Effects of road lighting: An analysis based on Dutch accident statistics 1987-2006

This study estimates the safety effect of road lighting on accidents in darkness on Dutch roads, using data from an interactive database containing 763,000 injury accidents and 3.3 million property damage accidents covering the period 1987-2006. Two estimators of effect are used, and the results are combined by applying techniques of meta-analysis. Injury accidents are reduced by 50%. This effect is larger than the effects found in most of the earlier studies. The effect on fatal accidents is slightly larger than the effect on injury accidents. The effect during twilight is about 2/3 of the effect in darkness. The effect of road lighting is significantly smaller during adverse weather and road surface conditions than during fine conditions. The effects on pedestrian, bicycle and moped accidents are significantly larger than the effects on automobile and motorcycle accidents. The risk of injury accidents was found to increase in darkness. The average increase in risk was estimated to 17% on lit rural roads and 145% on unlit rural roads. The average increase in risk during rainy conditions is about 50% on lit rural roads and about 190% on unlit rural roads. The average increase in risk with respect to pedestrian accidents is about 140% on lit rural roads and about 360% on unlit rural roads.     

Human capital and energy consumption: Evidence from OECD countries

We examine the effect of human capital on energy consumption for a panel of OECD economies over the period 1965–2014. Our preferred results, which account for cross-sectional dependence and structural breaks, suggest that a one standard deviation increase in human capital reduces aggregate energy consumption by 15.36%. When we distinguish between clean and dirty energy consumption, we find that human capital generates significant positive externalities for the environment. Specifically, we find that a one standard deviation increase in human capital is associated with a 17.33% decrease in dirty energy consumption and an 85.54% increase in clean energy consumption. Our findings reinforce the social benefits of investing in human capital and suggest a promising avenue for energy conservation without impeding economic growth.     

Design of wearable and wireless electrical impedance tomography system

Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is a non-invasive approach to reconstruct the cross-section impedance image of the body. Many EIT systems and impedance image reconstruction algorithms have been proposed in previous studies. However, most of these EIT systems are bulky to cause the limitation of applications. In this study, a wearable and wireless EIT system is proposed to reconstruct impedance images non-invasively and wirelessly. By microminiaturizing the conventional EIT system, the proposed system can provide the advantages of small volume and wireless transmission to reduce the application limitation of conventional EIT systems. Finally, the phantom experiment is tested to validate the performance of the proposed EIT system. The experimental results show the average BR value of the reconstructed image obtained by the proposed system being 1.3 ± 0.2 and the averaged location error ratio being about 6.27 ± 3.14%. Therefore, the proposed wearable and wireless EIT system can be viewed as a good system prototype and may be applied to more clinical applications in the future.     

基于ABAQUS数值模拟的采区巷道断面形状优化研究

 选取矩形、梯形、直墙半圆拱形、圆弧拱形、三心拱形、直墙半圆加反拱形6种常用采区巷道断面形状进行数值模拟分析,研究不同巷道断面形状开挖后位移分布,分析表明直墙半圆拱形巷道变形量最小,且加设反拱后对于减少底臌量效果明显。选取矩形和直墙半圆拱形断面作为代表断面,分析不同埋深H及侧压力系数λ对采区巷道变形特征、围岩应力影响。在此类围岩条件下,当采区巷道埋深小于400 m、侧压力系数小于1.6时,矩形巷道和直墙半圆拱形巷道围岩变形量差距较小,此时可以选择矩形巷道断面以满足经济性要求。