Age Differences in Visual Abilities in Nighttime Driving Field Conditions

Author(s):  
Susan T. Chrysler ◽  
Suzanne M. Danielson ◽  
Virginia M. Kirby

This study was conducted to provide field data on age differences in sign legibility and object detection. Two age groups of healthy drivers with normal vision were tested for nighttime visual ability. The older group had an average age of 65.6 years and the younger group averaged 22.5 years. The field study was conducted on a private road with the subjects seated in the front passenger seat. Subjects performed a Landolt ring legibility task for four types of signs; positive and negative contrast, new and worn material. Subjects also performed object detection tasks using a small object and a pedestrian target appearing in average and low reflectance. In addition, sign legibility and object detection were completed for some trials using a simulated inclement weather visor to create a worst-case scenario. The object detection task was also completed in the presence of glare from oncoming headlamps. Results showed that older driver's legibility distances were 65% those of the younger drivers. Age differences in the object detection task ranged from a 20% to a 45% reduction for older drivers across visibility conditions.

2020 ◽  
Vol 99 (6) ◽  
pp. 32-51
Author(s):  
L.S. Namazova-Baranova ◽  
◽  
A.A. Baranov ◽  
◽  

A year ago, the world heard about an outbreak of a new severe coronavirus infection in China, which later, after its rapid spread across the globe, WHO defined as a pandemic. Pediatricians, of course, expected the worst-case scenario and mass illness of the most vulnerable patients – children and people of older age groups with a new infectious disease. From the immunological point of view, everything is obvious – the new pathogen is most dangerous for those who have not yet formed a defense against it, or for those with weakened defense. But it quickly became clear that, unlike, for example, a flu pandemic, there is an unexpected situation when adults, including elderly and senile patients, become seriously ill and die, and children remain practically outside the spread of the infectious process. During a year of living «in a new reality», not only physicians, but all of humanity learned to respond to a new infectious challenge, empirically looking for possible therapeutic or diagnostic interventions and at the same time trying to plan and implement scientific research that would help shed light on the questions posed. For the first time, the international medical community united to perform serious clinical trials of drugs that were proposed for the treatment or prevention of COVID-19. As a result of actions of scientists and clinicians around the world, answers to some questions were obtained, however, most of the information on the impact of the new coronavirus on the human body, including children, is still unavailable to medical practitioners. The review presents latest data on the causative agent of the new coronavirus infection, its effect on the body of children and adults, describes peculiarities of immune response to the new virus, and outlines basic principles of managing such patients in real clinical practice.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathyrn R Fair ◽  
Vadim A Karatayev ◽  
Madhur Anand ◽  
Chris T Bauch

AbstractSimulation models from the early COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the urgency of applying non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), but had limited empirical data. Here we use data from 2020-2021 to retrospectively model the impact of NPIs. Our model represents age groups and census divisions in Ontario, Canada, and is parameterised with epidemiological, testing, demographic, travel, and mobility data. The model captures how individuals adopt NPIs in response to reported cases. Combined school/workplace closure and individual NPI adoption reduced the number of deaths in the best-case scenario for the case fatality rate (CFR) from 174, 411 [CI: 168, 022, 180, 644] to 3, 383 [CI: 3, 295, 3, 483] in the Spring 2020 wave. In the Fall 2020/Winter 2021 wave, the introduction of NPIs in workplaces/schools reduced the number of deaths from 17, 291 [CI: 16, 268, 18, 379] to 4, 167 [CI: 4, 117, 4, 217]. Deaths were several times higher in the worst-case CFR scenario. Each additional 7 − 11 (resp. 285 − 452) individuals who adopted NPIs in the first wave prevented one additional infection (resp., death). Our results show that the adoption of NPIs prevented a public health catastrophe.


Author(s):  
Frances A. Greene ◽  
Rodger J. Koppa ◽  
Ronald D. Zellner ◽  
Jerome J. Congleton

Laboratory studies of warning symbol signs have been shown to underestimate legibility distances by up to a factor of two when compared with field studies. However, this research suggests it is more than simply experimental setting contributing to disparity in research findings. Using a group of old and young drivers, six symbol signs were investigated in both settings. With six trials per sign, legibility distances, defined as the distance at which the sign is correctly identified from a menu, were collected. Large within subject variability was discovered in both age groups. This variability led to alternative ways of defining the dependent variable equivalent to designs of past studies examining legibility distances of the same signs. Different results arose out of the subsets created. The consideration is not just should a field-based versus laboratory-based methodology be used. An argument is posed that recommended distances at which signs are placed must be determined from a “worst-case” scenario. This premise requires a reexamination of our research methodologies for determining placement of highway signs.


GeroPsych ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 205-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn L. Ossenfort ◽  
Derek M. Isaacowitz

Abstract. Research on age differences in media usage has shown that older adults are more likely than younger adults to select positive emotional content. Research on emotional aging has examined whether older adults also seek out positivity in the everyday situations they choose, resulting so far in mixed results. We investigated the emotional choices of different age groups using video games as a more interactive type of affect-laden stimuli. Participants made multiple selections from a group of positive and negative games. Results showed that older adults selected the more positive games, but also reported feeling worse after playing them. Results supplement the literature on positivity in situation selection as well as on older adults’ interactive media preferences.


2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia Savelli ◽  
Susan Joslyn ◽  
Limor Nadav-Greenberg ◽  
Queena Chen

Author(s):  
D. V. Vaniukova ◽  
◽  
P. A. Kutsenkov ◽  

The research expedition of the Institute of Oriental studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences has been working in Mali since 2015. Since 2017, it has been attended by employees of the State Museum of the East. The task of the expedition is to study the transformation of traditional Dogon culture in the context of globalization, as well as to collect ethnographic information (life, customs, features of the traditional social and political structure); to collect oral historical legends; to study the history, existence, and transformation of artistic tradition in the villages of the Dogon Country in modern conditions; collecting items of Ethnography and art to add to the collection of the African collection of the. Peter the Great Museum (Kunstkamera, Saint Petersburg) and the State Museum of Oriental Arts (Moscow). The plan of the expedition in January 2020 included additional items, namely, the study of the functioning of the antique market in Mali (the “path” of things from villages to cities, which is important for attributing works of traditional art). The geography of our research was significantly expanded to the regions of Sikasso and Koulikoro in Mali, as well as to the city of Bobo-Dioulasso and its surroundings in Burkina Faso, which is related to the study of migrations to the Bandiagara Highlands. In addition, the plan of the expedition included organization of a photo exhibition in the Museum of the village of Endé and some educational projects. Unfortunately, after the mass murder in March 2019 in the village of Ogossogou-Pel, where more than one hundred and seventy people were killed, events in the Dogon Country began to develop in the worst-case scenario: The incessant provocations after that revived the old feud between the Pel (Fulbe) pastoralists and the Dogon farmers. So far, this hostility and mutual distrust has not yet developed into a full-scale ethnic conflict, but, unfortunately, such a development now seems quite likely.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Abdelmoaty ◽  
Wessam Mesbah ◽  
Mohammad A. M. Abdel-Aal ◽  
Ali T. Alawami

In the recent electricity market framework, the profit of the generation companies depends on the decision of the operator on the schedule of its units, the energy price, and the optimal bidding strategies. Due to the expanded integration of uncertain renewable generators which is highly intermittent such as wind plants, the coordination with other facilities to mitigate the risks of imbalances is mandatory. Accordingly, coordination of wind generators with the evolutionary Electric Vehicles (EVs) is expected to boost the performance of the grid. In this paper, we propose a robust optimization approach for the coordination between the wind-thermal generators and the EVs in a virtual<br>power plant (VPP) environment. The objective of maximizing the profit of the VPP Operator (VPPO) is studied. The optimal bidding strategy of the VPPO in the day-ahead market under uncertainties of wind power, energy<br>prices, imbalance prices, and demand is obtained for the worst case scenario. A case study is conducted to assess the e?effectiveness of the proposed model in terms of the VPPO's profit. A comparison between the proposed model and the scenario-based optimization was introduced. Our results confirmed that, although the conservative behavior of the worst-case robust optimization model, it helps the decision maker from the fluctuations of the uncertain parameters involved in the production and bidding processes. In addition, robust optimization is a more tractable problem and does not suffer from<br>the high computation burden associated with scenario-based stochastic programming. This makes it more practical for real-life scenarios.<br>


Author(s):  
Tripop Tongboonsong ◽  
Akkarat Boonpoonga ◽  
Kittisak Phaebua ◽  
Titipong Lertwiriyaprapa ◽  
Lakkhana Bannawat

Catalysts ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 491
Author(s):  
Alina E. Kozhukhova ◽  
Stephanus P. du Preez ◽  
Aleksander A. Malakhov ◽  
Dmitri G. Bessarabov

In this study, a Pt/anodized aluminum oxide (AAO) catalyst was prepared by the anodization of an Al alloy (Al6082, 97.5% Al), followed by the incorporation of Pt via an incipient wet impregnation method. Then, the Pt/AAO catalyst was evaluated for autocatalytic hydrogen recombination. The Pt/AAO catalyst’s morphological characteristics were determined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The average Pt particle size was determined to be 3.0 ± 0.6 nm. This Pt/AAO catalyst was tested for the combustion of lean hydrogen (0.5–4 vol% H2 in the air) in a recombiner section testing station. The thermal distribution throughout the catalytic surface was investigated at 3 vol% hydrogen (H2) using an infrared camera. The Al/AAO system had a high thermal conductivity, which prevents the formation of hotspots (areas where localized surface temperature is higher than an average temperature across the entire catalyst surface). In turn, the Pt stability was enhanced during catalytic hydrogen combustion (CHC). A temperature gradient over 70 mm of the Pt/AAO catalyst was 23 °C and 42 °C for catalysts with uniform and nonuniform (worst-case scenario) Pt distributions. The commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code STAR-CCM+ was used to compare the experimentally observed and numerically simulated thermal distribution of the Pt/AAO catalyst. The effect of the initial H2 volume fraction on the combustion temperature and conversion of H2 was investigated. The activation energy for CHC on the Pt/AAO catalyst was 19.2 kJ/mol. Prolonged CHC was performed to assess the durability (reactive metal stability and catalytic activity) of the Pt/AAO catalyst. A stable combustion temperature of 162.8 ± 8.0 °C was maintained over 530 h of CHC. To confirm that Pt aggregation was avoided, the Pt particle size and distribution were determined by TEM before and after prolonged CHC.


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