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

Alarming old and young drivers

2015-03-10
(Press-News.org) An in-car alarm that sounds when sensors on the vehicle detect an imminent crash could cut crash rates from 1 in 5 to 1 in 10 for drivers over the of 60 suffering tiredness on long journeys, according to a study published in the International Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics.

Psychologist Carryl Baldwin of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, USA, and colleagues there and at the Sentara Norfolk General Sleep Center, emphasize how fatigue poses a persistent threat to transportation safety. Alarms that sound when a vehicle senses an imminent collision or when a driver deviates from their lane have already been tested and shown to work with alert drivers. Baldwin and colleagues wanted to know whether an alarm would reduce the accident rate in older and younger drivers who were suffering from fatigue.

Two volunteer groups, one aged 18-29 years and the second 65-85 years were each split into two groups, four groups in all. They had each group of volunteer drivers take control of a car simulator for one and a half hours to induce driver fatigue and assessed this based on faltering lane discipline among the drivers. They were then tested to see how well they would respond when a single imminent collision event was simulated. Half the young drivers and half the older drivers were given an audible alarm when the collision was about to occur and the other half of each group, the controls had to try and avoid the collision with no auditory warning.

The team found that almost 18% of the drivers not given an auditory warning crashed in the simulated collision. However, only about 11% had a collision if the alarm was sounded. Auditory warnings were most effective in the older group with only one driver over the age of 60 being unable to avoid a collision despite hearing the alarm. Disappointingly, the team says, the auditory warning had little impact on crash rates in drivers under the age of 35. An additional finding, not reported in the paper for statistical reasons is that young female drivers also responded safely when the alarm sound but young males did not.

The team points out that average following distance and speed were fairly constant across the alarm and the control groups for each age range, although the over-60s tended to drive at a much greater following distance than the youngsters. Despite this, no auditory warnings meant even the older drivers, with presumably longer reaction times, than the younger drivers, had approximately the same collision rate.

The team suggests that an in-car collision alarm could be a useful safety device for vehicles. They also point out that the rate of fatigue-induced accidents in which drivers deviate from their lane or the road entirely might just as readily be reduced if alarms for those situations were part of such a safety device's repertoire too, although the simulations are yet to be done for that type of accident. They do warn that as with all vehicle safety features, they must also be assessed for over-reliance to avoid drivers becoming complacent and ignoring the signs of tiredness.

The team has more recently been testing drivers' reactions to different types of auditory and multimodal alarms.

INFORMATION:

Baldwin, C.L., May, J.F. and Parasuraman, R. (2014) 'Auditory forward collision warnings reduce crashes associated with task-induced fatigue in young and older drivers', Int. J. Human Factors and Ergonomics, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp.107-121.



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

NASA looks inside and outside of Tropical Cyclone Pam

NASA looks inside and outside of Tropical Cyclone Pam
2015-03-10
NASA's Terra satellite provided an outside look at Tropical Cyclone Pam while the RapidScat instrument that flies aboard the International Space Station provided an inside look at the surface winds generated by the storm. The GPM core satellite provided another inside look at Pam and provided data on where the heavy rainfall was occurring within the storm. On March 9 and 10, Tropical Cyclone Pam strengthened to hurricane-force as it neared Vanuatu in the Southern Pacific Ocean. On March 10 (11 p.m. local time), the Vanuatu Meteorology and Geo-Hazards Department (VMGD) ...

Hospital readmissions following severe sepsis often preventable

2015-03-10
In an analysis of about 2,600 hospitalizations for severe sepsis, readmissions within 90 days were common, and approximately 40 percent occurred for diagnoses that could potentially be prevented or treated early to avoid hospitalization, according to a study in the March 10 issue of JAMA. Patients are frequently rehospitalized within 90 days after having severe sepsis. Little is known, however, about the reasons for readmission and whether they can be reduced. Hallie C. Prescott, M.D., M.Sc., of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and colleagues examined the most ...

Lower prevalence of diabetes found among patients with inherited high cholesterol disorder

2015-03-10
The prevalence of type 2 diabetes among 25,000 patients with familial hypercholesterolemia (a genetic disorder characterized by high low-density lipoprotein [LDL] cholesterol levels) was significantly lower than among unaffected relatives, with the prevalence varying by the type of gene mutation, according to a study in the March 10 issue of JAMA. Statins have been associated with increased risk for diabetes, but the cause for this is not clear. One theory is that statins increase expression of LDL receptors and increase cholesterol uptake into cells including the pancreas, ...

Study examines outcomes for patients 1 year after transcatheter aortic valve replacement

2015-03-10
In an analysis of outcomes of about 12,000 patients who underwent transcatheter aortic valve replacement, death rate after one year was nearly one in four; of those alive at 12 months, almost half had not been rehospitalized and approximately 25 percent had only one hospitalization, according to a study in the March 10 issue of JAMA. Following U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in 2011, transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) has been used with increasing frequency for the treatment of severe aortic stenosis in patients who have high risks with conventional ...

Study compares outcomes for surgical vs. non-surgical treatment of broken shoulder

2015-03-10
Among patients with a displaced fracture in the upper arm near the shoulder (proximal humeral), there was no significant difference between surgical treatment and nonsurgical treatment in patient-reported outcomes over two years following the fracture, results that do not support the trend of increased surgery for patients with this type of fracture, according to a study in the March 10 issue of JAMA. Proximal humeral fractures account for 5 percent to 6 percent of all adult fractures; an estimated 706,000 occurred worldwide in 2000. The majority occur in people older ...

JAMA publishes one-year data for transcatheter aortic valve replacement procedure

2015-03-10
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Study results of one-year data for more than 12,000 patients who had transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) in the United States show an overall one-year death rate of 23.7 percent and a stroke rate of 4.1 percent, according to a study published in the March 10 issue of JAMA. "Transcatheter aortic valve replacement has become transformational for patients who need a new valve and are at high-risk for surgery or inoperable. But we have been lacking long-term data for this group of patients who are considering this procedure," says study lead ...

Researchers develop new approach that combines biomass conversion, solar energy conversion

2015-03-10
MADISON, Wis. -- In a study published March 9 in Nature Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison chemistry Professor Kyoung-Shin Choi presents a new approach to combine solar energy conversion and biomass conversion, two important research areas for renewable energy. For decades, scientists have been working to harness the energy from sunlight to drive chemical reactions to form fuels such as hydrogen, which provide a way to store solar energy for future use. Toward this end, many researchers have been working to develop functional, efficient and economical methods ...

This week from AGU: Less summer fog in California, increasing diversity in the geosciences

2015-03-10
From AGU's blogs: More urban heat; less summer fog, on California coast The summer fog that shrouds coastal southern California - what locals call the June Gloom - is being driven up into the sky by urban sprawl, according to scientists who have studied 67 years of cloud heights and urban growth in the region. Less fog may, at first, seem like a good thing. But less fog is bad news for native plants in the coastal hills and mountains, which depend on the cool fog as their only source of water during the rainless summer months. So less fog means warmer, drier, less healthy ...

Fading orange-red in Van Gogh's paintings

2015-03-10
Red lead is most familiar to us in orange-red rustproof paint. Artists have treasured the brilliant color of this pigment for their paintings since ancient times. However, various ageing processes cause discoloration of the saturated hue over time. Thanks to a combination of X-ray diffraction mapping and tomography experiments at DESY´s synchrotron light source PETRA III, Belgian scientists have now explained an additional step in the light-induced degradation of lead red. The key to their discovery was the identification of the very rare lead carbonate mineral plumbonacrite ...

'Digitizing' crosstalk among heart cells may help locate epicenters of heart rhythms

2015-03-10
A team of scientists led by Johns Hopkins cardiologist and biomedical engineer Hiroshi Ashikaga, M.D., Ph.D., has developed a mathematical model to measure and digitally map the beat-sustaining electrical flow between heart cells. The work, the scientists say, could form a blueprint for vastly more precise imaging tests that capture cell-to-cell communication and pinpoint the tiny clusters of cells at the epicenter of complex, life-threatening arrhythmias. Such imaging approaches, they add, would enable precision-targeted, minimally invasive treatments that eliminate ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Thirty-year mystery of dissonance in the “ringing” of black holes explained

Less intensive works best for agricultural soil

Arctic rivers project receives “national champion” designation from frontiers foundation

Computational biology paves the way for new ALS tests

Study offers new hope for babies born with opioid withdrawal syndrome

UT, Volkswagen Group of America celebrate research partnership

New Medicare program could dramatically improve affordability for cancer drugs – if patients enroll

Are ‘zombie’ skin cells harmful or helpful? The answer may be in their shapes

University of Cincinnati Cancer Center presents research at AACR 2025

Head and neck, breast, lung and survivorship studies headline Dana-Farber research at AACR Annual Meeting 2025

AACR: Researchers share promising results from MD Anderson clinical trials

New research explains why our waistlines expand in middle age

Advancements in muon detection: Taishan Antineutrino Observatory's innovative top veto tracker

Chips off the old block

Microvascular decompression combined with nerve combing for atypical trigeminal neuralgia

Cutting the complexity from digital carpentry

Lung immune cell type “quietly” controls inflammation in COVID-19

Fiscal impact of expanded Medicare coverage for GLP-1 receptor agonists to treat obesity

State and sociodemographic trends in US cigarette smoking with future projections

Young adults drive historic decline in smoking

NFCR congratulates Dr. Robert C. Bast, Jr. on receiving the AACR-Daniel D. Von Hoff Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education and Training in Cancer Research

Chimpanzee stem cells offer new insights into early embryonic development

This injected protein-like polymer helps tissues heal after a heart attack

FlexTech inaugural issue launches, pioneering interdisciplinary innovation in flexible technology

In Down syndrome mice, 40Hz light and sound improve cognition, neurogenesis, connectivity

Methyl eugenol: potential to inhibit oxidative stress, address related diseases, and its toxicological effects

A vascularized multilayer chip reveals shear stress-induced angiogenesis in diverse fluid conditions

AI helps unravel a cause of Alzheimer's disease and identify a therapeutic candidate

Coalition of Autism Scientists critiques US Department of Health and Human Services Autism Research Initiative

Structure dictates effectiveness, safety in nanomedicine

[Press-News.org] Alarming old and young drivers