4,083 research outputs found
Updating predictive accident models of modern rural single carriageway A-roads
Reliable predictive accident models (PAMs) are essential to design and maintain safe road networks and yet the models most commonly used in the UK were derived using data collected 20 to 30 years ago. Given that the national personal injury accident total fell by some 30% in the last 25 years, while road traffic increased by over 60%, significant errors in scheme appraisal and evaluation based on the models currently in use seem inevitable. In this paper the temporal transferability of PAMs for modern rural single carriageway A-roads is investigated and their predictive performance is evaluated against a recent data set. Despite the age of these models, the PAMs for predicting the total accidents provide a remarkably good fit to recent data and these are more accurate than models where accidents are disaggregated by type. The performance of the models can be improved by calibrating them against recent data
Circulation near the Newfoundland Ridge
Mesoscale eddies (25 to 150 km diameter) are observed to occur along the crest of the Newfoundland Ridge and have water properties that suggest an origin near the Tail of the Bank. The eddies appear to be important features of the circulation over the Ridge...
Optimum Monte Carlo Simulations: Some Exact Results
We obtain exact results for the acceptance ratio and mean squared
displacement in Monte Carlo simulations of the simple harmonic oscillator in
dimensions. When the trial displacement is made uniformly in the radius, we
demonstrate that the results are independent of the dimensionality of the
space. We also study the dynamics of the process via a spectral analysis and we
obtain an accurate description for the relaxation time.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures. submitted to J. Phys.
Unexpected Effect of Internal Degrees of Freedom on Transverse Phonons in Supercooled Liquids
We show experimentally that in a supercooled liquid composed of molecules
with internal degrees of freedom the internal modes contribute to the frequency
dependent shear viscosity and damping of transverse phonons, which results in
an additional broadening of the transverse Brillouin lines. Earlier, only the
effect of internal modes on the frequency dependent bulk viscosity and damping
of longitudinal phonons was observed and explained theoretically in the limit
of weak coupling of internal degrees of freedom to translational motion. A new
theory is needed to describe this new effect. We also demonstrate, that the
contributions of structural relaxation and internal processes to the width of
the Brillouin lines can be separated by measurements under high pressure
Evidence of two viscous relaxation processes in the collective dynamics of liquid lithium
New inelastic X-ray scattering experiments have been performed on liquid
lithium in a wide wavevector range. With respect to the previous measurements,
the instrumental resolution, improved up to 1.5 meV, allows to accurately
investigate the dynamical processes determining the observed shape of the the
dynamic structure factor, . A detailed analysis of the lineshapes
shows the co-existence of relaxation processes with both a slow and a fast
characteristic timescales, and therefore that pictures of the relaxation
mechanisms based on a simple viscoelastic model must be abandoned.Comment: 5 pages, 4 .PS figure
Dynamic structure factors of a dense mixture
We compute the dynamic structure factors of a dense binary liquid mixture.
These describe dynamics on molecular length scales, where structural relaxation
is important. We find that the presence of a few large particles in a dense
fluid of small particles slows down the dynamics considerably. We also observe
a deep narrowing of the spectrum for a disordered mixture composed of a nearly
equal packing of the two species. In contrast, a few small particles diffuse
easily in the background of a dense fluid of large particles. We expect our
results to describe neutron scattering from a dense mixture
Emergency department based intervention with adolescent substance users: 10 year economic and health outcomes
BACKGROUND: Alcohol and other drug (AOD) use are significant cause of disease burden and costs among adolescents. METHODS: We conducted a randomized trial in hospital emergency departments (ED) following an AOD-related presentation, comparing usual care with brief advice and referral to link adolescents aged 12-19 years with external AOD services. Subsequently, we used health data linkage to assemble data on mortality, hospital admissions, ED attendances, out-patient mental health and use of opiate pharmacotherapies in the next 10 years. From these, treatment costs and rates of events were estimated and compared using generalized linear models. RESULTS: Those who received the intervention had lower costs (227: z=3.16, p=0.002) and rates (0.03 versus 0.25: z=2.57, p=0.010) of ED mental health AOD presentations. However, the intervention did not significantly reduce overall mean health costs per patient (intervention 64833, p=0.800). Similarly, there was no significant difference in the costs associated with hospitalizations (50911 p=0.924), overall ED presentations (4150, p=0.916), out-patient mental health services (7717, p=0.282), or opiate pharmacotherapies (2054, p=0.209). Injecting drug use was a significant baseline predictor of subsequent costs in the cohort (z=2.64, p=0.008). CONCLUSIONS: An ED delivered intervention may reduce direct ED costs and subsequent ED AOD attendances. There was also some indication that overall costs may be impacted, with economically large but non-significant differences between the groups. The high costs and morbidity incurred by some of this cohort illustrate the importance of targeting high-risk adolescents
Recruiting hard to reach populations to studies: breaking the silence: an example from a study that recruited people with dementia
Objective To share the challenges of recruiting people with dementia to studies, using experiences from one recently completed trial as an exemplar.
Background Research publications always cite participant numbers but the effort expended to achieve the sample size is rarely reported, even when the study involved recruiting a hard to reach population. A multisite study of a psychosocial intervention for people with dementia illustrates the challenges. This study recruited 468 ‘dyads’ (a person with dementia and a family carer together) from 15 sites but the time taken to achieve this was longer than originally estimated. This led to a study extension and the need for additional sites. Recruitment data revealed that certain sites were more successful than others, but why? Can the knowledge gained be used to inform other studies?
Methods Secondary analysis of routinely collected recruitment data from three purposefully selected sites was examined to understand the strategies used and identify successful approaches.
Findings At all three sites, the pool of potential recruits funnelled to a few participants. It took two sites 18 months longer than the third to achieve recruitment numbers despite additional efforts. Explanations given by potential participants for declining to take part included ill health, reporting they were ‘managing’, time constraints, adjusting to a diagnosis of dementia and burden of study procedures.
Conclusions Successful recruitment of people with dementia to studies, as one example of a hard to reach group, requires multiple strategies and close working between researchers and clinical services. It requires a detailed understanding of the needs and perspectives of the specific population and knowledge about how individuals can be supported to participate in research. Experiences of recruitment should be disseminated so that knowledge generated can be used to inform the planning and implementation of future research studies
The Magnetic Distortion Calibration System of the LHCb RICH1 Detector
The LHCb RICH1 detector uses hybrid photon detectors (HPDs) as its optical
sensors. A calibration system has been constructed to provide corrections for
distortions that are primarily due to external magnetic fields. We describe
here the system design, construction, operation and performance.Comment: 9 pages, 14 figure
High-Temperature series for the lattice spin model (generalized Maier-Saupe model of nematic liquid crystals) in two space dimensions and with general spin dimensionality n
High temperature series expansions of the spin-spin correlation functions of
the RP^{n-1} spin model on the square lattice are computed through order
beta^{8} for general spin dimensionality n. Tables are reported for the
expansion coefficients of the energy per site, the susceptibility and the
second correlation moment.Comment: 6 pages, revtex, IFUM 419/FT, 2 figures not include
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