Traffic Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic: International Analysis of Social Separation and Activity Restriction

The purpose of this research was to assess, compare, and contrast the impact of COVID-19 activity restrictions on road-based transportation activity in regions of the US, Sweden, and China. Roadway traffic volumes were used to relate the progression of reported COVID-19 cases and government directives for social separation in three countries with diverse governmental responses. Among the contributions of this paper was the illustration of the timeline and level of public responses to closures and lockdowns, as represented through rapid traffic decreases, across the study countries. By the end of the study period (March 1 – May 31, 2020), only China had returned to pre-pandemic traffic levels, while the traffic in the US and Sweden remained considerably below pre-pandemic levels. At the end of the study period, only China reported zero COVID-19 cases, while the US and Sweden continued to report new daily cases with increases in numbers. The results of this study also illustrate the progression of the pandemic, based on governmental directives and compliance, as measured through roadway traffic detectors in individual countries. This research provides insights for practitioners, researchers, and government entities developing and accessing plans for future pandemics

Understanding the Contributing Factors to Nighttime Crashes at Freeway Mainline Segments

This study investigated the characteristics of the nighttime crashes at freeway mainline segments and the contributing factors to injury levels. The nighttime crash rate is 1.6 times more than daytime and the fatality rate is higher. In this study five injury levels, no injury, possible injury, non-incapacitating injury, capacitating injury, and fatal injury, were considered. Crash data (2005-2010) were collected for interstate highways in Florida. The no injury level was used as the baseline. Multinomial logit model (MNL) was selected to estimate the explanatory variables at 95% confidence. Contributing factors included driver-conditions, geometric-conditions, vehicle-conditions, crash-conditions, and environmental-conditions. This study concluded that safety equipment reduces crashes, alcohol, drugs and young drivers increase the likelihood of severe crashes

Adult Education in the German \u27Medienverbund\u27

Legasthenie is the German work for dyslexia

α1-microglobulin – Therapeutic opportunities in kidney and erythrocyte pathology

Oxidative stress is defined as an imbalance between oxidants and antioxidants. The reasons behind the condition are diverse, and can result in, or contribute to, the severity of many diseases. The body has different protective mechanisms to reduce the oxidative burden, among them a protein called α1-microglobulin (A1M). A1M possesses a unique set of molecular properties enabling it to act as aradical scavenger, reductase and heme-binder. Most tissues express AMBP, the gene encoding A1M, but the liver is the main site of synthesis. A1M circulates in the blood and is catabolized in the kidneys.Therefore, two interesting sites of action for A1M are the blood and the kidneys.The aim of this thesis was to investigate new therapeutic opportunities for A1M, with focus on renal and erythrocyte pathology. Paper I studied in vitro heme-induced stress in human proximal tubuleepithelial cells. A1M prevented cell death, stress response and mitochondrial dysfunction. In paper II, a 177Lu-DOTATATE cancer treatment mouse model showed that the radiation induced DNA breaks as well as functional and histological damage to the kidneys. The A1M-treated mice, however, showedsignificantly milder damage suggesting that A1M can be used as a radioprotector. Paper III investigated a 177Lu-PSMA-617 prostate cancer treatment mouse model. Only small alterations in kidney function were detected, nonetheless, they were ameliorated in A1M-injected mice. Moreover, it was concluded that A1M does not interfere with treatment.Paper IV presents the establishment and characterization of an A1M-knockout mouse. The lack of A1M generated misfolded bikunin, which is co-expressed with A1M in the intact gene. The A1M-knockout mice also showed increased ER-stress and weight-gain. Paper V shows that the A1Mknockoutmice had fewer red blood cells (RBCs) which also varied more in size, resembling a macrocytic anemia phenotype. Paper V also concludes that A1M has antihemolytic properties, and can protect adult, fetal and murine RBCs from various stressors. Paper VI discusses the therapeutic potential of the erythrostabilizing and antihemolytic effects of A1M in different hemolytic anderythropoietic conditions.In conclusion, the results in these studies suggest that the protective effects of A1M towards kidneys and red blood cells may be used in cancer radiotherapy, and in hemolytic and erythropoietic medicalconditions

Comparative Analysis of Wildfire & Hurricane Evacuations

Mass evacuations, particularly those at a statewide level, represent the largest single-event traffic movements that exist. These complex events can last several days, cover thousands of miles of roadway, and include hundreds of thousands of people and vehicles. Often, they are marked by enormous delays and heavy congestion and are nearly always criticized for their inefficiency and lack of management. However, there are no standardized methods by which to systematically quantify traffic characteristics at the proper scale. Several recent evacuations have occurred in the United States. Wildfire evacuations have been ordered in the state of California while Hurricanes have led to evacuations in the state of Florida. It has generally been accepted that the evacuation from a regional wildfire is fundamentally different than the evacuation from a hurricane. Hurricane evacuations generally encompass larger areas when compared to wildfire evacuations and provide several days of advanced warning. Whereas, wildfires impact smaller areas with significantly shorter warning time. On the other hand, at the broadest level, evacuees and their vehicles move in both time and space. This research seeks to develop a better understanding of the travel flow principles that govern the evacuation process and its impact on the mobility of a community, for different hazard types. The goal of this research is to build upon the prior knowledge and expand the scientific understanding of the evacuation process by systematically analyzing evacuations from hurricane and wildfire events

International Analysis on the Traffic Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The purpose of this research was to assess, compare, and contrast the impact of COVID-19 activity restrictions on road-based transportation activity in regions of the US, Sweden, and China from January 1st to December 31st, 2020. Roadway traffic volumes were used to relate the progression of reported COVID-19 cases and government directives for social separation in three countries with diverse governmental responses. Among the contributions of this paper was the illustration of the timeline and level of public responses to closures, lockdowns, and reopening as represented through rapid traffic decreases and increases. Traffic was greatly impacted, showing that the pandemic influenced activity and travel. A Monday-Monday traffic trend show that more normal traffic levels occurred on weekdays and largest decreases on weekends. Urban roads showed a more rapid response to directives than rural roads. At the study period end, only China and Florida returned to pre-pandemic traffic levels, only China reported zero COVID-19 cases. Sweden experienced a similar COVID-19 curve as the US and had fewer cases-per-million than most states. The findings indicate that rapid traffic decrease was associated with delaying initial COVID-19 peak and a longer time to return to normal traffic, likely delayed the second peak. This research provides insights for practitioners, researchers, and government entities developing and accessing plans for future pandemics. It is also expected that the findings of this study can be built upon by future researchers who continue to study various aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic and assess the public response to governmental actions

Interdependency of Port Clusters During Regional Disasters

Ports play a vital role in the economy of nations and provide a critical link in the supply chain. Ports form the gateway by which essential goods are received within large geographic regions. Because of their function, ports are exposed to substantial risk of flooding, storm events, sea-level-rise, and climate change. The resiliency of ports is essential for the economy, the people, and national readiness. The contribution of this research work is in providing a methodology to quantify port resiliency that is applicable at the individual port level and regionally. The research approach first defines a quantifiable measure of systematic resiliency. Then applies this measure to quantify the resiliency of six ports located in the Southeast U.S. impacted by Hurricane Matthew (2016). Based on the analysis of these individual ports, a regional resiliency assessment is then applied to quantify the regional resiliency of the impacted area. In general, the results showed that regionally, ports are more resilient to disruptive events than the individual ports that make up the region. This was likely because as one port enters the disrupted state, another may be entering the recovery state providing regional continuity. This may suggest that port clusters rely upon each other during disruptive events to increase the overall resiliency of waterborne commerce. In general, the study ports struggled to absorb the impact of the storm and subsequent closures, whereas adaptability and recovery were significantly higher

Methodology For Quantifying Resiliency of Transportation Systems

The National Science Foundation’s definition of resiliency is “the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, or more successfully adapt to actual or potential adverse events” (National Science Foundation, 2016). While this definition is informative and useful, it lacks a quantitative reference. There is a need for a method of quantifying resilience to better plan and prepare for system wide disruptions. The research effort described herein provides a quantifiable measures of system resiliency, consistent with NSF’s definition. Fundamentally, a system disruption can be partitioned into five distinctive states: the stable pre-event state, the absorption state, the disrupted state, the recovered state, and stable recovered state. The proposed method identifies these states by measuring system output and quantifies each component on a value scale between zero and one. The resiliency measure then unifies these metrics to provide an overall assessment of resiliency, which accounts for the system’s ability to absorb, recover, and adapt. This approach to quantifying resiliency is applicable to any real-world or simulated system with measurable outputs. This paper first documents the development of the resiliency quantification method and then applies the method toward five complex, real world, transportation systems undergoing disruptions. These case studies consisted of six maritime port, three airports, three power grids, two localized refueling systems, and the Colorado Department of Transportation’s cyber network. Each system had a measurable drop in functionality due to a disruption. In general the results of this research showed that the proposed method of quantifying resiliency can be utilized for any transportation system