scholarly journals Assessing self-reported risky behavior among two-wheeled vehicle users: an exploratory analysis comparing e-bikers to other riders

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Ragot-Court ◽  
Carole Rodon ◽  
Pierre Van Elslande ◽  
Jian Zhuo

AbstractThe current deployment of e-bikes in large cities all over the world raises new road safety problems. The shared features of e-bikes and other types of two-wheelers, notably in terms of size and maneuverability, can lead to common road safety issues and similar accident mechanisms. This paper outlines the value of a comparative approach that includes all kinds of two-wheelers, motorized or not: bicycles, e-bikes of both the bicycle type and the scooter type, LPG and gasoline scooters, and motorcycles. For this purpose, a new self-reported risky behavior inventory was developed and its validity tested among 400 two-wheeler users in Shanghai. China, where the spread of e-bikes and other two-wheelers took place several years ago, is a useful country to study to shed light on issues that are emerging in Europe. Results indicate highly satisfactory psychometric properties of the inventory with a single-factor 12-item structure (52.81% of variance explained, α = .93) and very satisfactory fit indexes. In terms of construct validity, the eta (η) correlation ratio indicates its significant relation with self-reported previous accidents and with several criterion related experience variables. Furthermore, a high correlation was noted between the inventory scores and the maximum speed of the participants’ vehicles. Ultimately, the inventory will enable future research to characterize and explain risky riding behaviors by riders of e-bikes compared to riders of other two-wheelers in China and, with some slight adaptations, these results can be applied to the European context.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Clare Morrison ◽  
Fran Humphries ◽  
Charles Lawson

Countries are increasingly using access and benefit sharing (ABS) as a legal mechanism to support the conservation and sustainable use of the world’s biological diversity. ABS regulates collection and/or use of genetic resources/traditional knowledge and sharing benefits from their use with the provider. The purpose of this review is to assess the trends, biases and gaps of ABS literature using a regional comparative approach about the key topics of concern between each region. It analyses four key topic groupings: (1) implementation of international, regional and national ABS policy and law; (2) intellectual property and ABS; (3) traditional knowledge; and (4) research, development and commercialisation. Findings included gaps in: (1) analysing effectiveness of national level implementation; (2) addressing apparent conflicts between support for intellectual property promoting exclusivity for traditional knowledge and challenges to intellectual property exclusivity for patents; (3) examining traditional knowledge of local communities (in contrast to Indigenous Peoples); and (4) lack of practical examples that quantify benefit sharing from research and commercialisation outcomes. We conclude that future research addressing the identified gaps and biases can promote more informed understanding among stakeholders about the ABS concept and whether it is capable of delivering concrete biological conservation, sustainable use and equity outcomes.


2006 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary E Day ◽  
Victor Minichiello ◽  
Jeanne Madison

There is increasing attention to nursing workforce issues such as recruitment, retention, turnover, workplace health and safety issues and their impact on quality patient care. A number of these problems have been linked to poor morale. While there has been a lack of consensus on the determinants of morale, it is clear that the outcomes of poor morale not only add considerable cost to the organisation but also impact negatively on patient care. This article provides a systematic overview of the literature surrounding nursing morale and the variables identified in the literature that impact upon morale, and discusses the implications for future research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 552-569
Author(s):  
Viktor V. Fauzer ◽  
Andrey V. Smirnov ◽  
Galina N. Fauzer

Since the dissolution of the USSR and advent of market relations, small and medium-sized Russian cities have experienced many economic and social problems due to their peripheral status. At the same time, they form the main framework for the settlement of the northern territories. The research aims to reveal the importance of small and medium-sized cities in the set- tlement system of 13 regions of the Russian North by studying their demographic dynamics. We examined the hypothesis that the demographic sustainability of these cities depends on the time of their formation. A proposed methodology for assessing the demographic sustainability of cities is based on five groups: demographically sustainable, relatively sustainable, unsustainable, critically unsustainable, instability. Four periods of the formation of small and medium-sized cities are defined: colonisation of the Russian North (1584–1917); industrialisation and urbanisation of the northern territories (1918–1959); from coercion to encouragement — northern romance (1960–1989); from settlement to abandonment — depopulation (1990–2020). For each period, the cities were assessed in terms of their demographic sustainability. The current sustainability of the cities was shown to be dependent on the period of their formation. Compared with the rest of Russia, the structure of settlements in the North revealed both similarities (concentration of the population in large cities) and differences (the proportion of the population living in small and medium-sized cities is higher, but lower in rural areas). Future research will focus on developing a methodology for assessing the «saturation» of small and medium-sized cities in the Russian North.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (23) ◽  
pp. 11227
Author(s):  
Arnold Kamis ◽  
Yudan Ding ◽  
Zhenzhen Qu ◽  
Chenchen Zhang

The purpose of this paper is to model the cases of COVID-19 in the United States from 13 March 2020 to 31 May 2020. Our novel contribution is that we have obtained highly accurate models focused on two different regimes, lockdown and reopen, modeling each regime separately. The predictor variables include aggregated individual movement as well as state population density, health rank, climate temperature, and political color. We apply a variety of machine learning methods to each regime: Multiple Regression, Ridge Regression, Elastic Net Regression, Generalized Additive Model, Gradient Boosted Machine, Regression Tree, Neural Network, and Random Forest. We discover that Gradient Boosted Machines are the most accurate in both regimes. The best models achieve a variance explained of 95.2% in the lockdown regime and 99.2% in the reopen regime. We describe the influence of the predictor variables as they change from regime to regime. Notably, we identify individual person movement, as tracked by GPS data, to be an important predictor variable. We conclude that government lockdowns are an extremely important de-densification strategy. Implications and questions for future research are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arun Prakash ◽  
imroze khan

Until recently, it was assumed that insects lack immune memory since they do not have vertebrate-like specialized memory cells. Therefore, their most well studied evolutionary response against pathogens was increased basal immunity. However, growing evidence suggests that many insects also exhibit a form of immune memory (immune priming), where prior exposure to a low dose of infection confers protection against subsequent infection by the same pathogen that acts both within and across generations. Most strikingly, they can rapidly evolve as a highly parallel and mutually exclusive strategy from basal immunity, under different selective conditions and with divergent evolutionary trade-offs. However, the relative importance of priming as an optimal immune strategy also has contradictions, primarily because supporting mechanisms are still unclear. In this review, we adopt a comparative approach to highlight several emerging evolutionary, ecological and mechanistic features of priming vs basal immune responses that warrant immediate attention for future research.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1232-1271
Author(s):  
Stuart Armstrong ◽  
Roman V. Yampolskiy

Superintelligent systems are likely to present serious safety issues, since such entities would have great power to control the future according to their possibly misaligned goals or motivation systems. Oracle AIs (OAI) are confined AIs that can only answer questions and do not act in the world, represent one particular solution to this problem. However even Oracles are not particularly safe: humans are still vulnerable to traps, social engineering, or simply becoming dependent on the OAI. But OAIs are still strictly safer than general AIs, and there are many extra layers of precautions we can add on top of these. This paper begins with the definition of the OAI Confinement Problem. After analysis of existing solutions and their shortcomings, a protocol is proposed aimed at making a more secure confinement environment which might delay negative effects from a potentially unfriendly superintelligence while allowing for future research and development of superintelligent systems.


ICL Journal ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirha Karahodžić

AbstractCoCoA Summer School, which has been initially run for four seasons (2006- 2009) by the Faculty of Law of the University of Trento under the European Marie Curie Programme, has been offered again in 2014 furthering the previous profitable experiences and keeping the same main features and purposes like providing an opportunity for senior (guest speakers) and junior scholars (tutors), legal advisors to Constitutional Court judges as well as younger researchers, post-doc students and PhD candidates (participants) to meet, interact, train and being trained and plan future research in comparative constitu­tional adjudication. The Summer School aims at comparing judicial decisions from national and European (ECtHR, ECJ) jurisdictions on selected constitutional issues. This year the topic was ‘Constitutional Adjudication in Education Law: A Comparative Approach within the Council of Europe’.


Author(s):  
Ruth V. Aguilera ◽  
Ilir Haxhi

This chapter provides an overview of corporate governance (CG) in emerging markets (EMs). Focusing mainly on the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), the chapter adopts a systematic cross-national comparative approach. It begins by highlighting the importance of better understanding CG in EMs, and identifies some of the key challenges these countries face as they seek to enhance their CG. The chapter goes on to review managerial research conducted after the year 2000 on CG in emerging markets in the following four categories: ownership, boards of directors, top management teams (TMTs), and CG practices and reform. The chapter discusses the main research questions and findings from this collective body of work. It is noteworthy how “siloed” this research has been in terms of drawing few cross-national comparisons. The third section offers an overview of the main CG features of each of the BRIC countries relative to one another, taking on the OECD Guidelines of CG as its benchmark framework. To do so, the chapter first addresses core governance areas related to the overall model of CG, ownership types and ownership rights, information disclosure and reporting, and stakeholder management and corporate social responsibility. The chapter concludes by highlighting common themes for CG in emerging markets and suggesting fruitful areas for future research.


Author(s):  
Andrew W. Cull ◽  
Michelle M. Porter ◽  
Satoru Nakagawa ◽  
Glenys A. Smith ◽  
Mark J. Rapoport ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study was to examine whether vehicle type based on size (car vs. other = truck/van/SUV) had an impact on the speeding, acceleration, and braking patterns of older male and female drivers (70 years and older) from a Canadian longitudinal study. The primary hypothesis was that older adults driving larger vehicles (e.g., trucks, SUVs, or vans) would be more likely to speed than those driving cars. Participants (n = 493) had a device installed in their vehicles that recorded their everyday driving. The findings suggest that the type of vehicle driven had little or no impact on per cent of time speeding or on the braking and accelerating patterns of older drivers. Given that the propensity for exceeding the speed limit was high among these older drivers, regardless of vehicle type, future research should examine what effect this behaviour has on older-driver road safety.


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