Age-related driver injury occurrence from crashes at curve-grade combined segments.

Objectives: Due to their relatively complex roadway characteristics, horizontal and vertical curve segments are associated with decreased visibility and a higher risk of rollovers. Multiple studies have identified the associated risk of young and older drivers separately in such complicated driving environments. This study investigated the relationship between driver age and injury occurrence from crashes occurring along curve-grade combined segments.

Impacts of COVID-19 on the Operational Performance of Express Lanes and General-Purpose Lanes.

The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak brought significant changes in the travel behavior and operational characteristics of transportation systems. Express lanes (ELs) are among the transportation facilities that are affected by this pandemic. These facilities are built adjacent to existing general-purpose lanes (GPLs), providing drivers additional lanes that are dynamically priced in response to changing traffic conditions.

Modeling injury severity of crashes involving golf carts: A case study of The Villages, Florida.

Objective: Crashes involving golf carts (GCs) have been on an increasing trend in recent years, particularly in the United States. This study focuses on analyzing GC crashes in the Florida community known as The Villages, one of the largest GC-oriented communities in the nation and worldwide. The objective was to evaluate the injury severity of crashes involving GCs in a retirement community where GCs are a common mode of transportation.

What are the leading causes of fatal and severe injury crashes involving older pedestrian? Evidence from Bayesian network model.

Introduction: Identifying factors contributing to the risk of older pedestrian fatal/severe injuries, along with their possible interdependency, is the first step towards improving safety. Several previous studies focused on identifying the influence of individual factors while ignoring their interdependencies. This study investigated the leading risk factors associated with older pedestrian fatalities/severe injuries by identifying the interdependency relationship among variables.

Evaluating the effect of ramp metering on freeway safety using real-time traffic data.

Ramp metering relieves traffic congestion, reduces delay, and maintains the capacity flow on freeways. Due to its operational mechanism, ramp metering can also improve freeway safety. While the operational benefits of ramp metering have extensively been quantified, research on its safety effects is sparse.

Evaluating the impact of Road Rangers in preventing secondary crashes.

Many transportation agencies utilize freeway service patrols (FSPs) to quickly identify and respond to incidents. The objectives of FSP are to minimize the incident duration and increase safety at the incident scene. The current research explored the safety benefits of Florida's FSP program known as Road Rangers - harnessed from lowering the likelihood of secondary crashes (SCs) - compared to other responding agencies.

A before-after full bayes multivariate intervention model to estimate the safety effectiveness of red light cameras.

Objective: Intersection-related crashes account for approximately 40% of all crashes and tend to be more severe. Red-light running (RLR) crashes are most severe as almost half of these crashes result in injuries and fatalities. To reduce RLR crashes, agencies have been deploying red light cameras (RLCs).

Briquet syndrome revisited: implications for functional neurological disorder.

With the creation of the Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders category of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition in 2013, the functional neurological (symptom) disorder diagnostic criteria underwent transformative changes. These included an emphasis on 'rule-in' physical examination signs/semiological features guiding diagnosis and the removal of a required proximal psychological stressor to be linked to symptoms. In addition, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition somatization disorder, somatoform pain disorder and undifferentiated somatoform disorder conditions were eliminated and collapsed into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition somatic symptom disorder diagnosis.

Modeling Wrong-way Driving (WWD) crash severity on arterials in Florida.

Wrong-way Driving (WWD) is the movement of a vehicle in a direction opposite to the one designated for travel. WWD studies and mitigation strategies have exclusively been focused on limited-access facilities. However, it has been established that WWD crashes on arterial corridors are also severe and relatively more common.

Isolated Cervical Dystonia: Management and Barriers to Care.

Cervical dystonia (CD) is a rare disorder, and health care providers might be unfamiliar with its presentation, thus leading to delay in the initial diagnosis. The lack of awareness displays the need to highlight the clinical features and treatment in cervical dystonia. In our cohort, we have identified an earlier age of onset in men, despite an overall preponderance of affected women.

Cognitive, Graphomotor, and Psychosocial Challenges in Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated With Streptococcal Infections (PANDAS).

Objectives: Pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infection (PANDAS) is characterized by the sudden onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and other neurobehavioral symptoms following group A streptococcal infection. The cardinal neuropsychiatric symptoms are believed to reflect an aberrant autoimmune or inflammatory response that may selectively disrupt basal ganglia function. The investigators examined whether neuropsychological skills associated with frontostriatal networks (executive functions and motor skills) are affected in patients with PANDAS following resolution of acute symptoms and the degree to which there are persistent social, emotional, and academic difficulties.

Severity analysis of crashes on express lane facilities using support vector machine model trained by firefly algorithm.

Objective: Express lanes (ELs) provide an alternative way for improving the capacity of the existing freeway network without considerably expanding the roadway footprint. Although much research has been done to explore factors contributing to crashes on these facilities, there is not much discussion on factors influencing their injury severity. This study explored factors influencing the injury severity of crashes on EL facilities.

Cognitive Complaints in Motor Functional Neurological (Conversion) Disorders: A Focused Review and Clinical Perspective.

Functional neurological (conversion) disorder (FND) is a neuropsychiatric condition characterized by sensorimotor symptoms exhibiting features incompatible with other neurologic diseases. Individuals with motor FND (mFND) typically present with limb weakness, nonepileptic seizures, and/or abnormal movements. However, this population also frequently reports clouded thinking, inattention, and memory difficulties.

Sensory Processing Difficulties in Functional Neurological Disorder: A Possible Predisposing Vulnerability?

Background: Functional neurological disorder (FND) is a prevalent neuropsychiatric condition characterized by sensorimotor difficulties. Patients with FND at times report that sensory experiences trigger and/or exacerbate their symptoms. Sensory processing difficulties are also commonly reported in other psychiatric disorders frequently comorbid in FND, suggesting that contextualizing sensory profiles in FND within a biopsychosocial model may be clinically relevant.

Application of the Poisson-Tweedie distribution in analyzing crash frequency data.

This paper describes a study that applies the Poisson-Tweedie distribution in developing crash frequency models. The Poisson-Tweedie distribution offers a unified framework to model overdispersed, underdispersed, zero-inflated, spatial, and longitudinal count data, as well as multiple response variables of similar or mixed types. The form of its variance function is simple, and can be specified as the mean added to the product of dispersion and mean raised to the power P.

Severity of motorcycle crashes in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Objective: Motorcycles are a common mode of transportation in low- and middle-income countries. Tanzania, in particular, has experienced an increased use of motorcycles in the last decade. In Dar es Salaam, motorcycles provide door-to-door travel and often operate where more conventional services are uneconomical or physically impossible to maneuver.

Maternal serum lipid levels, oxidative stress and antioxidant activity in pre-eclampsia patients from Southwest India.

Objective: A study was carried out to evaluate the effects of metabolic syndrome components and oxidative stress factors among preeclamptic women from South West India.

Study Design: A case-control study was carried out by enrolling fifty pre-eclampsia cases and hundred low-risk pregnant women within the age group of 18-40 years, at 28-34 weeks of pregnancy. The fasting glucose level, fasting insulin level, insulin resistance, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), malondialdehyde, the ferric reducing ability of plasma (FRAP assay), cardiac output and aortic wall distensibility were measured.

Estimation of bicycle crash modification factors (CMFs) on urban facilities using zero inflated negative binomial models.

The objective of this study was to develop crash modification factors (CMFs) for bicycle crashes for different roadway segment and intersection facility types in urban areas. The study used four years (2011-2014) of crash data from Florida to quantify the safety impacts of roadway and traffic characteristics, bicycle infrastructure, and bicycle activity data on bicycle crashes. A cross-sectional analysis using Generalized Linear Model (GLM) approach with Zero Inflated Negative Binomial (ZINB) distribution was adopted to develop the relevant regression models in this study.

Likelihood estimation of secondary crashes using Bayesian complementary log-log model.

Secondary crashes (SCs) occur within the spatial and temporal impact range of a primary incident. They are non-recurring events and are major contributors to increased traffic delay, and reduced safety, particularly in urban areas. However, the limited knowledge on the nature of SCs has largely impeded their mitigation strategies.

Spatial analysis of macro-level bicycle crashes using the class of conditional autoregressive models.

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between bicycle crash frequency and their contributing factors at the census block group level in Florida, USA. Crashes aggregated over the census block groups tend to be clustered (i.e.

A Bayesian procedure for evaluating the frequency of calibration factor updates in highway safety manual (HSM) applications.

The Highway Safety Manual (HSM) presents statistical models to quantitatively estimate an agency's safety performance. The models were developed using data from only a few U.S.

Safety performance evaluation of cable median barriers on freeways in Florida.

Objective: This article aims to evaluate the safety performance of cable median barriers on freeways in Florida.

Method: The safety performance evaluation was based on the percentages of barrier and median crossovers by vehicle type, crash severity, and cable median barrier type (Trinity Cable Safety System [CASS] and Gibraltar system). Twenty-three locations with cable median barriers totaling about 101 miles were identified.

Analyzing pedestrian crash injury severity at signalized and non-signalized locations.

This study identifies and compares the significant factors affecting pedestrian crash injury severity at signalized and unsignalized intersections. The factors explored include geometric predictors (e.g.

Prioritizing Highway Safety Manual's crash prediction variables using boosted regression trees.

The Highway Safety Manual (HSM) recommends using the empirical Bayes (EB) method with locally derived calibration factors to predict an agency's safety performance. However, the data needs for deriving these local calibration factors are significant, requiring very detailed roadway characteristics information. Many of the data variables identified in the HSM are currently unavailable in the states' databases.