The syndrome commonly referred to as whiplash injury" resulting from motor vehicle accidents is complex and remains a challenge to clinicians, as is evidenced by the recent report of the Quebec task force on the "whiplash syndrome". The main objective of this prospective randomised study was to evaluate two conservative treatment regimens (early immobilisation-experimental group-1, early active mobilisation experimental group-2) which are based on accepted physiological rationale and then to compare their effectiveness with existing treatment regimens that are commonly practiced (control group) in the management of "whiplash" type of injuries. To this stage, the current study is the only prospective randomised clinical trial of its type conducted with a sufficiently large sample size and over a long study period. The results of the current study clearly demonstrated that the subjects in the immobilised group recovered from their pain-related symptoms and returned to their normal duties sooner than those in the other two treatment groups. In addition to this, those subjects who received the immobilisation regimen did not show adverse effects on either the range of motion or the strength of the neck muscles. Thus, the immobilisation regimen was clearly shown to be the preferred option when compared to the other two treatment methodologies investigated in the current study.Although the primary interest of the current study was to compare the efficacy of three different treatment regimens, a series of statistical analyses were performed to establish the prognostic significance of several factors associated with "whiplash" injury. This showed that factors such as gender, age, speed of the vehicles involved, paraesthesia, intensity of pain at the time of the initial examination, interscapular pain, blurred vision and difficulty in focusing, all had prognostic value. ++ / Similarly, the type of collision, seating position, presence of headache within 24 hours post injury, pre-existing degenerative changes in the cervical spine, loss of lordosis and litigation factors had no prognostic significance. Another major emphasis of the current study has been to concentrate on the pain related symptoms of the neck which are of major concern to "whiplash" subjects and to those clinicians treating them. A paucity of such information is considered to be one of the most notable causes of difficulties encountered in the management of "whiplash" injuries.As an adjunct to the main study, the morphology of the deep pre- and post vertebral muscles of the neck region using embalmed cadavers and fresh post-mortem specimens was investigated, as the literature is deficient in--this regard. Similarly, a longitudinal study of 45 subjects was also performed using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technology. The longitudinal nature of the M.R.I. study provided for the first time an account of the details associated with the progressive pathological changes that occurred in some disc lesions, at defined points in time following a MVA. The observations made from the adjunct studies help develop a better understanding of the pathoanatomy associated with the deep muscles of the neck region and the pathological changes that occur following a traumatic disc lesion as evidenced within 2 weeks, after 3 months and 12 months post- injury. On the basis of the observations made in the current study, a classification of the "whiplash" injury has been proposed for the consideration of clinicians. Similarly, the questionnaire used for data collection in the current study, can be readily modified and utilised in a clinical situation for establishing documentation, planning treatment strategies and for evaluation of the treatment outcomes of "whiplash" type of injuries.

Child road trauma poses a preventable public health burden to the community. This PhD research aimed to: 1) quantify the magnitude of child passenger injuries in New South Wales (NSW), Australia; 2) evaluate the effectiveness of different restraint use to prevent fatalities among child passengers; and 3) estimate the benefit in the general child population from different intervention targets relating to restraint use. It comprised two studies to validate methodology and four independent epidemiological studies. The first study to validate methodology assessed the data item availability and categorization across different road traffic injury surveillance data collections in NSW in relation to World Health Organization recommended data item lists and necessary data item lists for road traffic injury research. Exclusion of, or insufficient categorization of, crucial data items such as restraint use and injurious outcome existed for each data collection. The other study to validate methodology assessed the performance (in terms of incidence estimates, sensitivity, and specificity) of several methods for removing multiple counting when conducting analyses on hospital separation data for child passenger injuries under either primary-diagnosis or all-diagnoses based injury definition, using linkage methods as a comparison. The "readmission"-based criterion consistently best approximated the linkage-method-derived incidence rate. Two epidemiological studies used NSW hospital separation datasets and quantified the magnitude of child road trauma in NSW in terms of hospitalisation rates. One study examined the trend in hospitalised injury incidence rates during the period of July 1998 to June 2005 using a non-parametric estimation method, and reported a non-significant decline of hospitalised injuries to child passengers over time. The second study used Poisson regression to demonstrate that rural NSW children were two times more likely to suffer hospitalised injuries compared with their urban counterparts. The third epidemiological study used the Fatality Analysis Reporting Systems (FARS) from the United States (US) and estimated the association between different restraint uses and child passenger fatality using a matched cohort method. Improperly using restraints significantly elevated the risk of death for child passengers involved in a crash compared to any other restraint use. The advantage of child restraints over seat belts in terms of fatality reduction was not statistically significant, although previous studies have shown an advantage for serious injury reduction. The last study was performed to quantify the relative public health benefit in terms of reduction in child passenger deaths and injuries for different interventions relating to restraint use in the general population using a case-based population attributable risk fraction method. Results support the ongoing child restraint legislation change in Australia to require compulsory child restraint uses for children up to their 7th birthday, and an increasing proper use of age-appropriate restraints would provide the greatest reduction in fatalities and injuries among child passengers assuming equal population uptake for all interventions. In conclusion, this thesis demonstrates that child road trauma remains a public health burden to the Australian community; and highlights the importance of properly using age-appropriate restraints in preventing injuries to child passengers.

The Type-II dilemma zone refers to the segment of roadway approaching an intersection where drivers have difficulty deciding to stop or proceed through at the onset of the circular yellow (CY) indication. Signalized intersection safety can be improved when the dilemma zone is correctly identified and steps are taken to reduce the likelihood that vehicles are caught in it. This research employs driving simulation as a means to collect driver response data at the onset of the CY indication to better understand and describe the dilemma zone. The data obtained was compared against that from previous experiments documented in the literature and the evidence suggests that driving simulator data is valid for describing driver behavior under the given conditions. Fuzzy logic was proposed as a tool to model driver behavior in the dilemma zone, and three such models were developed to describe driver behavior as it relates to the speed and position of the vehicle. These models were shown to be consistent with previous research on this subject and were able to predict driver behavior with up to 90% accuracy. / Graduation date: 2013

This study was conducted to investigate and model the high traffic collision frequencies in the City of Edmonton, Canada. Consistent collision spikes were observed on Fridays compared to the other days of the week. The first Negative Binomial model was formulated to establish a relation between the collision frequency and the independent variables. The second Multinomial logistic regression model was formulated to examine the probability of age categories and gender involved in collision for each day of week considering collision has happened. The proposed collision prediction models were found good. They could provide a realistic estimate of expected collision frequency and properties of collision for a particular day as a function of number of hours of daylight, number of hours of snowfall, visibility, age and gender. It is hoped that predicted collision frequency will help the decision maker to quantify traffic safety of Edmonton and improve the scenario. / Transportation Engineering

Not available / text

No description available.

In September 1995, the South African government introduced the Motor Industry Development Programme (MIDP) as a means of making the South African automotive industry a competitive orientated industry. The MIDP over the years has taken account of the international realities facing themotor industry in South Africa with major focus being placed on trade liberalisation, globalisation of markets against the background of rapid technological change, rising customer expectations and markets which were becoming increasingly demanding and fast moving in terms of global trends. But has the core intention of the MIDP, which was to create an internationally competitive, export industry, been lost? The research proposition that the MIDP has lost a bit of ground with regards to focusing on an export-orientated industry is examined in this dissertation. In this respect, the South African automotive industry, with regards to vehicle and component sales both export and imported, industry growth trends, and the point of view from people working within the South African automotive industry, will be analysed to determine the extent to which the MIDP has lost ground on its original intention. The results show that the MIDP has had positive spin offs with regards to vehicle exports since its induction in 1995. The results also show that, due to the MIDP, the South African automotive industry has seen a substantial growth in volumes of imported vehicles and components into the industry and how the increase in imported vehicles and components has affected the domestic market and local content. Anticipation of the findings of the study shows that the notion of higher tariffs or restrictions on imported vehicles and components could improve the local content levels in locally manufactured export and domestic vehicles. Recommendations have been made in this regard. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2009.

This research set out to determine whether computer-aided engineering tools could be used to validate land-vehicle material during the Defence acquisition cycle. / Thesis (MEngineering)--University of South Australia, 2008.

Child road trauma poses a preventable public health burden to the community. This PhD research aimed to: 1) quantify the magnitude of child passenger injuries in New South Wales (NSW), Australia; 2) evaluate the effectiveness of different restraint use to prevent fatalities among child passengers; and 3) estimate the benefit in the general child population from different intervention targets relating to restraint use. It comprised two studies to validate methodology and four independent epidemiological studies. The first study to validate methodology assessed the data item availability and categorization across different road traffic injury surveillance data collections in NSW in relation to World Health Organization recommended data item lists and necessary data item lists for road traffic injury research. Exclusion of, or insufficient categorization of, crucial data items such as restraint use and injurious outcome existed for each data collection. The other study to validate methodology assessed the performance (in terms of incidence estimates, sensitivity, and specificity) of several methods for removing multiple counting when conducting analyses on hospital separation data for child passenger injuries under either primary-diagnosis or all-diagnoses based injury definition, using linkage methods as a comparison. The "readmission"-based criterion consistently best approximated the linkage-method-derived incidence rate. Two epidemiological studies used NSW hospital separation datasets and quantified the magnitude of child road trauma in NSW in terms of hospitalisation rates. One study examined the trend in hospitalised injury incidence rates during the period of July 1998 to June 2005 using a non-parametric estimation method, and reported a non-significant decline of hospitalised injuries to child passengers over time. The second study used Poisson regression to demonstrate that rural NSW children were two times more likely to suffer hospitalised injuries compared with their urban counterparts. The third epidemiological study used the Fatality Analysis Reporting Systems (FARS) from the United States (US) and estimated the association between different restraint uses and child passenger fatality using a matched cohort method. Improperly using restraints significantly elevated the risk of death for child passengers involved in a crash compared to any other restraint use. The advantage of child restraints over seat belts in terms of fatality reduction was not statistically significant, although previous studies have shown an advantage for serious injury reduction. The last study was performed to quantify the relative public health benefit in terms of reduction in child passenger deaths and injuries for different interventions relating to restraint use in the general population using a case-based population attributable risk fraction method. Results support the ongoing child restraint legislation change in Australia to require compulsory child restraint uses for children up to their 7th birthday, and an increasing proper use of age-appropriate restraints would provide the greatest reduction in fatalities and injuries among child passengers assuming equal population uptake for all interventions. In conclusion, this thesis demonstrates that child road trauma remains a public health burden to the Australian community; and highlights the importance of properly using age-appropriate restraints in preventing injuries to child passengers.

Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 125-129).