Performance assessment of urban goods vehicles

Controlling greenhouse gas emissions is becoming increasingly more important. With road freight contributing to a significant amount of energy usage, finding ways to improve this sector will, in turn, lead to large reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, with one method to achieve this being to use larger vehicles. Currently, prescriptive legislation dictates the dimensions a vehicle can take. An alternative to this is to use ‘Performance-Based Standards (PBS)’. This involves determining a set of manoeuvres and performance metrics that a vehicle must perform and pass in order to be road-worthy, instead of saying a vehicle can be a certain size or a certain weight. Through innovation and optimisation, using this method will then allow larger vehicles that are safe for driving on the road to be built. The research conducted here involved creating a PBS framework based on low-speed manoeuvrability for rigid delivery vehicles as well as assessing the high-speed stability of articulated vehicles to determine whether they would be safe for use on urban roads. Additionally, design changes such as incorporating rear axle steering were considered to determine whether vehicles that had failed the proposed PBS framework could be made to pass

Performance assessment of urban goods vehicles

Controlling greenhouse gas emissions is becoming increasingly more important. With road freight contributing to a significant amount of energy usage, finding ways to improve this sector will in turn lead to large reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, with one method to achieve this being to use larger vehicles. Currently, prescriptive legislation dictates the dimensions a vehicle can take. An alternative to this is to use `Performance-Based Standards (PBS).' This involves determining a set of manoeuvres and performance metrics that a vehicle must perform and pass in order to be road-worthy, instead of saying a vehicle can be a certain size or a certain weight. Through innovation and optimisation, using this method will then allow larger vehicles that are safe for driving on the road to be built. The research conducted here involved creating a PBS framework based on low speed manoeuvrability for rigid delivery vehicles as well as assessing the high speed stability of articulated vehicles to determine whether they would be safe for use on urban roads. Additionally, design changes such as incorporating rear axle steering were considered to determine whether vehicles that had failed the proposed PBS framework could be made to pass.The Cambridge Vehicle Dynamics Consortium, The Centre for Sustainable Road Freigh

Edoxaban versus warfarin in patients with atrial fibrillation

Contains fulltext : 125374.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)BACKGROUND: Edoxaban is a direct oral factor Xa inhibitor with proven antithrombotic effects. The long-term efficacy and safety of edoxaban as compared with warfarin in patients with atrial fibrillation is not known. METHODS: We conducted a randomized, double-blind, double-dummy trial comparing two once-daily regimens of edoxaban with warfarin in 21,105 patients with moderate-to-high-risk atrial fibrillation (median follow-up, 2.8 years). The primary efficacy end point was stroke or systemic embolism. Each edoxaban regimen was tested for noninferiority to warfarin during the treatment period. The principal safety end point was major bleeding. RESULTS: The annualized rate of the primary end point during treatment was 1.50% with warfarin (median time in the therapeutic range, 68.4%), as compared with 1.18% with high-dose edoxaban (hazard ratio, 0.79; 97.5% confidence interval [CI], 0.63 to 0.99; P<0.001 for noninferiority) and 1.61% with low-dose edoxaban (hazard ratio, 1.07; 97.5% CI, 0.87 to 1.31; P=0.005 for noninferiority). In the intention-to-treat analysis, there was a trend favoring high-dose edoxaban versus warfarin (hazard ratio, 0.87; 97.5% CI, 0.73 to 1.04; P=0.08) and an unfavorable trend with low-dose edoxaban versus warfarin (hazard ratio, 1.13; 97.5% CI, 0.96 to 1.34; P=0.10). The annualized rate of major bleeding was 3.43% with warfarin versus 2.75% with high-dose edoxaban (hazard ratio, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.71 to 0.91; P<0.001) and 1.61% with low-dose edoxaban (hazard ratio, 0.47; 95% CI, 0.41 to 0.55; P<0.001). The corresponding annualized rates of death from cardiovascular causes were 3.17% versus 2.74% (hazard ratio, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.77 to 0.97; P=0.01), and 2.71% (hazard ratio, 0.85; 95% CI, 0.76 to 0.96; P=0.008), and the corresponding rates of the key secondary end point (a composite of stroke, systemic embolism, or death from cardiovascular causes) were 4.43% versus 3.85% (hazard ratio, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.78 to 0.96; P=0.005), and 4.23% (hazard ratio, 0.95; 95% CI, 0.86 to 1.05; P=0.32). CONCLUSIONS: Both once-daily regimens of edoxaban were noninferior to warfarin with respect to the prevention of stroke or systemic embolism and were associated with significantly lower rates of bleeding and death from cardiovascular causes. (Funded by Daiichi Sankyo Pharma Development; ENGAGE AF-TIMI 48 ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00781391.)