Development of a Partial Proportional Odds Model for Pedestrian Injury Severity at Intersections

Pedestrian injury in crashes at intersections often results from complex interaction among various factors. The factor identification is a critical task for understanding the causes and improving the pedestrian safety. A total of 2,614 crash records at signalized and non-signalized intersections were applied. A Partial Proportional Odds (PPO) model was developed to examine the factors influencing Pedestrian Injury Severity (PIS) because it can accommodate the ordered response nature of injury severity. An elasticity analysis was conducted to quantify the marginal effects of contributing factors on the likelihood of PIS. For signalized intersections, seven explanatory variables significantly affect the likelihood of PIS, in which five explanatory variables violate the Proportional Odds Assumption (POA). Local driver, truck, holiday, clear weather, and hit-and-run lead to higher likelihood of severer PIS. For non-signalized intersections, six explanatory variables were found significant to the PIS, in which three explanatory variables violate the POA. Young and adult drivers, senior pedestrian, bus/van, divided road, holiday, and darkness tend to increase the likelihood of severer PIS. The vehicles of large size and heavy weight (e.g. truck, bus/van) are significant factors to the PIS at both signalized and non-signalized intersections. The proposed PPO model has demonstrated its effectiveness in identifying the effects of contributing factors on the PIS.</p

Isolation and Purification of Sesquiterpene Lactones from Ixeris sonchifolia (Bunge) Hance by High-Speed Counter- Current Chromatography and Semi-Preparative High Performance Liquid Chromatography

Purpose: To isolate and purify sesquiterpene lactones from Ixeris sonchifolia (Bunge) Hance by highspeed counter-current chromatography (HSCCC).Methods: I. sonchifolia was extracted with water and then loaded on a glass column (10 ~ 1500 cm containing 3000g D101 macroporous resin) where various concentrations of aqueous ethanol (0, 10, 30, 50, and 95 %) were used to elute the column successively. The 50 % ethanol fraction was  purified by HSCCC using a solvent system comprised of ethyl acetate: n-butanol: methanol: water (4: 6: 1: 20, v/v), and semi-preparative high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The chemical structures of thecomponents obtained were further confirmed by high-resolution mass spectroscopy (MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR).Results: Three compounds, including ixerin Z1 (0.7 mg), ixerin Z (11.4 mg), and 11, 13α-dihydroixerin Z (8.2 mg), with purity of 96.2, 98.2, and 98.4 %, respectively, were obtained from 200 mg each of the 50 % ethanol fraction.Conclusion: HSCCC is a rapid and effective method for isolating and purifying sesquiterpene lactones from I. sonchifolia.Keywords: Sesquiterpene lactones, High-speed counter-current chromatography, Ixeris sonchifolia, Ixerin, 13α-Dihydroixeri

In vitro callus induction and plant regeneration from mature seed embryo and young shoots in a giant sympodial bamboo, Dendrocalamus farinosus (Keng et Keng f.) Chia et H.L. Fung

The method for callus induction, adventitious shoot induction and plant regeneration derived from mature embryos of the seed and young shoots in Dendrocalamus farinosus was examined. For young shoots, the lowest callus induction frequency (21.0 to 29.7%) was obtained and the induced callus became brown and perished after two weeks. For mature embryos of the seed, an efficient protocol for callus induction, adventitious shoot induction and plant regeneration was developed. The best callus induction medium for mature embryos was observed to be Murashige and Skoog (MS) supplemented with 2.0 mg l-1 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T) in combination with 0.2 mg l-1 kinetin (Kn) plus 0.4 mg l-1 indole-3-butyric acid (IBA). Callus induction frequency was 95%. The highest adventitious shoot induction frequency (91.2 ± 2.18%) was obtained on MS medium supplemented with 2.5 mg l-1 kn plus 0.5 mg l-1 indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). The regenerated adventitious shoots were rooted in vitro on MS medium with 0.4 mg l-1 IBA plus 0.25 mg l-1 IAA. Rooted plantlets successfully acclimatized to the greenhouse and 90.1% survived after being transplanted to plastic pots (measuring 30 cm in  diameter) with garden soil.Key words: Callus culture, plant regeneration, making-pulp use, Dendrocalamus farinosus

Eliminación de DBP en aceite de onagra mediante arcilla activada modificada por chitosán y CTAB

The pollution of phthalic acid esters (PAEs) in edible oils is a serious problem. In the current study, we attempt to remove dibutyl phthalate ester (DBP) from evening primrose oil (EPO) with modified activated clay. The activated clay, commonly used for de-coloration in the oil refining process, was modified by chitosan and hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB). The modifications were characterized by SEM, XRD, and FT-IR. We further tested the DBP adsorption capacity of CTAB/chitosan-clay and found that the removal rate was 27.56% which was 3.24 times higher than with pristine activated clay. In addition, the CTAB/chitosan-clay composite treatment had no significant effect on the quality of evening primrose oil. In summary, the CTAB/chitosan-clay composite has a stronger DBP adsorption capacity and can be used as a new adsorbent for removing DBP during the de-coloration process of evening primrose oil.La contaminación por ésteres de ácido ftálico (PAEs) en los aceites comestibles es un problema grave. En el presente estudio, intentamos eliminar el éster de ftalato de dibutilo (DBP) del aceite de onagra (EPO) con arcilla activada modificada. La arcilla activada, comúnmente utilizada en la decoloración en el proceso de refinación de los aceites, fue modificada con chitosán y bromuro de hexadecil trimetil amonio (CTAB). Las modificaciones se caracterizaron mediante SEM, XRD y FT-IR. Además, probamos la capacidad de adsorción de DBP de CTAB / chitosán-arcilla y descubrimos que la tasa de eliminación era del 27,56%, que era 3,24 veces mayor que la arcilla activada pura. Además, el tratamiento compuesto de CTAB/chitosán-arcilla no tuvo un efecto significativo sobre la calidad del aceite de onagra. En resumen, el compuesto CTAB/chitosán-arcilla tiene una capacidad de adsorción de DBP más fuerte y se puede utilizar como un nuevo adsorbente para eliminar DBP durante el proceso de decoloración del aceite de onagra

Cluster Synchronization Control for Discrete-Time Complex Dynamical Networks: When Data Transmission Meets Constrained Bit Rate

© 2021 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.National Natural Science Foundation of China; Local Innovative and Research Teams Project of Guangdong Special Support Program; Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of German

Analyzing Coronary Artery Disease in Patients with Low CAC Scores by 64-Slice MDCT

Purpose. Coronary artery calcification (CAC) scores are widely used to determine risk for Coronary Artery Disease (CAD). A CAC score does not have the diagnostic accuracy needed for CAD. This work uses a novel efficient approach to predict CAD in patients with low CAC scores. Materials and Methods. The study group comprised 86 subjects who underwent a screening health examination, including laboratory testing, CAC scanning, and cardiac angiography by 64-slice multidetector computed tomographic angiography. Eleven physiological variables and three personal parameters were investigated in proposed model. Logistic regression was applied to assess the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of when using individual variables and CAC score. Meta-analysis combined physiological and personal parameters by logistic regression. Results. The diagnostic sensitivity of the CAC score was 14.3% when the CAC score was ≤30. Sensitivity increased to 57.13% using the proposed model. The statistically significant variables, based on beta values and P values, were family history, LDL-c, blood pressure, HDL-c, age, triglyceride, and cholesterol. Conclusions. The CAC score has low negative predictive value for CAD. This work applied a novel prediction method that uses patient information, including physiological and society parameters. The proposed method increases the accuracy of CAC score for predicting CAD

Low Resistance Polycrystalline Diamond Thin Films Deposited by Hot Filament Chemical Vapour Deposition

Polycrystalline diamond thin films with outgrowing diamond (OGD) grains were deposited onto silicon wafers using a hydrocarbon gas (CH4) highly diluted with H2 at low pressure in a hot filament chemical vapour deposition (HFCVD) reactor with a range of gas flow rates. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and SEM showed polycrystalline diamond structure with a random orientation. Polycrystalline diamond films with various textures were grown and (111) facets were dominant with sharp grain boundaries. Outgrowth was observed in flowerish character at high gas flow rates. Isolated single crystals with little openings appeared at various stages at low gas flow rates. Thus, changing gas flow rates had a beneficial influence on the grain size, growth rate and electrical resistivity. CVD diamond films gave an excellent performance for medium film thickness with relatively low electrical resistivity and making them potentially useful in many industrial applications

Spatially-resolved electronic and vibronic properties of single diamondoid molecules

Diamondoids are a unique form of carbon nanostructure best described as hydrogen-terminated diamond molecules. Their diamond-cage structures and tetrahedral sp3 hybrid bonding create new possibilities for tuning electronic band gaps, optical properties, thermal transport, and mechanical strength at the nanoscale. The recently-discovered higher diamondoids (each containing more than three diamond cells) have thus generated much excitement in regards to their potential versatility as nanoscale devices. Despite this excitement, however, very little is known about the properties of isolated diamondoids on metal surfaces, a very relevant system for molecular electronics. Here we report the first molecular scale study of individual tetramantane diamondoids on Au(111) using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. We find that both the diamondoid electronic structure and electron-vibrational coupling exhibit unique spatial distributions characterized by pronounced line nodes across the molecular surfaces. Ab-initio pseudopotential density functional calculations reveal that the observed dominant electronic and vibronic properties of diamondoids are determined by surface hydrogen terminations, a feature having important implications for designing diamondoid-based molecular devices.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures. to appear in Nature Material