The risk of road traffic crashes for occupational drivers: A responsibility study with comparison to the general population.

Background: Road accidents are the leading type of work-related fatalities, but the impact of work-related travel on overall traffic safety has been scarcely studied.

Objective: The main objective of the present study was to assess drivers' relative road accident risk between work-related and personal journeys.

Methods: A responsible/non-responsible case-control study was performed on a sample of 7,051 road accidents in France from the VOIESUR project.

Climate-related range shifts in Arctic-breeding shorebirds.

Aim: To test whether the occupancy of shorebirds has changed in the eastern Canadian Arctic, and whether these changes could indicate that shorebird distributions are shifting in response to long-term climate change.

Location: Foxe Basin and Rasmussen Lowlands, Nunavut, Canada.

Methods: We used a unique set of observations, made 25 years apart, using general linear models to test if there was a relationship between changes in shorebird species' occupancy and their species temperature Index, a simple version of a species climate envelope.

When epidemiological databases inform injury mechanisms: biomechanical analysis of injury associations.

Background: Vehicle accidents are still a heavy social burden despite improvements due the latest technologies and policies. To pursue the trend of decrease, having a more detailed view and understanding of the injury patterns would contribute to inform both the rescue team to optimize victim's management and policymakers in order for them to tackle at best this issue.

Methods: Two complementary analyses of injury associations were performed, one using a biomechanical classification and the other an anatomic one, computed on data stratified by car accident type (lateral or frontal).

Deer exclusion unveils abiotic filtering in forest understorey plant assemblages.

Background And Aims: The role of deer (family Cervidae) in ecosystem functioning has traditionally been neglected by forest ecologists due to the animal's scarcity in most parts of the northern hemisphere. However, the dramatic rebound in deer populations throughout the 20th century has brought deer browsing to the forefront of forest ecological questioning. Today there is ample evidence that deer affect tree regeneration, understorey plant and animal diversity, and even litter decomposition.

Estimated number of seriously injured road users admitted to hospital in France between 2010 and 2017, based on medico-administrative data.

Background: In France, like in most developed countries, the number of road accident fatalities is estimated from police data. These estimates are considered to be good-quality, unlike estimates of road injuries admitted to hospital, and especially serious injuries.

Methods: The present study aimed to supply such data from French hospital medical information data-bases (PMSI).

Deer slow down litter decomposition by reducing litter quality in a temperate forest.

Litter decomposition is a key process that allows the recycling of nutrients within ecosystems. In temperate forests, the role of large herbivores in litter decomposition remains a subject of debate. To address this question, we used two litterbag experiments in a quasiexperimental situation resulting from the introduction of Sitka black-tailed deer Odocoileus hemionus sitkensis on forested islands of Haida Gwaii (Canada).

Biodiversity policy beyond economic growth.

Increasing evidence-synthesized in this paper-shows that economic growth contributes to biodiversity loss via greater resource consumption and higher emissions. Nonetheless, a review of international biodiversity and sustainability policies shows that the majority advocate economic growth. Since improvements in resource use efficiency have so far not allowed for absolute global reductions in resource use and pollution, we question the support for economic growth in these policies, where inadequate attention is paid to the question of how growth can be decoupled from biodiversity loss.

Deer, wolves, and people: costs, benefits and challenges of living together.

Human-driven species annihilations loom as a major crisis. However the recovery of deer and wolf populations in many parts of the northern hemisphere has resulted in conflicts and controversies rather than in relief. Both species interact in complex ways with their environment, each other, and humans.

Prediction of responsibility for drivers and riders involved in injury road crashes.

Introduction: Responsibility analysis allows the evaluation of crash risk factors from crash data only, but requires a reliable responsibility assessment. The aim of the present study is to predict expert responsibility attribution (considered as a gold-standard) from explanatory variables available in crash data routinely recorded by the police, according to a data-driven process with explicit rules.

Method: Driver responsibility was assessed by experts using all information contained in police reports for a sample of about 5000 injury crashes that occurred in France in 2011.

Descriptive analysis of the effect of back protector on the prevention of vertebral and thoracolumbar injuries in serious motorcycle accident.

Context And Objective: Among the different products and protective gear used by riders of two-wheeled motorized vehicles, back protectors that are designed to prevent damage to the spinal column are widely used today compared other protections. However, few studies measure their effectiveness. Can their effectiveness be measured? How do they help decrease or change the nature of thoracolumbar traumas that occur? To address these questions and remedy the lack of objective data regarding these products, an epidemiological, clinical, and biomechanical analysis of motorcycle riders who were admitted to a French trauma center after an accident was performed.

Increasing crop heterogeneity enhances multitrophic diversity across agricultural regions.

Agricultural landscape homogenization has detrimental effects on biodiversity and key ecosystem services. Increasing agricultural landscape heterogeneity by increasing seminatural cover can help to mitigate biodiversity loss. However, the amount of seminatural cover is generally low and difficult to increase in many intensively managed agricultural landscapes.

Does a full-face helmet effectively protect against facial injuries?

Background: The effectiveness of helmet use in preventing or reducing the severity of head injuries has been largely demonstrated. However, the effectiveness of different types of helmets in reducing facial or non-facial head injuries has received much less attention.

Methods: A postal survey on motorized two-wheeler crashes was conducted in 2016.

Analysis of trunk impact conditions in motorcycle road accidents based on epidemiological, accidentological data and multibody simulations.

Motorcycle accidents lead to a high rate of traffic mortality and morbidity. While helmet development and mandatory wearing have reduced head injuries, little progress has been made regarding trunk protection. Wearable airbag devices represent a promising solution to prevent trunk injuries.

Effectiveness of protective clothing for motorized 2-wheeler riders.

Objective: This study assesses the effectiveness of protective clothing (motorcycle jacket, trousers, gloves, knee-high or ankle boots, back protection) for motorized 2-wheeler (MTW) riders.

Methods: This retrospective observational study used injury data from the Rhône Registry of Road Accident Victims, plus a postal survey conducted in 2016. Seven thousand one hundred forty-eight MTW riders involved in accidents between 2010 and 2014 were identified from the Registry and were invited to complete a questionnaire.

Landscape configurational heterogeneity by small-scale agriculture, not crop diversity, maintains pollinators and plant reproduction in western Europe.

Agricultural intensification is one of the main causes for the current biodiversity crisis. While reversing habitat loss on agricultural land is challenging, increasing the farmland configurational heterogeneity (higher field border density) and farmland compositional heterogeneity (higher crop diversity) has been proposed to counteract some habitat loss. Here, we tested whether increased farmland configurational and compositional heterogeneity promote wild pollinators and plant reproduction in 229 landscapes located in four major western European agricultural regions.

Burden of injury of serious road injuries in six EU countries.

Background: Information about the burden of (non-fatal) road traffic injury is very useful to further improve road safety policy. Previous studies calculated the burden of injury in individual countries. This paper estimates and compares the burden of non-fatal serious road traffic injuries in six EU countries/regions: Austria, Belgium, England, The Netherlands, the Rhône region in France and Spain.

Risk factors for motorcycle loss-of-control crashes.

Objective: The present article identifies and assesses the effect of critical factors on the risk of motorcycle loss-of-control (LOC) crashes.

Method: Data come from a French project on road crashes, which include all fatal road crashes and a random sample of 1/20th of nonfatal crashes in France in 2011, based on police reports. A case-control study was carried out on a sample of 903 crashes for 444 LOC motorcycle riders (case) and 470 non-LOC and nonresponsible motorcycle riders (control).

Cannabis, alcohol and fatal road accidents.

Introduction: This research aims to estimate the relative risks of responsibility for a fatal accident linked to driving under the influence of cannabis or alcohol, the prevalence of these influences among drivers and the corresponding attributable risk ratios. A secondary goal is to estimate the same items for three other groups of illicit drugs (amphetamines, cocaine and opiates), and to compare the results to a similar study carried out in France between 2001 and 2003.

Methodology: Police procedures for fatal accidents in Metropolitan France during 2011 were analyzed and 300 characteristics encoded to provide a database of 4,059 drivers.

Pedestrian fatality and impact speed squared: Cloglog modeling from French national data.

Objective: The present study estimates pedestrians' risk of death according to impact speed when hit by a passenger car in a frontal collision.

Methods: Data were coded for all fatal crashes in France in 2011 and for a random sample of 1/20th of all road injuries for the same year and weighted to take into account police underreporting of mild injury. A cloglog model was used to optimize risk adjustment for high collision speeds.

The need to respect nature and its limits challenges society and conservation science.

Increasing human population interacts with local and global environments to deplete biodiversity and resources humans depend on, thus challenging societal values centered on growth and relying on technology to mitigate environmental stress. Although the need to address the environmental crisis, central to conservation science, generated greener versions of the growth paradigm, we need fundamental shifts in values that ensure transition from a growth-centered society to one acknowledging biophysical limits and centered on human well-being and biodiversity conservation. We discuss the role conservation science can play in this transformation, which poses ethical challenges and obstacles.

Motion of proximal histidine and structural allosteric transition in soluble guanylate cyclase.

We investigated the changes of heme coordination in purified soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC) by time-resolved spectroscopy in a time range encompassing 11 orders of magnitude (from 1 ps to 0.2 s). After dissociation, NO either recombines geminately to the 4-coordinate (4c) heme (τG1 = 7.

Prognosis of outcome in adult survivors of road accidents in France: one-year follow-Up in the ESPARR cohort.

Objective: The consequences of road crashes are various, and few studies have dealt with the multidimensionality of outcomes. The aim of the present study was to assess the multidimensional nature of outcomes one year after a crash and to determine predictive factors that could help in adapting medical and social care to prevent such consequences to improve road crash victims' prognosis.

Methods: The study population was the 886 respondents to the one-year follow-up from the ESPARR (Etude et Suivi d'une Population d'Accidentés de la Route du Rhône) cohort, aged ≥ 16 years; the analysis was carried out only on the 616 subjects who fully completed a self-report questionnaire on health, social, emotional, and financial status one year after a crash.

Innate threat-sensitive foraging: black-tailed deer remain more fearful of wolf than of the less dangerous black bear even after 100 years of wolf absence.

Anti-predator behaviors often entail foraging costs, and thus prey response to predator cues should be adjusted to the level of risk (threat-sensitive foraging). Simultaneously dangerous predators (with high hunting success) should engender the evolution of innate predator recognition and appropriate anti-predator behaviors that are effective even upon the first encounter with the predator. The above leads to the prediction that prey might respond more strongly to cues of dangerous predators that are absent, than to cues of less dangerous predators that are actually present.

Reactivity and dynamics of H2S, NO, and O2 interacting with hemoglobins from Lucina pectinata.

Hemoglobin HbI from the clam Lucina pectinata is involved in H2S transport, whereas homologous heme protein HbII/III is involved in O2 metabolism. Despite similar tertiary structures, HbI and HbII/III exhibit very different reactivity toward heme ligands H2S, O2, and NO. To investigate this reactivity at the heme level, we measured the dynamics of ligand interaction by time-resolved absorption spectroscopy in the picosecond to nanosecond time range.