Enhancing road performance and sustainability: A study on recycled porous warm mix asphalt.

The growing demand for sustainable infrastructure has increased interest in eco-friendly design solutions such as porous asphalt (PA) pavements, which manage stormwater runoff and mitigate urban heat islands, and warm mix asphalt (WMA), which reduces energy consumption and emissions during production. This study evaluates the mechanical and environmental performance of four warm mix porous asphalt (WPA) mixtures incorporating recycled materials and by-products: reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP), aramid pulp fibres, and electric arc furnace (EAF) steel slag. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with a cradle-to-cradle approach was conducted to comprehensively assess environmental impacts.

Comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Porous Asphalt Mixtures with Sustainable and Recycled Materials: A Cradle-to-Gate Approach.

The road and construction sectors consume a large number of natural resources and energy, contributing significantly to waste generation and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). The use of recycled aggregate from construction and demolition waste as a substitute for virgin aggregate is a current practice in the construction of new road sections. Additionally, in recent years, there has been an increasing focus on finding alternatives to bitumen for binders used in asphalt mixes.

Mechanical Characterization of Thin Asphalt Overlay Mixtures with 100% Recycled Aggregates.

Asphalt pavements inevitably deteriorate over time, requiring frequent maintenance work to ensure the proper serviceability of the road network. Small interventions, such as resurfacing for pavement preservation, are preferable to reconstruction at the end of roads' in-service lives as they limit environmental- and economic-related impacts. Thin asphalt overlay (TAO) mixture represents a suitable maintenance solution to restore the functional properties of road surfaces.

Women Physicians: Burnout during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Brazil.

Background: COVID-19 has placed a tremendous burden on physicians worldwide, especially women physicians, affected by increased workload and loss of quality of life.

Objective: To assess the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the quality of life, burnout and spirituality of Brazilian women physicians directly or indirectly providing care to COVID-19 patients.

Methods: Prospective, observational study performed from July 28 to September 27, 2020, in Brazil, with women physicians from 47 specialities, the most frequent being cardiology (22.

New Micromobility Means of Transport: An Analysis of E-Scooter Users' Behaviour in Trondheim.

Negative effects of a massive use of cars, such as congestion, air pollution, noise, and traffic injuries, are affecting the cities everywhere. Recently introduced shared vehicles, such as e-scooters and electric bicycles, could potentially accelerate the transition towards sustainable mobility. Although these vehicles are becoming increasingly common and accepted within regulatory frameworks, some local governments are not yet ready to integrate e-scooters into their transport systems.

Use of Steel Slag as an Alternative to Aggregate and Filler in Road Pavements.

Today the use of Construction and Demolition Materials (CDM) can be considered as a suitable solution for the construction or the rehabilitation of road pavements. In this context, it is central to minimizing waste production, favoring the reuse through new production cycles to replace virgin natural raw materials. As illustrated in this study, steel slag has mechanical properties that justify its use as aggregate in the manufacture of bituminous mixes.

Driver's visual attention to different categories of roadside advertising signs.

Roadside advertising signs are a salient potential source of driver's distraction. Previous research has mainly investigated driver's visual attention to billboards, which represents only one category of advertising signs. In this study, driver's visual attention was assessed in a naturalistic driving setting for six categories of roadside advertising signs: vendor signs, billboards, movable display boards, single and multiple commercial directional signs, and gas price LED displays.

EEG-Based Mental Workload Neurometric to Evaluate the Impact of Different Traffic and Road Conditions in Real Driving Settings.

Car driving is considered a very complex activity, consisting of different concomitant tasks and subtasks, thus it is crucial to understand the impact of different factors, such as road complexity, traffic, dashboard devices, and external events on the driver's behavior and performance. For this reason, in particular situations the cognitive demand experienced by the driver could be very high, inducing an excessive experienced mental workload and consequently an increasing of error commission probability. In this regard, it has been demonstrated that human error is the main cause of the 57% of road accidents and a contributing factor in most of them.

The role of peripheral vision in vertical road sign identification and discrimination.

The role of peripheral vision in road sign identification and discrimination was investigated in two studies. Peripheral vision plays an important role in road signs perception due to their lateral positioning. In the first study 20 participants identified road signs presented at five levels of horizontal eccentricity (1.

Mechanical and Thermal Performance of Macro-Encapsulated Phase Change Materials for Pavement Application.

Macro-encapsulated phase change material (PCM) lightweight aggregates (ME-LWA) were produced and evaluated for their mechanical and thermal properties in road engineering applications. The ME-LWAs were first characterised in terms of their physical and geometrical properties. Then, the ME-LWAs were investigated in detail by applying the European Standards of testing for the Bulk Crushing Test and the Polished Stone Value (PSV) coefficient as well as Micro-Deval and laboratory profilometry.

Fixation distance and fixation duration to vertical road signs.

The distance of first-fixation to vertical road signs was assessed in 22 participants while driving a route of 8.34 km. Fixations to road signs were recorded by a mobile eye-movement-tracking device synchronized to GPS and kinematic data.

Incorporation of Rubber Powder as Filler in a New Dry-Hybrid Technology: Rheological and 3D DEM Mastic Performances Evaluation.

In recent years, the use of crumb rubber as modifier or additive within asphalt concretes has allowed obtaining mixtures able to bind high performances to recovery and reuse of discarded tires. To date, the common technologies that permit the reuse of rubber powder are the wet and dry ones. In this paper, a dry-hybrid technology for the production of Stone Mastic Asphalt mixtures is proposed.

Reflective Tape Applied to Bicycle Frame and Conspicuity Enhancement at Night.

Objective: Four studies were conducted to assess bicyclist conspicuity enhancement at night by the application of reflective tape (ECE/ONU 104) to the bicycle rear frame and to pedal cranks.

Background: Previous studies have tested the benefits of reflective markings applied to bicyclist clothing. Reflective jackets however need to be available and worn while reflective markings enhance conspicuity without any active behavior by the bicyclist.

Biological effects and equivalent doses in radiotherapy: A software solution.

Background: The limits of TDF (time, dose, and fractionation) and linear quadratic models have been known for a long time. Medical physicists and physicians are required to provide fast and reliable interpretations regarding delivered doses or any future prescriptions relating to treatment changes.

Aim: We, therefore, propose a calculation interface under the GNU license to be used for equivalent doses, biological doses, and normal tumor complication probability (Lyman model).

Laser scanning on road pavements: a new approach for characterizing surface texture.

The surface layer of road pavement has a particular importance in relation to the satisfaction of the primary demands of locomotion, such as security and eco-compatibility. Among those pavement surface characteristics, the "texture" appears to be one of the most interesting with regard to the attainment of skid resistance. Specifications and regulations, providing a wide range of functional indicators, act as guidelines to satisfy the performance requirements.

Dosimetric uncertainties related to the elasticity of bladder and rectal walls: adenocarcinoma of the prostate.

Purpose: Radiotherapy is an important treatment for prostate cancer. During treatment sessions, bladder and rectal repletion is difficult to quantify and cannot be measured with a single and initial CT scan acquisition. Some methods, such as image-guided radiation therapy and dose-guided radiation therapy, aim to compensate this missing information through periodic CT acquisitions.