Impact of COVID-19 on Safety Performance for Motorcycles: Pre-and during-Pandemic Conditions

Florida has the highest number of motorcycle fatalities in the United States and contains the second largest population of registered motorcycles. The COVID-19 pandemic influenced the roads, traffic, and driving behavior in the continental United States. Motorcycle crashes decreased during the COVID-19 years (2020 and 2021) while the fatality rates increased. The purpose of this study is to 1) investigate motorcycle crashes before and during the Pandemic period to understand the impacts on motorcycle safety and contributing factors to the crash severity levels;2) develop the crash predictive model for different degrees of severity in motorcycle crashes in Florida. Florida statewide crash data were collected. T tests have been conducted to compare the contributing factors between two periods. The injury severities are significantly different among all five levels between those during normal period and the Pandemic period. A crash predictive model has been developed to determine the facts to injury severity levels for motorcycle crashes. A total of eight variables are found to significantly increase the injury severity levels for motorcycle crashes during the Pandemic period.

Understanding the Contributing Factors to Nighttime Crashes at Freeway Mainline Segments

This study investigated the crash contributing factors to the injury outcomes and the characteristics of the night time crashes at freeway mainline segments. Multinomial logit model (MNL) was selected to estimate the explanatory variables at a 95% confidence level. The six-year crash data (2005-2010) were obtained in the State of Florida, USA and five injury level outcomes, no injury, possible injury, non-incapacitating injury, capacitating injury, and fatal injury, were considered. The no injury level was selected as the baseline category.

Investigation Motorcycle Safety at Exit Ramp Sections by Analyzing Historical Crash Data and Rider’s Perception

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety performance of four exit ramp types and the major contributing factors on motorcycle crashes and injury severity of motorcycle riders. A six-year crash data were collected in Florida, and a web-based survey (234 samples) was conducted. 573 crashes were found at 419 exits, including 178 diamond exits, 71 directional exits, 85 loop exits and 85 outer connection exits. For a diamond exit, both the survey and crash data showed that this type was safer and more preferable by motorcycle riders;while a loop exit was the most dangerous exit due to the sharp curve and a certain length of curve with limited visibility. For a directional exit, longer ramp lengths and the reverse curvature are the major factors causing motorcycle crashes. For an outer connection exit, the riders rated it as a safe type;however, the data showed higher average crash frequency and rate than those at diamond exits or directional exits. The possible reason could be the unexpected curvature in the middle of the ramp, which could be dangerous if the rider is not familiar with the exit ramp location or doesn’t pay attention to the ramp curvatures. The crash predictive model was developed, and the result indicated that if all remained the same, a directional exit, a loop exit, or an outer connection exit will have 16%, 27%, and 42% more crashes than a diamond exit, respectively. The findings from this study can help policy-makers and engineers to develop and apply effective countermeasures to reduce motorcycle crashes and injury severity levels for different exit ramp types.

微生物修复石油烃土壤污染技术研究进展

随着人民生活水平的提高,环境保护问题愈发受到人们重视。其中石油烃的土壤污染因其持续时间长、污染去除难度大而受到广泛关注。在各类修复技术中,原位微生物修复强化技术因其成本较低、环境影响小、无二次污染、可原位修复的特点成为了当前的技术热门。文中综述了生物投加法、生物刺激法、联合修复法等原位微生物修复技术,并介绍了一些典型工程案例,为原位微生物修复强化技术的选择及工程应用提供了参考,并对未来原位微生物修复强化技术的研究重点进行了展望。

Realizing enhanced energy storage and hardness performances in 0.90NaNbO_(3)-0.10Bi(Zn_(0.5)Sn_(0.5))O_(3)ceramics

Ceramic dielectric capacitors have a broad scope of application in pulsed power supply devices.Relaxor behavior has manifested decent energy storage capabilities in dielectric materials due to its fast polarization response.In addition,an ultrahigh energy storage density can also be achieved in NaNbO_(3)(NN)-based ceramics by combining antiferroelectric and relaxor characteristics.Most of the existing reports about lead-free dielectric ceramics,nevertheless,still lack the relevant research about domain evolution and relaxor behavior.Therefore,a novel lead-free solid solution,(1-x)NaNbO_(3)-xBi(Zn_(0.5)Sn_(0.5))O_(3)(abbreviated as xBZS,x=0.05,0.10,0.15,and 0.20)was designed to analyze the domain evolution and relaxor behavior.Domain evolutions in xBZS ceramics confirmed the contribution of the relaxor behavior to their decent energy storage characteristics caused by the fast polarization rotation according to the low energy barrier of polar nanoregions(PNRs).Consequently,a high energy storage density of 3.14 J/cm^(3)and energy efficiency of 83.30%are simultaneously available with 0.10 BZS ceramics,together with stable energy storage properties over a large temperature range(20-100℃)and a wide frequency range(1-200 Hz).Additionally,for practical applications,the 0.10 BZS ceramics display a high discharge energy storage density(W_(dis)≈1.05 J/cm^(3)),fast discharge rate(t_(0.9)≈60.60 ns),and high hardness(H≈5.49 GPa).This study offers significant insights on the mechanisms of high performance lead-free ceramic energy storage materials.

High energy storage density and power density achieved simultaneously in NaNbO_(3)-based lead-free ceramics via antiferroelectricity enhancement

High-performance lead-free dielectric ceramics with simultaneously high energy storage density and power density are in high demanded for pulse power systems.To realize excellent energy-storage characteristics,a strategy to enhance antiferroelectricity and construct a local random field simultaneously was proposed in this study.Based on the above strategy,a series of(1-x)NaNbO_(3)-xBi(Ni_(1/2)Sn_(1/2))O3[xBNS,x=0.05,0.10,0.15,0.20,and 0.22]solid solutions were designed and fabricated.An ultrahigh energy storage density(Utotal)of 7.35 J/cm^(3),and recoverable energy density(Urec)of 5.00 J/cm^(3) were achieved in the 0.10BNS ceramics.In addition,an adequate stability of energy storage properties at a range of temperatures(20e140℃),frequencies(1e100 Hz),and fatigue test durations(1e1-10^(4) cycles)were realized in 0.10BNS ceramics.0.10BNS ceramics displayed a high current density of 1005 A/cm2,an ultrahigh power density of 100.5 MW/cm^(3,)and an ultrashort discharge time of 46.5 ns?This remarkable performance not only justified our strategy but also confirmed 0.10BNS ceramics as a promising candidate for energy storage.

Enhanced thermal and frequency stability and decent fatigue endurance in lead-free NaNbO_(3) -based ceramics with high energy storage density and efficiency

Lead-free ceramic capacitors have the application prospect in the dielectric pulse power system due to the advantages of large dielectric constant,lower dielectric loss and good temperature stability.Never-theless,most reported dielectric ceramics have limitation of realizing large energy storage density(W_(rec))and high energy storage efficiency(h)simultaneously due to the low breakdown electric field(E_(b)),low maximum polarization and large remanent polarization(P_(r)).These issues above can be settled by raising the bulk resistivity of dielectric ceramics and optimizing domain structure.Therefore,we designed a new system by doping(Bi_(0.5)Na_(0.5))_(0.7)Sr_(0.3)TiO_(3) into 0.9NaNbO_(3)-0.1Bi(Ni_(0.5)Zr_(0.5))O_(3) ceramics,which simulta-neously obtained a higher bulk resistivity by decreasing the grain size and achieved a smaller P_(r) by optimizing domain structure,thus the better E_(b) of 530 kV/cm and W_(rec) of 6.43 J/cm^(3) were achieved,h was improved from 34%to 82%.Besides,the 0.4BNST ceramics show excellent temperature,frequency and fatigue stability under the conditions of 20-180℃,1-100 Hz and 104 cycles,respectively.Mean-while,superior power density(P_(D)=107 MW/cm^(3)),large current density(C_(D)=1070 A/cm^(2))and discharge speed(1.025 m s)were achieved in 0.4BNST ceramic.Finally,the charge-discharge performance displayed good temperature stability in the temperature range of 30℃-180℃.The above results indicated that the ceramics have potential practical value in the field of energy storage capacitor.