Identification of vehicle related risk factors, deliverable 6.1 of the H2020 project SafetyCube

The present Deliverable (D6.1) describes the identification and evaluation of vehicle related risk factors. It outlines the results of Task 6.1 of Work Package 6 (WP6) of SafetyCube, which aimed to identify and evaluate vehicle related risk factors and related road safety problems by (i) presenting a taxonomy of vehicle related risks, (ii) identifying “hot topics” of concern for relevant stakeholders and (iii) evaluating the relative importance for road safety outcomes (crash risk, crash frequency and severity etc.) within the scientific literature for each identified risk factor. To reach this objective, Task 6.1 has initially exploited current knowledge (e.g. existing studies) and existing accident data (macroscopic and in-depth) in order to quantify scenarios (defined in Work Package 8) related to the vehicle element. This information will help further on in WP6 to identify countermeasures for addressing these risk factors and finally to undertake an assessment of the effects of these countermeasures (...continues)

Description of data-sources used in SafetyCube. Deliverable 3.1 of the H2020 project SafetyCube

Safety CaUsation, Benefits and Efficiency (SafetyCube) is a European Commission supported Horizon 2020 project with the objective of developing an innovative road safety Decision Support System (DSS) that will enable policy-makers and stakeholders to select and implement the most appropriate strategies, measures and cost-effective approaches to reduce casualties of all road user types and all severities. This deliverable describes the available data in the form of an inventory of databases that can be used for analyses within the project. Two general types of data are available: one describing the involvement of different components for the road safety (vehicles, infrastructure, and the road user) and one describing the injury outcomes of a crash. These two database categories are available to the partners of SafetyCube and gathered in two excel tables. One table contains traffic databases (accident and naturalistic driving studies) and the second table contains injury databases. The tables contain information on 58 and 35 variables, respectively. The key information describing the databases that was needed for the inventory were items such as: Type of data collected (crashes, injuries, etc.) Documentation of the variables Sampling criteria for the data collected SafetyCube partners with access to the data Extent of data access (raw data vs. summary tables) The tables contain 36 traffic accident databases, five naturalistic driving studies or field-tests and 22 injury databases where of four were coded in both sheets

Evidence that talin alternative splice variants from Ciona intestinalis have different roles in cell adhesion

BACKGROUND: Talins are large, modular cytoskeletal proteins found in animals and amoebozoans such as Dictyostelium discoideum. Since the identification of a second talin gene in vertebrates, it has become increasingly clear that vertebrate Talin1 and Talin2 have non-redundant roles as essential links between integrins and the actin cytoskeleton in distinct plasma membrane-associated adhesion complexes. The conserved C-terminal I/LWEQ module is important for talin function. This structural element mediates the interaction of talins with F-actin. The I/LWEQ module also targets mammalian Talin1 to focal adhesion complexes, which are dynamic multicomponent assemblies required for cell adhesion and cell motility. Although Talin1 is essential for focal adhesion function, Talin2 is not targeted to focal adhesions. The nonvertebrate chordate Ciona intestinalis has only one talin gene, but alternative splicing of the talin mRNA produces two proteins with different C-terminal I/LWEQ modules. Thus, C. intestinalis contains two talins, Talin-a and Talin-b, with potentially different activities, despite having only one talin gene. RESULTS: We show here that, based on their distribution in cDNA libraries, Talin-a and Talin-b are differentially expressed during C. intestinalis development. The I/LWEQ modules of the two proteins also have different affinities for F-actin. Consistent with the hypothesis that Talin-a and Talin-b have different roles in cell adhesion, the distinct I/LWEQ modules of Talin-a and Talin-b possess different subcellular targeting determinants. The I/LWEQ module of Talin-a is targeted to focal adhesions, where it most likely serves as the link between integrin and the actin cytoskeleton. The Talin-b I/LWEQ module is not targeted to focal adhesions, but instead preferentially labels F-actin stress fibers. These different properties of C. intestinalis the Talin-a and Talin-b I/LWEQ modules mimic the differences between mammalian Talin1 and Talin2. CONCLUSION: Vertebrates and D. discoideum contain two talin genes that encode proteins with different functions. The urochordate C. intestinalis has a single talin gene but produces two separate talins by alternative splicing that vary in a domain crucial for talin function. This suggests that multicellular organisms require multiple talins as components of adhesion complexes. In C. intestinalis, alternative splicing, rather than gene duplication followed by neo-functionalization, accounts for the presence of multiple talins with different properties. Given that C. intestinalis is an excellent model system for chordate biology, the study of Talin-a and Talin-b will lead to a deeper understanding of cell adhesion in the chordate lineage and how talin functions have been parceled out to multiple proteins during metazoan evolution