Train post‑derailment behaviours and containment methods:a review

Railway accidents,particularly serious derailments,can lead to catastrophic consequences.Therefore,it is essential to prevent derailment escalation to reduce the likelihood of severe derailments.Train post-derailment behaviours and containment methods play a critical role in preventing derailment escalation and providing passive safety protection and accident prevention in the event of a derailment.However,despite the increasing attention on this field from academia and industry in recent years,there is a lack of systematic exploration and summarization of emerging applications and containment methods in train post-derailment research.For this reason,this paper presents a comprehensive review of existing studies on train post-derailment behaviours,encompassing various topics such as post-derailment contact-impact models,dynamic modelling and simulation techniques,and the primary factors influencing post-derailment behaviours.Significantly,this review introduces and elucidates substitute guidance mechanisms(SGMs),which serve as railway-specific passive safety protection and accident prevention measures.The various types of SGMs are depicted,and their ongoing developments and applications are explored in depth.The review additionally points out several unresolved challenges including the adverse effects of SGMs,and proposes future research directions to advance the theoretical understanding and practical application of train post-derailment behaviours and containment methods.This review seeks to be a valuable reference for railway industry professionals in preventing catastrophic derailment consequences through post-derailment containment methods.

Incident prevention tools-incident investigations and pre-job safety analyses

Careful and thorough incident investigations and pre-job safety analyses completed by knowledgeable and competent individuals can significantly reduce workplace incidents. Working parties must act together to make these safety tools effective. To get the staff units to work together in a co-ordinated manner, they must be shown the value of their work in preventing accidents. Examples of actual accidents investigated during the author's 18 years as a mine inspector in Saskatchewan are discussed within the context of pre-job safety analyses. The causes of the accidents are explored with close reference to how pre-job safety analyses could have prevented their occurrence.

Deep Facial Emotion Recognition Using Local Features Based on Facial Landmarks for Security System

Emotion recognition based on facial expressions is one of the most critical elements of human-machine interfaces.Most conventional methods for emotion recognition using facial expressions use the entire facial image to extract features and then recognize specific emotions through a pre-trained model.In contrast,this paper proposes a novel feature vector extraction method using the Euclidean distance between the landmarks changing their positions according to facial expressions,especially around the eyes,eyebrows,nose,andmouth.Then,we apply a newclassifier using an ensemble network to increase emotion recognition accuracy.The emotion recognition performance was compared with the conventional algorithms using public databases.The results indicated that the proposed method achieved higher accuracy than the traditional based on facial expressions for emotion recognition.In particular,our experiments with the FER2013 database show that our proposed method is robust to lighting conditions and backgrounds,with an average of 25% higher performance than previous studies.Consequently,the proposed method is expected to recognize facial expressions,especially fear and anger,to help prevent severe accidents by detecting security-related or dangerous actions in advance.

Needs and Challenges of Nigeria Petroleum Industry in Assessing Process Safety Cumulative Risk

A cross-sectional exploratory assessment of the needs and challenges of petroleum industry in Nigeria, in assessing process safety cumulative risk for major accidents prevention was investigated. A purposive cum random sampling technique was used in this study, among selected petroleum companies operating in Nigeria. Survey questionnaires were received from 216 participants made up of asset integrity engineers/operators, process safety experts, production safety professionals in the petroleum industry in Nigeria. Data analyses were carried out to cover descriptive and inferential statistics. Overall, the study recognized that assessing process safety cumulative risk is not a simple process due largely to the changing nature of safety critical barriers degradation data. The study result showed four main challenges faced by petroleum industries in Nigeria, in assessing process safety cumulative risk: 1) the study showed that 94% of the respondents agreed that there is limited accessibility to safety critical barriers degradation data (little automation). Also 2) 94% of the respondents accounted for poor knowledge of process safety cumulative risk is and agreed it to be of low rating. The result further showed that 3) 90% of the respondents demonstrated that there are no guidance and procedures in assessing process safety cumulative risk and finally 4) 92% of the respondents reported that there is no real-time risk visualization model/ tool. Addressing these issues and challenges by the petroleum industries in the study area, will lead to successful assessment of process safety cumulative risk, thereby reducing the risk of major accidents.

Analysis and Research of Ice Loads Acting on Offshore Structures

Usually, the action of sea ice on offshore engineering structures is one of the controlling loads in cold waters engineering structure design. The reasonable selection of environmental condition and the physical mechanical properties of ice in the region are directly related to the structure design, operation and safety. In this paper, the sea ice force acting on the structure, the physical mechanical properties of ice and the selection of parameters in calculation are discussed. Some suggestions are proposed as to the calculation of various kinds of ice loads acting on the structure.

Underice Operation of SJT-5 ROV

The authors have used a low-cost ROV of observation type for underice surveying of the Nen-Jiang Cross-river oil pipe line in the Da Qing oil field. The operation method, process and the safety measures for severe cold areas are presented. The fruitful tries and experience may be useful to ROV operators in severe cold areas.

Dynamic Load Analysis for Towlines

Based on the curve equation of towline in towing, this paper introduces the new concepts of the coefficient of shape extension and comprehensive extension of towline, infers related calculation formulas, and then gives some quantitative analyses on the magnitude of dynamic loads acting on the towline and the measures to increase the capacity of towline against the dynamic loads.

Reliability Optimization Design for the Safe-Arming System of an Air-Faced Missile

This paper establishes a mathematical model of the reliability optimization design for the safe-arming system of an air-faced missile, and presents a solving method for the model. The computational results provide a valuable reference for the reliability design for the safe-arming system of an air-faced missile.

APPLICATION OF STOCHASTIC FINITE ELEMENT METHOD TO STRENGTH AND STABILITY ANALYSIS OF EARTH DAMS

This paper applies the stochastic finite element method to analyse the statistics of stresses in earth dams and assess the safety and reliability of the dams. Formulations of the stochastic finite element method are briefly reviewed and the procedure for assessing dam's strength and stability is described. As an example, a detailed analysis for an actual dam Nululin dam is performed. A practical method for studying built-dams based on the prototype observation data is described.

Study on Detection of Negative Corona Discharge Generated in Rod-Plane Air Gap by Using External Electrode Method

A detective method of a negative corona discharge by means of an external electrode is presented. The relationship between an area of the external electrode and a detected voltage waveform is examined experimentally. This experimental study is carried out with the use of a rod-plane air gap. The results obtained will be applicable to problems associated with silos, ducts, and high-voltage equipment.

Prediction of the burden of road traffic injuries in Iran by 2030: Prevalence, death,and disability-adjusted life years

Purpose:Road traffic accidents pose a global challenge with substantial human and economic costs.Iranexperiences a high incidence of road traffic injuries,leading to a significant burden on society.This studyaims to predict the future burden of road traffic injuries in Iran until 2030,providing valuable insights forpolicy-making and interventions to improve road safety and reduce the associated human and economiccosts.Methods:This analytical study utilized time series models,specifically autoregressive integrated movingaverage(ARIMA)and artificial neural networks(ANNs),to predict the burden of road traffic accidents byanalyzing past data to identify patterns and trends in Iran until 2030.The required data related toprevalence,death,and disability-adjusted life years(DALYs)rates were collected from the Institute forHealth Metrics and Evaluation database and analyzed using R software and relevant modeling andstatistical analysis packages.Results:Both prediction models,ARIMA and ANNs indicate that the prevalence rates(per 100,000)of allroad traffic injuries,except for motorcyclist road injuries which have an almost flat trend,remaining ataround 430,increase by 2030.Based on estimations of both models,the rates of death and DALYs due tomotor vehicle and pedestrian road traffic injuries decrease.For motor vehicle road injuries,estimatedtrends decrease to approximately 520 DALYs and 10 deaths.Also,for pedestrian road injuries these ratesreached approximately 300 DALYs and 6 deaths,according to the models.For cyclists and other roadtraffic injuries,the predicted DALY rates by the ANN model increase to almost 50 and 8,while predictionsconducted by the ARIMA model show a static trend,remaining at 40 and approximately 6.5.Moreover,these rates for the prediction of death rate by the ANN model increased to 0.6 and 0.1,while predictionsconducted by the ARIMA model show a static trend,remaining at 0.43 and 0.07.According to the ANNmodel,the predicted rates of DALY and death for motorcyclists decrease to 100 and approximately 2.7,respectively.On the other hand,predictions made by the ARIMA model show a static trend,with ratesremaining at 200 and approximately 3.2,respectively.Conclusion:The prevalence of road traffic injuries is predicted to increase,while the death and DALYrates of road traffic injuries show different patterns.Effective intervention programs and safety measuresare necessary to prevent and reduce road traffic accidents.Different interventions should be designedand implemented specifically for different groups of pedestrians,cyclists,motorcyclists,and motorvehicle drivers.

CAV driving safety monitoring and warning via V2X-based edge computing system

Driving safety and accident prevention are attracting increasing global interest.Current safety monitoring systems often face challenges such as limited spatiotemporal coverage and accuracy,leading to delays in alerting drivers about potential hazards.This study explores the use of edge computing for monitoring vehicle motion and issuing accident warnings,such as lane departures and vehicle collisions.Unlike traditional systems that depend on data from single vehicles,the cooperative vehicle-infrastructure system collects data directly from connected and automated vehicles(CAVs)via vehicle-to-everything communication.This approach facilitates a comprehensive assessment of each vehicle’s risk.We propose algorithms and specific data structures for evaluating accident risks associated with different CAVs.Furthermore,we examine the prerequisites for data accuracy and transmission delay to enhance the safety of CAV driving.The efficacy of this framework is validated through both simulated and real-world road tests,proving its utility in diverse driving conditions.

Genetic Study Identifies CBLN4 as a Novel Susceptibility Gene for Accident Proneness

Frequent traffic accidents constitute a major danger to human beings.The accident-prone driver who has the stable physiological,psychological,and behavioral characteristics is one of the most prominent causes of traffic accidents.The internal link between the individual characteristics and the accident proneness has been a difficult point in the accident prevention research.The authors selected accident-prone drivers as cases and safe drivers as controls(case-control group) from 18,360 drivers who were enrolled from three public transportation incorporations of China using area stratified sampling method.The case-control groups were 1:1 matched.The authors performed genome-wide association study(GWAS) by 179 cases and 179 controls using the U.S.Affymetrix Genome-Wide Human Mapping SNP 6.0Array.The authors observed that the gene frequencies of34 single-nucleotide polymorphisms(SNPs) in three regions of cases were higher than those in the control(P < 10^(–4)).The authors then tested two independent replication sets for strong association 6 SNPs in 349 pairs of case-control drivers using the U.S.ABI 3730 sequencing method.The results indicated that SNP rs6069499 within linked CBLN4 gene are strongly associated with accident proneness(Pcombined= 6.37×10^(-10)).According to CBLN4 gene mainly involved in adrenal development and the regulation of secretion,the authors performed 12 biochemical parameters of the blood using radioimmunoassay.The levels of dopamine(DA) and adrenocorticotropic(ACTH)hormone showed significant differences between accidentprone drivers and safe drivers(P_(DA)= 0.03,P_(ACTH)= 0.01).It is suggested that the accident-prone drivers may have the idiosyncrasy of susceptibility.

WATER HAMMER ANALYSIS OF WATER FEEDING SYSTEM IN COAL FIRED POWER STATION AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE SAFETY OF OPERATION

In the coal fired power station, the regulation of the load or the sudden stop operation of the unit in accident may result in water hammer, which would have critical influence on the safety operation of the unit. In this paper the analysis of water dynamic characters and the calculation of the pressure increment were shown, when the water hammer was produced in the system.

State of Practice of Construction Site Safety in the USA

The construction industry has long been plagued with a high number of fatalities in the USA.Much safety improvements have been made after the USA Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act in1970. However, this industry still suffers from a disproportionately high rate of work-related fatalities in comparison to other industries. To provide a holistic view of current construction safety practices and corresponding performance, this paper reviews statistics of construction fatalities and their causes. It then presents efforts led to prevent work-related accidents and injuries by the federal safety agencies and the industry. Additionally, advantages and limitations of current practices in terms of construction safety have been discussed along with promotion of aspects in construction work environment.