North Dakota Strategic Freight Analysis Agricultural Sector: Summary Report

In an attempt to provide some of the information that will enable North Dakota firms and policymakers to make better decisions, this project addressed four transportation issues, which are critical to the future of the state's agricultural sector: (1) the impact of 110-car shuttle trains on the marketing of grains, (2) the impact of heavier cars on light-density rail lines, (3) the changing trend in the use of truck/rail container intermodal transportation for marketing North Dakota products; and (4) the role played by logistics factors in determining the optimal location of value-added facilities

Business Administration

of the importance of safety, and the potential benefits for both the general public and the commercial vehicle industry of improving safety, the main goal of this project is to identify those commercial vehicle-related technologies that, through successful adoption, have had a positive impact on the safety of motor carrier companies. This is examined through two perspectives—one simply examining the effect of a technology implementation on safety and the second identifying the effect of a successful adoption of a technology on safety. It is hypothesized that technologies with factors that lead to successful adoption will have a greater safety impact. Negative binomial regression models with the dependent variables of three separate measures of safety are utilized to test each technology, and the overall results are mixed. The models for onboard safety monitoring technologies (that did not rate high on average for any adoption factor) illustrate no significant effect on safety; however, the models for technologies in both the freight mobility area and the electronic clearance area illustrate a negative effect on safety. In addition, the results for two specific technologies reveal that the companies that implement these technologies and rate the adoption factors higher (e.g., successfully adopted the technology) are likely to have fewer accidents than companies that implement these technologies and rate th

Associations of self-reported physical activity types and levels with quality of life, depression symptoms, and mortality in hemodialysis patients: the DOPPS.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Physical activity has been associated with better health status in diverse populations, but the association in patients on maintenance hemodialysis is less established. Patient-reported physical activities and associations with mortality, health-related quality of life, and depression symptoms in patients on maintenance hemodialysis in 12 countries were examined. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS In total, 5763 patients enrolled in phase 4 of the Dialysis Outcomes and Practice Patterns Study (2009-2011) were classified into five aerobic physical activity categories (never/rarely active to very active) and by muscle strength/flexibility activity using the Rapid Assessment of Physical Activity questionnaire. The Kidney Disease Quality of Life scale was used for health-related quality of life. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale was used for depression symptoms. Linear regression was used for associations of physical activity with health-related quality of life and depression symptoms scores. Cox regression was used for association of physical activity with mortality. RESULTS The median (interquartile range) of follow-up was 1.6 (0.9-2.5) years; 29% of patients were classified as never/rarely active, 20% of patients were classified as very active, and 20.5% of patients reported strength/flexibility activities. Percentages of very active patients were greater in clinics offering exercise programs. Aerobic activity, but not strength/flexibility activity, was associated positively with health-related quality of life and inversely with depression symptoms and mortality (adjusted hazard ratio of death for very active versus never/rarely active, 0.60; 95% confidence interval, 0.47 to 0.77). Similar associations with aerobic activity were observed in strata of age, sex, time on dialysis, and diabetes status. CONCLUSIONS The findings are consistent with the health benefits of aerobic physical activity for patients on maintenance hemodialysis. Greater physical activity was observed in facilities providing exercise programs, suggesting a possible opportunity for improving patient outcomes