Effects of a mandatory safety belt law on hospital admissions

Although the effectiveness of automobile safety belts in reducing risk of serious injury in traffic crashes is well documented, safety belt use in many U.S. jurisdictions remains low. Michigan's mandatory safety belt law for front-seat occupants, implemented in July 1985, is one of 34 similar laws in the United States intended to increase belt use and reduce crash-related injuries. Using time-series intervention analyses of data from 14 hospitals throughout the state, we found a 19% reduction in the rate of admitted patients for all automobile occupant injuries and a 20% reduction in the rate of admitted patients with extremity injuries following implementation of the safety belt law. The utility of hospital data for the evaluation of interventions like the safety belt law reinforce the importance of consistently recording E-codes for all injury patients.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/28539/1/0000337.pd

'Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is!': Effects of Streaks on Confidence and Betting in a Binary Choice Task.

This is the final published version. It first appeared at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bdm.1844/abstract.Human choice under uncertainty is influenced by erroneous beliefs about randomness. In simple binary choice tasks, such as red/black predictions in roulette, long outcome runs (e.g. red, red, red) typically increase the tendency to predict the other outcome (i.e. black), an effect labeled the "gambler's fallacy." In these settings, participants may also attend to streaks in their predictive performance. Winning and losing streaks are thought to affect decision confidence, although prior work indicates conflicting directions. Over three laboratory experiments involving red/black predictions in a sequential roulette task, we sought to identify the effects of outcome runs and winning/losing streaks upon color predictions, decision confidence and betting behavior. Experiments 1 (n = 40) and 3 (n = 40) obtained trial-by-trial confidence ratings, with a win/no win payoff and a no loss/loss payoff, respectively. Experiment 2 (n = 39) obtained a trial-by-trial bet amount on an equivalent scale. In each experiment, the gambler's fallacy was observed on choice behavior after color runs and, in experiment 2, on betting behavior after color runs. Feedback streaks exerted no reliable influence on confidence ratings, in either payoff condition. Betting behavior, on the other hand, increased as a function of losing streaks. The increase in betting on losing streaks is interpreted as a manifestation of loss chasing; these data help clarify the psychological mechanisms underlying loss chasing and caution against the use of betting measures ("post-decision wagering") as a straightforward index of decision confidence. © 2014 The Authors. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Pion-Nucleon Scattering in Kadyshevsky Formalism: I Meson Exchange Sector

In a series of two papers we present the theoretical results of $\pi N$/meson-baryon scattering in the Kadyshevsky formalism. In this paper the results are given for meson exchange diagrams. On the formal side we show, by means of an example, how general couplings, i.e. couplings containing multiple derivatives and/or higher spin fields, should be treated. We do this by introducing and applying the Takahashi-Umezawa and the Gross-Jackiw method. For practical purposes we introduce the $\bar{P}$ method. We also show how the Takashashi-Umezawa method can be derived using the theory of Bogoliubov and collaborators and the Gross-Jackiw method is also used to study the $n$-dependence of the Kadyshevsky integral equation. Last but not least we present the second quantization procedure of the quasi particle in Kadyshevsky formalism.Comment: 29 page

Characteristics of child safety seat users

Direct observation of child restraint use was combined with interviews and mail questionnaires to measure prevalence of various child restraint practices and factors related to use of child safety seats and seat belts for children under the age of four. Trained observers assessed multiple dimensions of child restraint practices for a sample of motorists entering fastfood parking lots in Michigan. On-site interviews and follow-up questionnaires measured sociodemographic, attitudinal, belief, and behavioral characteristics related to restraint use. Ninety-two percent of infants under age 1 and 55% of children age 1 to 3 were traveling in a child safety seat. Public support for the mandatory child restraint law was very high--9 out of 10 believed it should be strictly enforced. Child restraint use was lower than average among motorists who: (1) had low family incomes, (2) were not currently married, (3) were of nonwhite ethnic backgrounds, and (4) were over the age of 40. A shift in social norms appears to have occurred in recent years, such that restraint of young children traveling in cars is now socially expected behavior. Recommendations include: (1) continuing educational efforts to increase knowledge of mandatory child restraint use laws, and (2) increased enforcement of mandatory child restraint use laws.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/27201/1/0000204.pd

Reductions in police-reported injuries associated with Michigan's safety belt law

This research measured the effects of Michigan's compulsory safety belt use law on traffic crashes and injuries of various severities. Using time-series methods, the authors analyzed monthly frequencies of crash-induced injuries and fatalities from January 1978 through December 1987. Exposure to risk of occupant injury was controlled statistically by including aggregate frequency of crashes as a covariate in time-series models. Effects of economic conditions on traffic crashes were controlled by including an index of unemployment as a covariate. The following statistically significant effects were associated with the safety belt law: (a) In crashes with minor vehicle damage, there was a 14.6% reduction in B-level injuries, an 11.0% reduction in C-level injuries, and a 13.0% reduction in aggregate (KABC) injuries; (b) in crashes with moderate vehicle damage, there was a 16.8% reduction in A-level injuries, an 11.6% reduction in B-level injuries, a 10.7% reduction in C-level injuries, and a 3.6% reduction in aggregate (KABC) injuries; (c) in crashes with severe vehicle damage, there was a 6.3% reduction in fatalities, an 11.8% reduction in B-level injuries, a 4.7% reduction in c-level injuries, and a 5.8% reduction in aggregate (KABC) injuries; (d) for all vehicle damage severities, there was a 14.0% reduction in B-level injuries, an 8.3% reduction in C-level injuries, and a 6.4% reduction in injuries to front-seat occupants. Based on these results, Michigan's adult safety belt law has prevented 31,710 injuries from July 1985 through December 1988.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/28625/1/0000439.pd

Bayesian Data-Driven approach enhances synthetic flood loss models

Flood loss estimation models are developed using synthetic or empirical approaches. The synthetic approach consists of what-if scenarios developed by experts. The empirical models are based on statistical analysis of empirical loss data. In this study, we propose a novel Bayesian Data-Driven approach to enhance established synthetic models using available empirical data from recorded events. For five case studies in Western Europe, the resulting Bayesian Data-Driven Synthetic (BDDS) model enhances synthetic model predictions by reducing the prediction errors and quantifying the uncertainty and reliability of loss predictions for post-event scenarios and future events. The performance of the BDDS model for a potential future event is improved by integration of empirical data once a new flood event affects the region. The BDDS model, therefore, has high potential for combining established synthetic models with local empirical loss data to provide accurate and reliable flood loss predictions for quantifying future risk

Архітектурна спадщина Закарпаття під натиском новобуду

Multilocus sequence types (STs) were determined for 232 and 737 Campylobacter jejuni/coli isolates from Dutch travellers and domestically acquired cases, respectively. Putative risk factors for travel-related campylobacteriosis, and for domestically acquired campylobacteriosis caused by exotic STs (putatively carried by returning travellers), were investigated. Travelling to Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Southern Europe significantly increased the risk of acquiring campylobacteriosis compared to travelling within Western Europe. Besides eating chicken, using antacids, and having chronic enteropathies, we identified eating vegetable salad outside Europe, drinking bottled water in high-risk destinations, and handling/eating undercooked pork as possible risk factors for travel-related campylobacteriosis. Factors associated with domestically acquired campylobacteriosis caused by exotic STs involved predominantly person-to-person contacts around popular holiday periods. We concluded that putative determinants of travel-related campylobacteriosis differ from those of domestically acquired infections and that returning travellers may carry several exotic strains that might subsequently spread to domestic populations even through limited person-to-person transmission

Easy on that trigger dad: a study of long term family photo retrieval

We examine the effects of new technologies for digital photography on people's longer term storage and access to collections of personal photos. We report an empirical study of parents' ability to retrieve photos related to salient family events from more than a year ago. Performance was relatively poor with people failing to find almost 40% of pictures. We analyze participants' organizational and access strategies to identify reasons for this poor performance. Possible reasons for retrieval failure include: storing too many pictures, rudimentary organization, use of multiple storage systems, failure to maintain collections and participants' false beliefs about their ability to access photos. We conclude by exploring the technical and theoretical implications of these findings

Isotope shift in the electron affinity of chlorine

The specific mass shift in the electron affinity between ^{35}Cl and ^{37}Cl has been determined by tunable laser photodetachment spectroscopy to be -0.51(14) GHz. The isotope shift was observed as a difference in the onset of the photodetachment process for the two isotopes. In addition, the electron affinity of Cl was found to be 29138.59(22) cm^{-1}, giving a factor of 2 improvement in the accuracy over earlier measurements. Many-body calculations including lowest-order correlation effects demonstrates the sensitivity of the specific mass shift and show that the inclusion of higher-order correlation effects would be necessary for a quantitative description.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, LaTeX2e, amsmat