Improved method for roadside barrier length of need modeling using real-world trajectories

The 2011 AASHTO Roadside Design Guide (RDG) contains perhaps the most widely used procedure for choosing an appropriate length of need (LON) for roadside barriers. However, this procedure has several limitations. The procedure uses a highly simplified model of vehicle departure, and the procedure does not allow designers to specify an explicit level of protection. A new procedure for choosing LON that addresses these limitations is presented in this paper. This new procedure is based on recent, real-world road departure trajectories and uses this departure data in a more realistic way. The new procedure also allows LON to be specified for a precisely known level of protection – a level which can be based on number of crashes, injury outcomes or even estimated crash cost – while still remaining straightforward and quick to use like the 2011 RDG procedure.     

Site-Specific PEGylation of Therapeutic Proteins

The use of proteins as therapeutics has a long history and is becoming ever more common in modern medicine. While the number of protein-based drugs is growing every year, significant problems still remain with their use. Among these problems are rapid degradation and excretion from patients, thus requiring frequent dosing, which in turn increases the chances for an immunological response as well as increasing the cost of therapy. One of the main strategies to alleviate these problems is to link a polyethylene glycol (PEG) group to the protein of interest. This process, called PEGylation, has grown dramatically in recent years resulting in several approved drugs. Installing a single PEG chain at a defined site in a protein is challenging. Recently, there is has been considerable research into various methods for the site-specific PEGylation of proteins. This review seeks to summarize that work and provide background and context for how site-specific PEGylation is performed. After introducing the topic of site-specific PEGylation, recent developments using chemical methods are described. That is followed by a more extensive discussion of bioorthogonal reactions and enzymatic labeling.     

Decoder side information generation techniques in Wyner-Ziv video coding: a review

Multimedia Tools and Applications - In Wyner-Ziv (WZ) video coding, decoder side information (SI) takes a key role in a WZ video codec among other building blocks. In this paper, we review the...