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Injury severity data for front and second row passengers in frontal crashes
Get PDFThe data contained here were obtained from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration׳s National Automotive Sampling System – Crashworthiness Data System (NASS-CDS) for the years 2008–2014. This publically available data set monitors motor vehicle crashes in the United States, using a stratified random sample frame, resulting in information on approximately 5000 crashes each year that can be utilized to create national estimates for crashes. The NASS-CDS data sets document vehicle, crash, and occupant factors. These data can be utilized to examine public health, law enforcement, roadway planning, and vehicle design issues. The data provided in this brief are a subset of crash events and occupants. The crashes provided are exclusively frontal crashes. Within these crashes, only restrained occupants who were seated in the right front seat position or the second row outboard seat positions were included. The front row and second row data sets were utilized to construct occupant pairs crashes where both a right front seat occupant and a second row occupant were available. Both unpaired and paired data sets are provided in this brief
Impact of Post-Harvest Drying and Extraction Method Upon Total Phenol, Antioxidant Potential, and Inhibitory Activity of Black Walnut Husks
No full textThe fruit of the black walnut consists of the kernel, shell and husk. The kernel is often used for consumption and the shells as an abrasive and filler, however the husks are often discarded as compost or landfill. Walnut husks contain tannins and polyphenolic compounds which exhibit antimicrobial properties and can treat inflammation. The naphthoquinones in walnut husks can be used as broad spectrum biocides, bio-herbicides, and have been demonstrated to have cytotoxic effects against melanoma cells. Supercritical fluids, which have high diffusivity are excellent solvents for extracting chemical species from plant matter. Supercritical carbon dioxide, by itself has a relatively low dielectric constant and ethanol can be added as a modifier to help improve the extraction of polyphenolic compounds. For this study, black walnuts were extracted either using ultrasonic assisted extraction using ethanol or supercritical carbon dioxide extraction with an ethanol modifier. The effects of temperature and ethanol content with constant density supercritical carbon dioxide with ethanol upon the extraction of ground walnut husks was evaluated using a factorial design of experiments. Temperature was varied between 50 and 70C and ethanol mole fraction between 10 and 20%. Both dried and damp walnut husks were evaluated with damp walnut husks exhibiting higher antioxidant potential. The optimal extraction conditions were found to be 68 °C and 20 wt-% ethanol in supercritical carbon dioxide. At these conditions, the antioxidant potential as measured by the ferric reducing ability of plasma (FRAP) assay was 0.027 mmol trolox equivalent/g (mmol TE/g) for dried walnut husk and 0.054 mmol TE/g for walnut husks that were not dried. The antioxidant potential was also evaluated using the total phenolic content (TPC) assay and DPPH assay. The antimicrobial inhibition, quorum sensing inhibition, as well as chemical composition were also evaluated and will also be presented
Effect of a Composite Coupler on Automotive Windshield Wiper System Chatter
No full textA composite coupler has been developed to prevent automotive windshield wiper systems from being damaged by excessive loads when the normal wiping pattern is restricted. The coupler is composed of a pultruded composite rod with injection-molded plastic spherical sockets attached at either end. Unlike the traditional steel coupler used in wiper systems, the composite coupler will buckle at a prescribed compressive load threshold and become extremely compliant. As a result, the peak loading of the coupler and the entire wiper system can be greatly reduced. Since the composite coupler is less rigid than its steel counterpart, the dynamic performance of the wiper system is investigated in this work. This chapter details the methodology that was employed to determine the chatter characteristics of the wiper systems under untreated and Rain-X treated windshields under different wiping conditions
Improving Endovascular Intraoperative Navigation with Real-Time Skeleton-Based Deformation of Virtual Vascular Structures
No full textEndovascular surgery requires acquisition of intraoperative X-ray images, exposing patient and surgical staff to a considerable dose of radiations. This disadvantage, and the difficulty in using bidimensional projective images, motivates the integration of endovascular navigators in the clinical practice. This paper presents a real-time vascular deformation system to enhance the standard static virtual environment usually used in endovascular navigation. Our approach is based on a skeleton representation of the virtual vessel, linked to the 3D vascular structure via vertex color masks applied on the target vascular branches. This method allows the usage of multiple partial skeletons, each with its own deformation function and linking strategy; so, we can model different kind of deformations due to several factors (e.g., heartbeat, breathing etc.). The system has been tested modeling the deformation of renal arteries due to patient breathing: showing a good visual realism, and ensuring the necessary updating frequency for real-time simulation
Effect of Control-Display Transfer Function on Pointing Performance for a Hand/Finger Based Touchless Gestural Controls: a Preliminary Investigation
No full textRecent technologies now allow touchless gestural controls to be integrated as computing input devices. Unlike traditional input devices, the effect of design parameters (such as control-display transfer functions for physical to onscreen movements) for touchless controls is largely unknown. This paper presents an experiment where a hand- and finger-based touchless gestural control system replaced typical pointing and clicking functions of a mouse. The effect of different pointer-acceleration-based control-display transfer functions (dynamic CD gain with different scaling factors) on performance for a standard, 2-dimensional Fitts’ task was evaluated for 15 participants. Additionally, the influence of armrest support positioning was investigated. Results showed significantly increased error rates for the high level of control-display gain (SF=1000) in the gestural controls. Neither CD gain nor armrest position had significant effect on effective throughput or movement times, though lower CD gain showed the best performance and lowest error rates. Overall performance for the touchless gestural system was less than that of a traditional mouse, though comparable to previous gestural or remote pointing systems
Modulation effect produced by adjacent AC voltage on the characteristics of negative corona current pulses in a wire-cylinder electrode configuration
No full textIn this paper, a wire-cylinder electrode system was designed to study the negative DC corona pulses due to the influence of AC voltage applied to an adjacent conductor. The corona onset voltage and distribution pattern and the parameters of the corona current pulses such as the rise time, pulse duration and the average pulse amplitude are systematically analyzed. The AC voltage is found to have an interesting modulation effect on the time interval of the current pulses. At last, based on a simplified ion cloud model, a full explanation is given to reveal the mechanism behind the influence of the AC voltage on negative DC corona
Statistical characteristic in time-domain of direct current corona-generated audible noise from conductor in corona cage
No full textThe corona-generated audible noise (AN) has become one of decisive factors in the design of high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines. The AN from transmission lines can be attributed to sound pressure pulses which are generated by the multiple corona sources formed on the conductor, i.e., transmission lines. In this paper, a detailed time-domain characteristics of the sound pressure pulses, which are generated by the DC corona discharges formed over the surfaces of a stranded conductors, are investigated systematically in a laboratory settings using a corona cage structure. The amplitude of sound pressure pulse and its time intervals are extracted by observing a direct correlation between corona current pulses and corona-generatedsound pressure pulses. Based on the statistical characteristics, a stochastic model is presented for simulating the sound pressure pulses due to DC corona discharges occurring on conductors. The proposed stochastic model is validated by comparing the calculated and measured A-weighted sound pressure level (SPL). The proposed model is then used to analyze the influence of the pulse amplitudes and pulse rate on the SPL. Furthermore, a mathematical relationship is found between the SPL and conductor diameter, electric field, and radial distance
