integrated management approach. Instead of the traditional 'supply oriented approach' in which they act in response to ever-increasing demands for water from different sectors of the economy, water resources management agencies should play a more active role in guiding and stimulating socioeconomic development through more efficient water use. Demand management should be an important tool which should go beyond the improvement of technical efficiencies. Most important is to develop economic and institutional approaches that accept charging for the full costs of the utilization and management of water resources. Implementation of such an approach will require more sectoral integration than is currently the case and will have considerable implications for organizations, staffing, institutional arrangements and corresponding capacity building. 相似文献
For detailed reconstructions of atmospheric metal deposition using peat cores from bogs, a comprehensive protocol for working with peat cores is proposed. The first step is to locate and determine suitable sampling sites in accordance with the principal goal of the study, the period of time of interest and the precision required. Using the state of the art procedures and field equipment, peat cores are collected in such a way as to provide high quality records for paleoenvironmental study. Pertinent field observations gathered during the fieldwork are recorded in a field report. Cores are kept frozen at -18 degree C until they can be prepared in the laboratory. Frozen peat cores are precisely cut into 1 cm slices using a stainless steel band saw with stainless steel blades. The outside edges of each slice are removed using a titanium knife to avoid any possible contamination which might have occurred during the sampling and handling stage. Each slice is split, with one-half kept frozen for future studies (archived), and the other half further subdivided for physical, chemical, and mineralogical analyses. Physical parameters such as ash and water contents, the bulk density and the degree of decomposition of the peat are determined using established methods. A subsample is dried overnight at 105 degree C in a drying oven and milled in a centrifugal mill with titanium sieve. Prior to any expensive and time consuming chemical procedures and analyses, the resulting powdered samples, after manual homogenisation, are measured for more than twenty-two major and trace elements using non-destructive X-Ray fluorescence (XRF) methods. This approach provides lots of valuable geochemical data which documents the natural geochemical processes which occur in the peat profiles and their possible effect on the trace metal profiles. The development, evaluation and use of peat cores from bogs as archives of high-resolution records of atmospheric deposition of mineral dust and trace elements have led to the development of many analytical procedures which now permit the measurement of a wide range of elements in peat samples such as lead and lead isotope ratios, mercury, arsenic, antimony, silver, molybdenum, thorium, uranium, rare earth elements. Radiometric methods (the carbon bomb pulse of (14)C, (210)Pb and conventional (14)C dating) are combined to allow reliable age-depth models to be reconstructed for each peat profile. 相似文献
An attempt was made to explain ambient air quality violations in the vicinity of industrial plants. Micrometeorology, diffusion calculaations, ambient readings, and plant engineering data are all taken into consideration to ascertain whether the plant is or is not the principal offender.Scrutiny of hi-vol filters using scanning electron microscopy for particle size analysis and particle chemical make-up as an assessment technique is also described.Case histories using the above analytical techniques are discussed.Presented at the 16th National Conference on Energy and the Environment, May 23, 1979 相似文献