Emotional states of drivers and the impact on speed,acceleration and traffic violations—A simulator study

Maladjusted driving, such as aggressive driving and delayed reactions, is seen as one cause of traffic accidents. Such behavioural patterns could be influenced by strong emotions in the driver. The causes of emotions in traffic are divided into two distinct classes: personal factors and properties of the specific driving situation. In traffic situations, various appraisal factors are responsible for the nature and intensity of experienced emotions. These include whether another driver was accountable, whether goals were blocked and whether progress and safety were affected. In a simulator study, seventy-nine participants took part in four traffic situations which each elicited a different emotion. Each situation had critical elements (e.g. slow car, obstacle on the street) based on combinations of the appraisal factors. Driving parameters such as velocity, acceleration, and speeding, together with the experienced emotions, were recorded. Results indicate that anger leads to stronger acceleration and higher speeds even for 2 km beyond the emotion-eliciting event. Anxiety and contempt yielded similar but weaker effects, yet showed the same negative and dangerous driving pattern as anger. Fright correlated with stronger braking momentum and lower speeds directly after the critical event.     

Modelling of furniture experiments with zone models

The Harvard Computer Fire Code Mark V has been used to simulate full-scale furniture fires. Simulations were run with one sofa burning in the open and another burning in a small room. To obtain better agreement between experiment and simulation, changes were made in the code to include heating of the lower surfaces in the room. A simulation of a mattress test, conducted at NBS, is included. Comparison with a zone model using a different plume equation is also presented.     

A respectable old age.

The author outlines events that led to his interest in aging. His involvement with older people has revealed that too little is known about the later stages of life and the problems with which older people must cope and too few methods of helping them cope with these problems are available. The absolute number of the over-65 yrs cohort and their percentage of the total population are increasing rapidly. This increase in their numbers will force a structural change in society so that the over-65 yrs cohort will be more integrated into the social structure and will participate more actively in all aspects of society. This change will generate a number of problems for psychologists to solve. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cultural heritage in suburban landscape planning: A case study in Southern Norway

In this study we ask how the planning process that coordinates the interests of various sectors on a municipal level affects the cultural heritage assets in suburban landscapes. Special attention is paid to the role the cultural heritage management sector plays in the overall planning processes that take place in such semi-urban regions.A case study is carried out in two suburban areas in Norway, Madla and Nannestad. The case-study design includes various methods; historical map overlay, visual methods, discourse analysis based on qualitative interviews and document studies. The case studies have been performed on two levels: a superior landscape analysis covering the total municipality, and a second and more detailed level.The results from this study show that the protection and caretaking of green interests in land-use planning is not necessarily a protection of cultural heritage interests. Cultural heritage is more to be seen as a derivate interest. Cultural heritage management seldom functions as a premise provider in municipal planning. The findings are discussed in conjunction with the need for comprehensive planning across administrative and disciplinary borders as cities grow into regions. There is also a need for the cultural heritage interests to play a stronger role in planning in order to obtain better preservation of the cultural monuments and landscapes.     

Bootstrapping unit root tests for integrated processes

Abstract. In this paper, we consider two bootstrap algorithms for testing unit roots under the condition that the observed process is unit root integrated. The first method consists of generating the resampled data after fitting an autoregressive model to the first differences of the observations. The second method consists of applying the stationary bootstrap to the first differences. Both procedures are shown to give methods that approach the correct asymptotic distribution under the null hypothesis of a unit root. We also present a Monte-Carlo study comparing the two methods for some ARIMA models.     

Immunomodulatory activity of dietary fiber: arabinoxylan and mixed-linked Beta-glucan isolated from barley show modest activities in vitro

High intake of dietary fiber is claimed to protect against development of colorectal cancer. Barley is a rich source of dietary fiber, and possible immunomodulatory effects of barley polysaccharides might explain a potential protective effect. Dietary fiber was isolated by extraction and enzyme treatment. A mixed-linked β-glucan (WSM-TPX, 96.5% β-glucan, Mw 886 kDa), an arabinoxylan (WUM-BS-LA, 96.4% arabinoxylan, Mw 156 kDa), a mixed-linked β-glucan rich fraction containing 10% arabinoxylan (WSM-TP) and an arabinoxylan rich fraction containing 30% mixed-linked β-glucan (WUM-BS) showed no significant effect on IL-8 secretion and proliferation of two intestinal epithelial cell lines, Caco-2 and HT-29, and had no significant effect on the NF-κB activity in the monocytic cell line U937-3κB-LUC. Further enriched arabinoxylan fractions (WUM-BS-LA) from different barley varieties (Tyra, NK96300, SB94897 and CDCGainer) were less active than the mixed-linked β-glucan rich fractions (WSM-TP and WSM-TPX) in the complement-fixing test. The mixed-linked β-glucan rich fraction from NK96300 and CDCGainer showed similar activities as the positive control while mixed-linked β-glucan rich fractions from Tyra and SB94897 were less active. From these results it is concluded that the isolated high molecular weight mixed-linked β-glucans and arabinoxylans from barley show low immunological responses in selected in vitro test systems and thus possible anti-colon cancer effects of barley dietary fiber cannot be explained by our observations.     

Experimental study of thermal breakdown products from halogenated extinguishing agents

Thermal breakdown products from four different fire extinguishing agents have been analysed. The agents studied were: bromotrifluoromethane (Halon 1301), pentafluoroethane (HFC 125), heptafluoropropane (HFC 227ea) and dodecafluoro-2-methyl-pentane-3-one (C₆F-ketone). In the tests, the studied agent was introduced into a propane flame in a diffusion flame burner. The combustion products were analysed using both conventional IR-techniques and FTIR. It could be concluded that for all four extinguishing agents that the extinguishing agent takes part in the combustion process resulting in production of CO and CO₂, which was also confirmed by the increase in smoke production with increasing amounts of agent introduced into the flame. Production of HF and COF₂ was found in experiments with all four extinguishing agents. In experiments with Halon 1301, the production of HBr was also determined. It was found that the main fraction of fluorine ends up as HF for HFC 227ea and HFC 125 at lower relative application rates. When approaching extinguishing concentrations, the fraction recovered as COF₂ increases, but the total recovery of fluorine, including HF and the remaining part of the fluorine, is found in various organic breakdown products. The recovery of fluorine as HF and COF₂ for the C₆F-ketone is lower compared to HFC 227ea and HFC 125. There is a clear difference in the recovery of fluorine for Halon 1301 where an almost quantitative recovery as HF or COF₂ is found. Halon 1301 additionally contains bromine, which, to a large extent, is recovered as HBr.