Examining the impact of both legal and nonlegal factors on following a vehicle too closely utilizing three deterrence-based theories

Following a vehicle too closely (otherwise known as tailgating) is a high-risk behavior and major contributor to motor-vehicle collisions and injuries. Both legal and nonlegal countermeasures are currently in place in an attempt to prevent this behavior, yet there has been limited research that has examined the effectiveness of both legal and nonlegal factors on engagement in the behavior. Therefore, this research utilized a combination of the three most salient deterrence-based theories used in road safety to understand the impact of both legal and nonlegal sanctions on following a vehicle too closely. A survey was completed by 887 Queensland drivers aged 17–84 years ( Mage = 49 years; 55% males). Variables from Classical Deterrence Theory, the reconceptualized deterrence theory and the extended deterrence-based model (that includes perceived internal loss, physical loss, and social sanctions), as well as measures of following a vehicle too closely were used. The majority of the sample (98%) reported following a vehicle too closely at some point, with the average frequency ranging from rarely to sometimes. Significant predictors of more frequent unsafe following distances included: being male, younger in age, and avoiding punishment for the behavior. Meanwhile, significant predictors of less frequent unsafe following distances included knowing others who have been punished for the behavior, as well as fearing the physical and internal losses resulting from unsafe following distances. Notably, the severity of the punishment was also a significant deterrent, while the perceived certainty of being apprehended for the offence was low and did not impact engagement in behavior. These results have a number of important implications on how to maximize both legal and nonlegal countermeasures to further prevent following a vehicle too closely.

Nationalism and Internationalism in India

Nationalism in India was born out of the bondage of a country subjected to foreign rule and the internal loss of self-confidence that went with such a rule. The freedom struggle that followed was understood to be Indian nationalism, not Hindu or Muslim or any kind of religious or other nationalism primarily aimed to ensure the welfare of all citizens and their entitlement to justice and human rights. The present paper examines this evolution of nationalism in India as a freedom struggle against the British and then as a democratic process to give every Indian a voice in decision-making in free India. But what has been noticed over the years is a steady regression in secularism where individual rights were compromised, then as a struggle for power in party circles and finally in the name of religion. To the extent that today’s nationalism in India is perceived more as an imposed ‘feeling’- a feeling that has equally impacted the country’s image outside home; despite promising strides to transform India from a ‘balancing’ to a ‘leading’ power internationally. Being normative in nature the paper borrows citation mostly from secondary sources of information, including books, journals and e-sources for current affairs. It tries to incorporate two formal discussions on Nationalism and International status of India which is part of the curriculum at UG-level in college/universities. Received 9th December 2020; Revised 2nd March 2021; Accepted 20th March 2021

Novel Dynamic Resistance Equalizer for Parallel-Connected Battery Configurations

As the number of parallel battery connections in an energy storage system is increased to extend the energy capacity and second-life batteries are actively adopted, the battery is more prone to cell inconsistency issues. The difference in the internal impedance and the mismatched state-of-charge accelerates the self-balancing effect between the parallel branches to reduce cell utilization and eventually results in harmful effects, both to the lifetime and to the safety of the batteries. However, conventional methods only partially mitigate the parallel inconsistency issue. This paper proposes a dynamic resistance equalizer for parallel-connected battery configurations to improve equalization performance. The optimal design procedure is also presented to minimize the power loss and equalization time. The overall performance is experimentally verified by a sequence of tests for a Li-ion battery in a 2S-4P configuration. The experimental results show that the proposed method dissipates less external power loss than the fixed resistor equalizer and less internal loss than the conventional sequencing method. When both total loss and balancing performance are considered together, as the number of series connections increases, the merits of the proposed method stand out. This is verified by additional hardware-in-the-loop tests, presenting a fascinating feature for most practical battery applications.

Cavity-enhanced detection of transient absorption signals

We present a simple, high-duty-cycle, cavity-enhanced optical absorption measurement technique based on delay-limited Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) sideband locking. The chosen circuit naturally provides realtime readout of the amplitude quadrature of the PDH error signal, which can be mapped onto the cavity’s internal loss rate while using the phase quadrature to lock sideband frequency to the cavity mode. Our proofof-concept device comprises a 5-cm-long Fabry-Perot cavity with a 450 kHz bandwidth (finesse 6800, 350 ns power ringdown), and a feedback bandwidth of several MHz, limited primarily by the group delay of our electronics. This technique could readily be applied to other optical resonators such as fiber cavities, with potential applications in radiation dosimetry.

Stability Regions of Nonlinear LCL-Filtered Converter with Converter-Current-Feedback Control Without Damping

The stability regions of a LCL-filtered converter adopting converter-current-feedback control without damping are analyzed. The nonlinear LCL-filtered model is presented to investigate its influence on the system stability. The stability analysis is performed by means of the Nyquist diagram in s domain. It reveals that three factors have the dominant effects on the system stability, including internal loss of LCL-filtered model, PWM transport delay and controller parameters. The undamped stability boundaries of the system gain calculated by the symmetrical optimum method are obtained. It can be found that stable regions for the nonlinear LCL-filtered system are extended into a continuous region of ratios of LCL filter resonance frequency to control frequency from three distinct regions. Finally, the stable regions are validated by the nonlinear model simulation, and experimental results verify the theoretical analysis.