THE EFFECT OF CHANGES IN LIGHT LEVEL ON THE NUMBERS OF CYCLISTS

Cycling has a range of benefits and should be encouraged, but darkness may put people off from cycling due to reductions in visibility, road safety and personal security. We summarise analyses of observational data to confirm the negative impact darkness has on cycling rates. Using a Case / Control method that accounts for confounding factors such as time of day and seasonal variations in weather, we demonstrate a consistent effect of darkness across different locations and countries. The size of this effect varies though, suggesting certain unknown factors may be important in mediating the impact of darkness on cycling rates. One factor that is known to mediate the effect is road lighting. We show that increased illuminance can offset the reductions in cyclists caused by darkness and also that there may be an optimal illuminance after which no further benefits may be achieved.

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Road lighting density and brightness linked with increased cycling rates after-dark

10.31219/osf.io/cms3d ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Jim Uttley ◽

Steve Fotios ◽

Robin Lovelace

Keyword(s):

Negative Impact ◽

Time Of Day ◽

Aerial Images ◽

Minimal Amount ◽

Night Time ◽

Road Lighting ◽

International Policies ◽

Relative Brightness ◽

Two Measures ◽

The Difference

Cycling has a range of benefits as is recognised by national and international policies aiming to increase cycling rates. Darkness acts as a barrier to people cycling, with fewer people cycling after-dark when seasonal and time-of-day factors are accounted for. This paper explores whether road lighting can reduce the negative impact of darkness on cycling rates. Changes in cycling rates between daylight and after-dark were quantified for 48 locations in Birmingham, United Kingdom, by calculating an odds ratio. These odds ratios were compared against two measures of road lighting at each location: 1) Density of road lighting lanterns; 2) Relative brightness as estimated from night-time aerial images. Locations with no road lighting showed a significantly greater reduction in cycling after-dark compared with locations that had some lighting. A nonlinear relationship was found between relative brightness at a location at night and the reduction in cyclists after-dark. Small initial increases in brightness resulted in large reductions in the difference between cyclist numbers in daylight and after-dark, but this effect reached a plateau as brightness increased. These results suggest only a minimal amount of lighting may be sufficient to promote cycling after-dark.

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The Effects of the Economic Adjustment Programmes for Greece: A Quasi-Experimental Approach

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13094970 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (9) ◽

pp. 4970

Author(s):

Julio Revuelta

Keyword(s):

Experimental Approach ◽

Control Method ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Synthetic Control ◽

The European Union ◽

Economic Adjustment ◽

Negative Effect ◽

Quasi Experimental ◽

The Impact

Three Economic Adjustment Programmes (EAPs) were implemented in Greece, between 2010 and 2015, without achieving the proposed economic objectives. This article analyses the impact of the EAPs in Greece using the synthetic control method (SCM) and has three main contributions. First, it identifies a long-term negative impact worth 35.3 per cent of the Greek GDP per capita caused by the application of the EAPs. Second, it finds that three-quarters of the estimated negative and unsustainable impact accumulated over the 2010–2012 period. Third, it identifies a regressive effect of the EAPs on income distribution, the Greek population with lower incomes experienced a greater negative effect caused by the adjustment programmes. These results underscore the need to review and correct the conditional financial assistance framework currently in force in the European Union.

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Impact of wearing fixed orthodontic appliances on quality of life among adolescents: Case-control study

The Angle Orthodontist ◽

10.2319/100514716.1 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 86 (1) ◽

pp. 121-126 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Andréa A. Costa ◽

Júnia M. Serra-Negra ◽

Cristiane B. Bendo ◽

Isabela A. Pordeus ◽

Saul M. Paiva

Keyword(s):

Case Control Study ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Conditional Logistic Regression ◽

Case Control ◽

Orthodontic Appliances ◽

Fixed Orthodontic Appliances ◽

The Impact ◽

Type Of School ◽

Control Study

ABSTRACT Objective: To investigate the impact of wearing a fixed orthodontic appliance on oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) among adolescents. Materials and Methods: A case-control study (1∶2) was carried out with a population-based randomized sample of 327 adolescents aged 11 to 14 years enrolled at public and private schools in the City of Brumadinho, southeast of Brazil. The case group (n = 109) was made up of adolescents with a high negative impact on OHRQoL, and the control group (n = 218) was made up of adolescents with a low negative impact. The outcome variable was the impact on OHRQoL measured by the Brazilian version of the Child Perceptions Questionnaire (CPQ11–14) – Impact Short Form (ISF:16). The main independent variable was wearing fixed orthodontic appliances. Malocclusion and the type of school were identified as possible confounding variables. Bivariate and multiple conditional logistic regressions were employed in the statistical analysis. Results: A multiple conditional logistic regression model demonstrated that adolescents wearing fixed orthodontic appliances had a 4.88-fold greater chance of presenting high negative impact on OHRQoL (95% CI: 2.93–8.13; P < .001) than those who did not wear fixed orthodontic appliances. A bivariate conditional logistic regression demonstrated that malocclusion was significantly associated with OHRQoL (P = .017), whereas no statistically significant association was found between the type of school and OHRQoL (P = .108). Conclusions: Adolescents who wore fixed orthodontic appliances had a greater chance of reporting a negative impact on OHRQoL than those who did not wear such appliances.

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Quantifying the impact of road lighting on road safety — A New Zealand Study

IATSS Research ◽

10.1016/j.iatssr.2012.09.001 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 36 (2) ◽

pp. 139-145 ◽

Cited By ~ 38

Author(s):

Michael Jackett ◽

William Frith

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Road Safety ◽

Road Lighting ◽

The Impact

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Predictive analysis of the impact of the time of day on road accidents in Poland

Open Engineering ◽

10.1515/eng-2021-0017 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 142-150

Author(s):

Anna Borucka ◽

Edward Kozłowski ◽

Piotr Oleszczuk ◽

Andrzej Świderski

Keyword(s):

Road Safety ◽

Traffic Accidents ◽

Road Traffic ◽

Time Of Day ◽

Steady Increase ◽

Road Traffic Accidents ◽

Road Accidents ◽

Road Users ◽

Kolmogorov Smirnov ◽

The Impact

AbstractThe steady increase in the number of road users and their growing mobility mean that the issue of road safety is still a topical one. Analyses of factors influencing the number of road traffic accidents contribute to the improvement of road safety. Because changes in traffic volume follow a daily rhythm, hour of the day is an important factor affecting the number of crashes. The present article identifies selected mathematical models which can be used to describe the number of road traffic accidents as a function of the time of their occurrence during the day. The study of the seasonality of the number of accidents in particular hours was assessed. The distributions of the number of accidents in each hour were compared using the Kruskal-Wallis and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests. Multidimensional scaling was used to present the found similarities and differences. Similar hours were grouped into clusters, which were used in further analysis to construct the ARMAXmodel and the Holt-Winters model. Finally, the predictive capabilities of each model were assessed.

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Behavioral Health at School: Do Three Competences in Road Safety Education Impact the Protective Road Behaviors of Spanish Children?

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph17030935 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 17 (3) ◽

pp. 935

Author(s):

Francisco Alonso ◽

Adela Gonzalez-Marin ◽

Cristina Esteban ◽

Sergio A. Useche

Keyword(s):

Risk Perception ◽

Behavioral Health ◽

Road Safety ◽

Negative Impact ◽

National Study ◽

Safety Education ◽

Safety Skills ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Positive Attitudes ◽

The Impact

Background: Education in road safety (also known as Road Safety Education—RSE) constitutes, nowadays, an emergent approach for improving present and future road behaviors, aiming at taking action against the current, and concerning, state-of-affairs of traffic crashes, through a behavioral perspective. In the case of children, and despite their overrepresentation in traffic injury figures, RSE-based strategies for behavioral health in transportation remain a “new” approach, whose impact still needs to be empirically tested. Objective: The aim of this study is to assess the impact of three key road safety skills of the Positive Attitudes, Risk perception and Knowledge of norms (PARK) model, addressed in RSE-based interventions, on the safe road behavior of Spanish children. Methods: For this cross-sectional study, a representative sample of 1930 (50.4% males and 49.6% females) Spanish children attending primary school, with a mean age of 10.1 (SD = 1.6) years, was gathered from 70 educational centers across all Spanish regions, through a national study on RSE and road safety. Results: Road safety skills show a positive relationship with children’s self-reported safe behaviors on the road. However, the knowledge of traffic norms alone does not predict safe behaviors: it needs to be combined with risk perception and positive attitudes towards road safety. Furthermore, the degree of exposure to previous RSE interventions was shown to have an effect on the score obtained by children in each road safety skill; on the other hand, road misbehaviors observed in parents and peers had a negative impact on them. Conclusion: The outcomes of this study suggest that education in road safety is still a key process for the acquisition of safe habits, patterns and behaviors among young road users.

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Reducing the Impact of Confounding Factors on Skin Cancer Classification via Image Segmentation: Technical Model Study (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.21695 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Roman C Maron ◽

Achim Hekler ◽

Eva Krieghoff-Henning ◽

Max Schmitt ◽

Justin G Schlager ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Artificial Intelligence ◽

Image Segmentation ◽

Skin Lesion ◽

Image Classification ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Skin Lesions ◽

Training Data ◽

Data Sets ◽

Confounding Factors ◽

The Impact

BACKGROUND Studies have shown that artificial intelligence achieves similar or better performance than dermatologists in specific dermoscopic image classification tasks. However, artificial intelligence is susceptible to the influence of confounding factors within images (eg, skin markings), which can lead to false diagnoses of cancerous skin lesions. Image segmentation can remove lesion-adjacent confounding factors but greatly change the image representation. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to compare the performance of 2 image classification workflows where images were either segmented or left unprocessed before the subsequent training and evaluation of a binary skin lesion classifier. METHODS Separate binary skin lesion classifiers (nevus vs melanoma) were trained and evaluated on segmented and unsegmented dermoscopic images. For a more informative result, separate classifiers were trained on 2 distinct training data sets (human against machine [HAM] and International Skin Imaging Collaboration [ISIC]). Each training run was repeated 5 times. The mean performance of the 5 runs was evaluated on a multi-source test set (n=688) consisting of a holdout and an external component. RESULTS Our findings showed that when trained on HAM, the segmented classifiers showed a higher overall balanced accuracy (75.6% [SD 1.1%]) than the unsegmented classifiers (66.7% [SD 3.2%]), which was significant in 4 out of 5 runs (<i>P</i><.001). The overall balanced accuracy was numerically higher for the unsegmented ISIC classifiers (78.3% [SD 1.8%]) than for the segmented ISIC classifiers (77.4% [SD 1.5%]), which was significantly different in 1 out of 5 runs (<i>P</i>=.004). CONCLUSIONS Image segmentation does not result in overall performance decrease but it causes the beneficial removal of lesion-adjacent confounding factors. Thus, it is a viable option to address the negative impact that confounding factors have on deep learning models in dermatology. However, the segmentation step might introduce new pitfalls, which require further investigations.

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Mental health care in Southern Italy: application of case–control methodology for the evaluation of the impact of the 1978 psychiatric reform

Psychological Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0033291700010448 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 16 (3) ◽

pp. 701-707 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Paola Bollini ◽

Giovanni Muscettola ◽

Antonella Piazza ◽

Maurizio Puca ◽

Gianni Tognoni

Keyword(s):

Southern Italy ◽

Control Method ◽

Case Control ◽

Community Based ◽

The Public ◽

History Of ◽

Control Methodology ◽

The Impact ◽

Community Based Services ◽

Care Evaluation

SynopsisA survey to analyse patients' characteristics and the care delivered to them was conducted in several psychiatric facilities, covering the whole range of care offered in the public sector in two regions of Southern Italy. A case–control method of analysis was chosen, and the relative risk estimates (RR), together with their 95% confidence intervals (CI), of being in custodial facilities were computed, comparing patients treated in custodial institutions (‘cases’) with those in community-based services (‘controls’) in respect of social and clinical vairables. Factors more stongly associated with custodial treatment were: illiteracy (RR = 2·4), unmarried status (RR =2·4), a history of prolonged illness (RR = 7·6), organic diagnosis (RR = 2·6), previous custodial treatment (RR = 3·9), and expected poor social functioning (RR =2·4). The suitability and advantages of the case–control method of analysis in the field of psychiatric care evaluation are discussed.

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Impact of co-occurring hearing and visual difficulties in childhood on educational outcomes: a longitudinal cohort study

BMJ Paediatrics Open ◽

10.1136/bmjpo-2018-000389 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. e000389 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Matilda Hill ◽

Amanda Hall ◽

Cathy Williams ◽

Alan M Emond

Keyword(s):

Cohort Study ◽

Educational Outcomes ◽

Educational Achievement ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Otitis Media With Effusion ◽

Poor Performance ◽

Birth Cohort Study ◽

Confounding Factors ◽

Logistic Regression Models ◽

The Impact

BackgroundMild hearing and visual difficulties are common in childhood, and both may have implications for educational achievement. However, the impact of co-occurring common hearing and visual difficulties in childhood is not known.ObjectiveTo determine the prevalence and impact of co-occurring common hearing and visual difficulties of childhood on educational outcomes in primary and secondary school.MethodsThe sample was drawn from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a longitudinal birth cohort study in England. The exposures were hearing and visual difficulties at age 7 (defined as conductive hearing loss or otitis media with effusion, and amblyopia, strabismus or reduced visual acuity, respectively). The outcomes measured were achievement of level 4 or above at Key Stage 2 (KS2) in English, Maths and Science, respectively, at age 11, and attainment of five or more General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSEs) at grades A*–C at age 16. Multiple logistic regression models assessed the relationship between hearing and visual difficulties and educational outcomes, adjusting for potential confounding factors.Results2909 children were included in the study; 261 had hearing difficulties, 189 had visual difficulties and 14 children had co-occurring hearing and visual difficulties. Children with co-occurring hearing and visual difficulties were less likely to achieve the national target at KS2 compared with children with normal hearing and vision, even after adjustment for confounding factors (OR 0.30, CI 0.15 to 0.61 for KS2 English). Differences in IQ, behaviour, attention and social cognition did not account for this relationship. The impact of co-occurring hearing and visual difficulties on GCSE results was explained largely by poor performance at KS2.ConclusionsCo-occurring hearing and visual difficulties in childhood have an enduring negative impact on educational outcomes. Identification of affected children and early intervention in primary school is essential.

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Analysis of the Impact of Countdown Signal Timers on Driving Behavior and Road Safety

Energies ◽

10.3390/en14217081 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (21) ◽

pp. 7081

Author(s):

Tomasz Krukowicz ◽

Krzysztof Firląg ◽

Józef Suda ◽

Mirosław Czerliński

Keyword(s):

Literature Review ◽

Road Safety ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Positive Impact ◽

Red Light ◽

Vehicle Speed ◽

Traffic Light ◽

Traffic Lights ◽

Device Use ◽

The Impact

This article describes the safety and effectiveness issues related to signal countdown timers (SCT). These devices are used in many countries around the world. The impact of these devices on road safety and the effectiveness of traffic lights is presented. During a literature review, more than 18 aspects of device use were recognized. The research involved measurements carried out at three intersections in Płock (Poland). The initial and final period of the green signal for vehicles was analyzed. Headways, incidences of vehicles passing through after the end of the green signal, and red-light violations were examined. Additionally, a fuel consumption analysis and a case study of a road crash in Szczecin (Poland) are presented. Problems related to signal countdown timers working during traffic light failure are described. The research shows different influences of signal countdown timers at various intersections. It was observed that SCTs increase the number of red-light violations and during the red-amber signal. On the other hand, the number of entries during the amber signal with SCTs is lower. A literature review also indicated that the use of SCT causes a reduction of start-up time (positive impact) and increases vehicle speed (negative impact). The article concludes that SCTs do not always fulfill their role in improving road safety and control efficiency. Conclusions can address various stakeholders, including drivers, road authorities, and traffic engineers.

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