Road functional classification using pattern recognition techniques

The existing international standards suggest a methodology to assign a specific functional class to a road, by the values of some features, both geometrical and use-related. Sometimes, these characteristics are in contrast with each other and direct the analyst towards conflicting classes for a road or, worse, one or more of these features vary heterogeneously along the road. In these conditions, the analyst assigns the class that, by his capability and experience, he retains the most appropriate, in a very subjective way. On the contrary, the definition of an automatic procedure assuring an objective identification of the most appropriate functional class for each road would be desirable. Such a solution would be useful, especially when the road belongs to the existing infrastructure network or when it was not realised by out of date standards. The proposed procedure regards the definition of a classification model based on Pattern Recognition techniques, considering 13 input variables that, depending on their assumed value, direct the analyst towards one of the four functional classes defined by the Italian standards. In this way, it is possible to classify a road even when its characteristics are heterogeneous and conflicting. Moreover, the authors analysed the model limitations, in terms of errors and dataset size, considering observation and variable numbers. This approach, representing a beneficial decision support tool for the decision-maker, is exploitable for both planned and existing roads and becomes particularly advantageous for road agencies aiming to optimally allocate their limited funds for specific interventions assuring the achievement of a fixed functional class

Analysis of different visual strategies of ‘isolated vehicle’and ‘disturbed vehicle’

This paper analyses the driver’ visual behaviour in the different conditions of ‘isolated vehicle’ and ‘disturbed vehicle’. If the meaning of the former is clear, the latter condition considers the influence on the driving behaviour of various objects that could be encountered along the road. These can be classified in static (signage, stationary vehicles at the roadside, etc.) and dynamic objects (cars, motorcycles, bicycles). The aim of this paper is to propose a proper analysis regarding the driver’s visual behaviour. In particular, the authors examined the quality of the visually information acquired from the entire road environment, useful for detecting any critical safety condition. In order to guarantee a deep examination of the various possible behaviours, the authors combined the several test outcomes with other variables related to the road geometry and with the dynamic variables involved while driving. The results of this study are very interesting. As expected, they obviously confirmed better performances for the ‘isolated vehicle’ in a rural two-lane road with different traffic flows. Moreover, analysing the various scenarios in the disturbed condition, the proposed indices allow the authors to quantitatively describe the different influence on the visual field and effects on the visual behaviour, favouring critical analysis of the road characteristics. Potential applications of these results may contribute to improve the choice of the best maintenance strategies for a road, to select the optimal signage location, to define forecasting models for the driving behaviour and to develop useful instruments for intelligent transportation systems

A procedure for evaluating the influence of road context on drivers' visual behaviour

In this paper, we investigated drivers' visual behaviour while travelling a road regularly opened to traffic in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the traditional scientific models and propose, at the same time, further measures useful for understanding the complex phenomenon. As is known, drivers acquire the necessary information for knowing the road geometry by visually detecting certain areas of the surrounding context. Some models in the literature have shown in a simple and convincing way these mechanisms, but they are valid only with specific assumptions, often very restrictive, such as a two-lane road, horizontal sign clearly visible and no interaction with other vehicles. For this reason, in this study we wanted to investigate different conditions, by estimating the visual strategy of some regular drivers on a three-lane road in presence of other vehicles. The visual behaviour was surveyed with the Tobii Glasses Eye Tracker and the resulting raw data were further manipulated by us to extract more useful information for our purposes. In particular, we quantified the driver's dedicated attention to the various elements present inside the environmental context, both static (road edges, road signs, dashboard, etc.) and dynamic (other vehicles), meaning by this term those that could potentially collide with the trajectories of our vehicle. The achieved results, highlighting the limits of validity of some recent studies, contain some proposed indexes useful to give a better understanding of the visual behaviour in order to detect any eventual weakness of the road

How is the Driver's Workload Influenced by the Road Environment?

This paper focuses on the study of the driver\u2019s workload while driving on a rural two-lane road with different traffic flows. The aim of the research is to examine a parameter that could be representative of the driving effort, quite sensible to the external factors that cause disturbance to the regular driving activity. To solve this problem, the authors used a specific instrumented vehicle for monitoring some physiological parameters of the driver (as the eye movements and the Galvanic Skin Resistance), referring their values to the road context. The results are very interesting and confirm that knowing the workload is useful to improve the road safety only if it is related to the external context, as well as road geometry, traffic, visibility, etc. Only in this way, the road administrators can deduce proper information to plan and direct accurate and productive upgrade working operation

Time Reduction for Completion of a Civil Engineering Construction Using Fuzzy Clustering Techniques

In the civil engineering field, there are usually unexpected troubles that can cause delays during execution. This situation involves numerous variables (resource number, execution time, costs, working area availability, etc.), mutually dependent, that complicate the definition of the problem analytical model and the related resolution. Consequently, the decision-maker may avoid rational methods to define the activities that could be conveniently modified, relying only on his personal experience or experts’ advices. In order to improve this kind of decision from an objective point of view, the authors analysed the operation correction using a data mining technique, called Fuzzy Clustering. This allows the analysts to represent complex real scenarios and classify the various activities according to their influence on the reduction of the total execution time. The proposed procedure provides positive results that are also in compliance with significant operational constraints, such as the control of costs and areas needed by the workers to perform the tasks. Finally, it is possible to increase the input variable number preserving the algorithm simplicity and avoiding lacks of accuracy in the final numerical outcomes

Potentialities of a Highway Alignment Optimization Method in an I-BIM Environment

The BIM (Building Information Modeling) approach potential in the civil engineering field opened novel scenarios in the design idea concept, from planning to executive and constructive phases. The related advantages are numerous and not only limited to a real-time interaction among the involved subjects, that can actually operate in an optimized 3D shared environment. Owing to the sharing information philosophy and to the features of various "smart objects" combined in the project, this innovation reduces potential errors and increases the effectiveness of the design solution in terms of both functionality and cost. Despite these advantages, the highway alignment design problem remains very complicated and not easy to solve without appropriate supporting tools. In recent years, several efforts have been spent in defining highway optimization procedures for helping designers in the selection of an optimal solution in compliance with numerous different constraints. Introducing these procedures in a BIM environment may represent a crucial step in the improvement of the highway design procedures, exploiting the full representation and modelling potential of the approach. In this paper, the authors present the advantages of a 3D highway alignment optimization algorithm, based on the Particle Swarm Optimization method, and its possible implementation in a BIM platform. A proper I-BIM environment can exploit the potential of the alignment optimization algorithms, simplifying the analysis of the different solutions, the final representation and the eventual manual modifications

What variables affect to a greater extent the driver's vision while driving?

This paper deals with the analysis of the main variables involved in the visual activity of a driver of motor vehicles, in order to identify the most important quantities and implement, therefore, appropriate corrective actions to the achievement of road safety. The first step in this research was to survey a number of variables within the road environment and processing this data base with clustering techniques in order to extract useful information for purpose. In this case, a mixture of procedures based on Fuzzy Logic (FL) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) were applied not only to extract knowledge not known a priori but, above all, to define the membership functions and rules of the fuzzy model without recourse to the skills of the analyst, not always so objective. This procedure, applied to a rural road open to traffic, showed a good performance in predicting the user's visual behavior and, especially, in identifying the most influential variables. This aspect may allow the agency to direct the maintenance operations so that to facilitate understanding of the information contained within the road environment, thus improving safety

HVEM and CD160: Regulators of Immunopathology During Malaria Blood-Stage

CD8+ T cells are key players during infection with the malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei ANKA (PbA). While they cannot provide protection against blood-stage parasites, they can cause immunopathology, thus leading to the severe manifestation of cerebral malaria. Hence, the tight control of CD8+ T cell function is key in order to prevent fatal outcomes. One major mechanism to control CD8+ T cell activation, proliferation and effector function is the integration of co-inhibitory and co-stimulatory signals. In this study, we show that one such pathway, the HVEM-CD160 axis, significantly impacts CD8+ T cell regulation and thereby the incidence of cerebral malaria. Here, we show that the co-stimulatory molecule HVEM is indeed required to maintain CD8+ T effector populations during infection. Additionally, by generating a CD160−/− mouse line, we observe that the HVEM ligand CD160 counterbalances stimulatory signals in highly activated and cytotoxic CD8+ T effector cells, thereby restricting immunopathology. Importantly, CD160 is also induced on cytotoxic CD8+ T cells during acute Plasmodium falciparum malaria in humans. In conclusion, CD160 is specifically expressed on highly activated CD8+ T effector cells that are harmful during the blood-stage of malaria

Transplanted Mesoangioblasts Require Macrophage IL-10 for Survival in a Mouse Model of Muscle Injury

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Drivers' workload measures to verify functionality of ferry boats boarding area

Functionality of a square used for ferry boats boarding has repercussions on safety and comfort of users, as well as on the efficiency of maritime transport. Inadequate use of the infrastructure causes driving errors followed by corrective manoeuvres, loss of time and potential accidents with consequences for community and the maritime transport compa-ny. The wide diversification of traffic components and payment methods are generally managed through a traditional horizontal and vertical signage system that does not refer to any current legislation. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate driver's behaviour and the interaction that takes place between the latter and the environ-mental context. In particular, the authors focused on the study of the driver's workload in a simulated environment, considering a users' sample and different driving scenarios inside the boarding area, concerning traffic conditions (isolated vehicle or presence of disturbing vehicles) and signs position. All this, in order to evaluate whether any change in a virtual context could bring real benefits to drivers, before being transferred to the real context. The results obtained, in terms of subjective workload and performance measures, have made it possible to judge the different solutions proposed in a simulated environment through synthetic indices referring to the entire boarding place or at certain parts of it. In this way, the manager can decide to change the circulation of the entire square or only some aspects of detail, such as some signals, in the event that they manifest an evident difficulty in the transfer of infor-mation. The use of the simulated environment allows greater speed in identifying the best solution, lower costs (avoid-ing the creation of a critical configuration for circulation) and greater user safety, since risky manoeuvres are identi-fied and corrected by the simulator. The proposed procedure can be used by managers for a correct arrangement of the signs, for the purpose of correctly directing the flows and maximizing the flow rate disposed of