In-depth research into rural road crashes

This report was produced under an agreement between Transport SA and the Road Accident Research Unit formed in the late 1990s. Due to various delays in the publication of this report, Transport SA has since become the Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure and the Road Accident Research Unit has become the Centre for Automotive Safety Research. The report describes a series of 236 rural road crashes investigated between 1 March 1998 and 29 February 2000 in South Australia. Investigations began with immediate attendance at the scene of the crash. The information collected for each crash included: photographs of the crash scene and vehicles involved, video record of the crash scene and vehicles in selected cases, examination of the road environment, a site plan of the crash scene and vehicle movements in the crash, examination and measurements of the vehicles involved, interviews with crash participants, interviews with witnesses, interviews with police, information on the official police report, information from Coroner’s reports, and injury data for the injured crash participants. The report provides an overall statistical summary of the sample of crashes investigated, followed by a detailed examination of the road infrastructure issues contributing to the crashes. This is done on the basis of crash type, with separate sections concerned with single vehicle crashes, midblock crashes and crashes at intersections. A section is also provided that examines the role of roadside hazards in the crashes.Baldock MRJ, Kloeden CN and McLean A

The envirome and the connectome: exploring the structural noise in the human brain associated with socioeconomic deprivation

Complex cognitive functions are widely recognized to be the result of a number of brain regions working together as large-scale networks. Recently, complex network analysis has been used to characterize various structural properties of the large scale network organization of the brain. For example, the human brain has been found to have a modular architecture i.e. regions within the network form communities (modules) with more connections between regions within the community compared to regions outside it. The aim of this study was to examine the modular and overlapping modular architecture of the brain networks using complex network analysis. We also examined the association between neighborhood level deprivation and brain network structure – modularity and grey nodes. We compared network structure derived from anatomical MRI scans of 42 middle-aged neurologically healthy men from the least (LD) and the most deprived (MD) neighborhoods of Glasgow with their corresponding random networks. Cortical morphological covariance networks were constructed from the cortical thickness derived from the MRI scans of the brain. For a given modularity threshold, networks derived from the MD group showed similar number of modules compared to their corresponding random networks, while networks derived from the LD group had more modules compared to their corresponding random networks. The MD group also had fewer grey nodes – a measure of overlapping modular structure. These results suggest that apparent structural difference in brain networks may be driven by differences in cortical thicknesses between groups. This demonstrates a structural organization that is consistent with a system that is less robust and less efficient in information processing. These findings provide some evidence of the relationship between socioeconomic deprivation and brain network topology

A Multispectral Look at Oil Pollution Detection, Monitoring, and Law Enforcement

The problems of detecting oil films on water, mapping the areal extent of slicks, measuring the slick thickness, and identifying oil types are discussed. The signature properties of oil in the ultraviolet, visible, infrared, microwave, and radar regions are analyzed

Herding cats: observing live coding in the wild

After a momentous decade of live coding activities, this paper seeks to explore the practice with the aim of situating it in the history of contemporary arts and music. The article introduces several key points of investigation in live coding research and discusses some examples of how live coding practitioners engage with these points in their system design and performances. In the light of the extremely diverse manifestations of live coding activities, the problem of defining the practice is discussed, and the question raised whether live coding will actually be necessary as an independent category

Deciphering signs: an empirical apprenticeship

The aim of the article is to explore how an apprenticeship through signs can inform ethnographic inquiries. Upon engaging with signs, one can develop new empirical sensibilities that could allow for the appreciation of the flows, forces and intensities encountered during such research processes. In particular, it enables us to attend to those aspects of research that we may struggle to capture or illuminate. We suggest naming such endeavour nomadography in order to emphasize the move away from anthropocentric accounts and to reflect the iterative, polymorphic and experiential nature of this approach. We also draw on a brief extract from some fieldwork in Fiji that focused on the ‘discovery’ of a new plant species. In particular, we wish to explore how a nomadographic approach provides a way of rejuvenating our thinking conceptually, empirically and methodologically by rethinking these three interconnecting and overlapping aspects of the research process

Evaluation of the 50km/h default urban speed limit in South Australia

On the 1st March 2003 the Default Urban Speed Limit (DUSL) in South Australia was lowered from 60 km/h to 50 km/h. Since this date, all urban roads have a speed limit of 50 km/h unless otherwise signed. This paper reports the results of an evaluation of the effectiveness of the reduced DUSL and is based on speed surveys and crash data analysis. Vehicles speeds were measured at 52 randomly chosen sites across the State. Crash data was analysed by examining the crash history of all roads with a 50 km/h or 60 km/h speed limit, a year before and after the new DUSL was introduced. The study found that, on average, mean speeds have fallen by approximately 2.2 km/h on streets where the speed limit was reduced and by 0.7 km/h on arterial roads where 60 km/h speed limit signs were erected. There was a 19.8% reduction in casualty crashes on 50 km/h roads and a corresponding 4.6% reduction on 60 km/h arterial roads when compared with the previous year.C. Kloeden, J. Woolley and J. McLea

Fracture Mechanics Testing of Titanium 6AL-4V in AF-M315E

The Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM) will demonstrate the performance of AF-M315E monopropellant on orbit. Flight certification requires a safe-life analysis of the titanium alloy fuel tank to ensure inherent processing flaws will not cause failure during the design life of the tank. Material property inputs for this analysis require testing to determine the stress intensity factor for environment-assisted cracking (KEAC) of Ti 6Al-4V in combination with the AF-M315E monopropellant. Testing of single-edge notched, or SE(B), specimens representing the bulk tank membrane and weld material were performed in accordance with ASTM E1681. Specimens with fatigue pre-cracks were loaded into test fixtures so that the crack tips were exposed to AF-M315E at 50 C for a duration of 1,000 hours. Specimens that did not fail during exposure were opened to inspect the crack surfaces for evidence of crack growth. The threshold stress intensity value, KEAC, is the highest applied stress intensity that produced neither a failure of the specimen during the exposure nor showed evidence of crack growth. The threshold stress intensity factor for environment-assisted cracking of the Ti 6Al-4V forged tank material was found to be at least 22 ksiin and at least 31 ksiin for the weld material when exposed to AF-M315E monopropellant