Predicting the Impact of Changing Speed Limits on Traffic Safety and Mobility on Indiana Freeways

After repeal of the National Maximum Speed Limit Law, states were allowed to set individual speed limits on their interstate roads. Several states opted for a uniform speed limit while others implemented differential speed limits. The current speed limit on Indiana rural freeways limits speed of passenger cars to 70 mph and restricts to 65 mph speed of vehicles with a gross weight of 26,000 pounds or more. Indiana’s speed limit on urban freeways is mostly 55 mph, but varies from 50 mph on certain downtown sections to 65 mph on some suburban sections. Previous studies comparing uniform and differential speed limit settings as to safety and mobility produced inconclusive or conflicting results. This study evaluates the safety and mobility effects of alternative speed limit scenarios on Indiana interstate freeways. Differences in travel time, vehicle operation, and traffic safety were used to compare the speed-limit scenarios. The effect of speed limit was evaluated in hourly periods. The traffic conditions in these periods were classified as uncongested, intermediate, and congested and the speed limit effects were analyzed in relation to these conditions. Rural and urban freeways were analyzed separately and distinct speed models were developed for cars and trucks. Safety was estimated by probability of crash and the conditional probability of crash injury severity. Speed limit was found to affect mobility and safety mostly in non-congested traffic conditions, while no significant effects were found in congested conditions. A limited effect was detected in intermediate traffic conditions on rural freeways. Results indicate that replacing the differential 70/65 mph speed limit on Indiana rural roads with the uniform speed limit of 70 mph may be beneficial for both safety and mobility. Increasing speed limits on urban interstates is confirmed to be beneficial for mobility but detrimental to safety

Statistical Analysis of Safety Improvements and Integration into Project Design Process

RoadHAT is a tool developed by the Center for Road Safety and implemented for the INDOT safety management practice to help identify both safety needs and relevant road improvements. This study has modified the tool to facilitate a quick and convenient comparison of various design alternatives in the preliminary design stage for scoping small and medium safety-improvement projects. The modified RoadHAT 4D incorporates a statistical estimation of the Crash Reduction Factors based on a before-and-after analysis of multiple treated and control sites with EB correction for the regression-to-mean effect. The new version also includes the updated Safety Performance Functions, revised average costs of crashes, and the comprehensive table of Crash Modification Factors—all updated to reflect current Indiana conditions. The documentation includes updated Guidelines for Roadway Safety Improvements. The improved tool will be implemented at a sequence of workshops for the final end users and preceded with a beta-testing phase involving a small group of INDOT engineers

Percepción de las actividades de gamificación en el aprendizaje colaborativo para alumnos de Ingeniería Civil de una universidad pública. Lima.2019

La presente investigación tiene de propósito determinar la correlación causal de la percepción de las actividades de gamificación en sus tres dimensiones: dinámicas, mecánicas, componentes, con la variable aprendizaje colaborativo. En primer lugar, se cita los estudios realizados por investigadores para establecerlos de referencia en los antecedentes, además se realiza una revisión teórica de las temáticas para el marco teórico para ambas variables estudiadas. Se abordó una metodología de investigación teniendo de muestra 112 estudiantes de primer ciclo de la facultad de Ingeniería Civil de la Universidad Nacional Federico Villarreal, se aplicó la prueba de confiabilidad de alfa de cronbach llegándose a comprobar que el instrumento es válido y confiable, así también para el diseño de la investigación realizado ha sido de tipo no experimental: corte transversal y correlacional, el instrumento que se utilizó el cuestionario y el software para el procesamiento de datos IBM SPSS (Statistical Packageforthe Social Sciences) Versión 25. En los resultados se estableció una prueba no paramétrica, la metodología estadística aplicada a sido descriptiva expresada en las tablas y figuras para determinar las frecuencias relativas y el cruce de las variables, además se calculó la regresión logística multinomial por tener la variable independiente cualitativa con varias categorías. Por lo que se pudo llegar a la conclusión que la variable dependiente influye significativamente en la variable independiente, adicionalmente se comprueba que las dimensiones de la variable percepción de las actividades de gamificación con el cruce con la variable aprendizaje colaborativo presentan la misma relación descrita. Finalmente, se brinda las recomendaciones para mejorar la investigación el entorno educativo de la clase a través de los elementos de los juegos y crear los espacios de socialización para desarrollar el trabajo colaborativo promoviendo las buenas practicas e implementando estas metodologías innovadoras

Effective Design and Operation of Pedestrian Crossings

Pedestrians are vulnerable road users since they are prone to more severe injuries in any vehicular collision. While innovative solutions promise improved pedestrian safety, a careful analysis of local conditions is required before selecting proper corrective measures. This research study had two focuses: (1) methodology to identify roads and areas in Indiana where the frequency and severity of pedestrian collisions are heightened above the acceptable level, and (2) selecting effective countermeasures to mitigate or eliminate safety-critical conditions. Two general methods of identifying specific pedestrian safety concerns were proposed: (1) area-wide analysis, and (2) road-focused analysis. A suitable tool, Safety Needs Analysis Program (SNAP), is currently under development by the research team and is likely the future method to implement an area-wide type of analysis. The following models have been developed to facilitate the road-focused analysis: (1) pedestrian crossing activity level to fill the gap in pedestrian traffic data, and (2) crash probability and severity models to estimate the risk of pedestrian crashes around urban intersections in Indiana. The pedestrian safety model was effectively utilized in screening and identifying high-risk urban intersection segments for safety audits and improvements. In addition, detailed guidance was provided for many potential pedestrian safety countermeasures with specific behavioral and road conditions that justify these countermeasures. Furthermore, a procedure was presented to predict the economic feasibility of the countermeasures based on crash reduction factors. The findings of this study should help expand the existing RoadHAT tool used by the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) to emphasize and strengthen pedestrian safety considerations in the current tool

Updating RoadHAT: Collision Diagram Builder and HSM Elements

In order to minimize the losses resulting from traffic crashes, Indiana developed its road safety management methods before the Highway Safety Manual and the SafetyAnalyst became available. This study includes two related but distinct components: (1) comparison of the HSM-based and Indiana methods of safety management, and (2) development of a Collision Diagram Builder (CDB) to improve current Indiana safety management tools. This study concluded that the HSM SPFs would need to be calibrated to the Indiana conditions before they could be used. Calibrating the SPFs for so-called base conditions would lead to an insufficient number of roads and, consequently, to estimates that were not trustworthy. An advanced statistical simulation of a safety management system aimed to maximize the total safety benefit was performed. The results indicate that two best performing criteria: the HSM EPDO-based criterion and the Indiana total cost of crashes criterion are equivalent and they produce the same results. It is important that the HSM provides guidance as to which screening criteria support which screening objectives because some of the HSM criteria were found inadequate for maximizing the overall safety benefit. It also was concluded that although the cost of crashes and the Index of Crash Cost and Frequency used separately proved to be good screening criteria in Indiana, the combined use of these two measures did not deliver any considerable improvement. Two differences were found between the HSM and Indiana procedures for evaluating the benefits and costs of safety projects: the infinite period of analysis and the road capacity constraint on traffic growth. The differences between the two methods were quite limited and they could be fully reconciled if the capacity constraints was relaxed in the Indiana method and a long analysis period assumed in the HSM method. A second major component of the study was to improve the current Indiana safety management tool, RoadHAT2, by developing a computer application facilitating preparation of a so-called collision diagram. These diagrams are an important element of safety audits. The developed application reduces this time from one or two days to an hour or less. The application also provides additional tools for analyzing and visualization of crash patterns. A developed CDB User Manual introduces the user to the tool and provides examples to help the user get familiar with the application

A translational approach to assess the metabolomic impact of stabilized gold nanoparticles by NMR spectroscopy

[EN] Gold nanoparticles have high potential in the biomedical area, especially in disease diagnosis and treatment. The application of these nanoparticles requires the presence of stabilizers to avoid their agglomeration. Nowadays, there is a lack of reliable methods for characterising the effect of stabilised nanoparticles on biological systems. To this end, in this study, we apply an experimental approach based on nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to study the effect of gold nanoparticles, stabilised with cerium oxide or chitosan, on a human cancer cell model. The results showed that both systems have a significant effect, even at non-toxic levels, on the cellular antioxidant system. However, although particles functionalised with chitosan exerted a strong effect on the aerobic respiration, nanoparticles stabilised with cerium oxide had a higher impact on the mechanisms associated with anaerobic energy production. Therefore, even though both systems contained similar gold nanoparticles, the presence of different stabilizers strongly influenced their mode of action and potential applications in biomedicine.This work was supported by the Carlos III Health Institute, the European Regional Development Fund (PI16/02064 and CP13/00252) and the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (SAF2014-53977-R, SAF2017-89229-R and RD12/0036/0025). In addition, JRH is a recipient of a contract from the Ministry of Health of the Carlos III Health Institute.Herance, JR.; García Gómez, H.; Guitierrez Carcedo, P.; Navalón Oltra, S.; Pineda-Lucena, A.; Palomino-Schätzlein, M. (2019). A translational approach to assess the metabolomic impact of stabilized gold nanoparticles by NMR spectroscopy. The Analyst. 144(4):1265-1274. https://doi.org/10.1039/c8an01827hS126512741444Shi, J., Kantoff, P. W., Wooster, R., & Farokhzad, O. C. (2016). Cancer nanomedicine: progress, challenges and opportunities. Nature Reviews Cancer, 17(1), 20-37. doi:10.1038/nrc.2016.108Gioria, S., Lobo Vicente, J., Barboro, P., La Spina, R., Tomasi, G., Urbán, P., … Chassaigne, H. (2016). A combined proteomics and metabolomics approach to assess the effects of gold nanoparticlesin vitro. Nanotoxicology, 10(6), 736-748. doi:10.3109/17435390.2015.1121412Beik, J., Khademi, S., Attaran, N., Sarkar, S., Shakeri-Zadeh, A., Ghaznavi, H., & Ghadiri, H. (2017). A Nanotechnology-based Strategy to Increase the Efficiency of Cancer Diagnosis and Therapy: Folate-conjugated Gold Nanoparticles. Current Medicinal Chemistry, 24(39). doi:10.2174/0929867324666170810154917Nagi, N. M. S., Khair, Y. A. M., & Abdalla, A. M. E. (2017). Capacity of gold nanoparticles in cancer radiotherapy. Japanese Journal of Radiology, 35(10), 555-561. doi:10.1007/s11604-017-0671-6Gharatape, A., & Salehi, R. (2017). Recent progress in theranostic applications of hybrid gold nanoparticles. European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 138, 221-233. doi:10.1016/j.ejmech.2017.06.034Fang, J., Nakamura, H., & Maeda, H. (2011). The EPR effect: Unique features of tumor blood vessels for drug delivery, factors involved, and limitations and augmentation of the effect. Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, 63(3), 136-151. doi:10.1016/j.addr.2010.04.009Haume, K., Rosa, S., Grellet, S., Śmiałek, M. A., Butterworth, K. T., Solov’yov, A. V., … Mason, N. J. (2016). Gold nanoparticles for cancer radiotherapy: a review. Cancer Nanotechnology, 7(1). doi:10.1186/s12645-016-0021-xAzevedo, R. S. S., de Sousa, J. R., Araujo, M. T. F., Martins Filho, A. J., de Alcantara, B. N., Araujo, F. M. C., … Vasconcelos, P. F. C. (2018). In situ immune response and mechanisms of cell damage in central nervous system of fatal cases microcephaly by Zika virus. Scientific Reports, 8(1). doi:10.1038/s41598-017-17765-5Lin, Y., Wu, Z., Wen, J., Ding, K., Yang, X., Poeppelmeier, K. R., & Marks, L. D. (2015). Adhesion and Atomic Structures of Gold on Ceria Nanostructures: The Role of Surface Structure and Oxidation State of Ceria Supports. Nano Letters, 15(8), 5375-5381. doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b02694Menchón, C., Martín, R., Apostolova, N., Victor, V. M., Álvaro, M., Herance, J. R., & García, H. (2012). Gold Nanoparticles Supported on Nanoparticulate Ceria as a Powerful Agent against Intracellular Oxidative Stress. Small, 8(12), 1895-1903. doi:10.1002/smll.201102255Tiwari, P., Vig, K., Dennis, V., & Singh, S. (2011). Functionalized Gold Nanoparticles and Their Biomedical Applications. Nanomaterials, 1(1), 31-63. doi:10.3390/nano1010031Fathy, M. M., Mohamed, F. S., Elbialy, N., & Elshemey, W. M. (2018). Multifunctional Chitosan-Capped Gold Nanoparticles for enhanced cancer chemo-radiotherapy: An invitro study. Physica Medica, 48, 76-83. doi:10.1016/j.ejmp.2018.04.002Guo, X., Zhuang, Q., Ji, T., Zhang, Y., Li, C., Wang, Y., … Du, L. (2018). Multi-functionalized chitosan nanoparticles for enhanced chemotherapy in lung cancer. Carbohydrate Polymers, 195, 311-320. doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2018.04.087Lee, Y.-H., Kim, J.-S., Kim, J.-E., Lee, M.-H., Jeon, J.-G., Park, I.-S., & Yi, H.-K. (2017). Nanoparticle mediated PPARγ gene delivery on dental implants improves osseointegration via mitochondrial biogenesis in diabetes mellitus rat model. Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine, 13(5), 1821-1832. doi:10.1016/j.nano.2017.02.020Sun, I.-C., Na, J. H., Jeong, S. Y., Kim, D.-E., Kwon, I. C., Choi, K., … Kim, K. (2013). Biocompatible Glycol Chitosan-Coated Gold Nanoparticles for Tumor-Targeting CT Imaging. Pharmaceutical Research, 31(6), 1418-1425. doi:10.1007/s11095-013-1142-0Costa, P. M., & Fadeel, B. (2016). Emerging systems biology approaches in nanotoxicology: Towards a mechanism-based understanding of nanomaterial hazard and risk. Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology, 299, 101-111. doi:10.1016/j.taap.2015.12.014Lv, M., Huang, W., Chen, Z., Jiang, H., Chen, J., Tian, Y., … Xu, F. (2015). Metabolomics techniques for nanotoxicity investigations. Bioanalysis, 7(12), 1527-1544. doi:10.4155/bio.15.83Nagana Gowda, G. A., Barding, G. A., Dai, J., Gu, H., Margineantu, D. H., Hockenbery, D. M., & Raftery, D. (2018). A Metabolomics Study of BPTES Altered Metabolism in Human Breast Cancer Cell Lines. Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences, 5. doi:10.3389/fmolb.2018.00049Ali, M. R. K., Wu, Y., Han, T., Zang, X., Xiao, H., Tang, Y., … El-Sayed, M. A. (2016). Simultaneous Time-Dependent Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy, Metabolomics, and Proteomics Reveal Cancer Cell Death Mechanisms Associated with Gold Nanorod Photothermal Therapy. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 138(47), 15434-15442. doi:10.1021/jacs.6b08787Esumi, K., Takei, N., & Yoshimura, T. (2003). Antioxidant-potentiality of gold–chitosan nanocomposites. Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces, 32(2), 117-123. doi:10.1016/s0927-7765(03)00151-6Du, S., Kendall, K., Toloueinia, P., Mehrabadi, Y., Gupta, G., & Newton, J. (2012). Aggregation and adhesion of gold nanoparticles in phosphate buffered saline. Journal of Nanoparticle Research, 14(3). doi:10.1007/s11051-012-0758-zUlrich, E. L., Akutsu, H., Doreleijers, J. F., Harano, Y., Ioannidis, Y. E., Lin, J., … Markley, J. L. (2007). BioMagResBank. Nucleic Acids Research, 36(Database), D402-D408. doi:10.1093/nar/gkm957Wishart, D. S., Feunang, Y. D., Marcu, A., Guo, A. C., Liang, K., Vázquez-Fresno, R., … Scalbert, A. (2017). HMDB 4.0: the human metabolome database for 2018. Nucleic Acids Research, 46(D1), D608-D617. doi:10.1093/nar/gkx1089Mosmann, T. (1983). Rapid colorimetric assay for cellular growth and survival: Application to proliferation and cytotoxicity assays. Journal of Immunological Methods, 65(1-2), 55-63. doi:10.1016/0022-1759(83)90303-4Yang, L., Shang, L., & Nienhaus, G. U. (2013). Mechanistic aspects of fluorescent gold nanocluster internalization by live HeLa cells. Nanoscale, 5(4), 1537. doi:10.1039/c2nr33147kZhitomirsky, B., Farber, H., & Assaraf, Y. G. (2018). LysoTracker and MitoTracker Red are transport substrates of P‐glycoprotein: implications for anticancer drug design evading multidrug resistance. Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, 22(4), 2131-2141. doi:10.1111/jcmm.13485Chong, J., Soufan, O., Li, C., Caraus, I., Li, S., Bourque, G., … Xia, J. (2018). MetaboAnalyst 4.0: towards more transparent and integrative metabolomics analysis. Nucleic Acids Research, 46(W1), W486-W494. doi:10.1093/nar/gky310Stepanenko, A. A., & Dmitrenko, V. V. (2015). Pitfalls of the MTT assay: Direct and off-target effects of inhibitors can result in over/underestimation of cell viability. Gene, 574(2), 193-203. doi:10.1016/j.gene.2015.08.009Choi, S. Y., Jang, S. H., Park, J., Jeong, S., Park, J. H., Ock, K. S., … Lee, S. Y. (2012). Cellular uptake and cytotoxicity of positively charged chitosan gold nanoparticles in human lung adenocarcinoma cells. Journal of Nanoparticle Research, 14(12). doi:10.1007/s11051-012-1234-5De Carvalho, T. G., Garcia, V. B., de Araújo, A. A., da Silva Gasparotto, L. H., Silva, H., Guerra, G. C. B., … de Araújo Júnior, R. F. (2018). Spherical neutral gold nanoparticles improve anti-inflammatory response, oxidative stress and fibrosis in alcohol-methamphetamine-induced liver injury in rats. International Journal of Pharmaceutics, 548(1), 1-14. doi:10.1016/j.ijpharm.2018.06.008Carrola, J., Bastos, V., Ferreira de Oliveira, J. M. P., Oliveira, H., Santos, C., Gil, A. M., & Duarte, I. F. (2016). Insights into the impact of silver nanoparticles on human keratinocytes metabolism through NMR metabolomics. Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics, 589, 53-61. doi:10.1016/j.abb.2015.08.022Fröhlich, E. (2012). The role of surface charge in cellular uptake and cytotoxicity of medical nanoparticles. International Journal of Nanomedicine, 5577. doi:10.2147/ijn.s36111Gürer, H., Özgünes, H., Saygin, E., & Ercal, N. (2001). Antioxidant Effect of Taurine Against Lead-Induced Oxidative Stress. Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, 41(4), 397-402. doi:10.1007/s002440010265Lee, S.-H., Wang, T.-Y., Hong, J.-H., Cheng, T.-J., & Lin, C.-Y. (2016). NMR-based metabolomics to determine acute inhalation effects of nano- and fine-sized ZnO particles in the rat lung. Nanotoxicology, 10(7), 924-934. doi:10.3109/17435390.2016.1144825Saborano, R., Wongpinyochit, T., Totten, J. D., Johnston, B. F., Seib, F. P., & Duarte, I. F. (2017). Metabolic Reprogramming of Macrophages Exposed to Silk, Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid), and Silica Nanoparticles. Advanced Healthcare Materials, 6(14), 1601240. doi:10.1002/adhm.201601240Bo, Y., Jin, C., Liu, Y., Yu, W., & Kang, H. (2014). Metabolomic analysis on the toxicological effects of TiO2nanoparticles in mouse fibroblast cells: from the perspective of perturbations in amino acid metabolism. Toxicology Mechanisms and Methods, 24(7), 461-469. doi:10.3109/15376516.2014.939321Shea, T. B., Ekinci, F. J., Ortiz, D., Dawn-Linsley, M., Wilson, T. O., & Nicolosi, R. J. (2002). Efficacy of vitamin E, phosphatidyl choline, and pyruvate on buffering neuronal degeneration and oxidative stress in cultured cortical neurons and in central nervous tissue of apolipoprotein E-deficient mice. Free Radical Biology and Medicine, 33(2), 276-282. doi:10.1016/s0891-5849(02)00872-9Schätzlein, M. P., Becker, J., Schulze-Sünninghausen, D., Pineda-Lucena, A., Herance, J. R., & Luy, B. (2018). Rapid two-dimensional ALSOFAST-HSQC experiment for metabolomics and fluxomics studies: application to a 13C-enriched cancer cell model treated with gold nanoparticles. Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, 410(11), 2793-2804. doi:10.1007/s00216-018-0961-6HUNTER, A. (2006). Molecular hurdles in polyfectin design and mechanistic background to polycation induced cytotoxicity☆. Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, 58(14), 1523-1531. doi:10.1016/j.addr.2006.09.008Ratnasekhar, C., Sonane, M., Satish, A., & Mudiam, M. K. R. (2015). Metabolomics reveals the perturbations in the metabolome ofCaenorhabditis elegansexposed to titanium dioxide nanoparticles. Nanotoxicology, 9(8), 994-1004. doi:10.3109/17435390.2014.99334