Associations between driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs,speeding and seatbelt use among fatally injured car drivers in Norway

Since 2005, all fatal road traffic crashes in Norway have been analyzed in-depth by multidisciplinary investigation teams organized by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA). During the period 2005–2010, 608 drivers of cars or vans were killed in road traffic crashes. Blood samples were collected from 372 (61%) of the drivers and analyzed for alcohol and a large number of psychoactive drugs at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH). After coupling the analytical results with the NPRA crash database, 369 drivers with a fatal outcome were identified and included. Alcohol or drug concentrations in blood above the legal limits were found in 39.8% of the drivers who were investigated for alcohol or drug impairment; 33.9% had blood alcohol concentrations above 0.5 g/L or concentrations of drugs above the equivalent Norwegian legal impairment limits or concentrations of amphetamines above 200 μg/L. Among drivers with a fatal outcome who had been impaired by alcohol or drugs, 64.6% were unbelted and 71.7% were speeding when the crash occurred; whereas 24.2% and 33.2% of the sober drivers were unbelted or speeding, respectively. Statistically significant associations were found between impairment by alcohol or amphetamines and driving unbelted or speeding. Excessive speeding is one of the main reasons for road traffic crashes and together with being unbelted the main reasons for a fatal outcome. This behavior might in many cases be due to increased risk-taking or negligence of safety measures as a result of alcohol or drug use.     

Alcohol, psychoactive drugs and fatal road traffic accidents in Norway: a case-control study

A case–control study was conducted on 204 drivers fatally injured in road traffic accidents in south-eastern Norway during the period 2003–2008. Cases from single vehicle accidents (N = 68) were assessed separately. As controls, 10 540 drivers selected in a roadside survey in the same geographical area during 2005–2006 were used. Blood samples were collected from the cases and oral fluid (saliva) samples from the controls. Samples were analysed for alcohol, amphetamines, cannabis, cocaine, opioid analgesics, hypnotics, sedatives and a muscle relaxant; altogether 22 psychoactive substances. Equivalent cutoff concentrations for blood and oral fluid were used. The risk for fatal injury in a road traffic accident was estimated using logistic regression adjusting for gender, age, season of the year, and time of the week. The odds for involvement in fatal road traffic accidents for different substances or combination of substances were in increasing order: single drug < multiple drugs < alcohol only < alcohol + drugs. For single substance use: medicinal drug or THC < amphetamine/methamphetamine < alcohol. For most substances, higher ORs were found when studying drivers involved in single vehicle accidents than for those involved in multiple vehicle accidents, but confidence intervals were wider.     

Enthalpy of absorption of CO2 with alkanolamine solutions predicted from reaction equilibrium constants

Differential enthalpies of absorption of CO₂ in aqueous solutions of 2-aminoethanol (MEA) and N-methyldiethanolamine were predicted from reaction equilibrium constants using the Gibbs-Helmholtz equation. Correlations for the reaction equilibrium constants and enthalpies of reaction found in the literature for each of the individual reactions taking place at CO₂ absorption were compared to experimental data, and from this, a set of equations was selected for the Deshmukh-Mather model in this work. The carbamate dissociation constant for MEA was fitted to experimental P_CO2 and ΔH_abs data. Heat contributions from each of the individual reactions taking place in the systems MEA+H₂O+CO₂ and MDEA+H₂O+CO₂ were calculated and presented as functions of loading and temperature. Predicted enthalpies of absorption agree well with the data from literature and with experimental data from this work. The calculation procedure described in this work may be used for the adjustment of reaction equilibrium constants by fitting the equilibrium model also to experimentally measured heats of absorption data in addition to P_CO2 data.     

Turbulent circulation in bubble columns from eddy viscosity distributions of single-phase pipe flow

The exact prediction of the flow structure in bubble columns is important for their design and scale-up. This paper proposes a theoretical model for the liquid circulation on the basis of Reynolds equation of motion and the eddy viscosity distribution of single phase pipe flow, and presents a derivation of an analytical equation for the axial liquid velocity profiles that is fast and easy to use. The model shows a strong analogy for the eddy viscosity between multiphase and single-phase systems, and how both eddy and molecular viscosities affect the flow. The velocity profiles calculated from the model are shown to agree well with reported experimental data for both low and high viscosity fluids.     

A study of film thickness and hydrodynamic entrance length in liquid laminar film flow along a vertical tube

The liquid film thickness and hydrodynamic entrance length in a vertical tube was studied experimentally and numerically. Measurements using distilled water, 30 wt % MEA and 40 wt % sugar solutions were carried out to investigate the effects of liquid flow rate on the formation of the liquid film. The experimental results validate the new Navier‐Stokes based equation in cylindrical coordinates (Eq. 16) and the volume of fluid (VOF) model giving a competitively high prediction of the liquid film thickness especially in the low Reynolds number region. In addition, a new empirical model and an improved minimal surface model have been first proposed for calculation of the hydrodynamic entrance length, with a relatively reasonable average absolute relative deviation (AARD) of 3.03% and 6.83%, respectively. Furthermore, the effects of the hydrodynamic entry length on the gas–liquid interfacial area calculated by the improved minimal surface model were comprehensively studied, and can be ignored if the ratio of the liquid film length (y) and the hydrodynamic entrance length (λ_E) is lower than 10. However, it should be noted that the hydrodynamic entrance length cannot be ignored in packed columns in which the liquid flow is very complex due to the packings with different structures and materials. © 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 64: 2078–2088, 2018     

When children become acutely ill

This article covers various aspects characteristic of acute paediatric medicine, such as special symptomatology and physical parameters that differ with age. The aim is to increase the confidence of newly trained colleagues in their examination of small children, and to make them alert to the development of alarming symptoms. Some simple routines for initial treatment in hospital are also suggested. Various topics like fever convulsion, status epilepticus, gastroenteritis and infections of the lower respiratory tract are dealt with individually.