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The War for the Common Soldier: How Men Thought, Fought, and Survived in Civil War Armies
Get PDFReview of: The War for the Common Soldier: How Men Thought, Fought, and Survived in Civil War Armies, by Peter S. Carmichael
Standing Up to Colonial Power: The Lives of Henry Roe and Elizabeth Bender Cloud
Get PDFReview of: Standing Up to Colonial Power: The Lives of Henry Roe and Elizabeth Bender Cloud, by Renya K. Ramirez
This War Ain\u27t Over: Fighting the Civil War in New Deal America
Get PDFReview of: This War Ain’t Over: Fighting the Civil War in New Deal America, by Nina Silber
School of the Wild\u27s Impact on Students\u27 Attitudes Towards the Outdoors, Learning Science, and Sustainability
Get PDFCurrent educational priorities are forcing students to stay inside to the detriment of students’ well-being. Research proves that outdoor education provides many positive benefits for students’ learning, health, and relationships. With this in mind, we set out to answer the question of how an outdoor education program in the Midwest affects student’s attitudes towards science, the outdoors, and sustainability. The School of the Wild is a week-long outdoor education program provided to every sixth-grade student in the Midwest school district. We created an instrument to discover participants’ changes in attitudes towards the outdoors, learning science, and sustainability. Students were given the pre-survey in January before they participated in the program, and the post-survey was administered anywhere from one to three weeks after their time at the School of the Wild. We then compared the pre- and post-survey results in terms of all students surveyed and in terms of their self-identified gender. Overall, the School of the Wild experience seemed to benefit boys more than girls. Boys had a more positive shift in attitudes. While girls began with more positive attitudes towards science and the outdoors, the School of the Wild experience did not seem to greatly impact their attitudes. Some limitations for this study include the fact that the results are not generalizable, we were not able to track individual responses, and that post-surveys should be sent to schools with the same amount of time after participation for the best comparison. Future research might explore the impact of the entire program, or subsections of the program, on different races, socioeconomic statuses, or ages. Given the benefits of outdoor education discovered in this study as well as others, it is imperative that we adjust our educational priorities to include outdoor education
In the Context of Whole Trips: New Insights Into Driver Management of Attention and Tasks
Get PDFIt is becoming increasingly important to understand how drivers strategically manage tasks and thread attention across time, as they drive through varying situations and conditions -- and as they have the opportunity to delegate tasks to vehicle automation while taking up other tasks themselves. To develop an understanding of these higher-level driver behaviors requires a research focus on longer periods of driving -- even on “whole trip” driving. It may also require new tools and methods. Therefore, to explore insights and implications of a “whole trip” focus, data from 10 drivers were analyzed using methods tailored for identifying patterns within larger sequences of driving data than single-task epochs. The results are reported, discussed, and contrasted with more conventional approaches based on single-task epochs
Impact of Headlight Glare on Pedestrian Detection with Unilateral Cataract
Get PDFDetecting pedestrians while driving at night is difficult, and is further impeded by oncoming headlight glare (HLG). Cataracts increase intraocular light scattering, making the task even more challenging. We used a within-subjects repeated measures design to determine the impact of HLG on driving with unilateral cataract. Pedestrian detection performance of six young normal vision (NV) subjects was measured with clear lens glasses and with simulated unilateral cataract (0.8 Bangerter foil) glasses. The subjects drove night-time scenarios in a driving simulator with and without custom simulated headlight glare. With simulated unilateral cataracts, pedestrian detection rates decreased and response times increased with oncoming HLG. We verified these effects with six patients who already underwent cataract surgery for one eye and were scheduled to get cataract surgery in the other eye. We measured their performance before and after the second cataract surgery. The results were similar to those obtained with the simulated unilateral cataract, confirming that a negative impact of HLG persists with untreated cataract in one eye
MOVE-IT: Development and Evaluation of Efficient Training Procedures for Elderly Road Users to Support their Driving Competence
Get PDFEvaluated training measures for improvement of elderly drivers’ driving competency lead to a considerable better driving performance, but so far are time-consuming and costly, making its nationwide implementation difficult. The aim of the present project was to develop and evaluate a modular training program for elderly drivers, which is easy, low-cost and time efficient. Based on an individual profile including driving related performance deficits and the individual need for mobility, a personalized training program is compiled. It includes individualized driving exercises, group sessions to refresh knowledge of traffic rules, consultation regarding the compensation of age-related restrictions and the use of driver assistance systems. For evaluation, a pre-post-design with 30 subjects was realized. The driving performance was measured through different performance parameters and increased through participation. Driving instructors rated the program useful and feasible. Participants were very satisfied with the concept of the training and evaluated it as being helpful. Therefore, this training concept seems to be promising for future use beyond the project work. A scientifically accompanied introduction of the training concept to several driving schools is recommended
Dark Personality and Road Crashes: Mediating Role of Driver Vengeance and Violations
Get PDFAggressive driving and road rage are increasingly leading to Motor Vehicle Collisions (MVC), especially in the developing countries. Considering that malevolent personality characteristics, such as dark triad (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) create a tendency for vengeful and aggressive driving, we examined the power of personality variables in predicting MVC. Specifically, using Contextual Mediated Model (Sümer, 2003), we tested a double mediation model in which driving anger and vengeance mediate the relationships between personality characteristics (Big Five Traits and Dark Triad) and driving violations, and in turn, driving violations mediate the link between driving anger/vengeance and risky driving outcomes (MVC and traffic tickets). Turkish drivers (N = 485, female = %51) completed the measures of personality, aberrant driving behaviors, vengeance, and driving anger. Results of path analyses revealed that whereas narcissism and neuroticism are the critical predictors for aggressive driving Machiavellianism is the strongest predictor of driving vengeance. Moreover, Machiavellianism both directly and indirectly via driving vengeance and violations predicted MVC. Personality variables and mediating variables explained 21% and 26% of the variance in MVC and traffic tickets, respectively, values much higher than those previously reported in the past research. Findings have critical implications for the assessment of aggressive drivers and potential for road rage
The Effect of Turn Signal Onset on Lateral Performance Measures When Overtaking a Lead Vehicle - Using Naturalistic Driving Environment
Get PDFLane changes occur very frequently on freeways. For the development of automated vehicles (AV), the detection of the other vehicles’ lane change maneuvers is an important task. Practically, turn signal is the most direct indicator to show the driver’s intention to change lanes. This study explored the Safety Pilot field-operational-test (SPFOT) database to investigate the use of turn signal and the relationship between the turn signal onset time and lane change performance measures, in order to assist AV anticipating other road users’ maneuvers. Driving data from 130 instrumented vehicles were extracted and 31,211 overtaking events were selected. It was found that the turn signal was used for about 70% of lane changes, and during half of those the turn signal was activated after the initiation of the lane change maneuver. Results showed that leftward overtaking maneuvers had longer lane change duration with slower lateral speed and lateral acceleration than rightward ones when the turn signal was not used. It was further found that the lane change duration can be estimated by the turn signal onset time. The shortest lane change durations of 5.33 s and 4.66 s occurred during those maneuvers when the turn signal was activated at 4.5 s and 5 s before the start of the leftward and rightward lane changes, respectively