PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

'Super circles' to lessen rush-hour headaches according to Wayne State researchers

2014-03-13
(Press-News.org) DETROIT— While Mother Nature continues to challenge drivers across the country, a team of traffic engineers is working hard on a new way to make rush-hour commutes safer and faster in any weather.

"We can't do much about snow falling, but we can do something about road capacity and congestion," said Joseph Hummer, traffic engineering expert and Wayne State University College of Engineering chair of civil and environmental engineering.

Hummer and a team of traffic engineers at the Regional Transportation Alliance and North Carolina State University believe metered roundabouts, or "super circles," could help safety and ease traffic congestion across the United States. According to the team's research, explained in a paper titled "The Potential for Metering to Help Roundabouts Manage Peak Period Demands in the U.S.," super circles are common in Australia and England, but have yet to be researched or implemented in the U.S. The research team built and tested a mathematical model of traffic flow through super circles.

Roundabouts have been implemented in the United States for some time. Hummer says when built correctly they are 30 to 40 percent safer than traditional signalized intersections and offer a 60 percent injury savings.

"The one classic dilemma with roundabouts, though, is that some have capacity issues during peak hours. Once they break down, they get ugly and lock up. Our research was trying to find a way to get the safety benefits of a traditional roundabout while creating a capacity treatment for the peak hours of the day," he says.

A "super circle" involves adding a stop light to one approach of a roundabout to control the number of vehicles entering during rush hours. "The meter would only operate during peak hours and would free up space in the circle for the busiest traffic streams to enter," he says. The rest of the day, with the meter turned off, the roundabout would do its job saving collisions.

Here in Michigan, Hummer can envision utilizing super circles in a number of places. "Michigan is really well suited to metered roundabouts. I could find hundreds of places of these in Metro Detroit alone at the junctions of the mile roads," says Hummer. "They aren't suitable for the huge arterials like Woodward, Gratiot or 8 Mile, but would work almost anywhere you have two, two-lane roads meet at a traffic signal."

According to Hummer, a modern roundabout costs, on average, $250,000 while the cost to society for a fatal collision or injury collision averages around $4 million and $100,000, respectively.

"The super circles wouldn't have to be out there too long to justify costs, at least on a societal basis. But the biggest benefit from all would be the lives and injuries saved," he says.

Hummer and the team members, who now aim for field studies and a more microscopic analysis, presented their research at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting, held Jan. 12 to 16 in Washington, D.C. The team's paper has been accepted for publication in Transportation Research Record.

INFORMATION: Wayne State University is a premier urban research institution of higher education offering 370 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to nearly 28,000 students. For more information about engineering at Wayne State University, visit engineering.wayne.edu.


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

You should be ashamed -- or maybe not

You should be ashamed -- or maybe not
2014-03-13
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Shame on you. These three simple words can temporarily — or, when used too often, permanently — destroy an individual's sense of value and self-worth. "In modernity, shame is the most obstructed and hidden emotion, and therefore the most destructive," said Thomas Scheff, professor emeritus of sociology at UC Santa Barbara. "Emotions are like breathing — they cause trouble only when obstructed." When hidden, he continued, shame causes serious struggles not only for individuals but also for groups. In an article published in the current issue ...

NASA sees wind shear affecting Tropical Cyclone Lusi

NASA sees wind shear affecting Tropical Cyclone Lusi
2014-03-13
Tropical Cyclone Lusi is battling vertical wind shear that has been pushing the bulk of precipitation away from its center. NASA's Terra satellite captured an image of the storm that showed the strongest thunderstorms were being pushed away from the center. On March 12 at 22:25 UTC/6:25 p.m. EDT, The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Cyclone Lusi in the South Pacific Ocean. The image showed a concentration of thunderstorms just south of the center of circulation. On ...

NASA sees Tropical Cyclone Gillian's remnants hoping for comeback

NASA sees Tropical Cyclone Gillians remnants hoping for comeback
2014-03-13
Ex-Tropical Cyclone Gillian weakened to a remnant low pressure area after making landfall in the Western Cape York Peninsula of Queensland, Australia then returned into the Gulf of Carpentaria. NASA's Aqua satellite flew over the tropical low as it struggled to re-intensify. The MODIS or Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Ex-Tropical Cyclone Gillian moving through Australia's Gulf of Carpentaria on March 13 at 4:25 UTC/12:45 a.m. EDT. Gillian appeared to have moved about two-thirds ...

Prostate specific antigen screening declines after 2012 USPSTF recommendations

2014-03-13
New York, NY, March 13, 2014 – Researchers at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Case Medical Center have assessed the impact of the 2012 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations against routine prostate specific antigen (PSA) cancer screenings, which cited evidence that the risks of screening outweigh the benefits. Results of the current study indicate that the USPSTF recommendations have resulted in a decrease in the number of PSA screenings ordered by doctors, with the greatest decline seen among urologists. The findings are ...

Performing cardio and resistance training during the same session: Does the order matter?

2014-03-13
Although the remarkable benefits of combined training have been clarified by numerous investigations, fitness enthusiasts struggle with the same question: Does the order of cardio- and resistance training influence the effectiveness of a training program? This question has now been the focus of a series of investigations in the Department of Biology of Physical Activity at the University of Jyväskylä. The international research group led by Professor Keijo Häkkinen and coordinated by PhD student Moritz Schumann has recruited a total of almost 200 recreationally active ...

'Velcro protein' found to play surprising role in cell migration

Velcro protein found to play surprising role in cell migration
2014-03-13
VIDEO: Without Twist1 expression, mammary duct tissue fragments maintain a smooth surface (left). When Twist1 is turned on, cells rapidly detach and migrate away from the tissue (right). Both tissue fragments... Click here for more information. Studying epithelial cells, the cell type that most commonly turns cancerous, Johns Hopkins researchers have identified a protein that causes cells to release from their neighbors and migrate away from healthy mammary, or breast, tissue ...

Novel marker and possible therapeutic target for cardiovascular calcification identified

2014-03-13
Cardiovascular calcification (deposits of minerals in heart valves and blood vessels) is a primary contributor to heart disease, the leading cause of death among both men and women in the United States according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). "Unfortunately, there currently is no medical treatment for cardiovascular calcification, which can lead to acute cardiovascular events, such as myocardial infarction and stroke, as well as heart failure," says Elena Aikawa, MD, PhD, Director of the Vascular Biology Program at the Center for Interdisciplinary ...

Robotic fish designed to perform escape maneuvers described in Soft Robotics journal

Robotic fish designed to perform escape maneuvers described in Soft Robotics journal
2014-03-13
New Rochelle, NY, March 13, 2014—A soft-bodied, self-contained robotic fish with a flexible spine that allows it to mimic the swimming motion of a real fish also has the built-in agility to perform escape maneuvers. The innovative design and capabilities of this complex, autonomous robot is described in Soft Robotics (SoRo), a new peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Soft Robotics website at http://www.liebertpub.com/soro. Andrew Marchese, Cagdas Onal, and Daniela Rus, from MIT (Cambridge, MA) and Worcester ...

Mathematical and biochemical 'design features' for cell decoding of pulses revealed

2014-03-13
Every cell in the body has to sense and respond to chemicals such as hormones and neurotransmitters. They do so by relaying information from receptors to intracellular biochemical pathways that control cell behaviour, but relatively little is known about how cells decode the information in dynamic stimuli. A team of researchers have found that differences in response kinetics working down the intracellular signalling pathway dictate differential sensitivity to different features of pulsatile hormone inputs. The study funded by the BBSRC and published today [14 March] ...

Researchers describe oxygen's different shapes

Researchers describe oxygens different shapes
2014-03-13
Oxygen-16, one of the key elements of life on earth, is produced by a series of reactions inside of red giant stars. Now a team of physicists, including one from North Carolina State University, has revealed how the element's nuclear shape changes depending on its state, even though other attributes such as spin and parity don't appear to differ. Their findings may shed light on how oxygen is produced. Carbon and oxygen are formed when helium burns inside of red giant stars. Carbon-12 forms when three helium-4 nuclei combine in a very specific way (called the triple alpha ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Hitting the right notes to play music by ear

ASH and ISTH publish revised clinical practice guidelines for pediatric venous thromboembolism

Space-to-ground infrared camouflage with radiative heat dissipation

High-speed binary phase-engraved superpixels improve complex light modulation

Herbal medicine for the mind: Traditionally used medicinal plants for memory loss from the Indian subcontinent

Study finds significant declines in maternal mental health across US

Characterizing long COVID symptoms during early childhood

Weight loss in midlife, chronic disease incidence, and all-cause mortality during extended follow-up

Patient-delivered continuous care for weight loss maintenance

HIV drug can improve vision in patients with common diabetes complication, clinical trial suggests

New fuel cell could enable electric aviation

New clinical practice guideline for the surgical management of chronic rhinosinusitis in adults

Newly discovered ‘molecular fingerprints’ could transform diabetes treatment and diagnosis

MicroRNA-124-3p and brain-derived neurotrophic factor in rat spinal cord injury: Inverse expression pattern

Oldest whale bone tools discovered

Germinated flours in breadmaking: Striking a balance between nutrition and quality

Timely initiation of statin therapy for diabetes shown to dramatically reduce risk of heart attack and stroke

University of Houston awarded $3M to launch cancer biomarker facility for immunotherapy research

Record-breaking performance in data security achieved with quantum mechanics

ASCO: MD Anderson’s Christopher Flowers honored for teaching and mentorship

Study: Emotional responses crucial to attitudes about self-driving cars

NCSA shapes students’ computing dreams

Can AI analogize?

AI aversion in social interactions

In dry conditions, locust babies are born with their first lunch

Feedback loops between disease and human behavior can produce epidemic waves

How Japan’s older adults adapted to healthcare challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic

Chronic renal failure: Discovery of a crucial biomarker

Study quantifies the sleep loss and disruption experienced by new mothers

Location matters: Belly fat compared to overall body fat more strongly linked to psoriasis risk

[Press-News.org] 'Super circles' to lessen rush-hour headaches according to Wayne State researchers