Improving Pedestrian Safety with the Implementation of the Demand-Responsive Transverse Rumble Strip as a New Traffic Safety Countermeasure

The traditional TRS has been extensively used as a traffic calming device to provide cognitive alerts in the form of sound and vibration to drivers. However, TRS always remains fixed on the road and thus exerts cognitive alerts, irrespective of any potential downstream hazards. Moreover, the continuous exposure to rumble strips has been identified as a source of discomfort and annoyance for drivers, which limits its application to potentially useful scenarios. This study explores a rumble strip design with dynamic behavior named as Demand-Responsive Transverse Rumble Strip (DRTRS) in order to address the limitations of static TRS. The study incorporates DRTRS’ appropriate design dimensions and operation scheme, sound and vibration effect, speed-reducing effect, and pedestrian demand-based activation. In methodological procedures, the study explored four main aspects of DRTRS for designing and evaluating its effectiveness, which includes identification of optimum design dimensions, quantitative experimentation of in-vehicle sound and vibration, quantitative analysis of DRTRS effectiveness on drivers’ speed reductions, and prediction of the pedestrian demand for the activation mechanism of the DRTRS system. The study identified and selected the optimum width and depth of the rumble units of the DRTRS system prototype. The system was found to be effective in engaging the auditory and haptic senses of drivers, by generating discernible in-vehicle sound and vibration. Thereafter, the engagement of drivers’ cognitive senses yielded by the system had a significant effect on reducing vehicle speeds. In addition, the system can be set for flexible activation length based on the need from the crosswalks identified by pedestrian presence and prediction algorithms

The Relationship between Human Resource Management (HRM) Practices and Employee Selected Outcomes within the Organization: Empirical Evidence from Cement Manufacturing Company Limited in Bangladesh perspective

This is a compendium of the entire object which seeks to examine the association between human resource management practices and employee selected outcomes within the organizations. Data were collected through questionnaire from 100 employees. SPSS-16 was used to analyze the collected data. In this study, descriptive statistics, correlations, and multiple regression analysis have been applied to determine the contribution of each independent variable in human resource management practices within the organizations. The study shows that there is a significant relationship between independent and dependent variables. The result of the analysis revealed that HRM practices have a significant influence on employee selected outcomes like perceived organizational support, employee attitudes and behavior, affective and normative commitment and discretionary behavior within the organization. Furthermore, findings of this research paper emphasis on the presence and appearance of HR internal experts in the organizations which helps to achieve competitive advantage and improving organizational performance. Keywords: HR Practices, Employee Attitudes, Employee Commitment, Discretionary Behavior

Design and Preliminary Testing of Demand-Responsive Transverse Rumble Strips

Transverse rumble strips are common practice to alert drivers by engaging their auditory and tactile senses in addition to visual senses by traffic signals. However, continuous exposure to noise and vibration by transverse rumble strips often results in diminished effectiveness and erratic behaviors, leading to additional safety challenges. In response, demand-responsive transverse rumble strips were developed as traffic safety countermeasures that reduce unnecessary noise and vibration associated with transverse rumble strips by incorporating active control of the rumble strips. Rather than staying static, demand-responsive transverse rumble strips are activated based on the presence of pedestrians, at predesignated times, or in response to abrupt changes in traffic flow. To evaluate the effectiveness of demand-responsive transverse rumble strips, the research team assessed noise and vibration data, both inside the vehicles and on the roadside, for various types of vehicles traveling at different speeds. The test data indicate that demand-responsive transverse rumble strips produced noticeable in-vehicle noise and vibration that could alert drivers to downstream events. Furthermore, demand-responsive transverse rumble strips generated sufficient noise to alert roadside pedestrians to vehicle presence but at low enough level to be considered as acceptable for a residential neighborhood use. Accordingly, demand-responsive transverse rumble strips could address the challenges that static transverse rumble strips face, by providing a design with relatively limited noise while enhancing safety

Enhancing security of TAS/MRC-based mixed RF-UOWC system with induced underwater turbulence effect

Post commercial deployment of fifth-generation (5G) technologies, the consideration of sixth-generation (6G) networks is drawing remarkable attention from research communities. Researchers suggest that similar to 5G, 6G technology must be human-centric where high secrecy together with high data rate will be the key features. These challenges can be easily overcome utilizing PHY security techniques over high-frequency free-space or underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC) technologies. But in long-distance communication, turbulence components drastically affect the optical signals, leading to the invention of the combination of radio-frequency (RF) links with optical links. This article deals with the secrecy performance analysis of a mixed RF-UOWC system where an eavesdropper tries to intercept RF communications. RF and optical links undergo η−μ and mixture exponential generalized Gamma distributions, respectively. To keep pace with the high data rate of the optical technologies, we exploit the antenna selection scheme at the source and maximal ratio combining diversity at the relay and eavesdropper, while the eavesdropper is unaware of the antenna selection scheme. We derive closed-form expressions of average secrecy capacity, secrecy outage probability, and probability of strictly positive secrecy capacity to demonstrate the impacts of the system parameters on the secrecy behavior. Finally, the expressions are corroborated via Monte Carlo simulations

Security at the Physical Layer over GG Fading and mEGG Turbulence Induced RF-UOWC Mixed System

This work was supported in part by the National Research Foundation of Korea grant funded by the Korean Government (Ministry of Science and ICT) under Grant 2019R1A2C1083988, in part by the Ministry of Science and ICT, South Korea, under the Information Technology Research Center Support Program supervised by the Institute for Information and Communications Technology Planning and Evaluation, under Grant IITP-2021-2016-0-00313, and in part by Sejong University through its Faculty Research Program under Grant 20202021.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Opportunistic Relay Selection over Generalized Fading and Inverse Gamma Composite Fading Mixed Multicast Channels : A Secrecy Tradeoff

This work was supported in part by the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Korean Government, Ministry of Science and ICT, under Grant ICT-NRF-2020R1A2B5B02002478; and in part by Sejong University through its Faculty Research Program under Grant 20212023.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

On effective secrecy throughput of underlay spectrum sharing α - μ/ Málaga hybrid model under interference-and-transmit power constraints

The underlay cognitive radio-based hybrid radio frequency/free-space optical (RF/FSO) systems have emerged as a promising technology due to their ability to eliminate spectrum scarcity and spectrum under-utilization problems. The physical layer security of such a network with a primary user, a secondary source, a secondary receiver, and an eavesdropper is therefore examined in this work. In this network, secret communication occurs between two reliable secondary peers over the RF and FSO links simultaneously, and the eavesdropper can only overhear the RF link. In particular, the maximum transmits power limitation at the secondary user as well as the permissible interference power restriction at the primary user are also taken into consideration. All the RF and FSO links are modeled with α - μ fading and Málaga turbulence with link blockage and pointing error impairments. At the receiver, the selection combining diversity technique is utilized to select the signal with the best electrical signal-to-ratio (SNR). Furthermore, to examine the secrecy performance taking into account the effects of each system parameter, closed-form expressions for the secrecy outage probability and effective secrecy throughput are derived. The resultant expressions are finally verified by Monte-Carlo simulations

Formulation of Ketorolac Tromethamine for Controlled Release in Gastrointestinal and Colonic Delivery System

A suitable matrix system of ketorolac tromethamine (KTR) formulation has been developed with the aim of increasing the contact time, achieving controlled release, reducing the frequency of administration, improving patient compliance. In this concern an enteric-coated KTR matrix tablet intended for specific delivery of drugs to the colon by combining the use of a time dependent core with a pH-sensitive film coating. Eudragit L100, with a threshold pH 7, was selected as coating material.  New formulation is proved to be noble as to KTR delivery through both gastrointestinal and colonic system. New formulation is considered to reduce gastrointestinal side effects and achieve high local drug concentration at the afflicted site in the gastro-intestine and colon.

Evaluation of Demand-Responsive Transverse Rumble Strip Effects on Drivers' Behavioral Changes as a Traffic Calming Device

From 2008 to 2017, pedestrian traffic crash fatalities increased from 12% to 16% of the total, and 18% of those fatalities occurred at intersections. To actively alert drivers to pedestrian presence in a crosswalk, a new countermeasure, demand responsive transverse rumble strips (DRTRS), was developed. DRTRS generate noise and vibration only when needed in order to increase drivers' awareness and decrease lack of attention as a consequence of potential fatigue, distractions, or intoxication. This paper evaluated the effect of DRTRS on changing drivers' behavior in terms of speed reduction as they pass over the DRTRS on their approach to a pedestrian crosswalk. Radar and thermal cameras were used to collect vehicle timing, location, and speed data at upstream and downstream points, along with pedestrian crosswalk presence, to characterize drivers' responses to DRTRS. Results from the experiments were evaluated considering active versus inactive DRTRS, a benchmark reference of the roadway without DRTRS, and different vehicle speeds. Results show that active DRTRS significantly reduced average vehicle speeds.</p