The relationships between accessibility and crash risk from social equity perspectives: A case study at the Rotterdam-The Hague metropolitan region

Traflic safety and accessibility have been two important subjects in transportation research. On the one hand traffic crashes bring about high societal costs and serious health risks for urban road users. The cost oftraffic crashes is estimated to be 17 billion euros per year only in the Netherlands while over 600 people were killed in traffic, of whom 229 were cyclists and 195 were car users [l, 2]. Accessibility, on the other band, is regarded as one of the indicators of the quality of the transport system serving the public. There is comprehensive literature investigating the relationship between traffic crashes and factors associated with traffic, roadway design, built environment, and human factors. Similarly, several studies assessed and evaluated accessibility levels of individuals, communities, and regions by utilizing the aforementioned. factors. Nevertheless, there is a scarcity ofliterature investigating the relationships between accessibility and traffic safety. This is especially surprising considering that both subjects are associated with a similar set of factors, including land use and transport systems, as weil as individual and temporal factors [3-7]. The relationships between accessibility and traffic safety can be an adverse one; for example, improved accessibility by increasing the travel speeds (i.e., declining travel time) intensifies the crash risks which also deteriorates equity. Furthermore, levels ofboth accessibility and traffic safety are not homogeneous throughout urban areas and among different population groups. Based on the literature, it is obvious that accessibility is associated with economic equity [8]. lt is revealed that accessibility of lower-income groups is substantially worse than the higher-income groups as these groups have less mobility [9]. Previous studies also showed. that lower-income groups usually suffer from traffic safety problems more than other socio-economic groups [10-12]. Therefore, this research aims to address the aforementioned gap in the literature in understanding the relationships between accessibility levels and traffic safety with a focus on social equity perspecti.ves. For this purpose, a Gravity model and risk exposure evaluation approaches are utilix.ed to analyze traffic safety and accessibility to jobs by bicycle via extending the traditional definition of accessibility based on only travel time or proximity to a location

Analyzing the impacts of built environment factors on vehicle-bicycle crashes in Dutch cities

Cycling safety policy and research have mostly focused on cycling infrastructure, cyclists' behavior, and safety equipment in the past decades. However, the role ofbuilt environment characteristics (BECs) in the safety of cyclists has not yet been fully examined. For the Netherlands, this is rather surprising given the significant modal share of bicycles in daily trips, the importance attributed to urban spatial planning, and it being one of the most planned countries in the world. Despite the considerable improvements that have ta1cen place in traffic safety over the decades, the ( actual) number of cyclist deaths between 2011 and 2020 increased by on average 2% per year; the cyclists bad a major portion oftraffic death (followed by passenger cars); also, almost onethird of traffic death happened in built-up a.reas (about 25% of fatalities occurred on 50km/h roads in urban areas) in this period. Considering the aim of construction of on average 75,000 new homes per year until 2025, as weil as promoting bicycle use in as a healthy and sustainable mode of transport in the N etherlands, underst.anding the relationships between the BECs and cycling safety is invaluable for improving the safety of cyclists

Hydrogel nanocomposite based on alginate/zeolite for burn wound healing: In vitro and in vivo study

Objective(s): The main objective of the current assay was to evaluate the antibacterial and regenerative effects of hydrogel nanocomposite containing pure natural zeolite (clinoptilolite) integrated with alginate (Alg) as wound healing/dressing biomaterials.Materials and Methods: The zeolites were size excluded, characterized by SEM, DLS, XRD, FTIR, and XRF, and then integrated into Alg hydrogel followed by calcium chloride crosslinking. The Alg and alginate zeolite (Alg/Zeo) hydrogel was characterized by swelling and weight loss tests, also the antibacterial, hemocompatibility, and cell viability tests were performed. In animal studies, the burn wound was induced on the back of rats and treated with the following groups: control, Alg hydrogel, and Alg/Zeo hydrogel.Results: The results showed that the hydrodynamic diameter of zeolites was 367 ± 0.2 nm. Zeolites did not show any significant antibacterial effect, however, the hydrogel nanocomposite containing zeolite had proper swelling as well as hemocompatibility and no cytotoxicity was observed. Following the creation of a third-degree burn wound on the back of rats, the results indicated that the Alg hydrogel and Alg/Zeo nanocomposite accelerated the wound healing process compared with the control group. Re-epithelialization, granulation tissue thickness, collagenization, inflammatory cell recruitment, and angiogenesis level were not significantly different between Alg and Alg/Zeo nanocomposite.Conclusion: These findings revealed that although the incorporation of zeolites did not induce a significant beneficial effect in comparison with Alg hydrogel, using zeolite capacity in hydrogel for loading the antibiotics or other effective compounds can be considered a promising wound dressing

Long term diarrhoea caused by simultaneous Crohn’s disease and coeliac disease in the same patient

Coeliac disease and Crohn’s disease are among the most well known gastrointestinal disorders, with distinct pathogenic mechanisms. However, because of some overlapping features between these two conditions, there may be some inevitable misdiagnoses. In addition, diarrhoea and changes in bowel habit may lead the physician to misdiagnose more common disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome. There are a few cases reporting both coeliac and Crohn’s disease in the same patient. Here we report a case of a 32-year-old woman suffering from long term diarrhoea who was eventually discovered to have coeliac disease and Crohn’s disease simultaneously