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To compare traumatic spinal injury patterns between motorcyclists and occupants of other nonheavy motor vehicles using data from the National Spinal Cord and Column Injury Registry of Iran. All drivers/riders and passengers of motorcycles, cars, pick-up trucks, and vans registered between January 2017 to July 2023, met the inclusion criteria for the present study. The logistic regression models were used to compare the patterns of vertebral fracture between the 2 groups. One thousand seven hundred twenty-six spinal fracture patients were identified, 385 (22.3%) motorcyclists and 1341 (77.7%) car occupants with mean ages 33.2 ± 14.3 and 36.1 ± 13.6 years, respectively (P < 0.001). Only 45 (11.7%) motorcyclists used helmets, whereas 856 (63.8%) car occupants used seat belts (P < 0.001). The average numbers of fractured vertebrae were 3.9 ± 1.4 and 3.7 ± 1.1 among car occupants and motorcyclists, respectively (P = 0.004). The proportions of motorcyclists and car occupants with injuries in each spinal region are as follows: lumbar (50.5% of motorcyclists vs. 40.4% of car occupants; P = 0.003), thoracic (39.2% vs. 30.9%; P = 0.01), cervical (24.3% vs. 37.0%; P < 0.001), and sacral (1.3% vs. 7.5%; P < 0.001). The AO Spine type C injuries were present in 6.1% of motorcyclists and 10.1% of car occupants (P = 0.03). Motorcyclists were younger, less educated, had a higher proportion of males, and less commonly used safety devices than car occupants. The most commonly fractured spine region among both groups was the lumbar region. The cervical and sacral vertebrae fractures were significantly more common in car occupants, whereas the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae fractures were significantly more common in motorcyclists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unbundled residential off-street car parking, where spaces are purchased or rented separately to housing, has been shown to reduce car ownership and use, and improve housing affordability. However, there is little understanding of the potential for unbundling parking in the context of residential apartment buildings, including the characteristics of apartment residents who are receptive to unbundling. This research explores the potential for unbundling off-street car parking based on a survey of apartment residents (n = 424) in Melbourne, Australia. The data was analysed using descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression modelling, supplemented by qualitative comments from survey respondents. Over one-third (35%) of apartment households were found to experience a mismatch between the supply and demand of their allocated off-street car parking, either having too much or too little parking relative to the number of cars they owned. Around 42% of apartment residents indicated receptiveness to unbundling off-street car parking. Living in a household with 2+ cars was found to increase the odds of being receptive to unbundling by over 3 times. Given the misallocation of off-street car parking relative to household car ownership in apartment buildings, the results imply that efforts could be directed towards unbundling off-street car parking from apartment housing, while carefully managing any associated risks. Future research could seek to explore the potential for unbundling car parking for other land uses and in other jurisdictions. • Draws on a survey of apartment residents (n = 424) in Melbourne, Australia. • 35% of respondents experienced a mismatch in their allocation of off-street car parking. • 42% of respondents indicated receptiveness to unbundling off-street car parking. • Living in a household with 2+ cars increased the odds of being receptive to unbundling by >3 times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A mathematical model of spare visual capacity in a car following task was created. • Spare visual capacity in car following varies from situation to situation. • The common guideline of 2-second headway needs a revision for 'distracted driving'. • Drivers often occlude themselves even if there is a chance of a rear-end collision. • There is a strong linear association between brake response time and distance headway. Drivers often look away from the forward roadway. However, this does not necessarily mean that they are inattentive, as they might be utilizing their spare visual capacity (SVC). Because of the safety–critical risks associated with inattentive driving, it is imperative to analyze how much visual capacity a driver can afford to use for secondary activities while avoiding the possibility of an accident. This study aimed to define and identify driver inattention in a car following task based on an estimate of the driver's situational SVC. A mathematical model of SVC in car following was created based on the possible but unlikely worst-case scenario in any situation. The model generates situation-specific marginal values of the minimum time that can lead to a possible collision when a driver looks away from the lead car. A classification algorithm was developed to define and identify inattention based on the model's estimates. The model reveals that SVC in car following varies significantly from situation to situation, depending on relevant situational, technical, and cognitive factors. A driving simulator study (N = 32) indicated that drivers are often willing to occlude themselves in car following when there is a chance of a rear-end collision and that this behavior becomes more likely with higher speeds. A strong linear association between distance headway and brake response time was also found. Quantifying SVC in driving helps in determining driver inattention against a valid baseline based on what is possible. The proposed modeling approach can be utilized for the development of improved safety guidelines and effective context-sensitive (in)attention monitoring systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A test facility was constructed to investigate the flow characteristics of lateral synthetic jets generated by an actuator composed of a cavity, an orifice and a vibrating piezoelectric disc. Subsequently, 3D unsteady numerical simulations were conducted to analyze the formation of the synthetic jets and their dependence on the height of the orifice exit from the outer surface of the cavity. The time-averaged axial velocity was measured and used to validate the numerical results, and the maximum velocity reached approximately 8 m/s. In this work, it was found that the interaction of the vortex tube generated at the edge of the orifice exit and the outer surface of the cavity has a significant impact on the axial velocity distribution and characteristics of the lateral synthetic jets. Based on the experimental data and the numerical results, an attempt has been made to understand the formation of the synthetic jets and their interaction with the outer surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • The evolution and speciation of chlorine during ASR pyrolysis are studied. • Org-chlorine can be converted to InO-chlorine and remain in char. • Up to 12% and over 64% of chlorine are migrated to HCl and char, respectively. • Rising temperature promotes the conversion from Org-chlorine to inorganic in char. • Calcium-based compounds in ASR play a predominant role in the capture of chlorine. Disposal of automobile shredder residue (ASR) via pyrolysis enables the recovery of valuable products; however, the production of hazardous pollutants and low-value products is inevitable due to its high chlorine content. In this work, chlorine evolution behavior and the conversion mechanism during ASR pyrolysis between 480 and 600 °C were systematically studied. The experimental results for organic chlorine (Org-Cl) showed that released chlorinated gases were complex, and HCl only accounted for 35% of the gas phase products, while short-chain hydrocarbons with carbon atoms between two and four accounted for 52%. Chlorine was predominantly retained in the char, and Org-Cl was the primary contributor to the residual chlorine, accounting for over 50% of the char. The content of inorganic chlorine (InO-Cl) was low in the raw sample but significantly increased in the char. Through the distinction between organic and inorganic chlorine content in char, it was confirmed that Org-Cl could be converted to InO-Cl due to complex secondary reactions with metallic compounds. The conversion was favored by increasing the Org-Cl content and the temperature. Our findings clarified the evolution mechanism of chlorine and the transformation from Org-Cl to InO-Cl, thus providing guidance for chlorine regulation and the efficient recycling of metal resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigated the hydrogen production and energy conversion from automobile shredder residues (ASRs) and paper mill sludge (PMS) co-gasified in a full-scale fluidized bed gasification plant. The results obtained from full-scale tests provided important information on the feasible assessment of ASRs-to-energy and the selection of alternative technologies for ASRs. Based on the analysis results of produced gas composition, H 2 , CO, and CH 4 composition produced from paper-mill sludge gasified were 4.17%–6.01%, 3.08%–4.32%, 1.71%–2.4%, respectively. Another C 2 gas composition ranged from 2.9% to 3.59%. The heating value of produced gas ranged between 1.64 MJ/Nm3 and 2.18 MJ/Nm3. In the case of 10% ASR addition, the heating value of produced gas was slightly increased to 1.84 MJ/Nm3-2.34 MJ/Nm3. The dioxin emission concentration of flue gas was approximately 0.064 ng I-TEQ/Nm3. It can comply with Taiwan regulation thresholds. The dioxin leaching concentrations of residues derived from gasification were also in compliance with regulation limits by the TCLP test. Meanwhile, in the case of 10% ASRs addition, the dioxin equivalence concentration of gasified residue was nearly 0.002 ng I-TEQ/Nm3. It was far below the current regulation standard limit. In summary, the results of this research have proved the performance of ASRs-to-energy by co-gasified with paper mill sludge using a full-scale gasification plant. The results obtained from this research also provided the information for selecting ASRs alternative technologies and operating full-scale gasifiers in the future. [Display omitted] • This study has confirmed the feasibility of co-gasification of calcium-rich PMS and chlorine-rich ASRs. • Adding 5%–15% of ASRs can maintain the regular operation of the full-scale commercial gasifier. • The synthesis gas has a composition of 4.91 vol% H 2 and 2.06 vol% CO, with a LHV of 1.93 MJ/Nm3. • The HCl emission could comply with regulation thresholds in co-gasification. • Dioxin reformation reduced significantly in co-gasification of PMS and ASRs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Two online studies carried out on cyclists' lane position and subjective safety. • First experiment to jointly investigate parked cars, sharrows, tram rails & norms. • More central positions chosen in presence of parked cars, sharrows and tram rails. • Cyclists felt safer in absence of parked cars and tram rails. • Cyclists felt safer in the presence of sharrows. Problem : Cyclists riding next to parked vehicles are at risk of crashes with opening vehicle doors. A central position, out of this dooring zone, decreases such a risk but comes with other problems like potentially smaller passing distances kept by overtaking motorists or having to cross tram rails. Method: Factors influencing cyclists' choice of position were investigated by showing a total of 3,444 German cyclists different traffic situations in two online surveys. In the first study (N = 1,850), parked cars, the position of a cyclist riding ahead in the presented images (towards the curb/center of the lane), and presence and kind of sharrows were varied. As the variation in results for the different sharrow types was negligible, in Study 2 (N = 1,594), only the most common type was used. Whether cyclists prefer to accept the risk of falling while crossing tram rails or the risk of being too close to the curb or parked cars was investigated, varying the presence of tram rails, which has not been previously researched. In both studies, respondents indicated which position on the road they would choose in the depicted situations and answered questions about subjective safety, a factor closely related to cyclists' choice of position. Results: Cyclists chose positions farther towards the center of the road if there were parked cars and they chose an even more central position with tram rails. Respondents felt safer with sharrows on the road as well as in situations without parked cars and in situations without tram rails. Discussion and practical implications: The results indicate that, in addition to infrastructure characteristics, other cyclists' behavior (descriptive norm) influences cyclists' position on the road as well as their perceived safety. Implications for infrastructure design, especially regarding (the removal of) parked cars, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we adopted a Social Practice perspective to unpack which practices are strongly connected to car driving and why that is the case. Through focus group research with car owners in the city of Ghent (Belgium), we explored how strongly practices are locked into car driving and what interventions are required to reduce the car dependence of the observed practices. We found that car-dependent practices are still abundant even in a city that offers ample opportunities for non-car modes. Our study classified the car-dependent practices into five groups: cargo, caring, maintaining social relationships, leisure and commuting. However, some practices could not be placed under a single heading, illustrating that many trips are messy and unpredictable. Consequently, a continuum of car dependence will be necessarily multidimensional and varies along different axes. Not all identified practices were considered equally car-dependent. We distinguished between (1) practices that do not depend on the practice of car driving, (2) practices that do depend on car driving but not on private car ownership, and (3) practices that require strong reorganisation or risk disintegrating without car driving. For urban residents, car dependence of practices occurs mainly at the level of occasional practices and practices outside the urban area. But also for practices inside the city, we noticed a predisposition towards car use, driven by a desire towards flexibility, autonomy and comfort. Revealing how car-dependent practices bundle and exploring the elements that constitute them is imperative for identifying potential avenues for policy interventions. • Car dependent-practices are still abundant even in a city that offers ample opportunities for non-car modes. • Acontinuum of car dependence will be necessarily multidimensional and varies along different axes. • For urban residents, occasional practices and activities outside the urban area are identified as the most car-dependent. • Car use is driven by a desire towards flexibility, autonomy and comfort. • Revealing how and why car-dependent practices bundle is imperative for identifying potential policy interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluates whether a motorist's choice over green cars (i.e., cars with featuring low C O 2 emissions) and non-green cars (i.e., cars featuring high C O 2 emissions) is efficient. To this end, we present a micro-founded model of motorist choice incorporating the impact of eco-incentives and taxation on C O 2 emissions. Subsequently, we implement data envelopment analysis on a large database of new cars registered in 2019 to evaluate efficiency. The results show that the motorist's optimal choice (green car) does not coincide with the efficient choice. Moreover, motorist choice is mainly guided by the high price of green cars. On average, the efficient choice coincides with cars that end up in the dark area (they do not benefit from eco-incentives and do not pay the pollution tax), being the cheapest, the lightest, the least powerful (low Kw) and petrol fuelled. On average, these elements pertain to Italian motorists with respect to their tastes; most importantly, their budgets do not go well with the high costs of green cars. • We present a model of motorists' optimal choice. • We verify if a motorist's optimal choice coincides with their efficient choice. • Eco-bonus is not sufficient because the optimal choice coincides with the efficient one. • We implement an efficiency analysis via data envelopment analysis. • Price is an important factor regarding the choice of the car. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compares the performance of YOLOv5 and R-CNN, two state-of-the-art object detection models, in car detection tasks. Both models were trained and evaluated on the same "Car Object Detection" dataset. The YOLOv5 model leveraged transfer learning, while the R-CNN model used the Selective Search algorithm for region proposals. The paper provides insights for choosing an appropriate object detection model for specific applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve product value, research has been conducted on the sound of automobiles. However, studies of perception, including sound, may overestimate the contribution of sound because each perception is treated as an independent object of study. In this study, we clarified the influence of sound on attractiveness in the form of an overarching study of each perception and confirmed the contribution of hearing. A covariance structure analysis of the results of an online survey on the presentation of each perceptual information about automobiles revealed that hearing is the second most important factor for automobile attractiveness after sight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Compared with people who drive cars, motorcyclists have lower trust for human drivers. • Motorcyclists compared with car drivers are less negative towards self-drive cars. • Motorcyclists compared with car drivers have a higher sense of trust in self-drive cars. • Car drivers express more concerns and a wider range of concerns in self-driver cars. • Motorcyclists are more likely than car drivers to consider their own safety when balancing the safety of self-drive cars. • Motorcyclists believe that self-drive cars will recognise their personal safety, compared to human drivers. Self-drive vehicles have the potential to revolutionise transport systems, however their adoption by mainstream users is highly dependent on a range of factors including trust. Moreover, perceptions of self-drive cars are likely to be highly dependent on the lived-experience of different road user types. Motorcyclists have high impressions of road-vulnerability and distrust for other road users. This distrust stems from the evidence that the vast number of motorcycle crashes occur as a consequence of other-driver error. We therefore hypothesised that compared with car drivers, vulnerable road users such as motorcyclists would report high levels of other-driver distrust, but high levels of trust in self-drive cars. We conducted semi-structured interviews with motorcyclists and car drivers and found that motorcyclists are indeed distrustful of other drivers but have higher levels of trust for self-drive cars compared with car drivers, while car drivers have low levels of trust for self-drive cars, but high levels of trust for other drivers. Motorcyclists were also more likely to report a perspective of trust that centred around their own personal safety on the road. This study provides valuable insights into different road user's perceptions of AVs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Despite the plausibility that diabetes may increase the risk of motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) due to various diabetes related complications and co-morbidity, findings from epidemiological studies on the relationship between diabetes and MVCs remained inclusive mainly due to heterogeneity in the study design and failure to complete consideration of potential confounders. This study re-visited this putative association with an improved study design.Method: This study employed a controlled before-after study design and included 1,264,280 people aged 18-75 years with T2D newly diagnosed from 2009-2014 and an equal number of age-, sex-, and time-matched controls. The rate ratios (RRs) of vehicle type-specific incidence rates of MVCs in the 1 and 2 years before and after diabetes diagnosis (or the matched dates) were compared between the individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and their matched controls.Results: The rate of MVCs increased slightly among people with T2D over 1 and 2 years following diabetes diagnosis, with RRs of 1.04 (95% confidence interval [CI]=1.02-1.07) and 1.11 (95% CI=1.09-1.13), respectively. These RRs were comparable to those obtained for controls (1.06 and 1.12, respectively). By contrast, the RRs of scooter crashes were significantly higher in the T2D group than in the control group during the 1 year (1.28 vs. 1.08, p < 0.001) and 2 years (1.32 vs. 1.08, p < 0.001) following diabetes diagnosis.Conclusion: T2D diagnosis was associated with a moderate but significant increase in the risk of MVCs among scooter drivers, but not among car drivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The online car-sharing problem finds many real-world applications. The problem, proposed by Luo, Erlebach and Xu in 2018, mainly focuses on an online model in which there are two locations: 0 and 1, and k total cars. Each request which specifies its pick-up time and pick-up location (among 0 and 1, and the other is the drop-off location) is released in each stage a fixed amount of time before its specified start (i.e. pick-up) time. The time between the booking (i.e. released) time and the start time is enough to move empty cars between 0 and 1 for relocation if they are not used in that stage. The model, called k S2L-F, assumes that requests in each stage arrive sequentially regardless of the same booking time and the decision (accept or reject) must be made immediately. The goal is to accept as many requests as possible. In spite of only two locations, the analysis does not seem easy and the (tight) competitive ratio (CR) is only known to be 2 for k = 2 and 1.5 for a restricted value of k , i.e., a multiple of three. In this paper, we remove all the holes of unknown CR's; namely we prove that the CR is 2 k k + ⌊ k / 3 ⌋ for all k ≥ 2. Furthermore, if the algorithm can delay its decision until all requests have come in each stage, the CR is improved to roughly 4/3. We can take this advantage even further; precisely we can achieve a CR of 2 + R 3 if the number of requests in each stage is at most Rk , 1 ≤ R ≤ 2 , where we do not have to know the value of R in advance. Finally we demonstrate that randomization also helps to get (slightly) better CR's, and prove some lower bounds to show the tightness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• 3D crosswalks use optical illusions to provoke the perception of a three-dimensional crosswalk from a car driver perspective. • While several 3D crosswalks have been painted worldwide, their impact on perceived road safety has not been investigated. • We investigated perceived safety of car drivers and pedestrians around a 3D crosswalk in Myanmar in a questionnaire survey. • Surveyed road users compare the 3D crosswalk favorably to traditional crosswalks. • Many road users talk to friends and family about the crosswalk, underlining its potential as a road safety marketing tool. Facilitating safe pedestrian road crossings is a major prerequisite for safe urban environments. In multiple cities around the world, 3D crosswalks have been painted, which provoke an optical illusion, of e.g., a crosswalk floating above the road, in car drivers who approach the crosswalk. However, to date, no detailed study of road users' safety related perceptions on 3D crosswalks has been conducted. Hence, we investigated car drivers' and pedestrians' perceptions of a 3D crosswalk, and how they rate its safety in comparison to traditional (non-3D illusion) crosswalks. In an on-site questionnaire survey, we interviewed 201 pedestrians and 102 car drivers in the direct vicinity of a newly painted 3D crosswalk located in Yangon, Myanmar. Our results show that only 53.9 % of the car drivers report to have consciously perceived the 3D effect of the crosswalk. Nonetheless, both, pedestrians and car drivers rate the 3D crosswalk as safer for road crossing than a traditional crosswalk. A high share of pedestrians (43.3 %) report taking a detour to use the 3D crosswalk for road crossing. Approximately one third (31.3 %) of pedestrians and 48.0 % of car drivers interviewed have talked to their friends about the 3D crosswalk, indicating a high potential for using 3D crosswalks as a marketing tool for road safety actors to generate attention for pedestrian safety. Unrelated to our main research question, we found that pedestrians prefer to cross in groups, as it increases the perceived likelihood of cars yielding to them. Overall, the data points to significant increases in the perceived safety of drivers as well pedestrians around the 3D crosswalk. Future studies need to investigate how these perceptions translate to actual safety related behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Enhancing the public transport service had only a marginal effect on ridership, except for rural areas where the impact was greater. • Leisure and service trips were more impacted by self-driving technology than commuting trips. • Walking and bicycling declined across all modelled scenarios. Self-driving technology may lead to a paradigm shift for the transport industry with shared cars available to every-one. However, this vision has increasingly been challenged as too optimistic and unsubstantiated. In this study we explore societal impacts of using this technology for both cars and public transport and investigate differences depending on geography and trip purpose. Four scenarios were designed through workshops with 130 transport experts, modelled using a conventional four-step model for Stockholm, Sweden and evaluated in terms of changes to mode choice, number of trips and person kilometres. We find larger increases for non-commuting trips, i.e. service and leisure trips, than for commuting trips, questioning the view of the 'productive work trip' as self-driving technology's main impact on society. As these trips are primarily made outside of rush hours, this may lead to a changed transport system. Geographic differences are substantial and heavily dependent on the cost model for car alternatives, even indicating a reduction in car travel in rural areas if private ownership would be replaced by shared cars. Furthermore, walking and cycling levels decreased in all scenarios while enhancing public transport using self-driving technology had a limited impact on ridership. These results show that the impacts of self-driving technology may have varied societal impacts even within a region and may lead to increased car travel, especially off-peak. These conclusions stress the need for policies that are sensitive to both geography and time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In modern society, car usage is one of the most important activities of daily living. However, the three-dimensional (3D) mechanics of getting into and out of a car in total hip arthroplasty (THA) patients have not been studied.Research Question: This study aimed to elucidate the hip kinematics and kinetics of unilateral THA patients while getting into and out of a car.Methods: 3D motion and ground reaction force data were collected for 40 unilateral primary THA and 30 control participants using motion capture of getting into and out of a car. Normalized joint power was used to determine the individual joint contribution and was calculated by dividing the power of each joint by the total lower-extremity power. These kinematic and kinetic data were compared between unilateral THA and control participants.Results: When getting into the car using the surgical side as the pivot limb, the peak flexion, abduction angle, and normalized power of the pivot hip were significantly lower, and the normalized power of the contralateral ankle was significantly higher. The peak flexion and abduction angle of the pivot hip were significantly lower, and normalized contralateral hip power was significantly higher when getting out of the car. In getting into and out of the car using the contralateral side as the pivot limb, there was no significant difference in the range of motion (RoM) and normalized joint power.Significance: The restoration of RoM and muscle strength in the surgical hip joint and adopting the normal side as the pivot limb may allow for a more appropriate balance in motion of getting into and out of a car, which will lead to safe mobility, assist in social participation, and improved quality of life.Level Of Evidence: Level III, therapeutic study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a general consensus that private car ownership is a significant barrier to transport system change, specifically in regard to injuries, space, air pollutants, or greenhouse gas emissions. Observed changes in automobile characteristics also suggest that the system is becoming less sustainable, given trends towards larger cars with greater mass and horsepower. It is thus relevant to understand how the automobile system progresses. National statistics provide data on the technical side of car ownership, such as changes in vehicle specifics or national fleet size. This paper complements this view with a socio-psychological perspective on aspirational car ownership, i.e. the type of car people preferred to drive if given a free choice. Data is derived from an online panel (n = 1,211) representative of the German population, and also contains information on current car ownership, use, driving style, traffic behavior, attitudes towards traffic risks and safety measures, as well as political orientation. This allows for a discussion of driver segments in relation to the characteristics of cars, and hence to better understand the socio-psychological drivers of the development of the automobile system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fine-grained visual classification (FGVC) strives to distinguish images from distinct sub-classes within the same overarching meta-class, which is significant in various practical applications. Existing works mainly employ attention mechanisms to learn discriminative feature representations of objects under weakly supervised learning. In this paper, we argue that this likehood-based attention learning manner often outputs an inadequate feature representation since the available image-level labels fail to provide an explicit supervisory signal for attention learning, especially when the fine-grained images share a small and inconsistent inter-class variance. To alleviate this issue, we consider this challenging task from the perspective of attacking the feature representation between similar sub-classes to maximize the feature discriminativeness via learning adversarial examples, and propose an Adversarial-Aware Fine-Grained Visual Classification Network (A2Net). Specifically, we first propose an adversarial attack module based on projected gradient descent, which appends multiple-scale adversarial perturbations to simulate subclass examples with different similarities. Then, we introduce an adversarial attention generation module that estimates the effect of attention learned on adversarial examples and legitimate examples for the final class prediction through causal inference. The adversarial attention generation module is encouraged to maximize the effect, which provides powerful supervision to capture more attention indicating the discriminative parts. We further propose an adversarial-aware module to learn the feature-level differences between legitimate and adversarial examples, which helps enhance the semantic boundaries of class-specific features for accurate FGVC. The extensive array of experiments conducted serves to underscore the efficacy of the proposed A2Net, outperforming state-of-the-art FGVC methods on CUB-200–2011, FGVC-Aircraft, Stanford Cars, Stanford Dogs, and NABirds benchmarks. • Address FGVC via attacking the similarity of learned class-specific features. • Develop an adversarial-aware fine-grained visual recognition network. • Enhance class-specific features via causal inference-based attention. • Discern feature-level differences between legitimate and adversarial examples. • Attain state-of-the-art performance across five benchmarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the spatial spillover effects of built environment features on household car and motorcycle ownership through aggregate ward-level analysis and household-level disaggregated analysis. Using a primary data collected in Hubli-Dharwad city in Southern India, the paper estimates Spatial Durbin models to assess the direct and spillover effects of socio-economic characteristics (household income, the number of children and household size), built environment characteristics (population density, diversity, distance, and subjective built environment measures), travel attitudes (pro-car, pro-NMT and pro-public transport), and commute behavior (distance and time) on household car and motorcycle ownership. The paper finds that spatial dependencies exist in both aggregate and disaggregate levels of analysis. There is a significant spatial dependency in car ownership due to household income, household size, the number of children, and pro-car attitude, and the correlations are significant in both aggregate and disaggregate levels of analysis. The positive lag effects of these variables suggests that socio-economic settings and attitudes of neighboring wards affect car and motorcycle ownership in a ward. The effects of diversity on car and motorcycle ownership maintain similar correlations in both levels of analysis. The likelihood of motorcycle ownership increases with improvements in diversity, while car ownership likelihood decreases. The study also shows that the spatial effects of built environment features could vary between the aggregate and disaggregate levels of analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• An innovative conch-shaped radiative cooling film car cover is designed to maximize surface area (up to 57.268 m2) within a limited space of 5 m by 2 m. • The design can achieve a high cooling power of 5726.8 W to effectively cool the car under strong solar irradiance of 800 W·m−2. The temperature decrease is up to 27 °C. • Car covers with different surface coverages are compared to a commercial plain car cover. The results show that radiative cooling technology can play a key role in cooling cars, and the cooling effect can be maximized by enlarging the surface area. Due to the capability of cooling objects without energy consumption by emitting thermal radiation into outer space, radiative cooling technologies have found broad applications in different scenarios. Despite the high demand for cooling automobiles under sunlight, there is no specialized design of a radiative cooling cover for automobiles. This paper demonstrates the first specialized radiative cooling cover for automobiles. As the overall cooling power is linearly proportional to the surface area, we designed a conch-shaped foldable radiative cooling film car cover to maximize the surface area within a limited space, resulting in a total cooling power of 5,726.8 W. As a result, the maximum temperature drop can reach 27 °C under strong solar irradiance (800 Wm−2). In addition, we further demonstrate the effects of the surface coverage on the cooling performance by measuring the temperature drop at different surface coverages (100 %, 90 %, 40 %, and 10 %). It is found that the radiative cooling cover can effectively cool the inner temperature of a car even with a small surface coverage. In addition, it confirms that enlarging surface area is an effective way to improve cooling performance. Our results open new possibilities in designing radiative cooling covers that can achieve large cooling power within a limited footprint. The design principle can be extended and generally applied to other radiative cooling devices for various applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• CS members living in inner-city areas own significantly less cars than before registration. • CS membership is one of the strongest predictors of car shedding. • Attitude towards driving and CS perception against private car are other relevant factors. • Roundtrip members are 15 times more likely to shed a car than free-floating ones. • Combined and parallel members also showed higher propensity to shed cars than free-floaters. This paper explores the relationship between car sharing services membership and private car ownership levels. Compared to previous studies, we focus on differences among members registered in roundtrip station-based, free-floating, and combined services, by analysing the results of a survey addressed to members living in three German inner-city areas. Two logistic regression models were estimated to understand car ownership reduction patterns between different time points. In addition to car sharing membership and related patterns of use, sociodemographic characteristics of respondents, opinions about other transport means, attitudes towards private car, and environmental concerns were considered in the models' specification. Both regression models showed that car sharing membership is one of the strongest predictors of car shedding. Albeit all car sharing users reported significantly lower levels of car ownership than before registering to the service, roundtrip station-based members are about 15 times more likely to reduce car ownership than free-floating unique members. Respondents with membership in both schemes (either in combined or parallel offers) also showed higher propensity than free-floating members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Recent developments in passive cooling technology for vehicles have been portrayed. • Recent developments in active cooling technology for vehicles have been reviewed. • Effect of distinct parameters has been discussed on the performance parameters of ACS. • Renewable sources of energy to operate vehicles ACS have been explored and reviewed. • Renewable energy-based stand-alone ACS is the most promising alternative for vehicles. The fluctuation in temperature in the vehicle cabin causes discomfort for occupants. To maintain a comfortable temperature in the cabin, the importance of the air-conditioning system (ACS) increases in automobiles. In situations like dense traffic and the parking of vehicles in open spaces (under direct sunlight), the vehicle's cabin temperature increases. The comfortable condition for occupants in the vehicle cabin is achieved by ACS which consumes energy from the engine or battery, which affects the fuel economy or cruising range, or average performance of the vehicle. When the engine is "Off", achieving comfortable conditions in the cabin or operating ACS becomes impossible. In this review, the authors have reviewed various passive and active cooling technologies to enhance the performance of ACS, which leads to an improvement in the performance of conventional or hybrid, or electric energy-based vehicles. The influence of distinct parameters on performance indices of ACS and overall vehicle performance has been summarized in tables. The renewable sources of energy to reduce the soak temperature in the cabin and to operate ACS in automobiles have also been explored and reviewed. In the end, the critical conclusion and the future scope of renewable energy-operated stand-alone ACS have been elaborated concisely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Dependence on car transportation negatively predicts cycling frequency. • Moral factors have no significant impact on cycling frequency. • Cycling promotion strategies need to account for car-related factors. Antecedent conditions of cycling have been extensively studied, yet barriers that prevent individuals from choosing bicycle transportation are less known. The present study, conducted on a sample of individuals who were both cyclists and drivers (N = 280), investigated whether dependence on car transportation significantly reduces cycling frequency. It also assessed the predictive validity of a larger set of cycling determinants that included moral, objective environmental, demographic and car-related variables. Responses were analyzed using a structural equation modeling approach. Results show that moral considerations do little to predict cycling frequency and that car-related factors such as perceived behavioral control to reduce car use (β = 0.28) and car use habits (β = -0.27) have the strongest predictive power. Objective environmental factors such as temperature (β = -0.13) and altitude (β = -0.15) or demographic factors such as gender (β = 0.19) were also significant predictors of cycling frequency. The present study highlights a new perspective of understanding cycling behavior and pleads for the inclusion of car-related factors in its future conceptualizations and interventions to encourage it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even if the same color type, such as white, is applied in product design, it differs slightly depending on the manufacturer. However, the color effects on consumer behavior have been centered on hue units such as blue and white. The viewpoint of analyzing a specific color in detail has been limited to saturation and lightness. Therefore, this study focused on bluish-white, known to have an unhealthy impression as a human facial expression, and examined its effect on the exterior design of automobiles. Through randomized controlled trials in Japan, it was found that bluish-white harms attractiveness compared to white. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comprehensive review of recent studies in electrical power generation from various thermal-consuming processes. In particular, the paper concentrates on TEG technology in recovering waste heat from industrial applications such as chimneys and automotive engines. Studies conclude that TEGs have a lower conversion efficiency (ranging between 5% and 10%), leading to low power output. Also, they state that most of the available TEGs have low operating temperatures limiting their commercial use. Therefore, an effort is taken to understand the key parameters that influence the performance of a thermoelectric generator. It is shown that a large temperature difference across the module, high heat dissipation from the cold side of the TEG and using thermoelectric materials with a high figure of merit generally improve the performance of the thermoelectric generator system. TEG module's cold-side temperature has a large effect on the power output than the hot-side temperature. Several geometric optimization methods, such as flaps and heat spreaders under natural convection resulted in a 129% and 42% increase in TEG power output, respectively. The survey also shows that forced cooling using side-mounted fans produces 58.6% more power compared to the top-mounted fan on the heat sink. However, optimization in fan selection is required to ensure that the power produced by forced cooling is sufficient to run the fans and output higher than the natural convection cooling case. Several studies also show that most of the commercially available TEG modules made from Bismuth telluride suffer from low operating temperature (maximum of 2600 C) and have figure of merit of 1.2 maximum and low conversion efficiency (up to 5%). Recommendations are made to further research alternatives like SiGe alloys, clathrates, skutterudites, and complementary metal-oxide semiconductors with better temperature ranges and figures of merit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • The deoxidation is enhanced with ester's bond breaking easily at high heating rate. • High heating rate promotes the tar aromatization and hydrocarbon gas formation. • The further crack of volatiles improves its properties by enhancing cross-reaction. • Products of automobile shredder residue show a good substitution of coal. • Co-processing of automobile shredder residue in coal-fired plant is promising. Facing the challenges of organic industrial solid waste (OISW) disposal, co-processing of OISW by power plants has become a developing trend. In order to avoid feeding problems of OISW and enhance the combustion adaptability of the furnace, pyrolysis coupled with incineration technology is proposed as a potential method. Among various OISW, automobile shredder residue (ASR) is regarded as a promising fuel due to its high heating value. In view of engineering application, the researches focused on the products' properties and economic evaluation under a wide range of heating rates which are insufficient. In this study, regarding the rapid pyrolysis by conducting the high-temperature flue gas as heating source in power plants, the pyrolysis behavior of ASR was correspondingly studied under a wide range of heating rates. The formation of volatiles and property's improvement were further investigated for generating high-valued oil. Results showed that the high heating rate is not only beneficial to the homogenization of pyrolytic products but also the aromatization in oil and radical generation in gases. Importantly, it also contributed to the cleavage of the single bond connected to the benzene ring and carbon-oxygen single bond for esters. By conducting the enhanced cracking of volatiles, the wax-like fraction was significantly reduced. In addition, the deoxygenation in oil (oxygen content decreased by 20 wt%) and high heating value of gases (increased by 73%) were improved. Our findings demonstrated the feasibility and economic efficiency for the co-processing of ASR in coal-fired power plants via pyrolysis and thus provide guidance for future commercial application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using high strength Al-Zn-Mg-Cu-Fe alloy sheets as structural parts is capable of realizing lightweight of automobiles, but the low room temperature formability seriously limits their widespread use in automotive industry. In this study, we propose a new strategy to construct the coupling distribution of domains with different strengths by an innovate short-flow thermomechanical processing route. Both the compatible deformation capacity and room temperature formability of alloy sheets can be greatly enhanced by the coupling action of dislocations with domains. Finally, the average plastic strain (r ̅ -value) of alloys with a suitable coupling distribution of domains with different strengths can be greatly increased to 0.7171, which is a great outclass as those of traditional Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy sheets. Furthermore, the evolution mechanisms of domains with different strengths and the coupling action mechanisms of dislocations with domains have been discussed in detail. [Display omitted] • The coupling distribution of soft/hard domains was constructed in the Al-Zn-Mg-Cu-Fe alloy sheets. • The formability of alloys with coupling distribution of soft/hard domains is significantly improved. • The forming mechanism of the coupling distribution of soft/hard domains was proposed. • The high formability mechanisms have been deeply discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hierarchical classification is a significant challenge in computer vision due to the logical order and interconnectedness of multiple labels. This paper presents HD-CapsNet, a novel neural network architecture based on deep capsule networks, specifically designed for hierarchical multi-label classification(HMC). By incorporating a tree-like hierarchical structure, HD-CapsNet is designed to leverage the inherent ontological order within the hierarchical label tree, thereby ensuring classification consistency across different levels. Additionally, we introduce a specialized loss function that promotes accurate hierarchical relationships while penalizing inconsistencies. This not only enhances classification performance but also strengthens the network's robustness. We rigorously evaluate HD-CapsNet's efficacy by benchmarking it against existing HMC methods across six diverse datasets: Fashion-MNIST, Marine-Tree, CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100, Caltech-UCSD Birds-200-2011, and Stanford Cars. Our results conclusively demonstrate that HD-CapsNet excels in learning hierarchical relationships and significantly outperforms the competition in various image classification tasks. Our implementation is available at https://github.com/tasrif-khondaker/HD-CapsNet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This systematic literature review aimed to investigate the extent to which transport-related interventions induced a reduction in car use. Both qualitative synthesis and meta -analysis were employed. The synthesis included 31 original studies, while the meta -analysis included 21. Of the qualitatively synthesised studies, 74 % demonstrated that interventions were effective in reducing car use. The pooled estimates of the effects showed a significant reduction in car usage with a mean effect size of Hedges' g = -0.117 (p = 0.024). The effect strongly varies across the studies due to considerable heterogeneity (I2 =.98, with a 95 % prediction interval from −0.589 to 0.355). At the moderator level, no significant differences were identified in the mean effect sizes for any subgroups, and the key factors could not be distinguished. The current body of evidence highlights that transport-related interventions can significantly influence car usage reduction, while literature suggests that this may benefit environment and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Powered mobility training with modified ride-on cars is an innovative intervention option that aims to improve the body functions and participation of children with severe disabilities. In addition to enabling self-initiated mobility, training can result in learning gains in ride-on car use and attainment of rehabilitation goals. Due to their severe motor and cognitive impairment, children with Congenital Zika Syndrome (CZS) may benefit from interventions with modified powered ride-on cars, as such devices are more cost-effective when compared to motorized wheelchairs. To describe the results of a powered mobility intervention with modified motorized ride-on cars for children with CZS, considering the outcomes of goal attainment and mobility learning. This is a pilot study with 12 weeks of intervention and 4 weeks of follow-up. The intervention was guided by a physiotherapist or occupational therapist and consisted of training sessions with modified ride-on cars, lasting 40 minutes, three times a week, at the Clínica Escola de Fisioterapia da Faculdade de Ciências da Saúde do Trairi (FACISA), in Santa Cruz-RN. The outcomes of interest were mobility learning, assessed using the "Assessment of the Use of Motorized Mobility (ALP)-version 2.0" scale and the attainment of rehabilitation goals, assessed using the Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS). Assessments were performed by previously trained independent examiners at weeks 0, 8, 12 e 16. Four children with CZS participated, two males, aged between 3 and 6 years, three were classified as level V and one as level IV in the Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS). All had moderate to severe intellectual disability, and two associated visual impairment. After the 12 weeks of intervention with powered ride-on cars, changes in mobility learning were observed, with an increment of one or two points in ALP, and clinically significant changes in GAS scores, when compared to week 0, in all participants. The intervention with modified powered ride-on cars was potentially capable of increasing learning in motorized mobility and contributing to the achievement of rehabilitation goals in children with CZS. We suggest the development of clinical trials to explore the effects of the intervention on functional gains and participation of children with CZS. The study presents a fun and low-cost intervention option, through powered mobility training with motorized ride-on cars for children with CZS and severe motor and cognitive impairment, which can be implemented in the child's natural context. In addition, the work contributes to fostering future intervention studies and contributing to evidence-based clinical practice for children with CZS in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transport objects and demands of cars and trucks differ, leading to different spatiotemporal characteristics in their flow patterns. Existing studies on expressway flow are mainly focused on the overall traffic, however, a decomposition analysis of cars and trucks is necessary to accurately explore traffic prediction, management, and dynamic toll policy. This study presents calendars and spatial distribution of car and truck flow based on toll fee data in Jiangsu Province, China. Additionally, the influencing factors are explored by using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) models. The results show that: (1) car flow follows a regular pattern of low from Monday–Thursday and high from Friday–Sunday, while high from Monday–Friday and low from Saturday–Sunday for truck flow. This law is not obvious in the total flow calendar. (2) The car flow predominantly accumulates in the 0–20 km range, while the truck flow is concentrated within the 20–40 km range. (3) The spatial distributions are stable for both car and truck flow, characterized by higher flows in the southern part of Jiangsu and lower in the northern region. Gaps in truck flow between cities are greater than those in car flow, narrowing during holidays/festivals than on weekdays or weekends. (4) private vehicle possession and travel time to Shanghai are the main influencing factors on car flow during different periods, the number of research institutions and the added value of tertiary industry are positively correlated on weekdays and weekends, respectively. Total retail sales of consumer goods is the main factor affecting truck flow during different periods, total import and export goods can be attributed to weekdays, while per capita disposable income affects weekends and festivals. Finally, the findings of this study offer insights for the optimal implementation of toll policies. • The case study elucidates car and truck travel behaviour on expressways in Jiangsu Province, China. • Real-time data reveal spatiotemporal differences between car and truck flows on expressways. • The results offer insights into traffic prediction and dynamic toll policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most case and comparative studies discuss urban characteristics that can hardly be influenced by urban transport policies. However, these studies do not quantify the impact of the so-called contextual factors on car ownership and car use. This paper focuses on these contextual factors and their associations with car ownership and car use. Regression models show that contextual factors - such as city size, the share of households with children and the jobs-housing balance - explain a substantial part of the variance in car ownership and car trips in 44 German cities. Residual analyses reveal that neglecting contextual factors leads to biases in comparative studies and consequently in the evaluation of urban transport policies. Thus, there is a risk that cities with favourable contextual factors may be mistakenly viewed as successful examples of transport policy, whereas successful policies in cities with less favourable contextual factors may be overlooked. • Contextual factors explain a large part of variance in car ownership and car trips. • Residual analyses show: Neglecting contextual factors leads to bias in benchmarking. • Transport policies should be evaluated while accounting for contextual factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study is to investigate the role of spatial characteristics on car ownership and availability respectively in agent-based travel demand models and its affection on the model's results. Based on Open Data we generate an automated workflow to evaluate spatial characteristics such as land use, points of interest, private vehicle network, and public transport quality. We estimate two multinomial logit models for car ownership: one considering socio-demographic characteristics only, and one considering both, socio-demographic and spatial characteristics. The models' results are spatially evaluated and compared with statistical data. Moreover, we analyze the sensitivity of public transport quality measures on car ownership. The application of both car ownership models in the agent-based travel demand model mobiTopp to the city of Hamburg, Germany shows that integrating spatial characteristics significantly improves the model's goodness of fit as well as its overall prediction power. Moreover, the application demonstrates that a detailed consideration of spatial characteristics in car ownership models contributes to a more realistic spatial distribution of cars. Furthermore, the study shows that i.e., public transport quality measures in car ownership models are relevant to reflect secondary mode choice effects (i.e., different mode choice sets due to change in car stock) in travel demand models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decision to own a car usually results from a mix of changes in socio-economics, residential location, demographics or preferences of the individuals. These changes do not directly influence car ownership but are lagged in time or sometimes occur on anticipation of future events. In this research we investigate how some of the most common predictors for car ownership change over the years and how much impact they actually have in their decision for owning a car. We make a distinction in impact for people living in an urban and people living in a rural environment. A multinomial logit was estimated in 4 separate years to assess the impact of changes in residential location, age and income. The results show that not only the impact of these common predictors is changing but also the relation that they have regarding car ownership. These results illustrates the complexity of car ownership and suggests a more dynamic approach for the prediction of car ownership in both urban and rural environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electric micromobility systems such as e-bikes and e-scooters represent sustainable mobility options especially for specific classes of travelled distances. Moreover, the coverage and accessibility of transit services can be expanded through the implementation and promotion of these systems. Therefore, transport engineering is dealing with the development of new tools to support the forecast of the potential demand both for door-to-door trips and its integration with transit. With respect to these incoming research challenges, the paper proposes a methodology to investigate private mobility through floating car data (FCD) to identify the potential demand that can be shifted from cars to electric micromobility (e-micromobility) systems while also exploring the opportunity to increase transit usage. The benefits of such methodology have been evaluated on a real large test case, i.e. Rome (Italy), through an FCD dataset of about 240,000 monitored vehicles. The developed methodology is parametric and, thus, it can be easily transferred to other city contexts taking into consideration the compatibility of the local network infrastructures and the micromobility solutions. In Rome, it was estimated that the potential demand for e-micromobility can reach a maximum value of about 20% of weekday-trips, while about 10% of the morning peak trips could potentially be interested in a multimodal trip (i.e. mass transit services and e-micromobility for the access/egress). Results can be adopted by local authorities, transport companies and electric mobility providers to optimize infrastructural measures or the location of shared e-scooters and e-bikes to increase potential e-micromobility demand, as well as to increase the number of multimodal mobility options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China automobile demand has experienced a period of rapid growth, and the number of auto ownership has increased hugely. We collect a set of unique automobile sales data (quarterly) of China and apply a discontinuous regression model to study how changes in Petroleum prices and tax policy affect the sales of automobiles. The empirical results show that the impact of changes in Petroleum price on automobile consumption is not significant, however tax policy which reduces new car register tax by 50% affects the automobiles' demand significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short topical issues paper supports a rethink of the role of the car in a Mobility as a Service (MaaS) program. In particular, we consider the appeal of including electric cars as part of the sharing service, which we call electric car sharing as a service (ECSaaS). With the inclusion of more sustainable modes, this might be rebadged as eMaaS. This position is in part designed to try and offer an improved potential commercial future for MaaS which, we suggest, without subsidy from government does not at present look promising. • This short topical issues paper supports a rethink of the role of the car in a Mobility as a Service program. • We consider the appeal of including electric cars as part of the sharing service We call this electric car sharing as a service (ECSaaS). • With the more sustainable modes, this might be rebadged as eMaaS. • This position is in part designed to try and offer an improved potential commercial future for MaaS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smartphone sensors can collect data in many different contexts. They make it feasible to obtain large amounts of data at little or no cost because most people own mobile phones. In this work, we focus on the collection of smartphone data in the car. Motion sensors, such as accelerometers and gyroscopes, can help obtain information about the vehicle's dynamics. The possible spatial orientations of the smartphone in the car are infinite, and this can be a problem in an attempt to extract patterns from the data. Thus, we propose an approach to automatically re-orient smartphone data collected in the car to a standardized orientation (i.e. with 0 yaw, roll, and pitch angles with respect to the vehicle). We use a combination of a least-square plane approximation and an ML model to infer the relative orientation angles. Then we populate rotation matrices and perform the data rotation. We trained the model by collecting data both in an actual vehicle and using a vehicle physics simulator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European dieselization, i.e. the sustained increase in the diesel share in the passenger car fleet, is associated with the first EU strategy to reduce CO2 emissions from passenger cars. This paper aims to contribute to the literature on dieselization by looking at EU international trade flows in passenger cars, a perspective seldom found in the literature. Trade data confirm that the bulk of EU diesel trade flows occurs between EU partners, although diesel imports from other, non-EU countries are also significant. Besides, the external competitiveness of the EU car industry is clearly based on petrol cars. The analysis of trade data also reflects previous findings on the increase in car size. On the policy side, the divergence between CO2 from new car registrations and total CO2 emissions from passenger cars during the dieselization era proves that strategies for decarbonization should not rely exclusively on efficiency gains, demand policies are also needed. The dieselization phenomenon warns of the major inertia that road transport policies can have. The analysis of EU car trade also underlines the need to coordinate environmental policy with other relevant countries in the international car market. • EU dieselization can be tracked by looking at car trade flows. • EU dieselization has been related more to imported than to exported vehicles. • Despite dieselization, EU car industry competitiveness is based on petrol cars. • Clean vehicles and lower demand for motoring will be required to make decarbonization happen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite many prior studies about the determinants of city-level private car ownership in China, limited studies investigate the effects of vehicle regulation policies and relative price (the ratio of the average car price to GDP per capita) on city-level private car ownership simultaneously. Thus, panel data of 212 cities in China from 2006 to 2015 were collected to explore these effects. The potential explanatory variables include relative price, vehicle regulation policies, socio-economic factors, urban characteristics of the city, and transportation-related factors. The pooled model, fixed-effects model, and random effects model are constructed to analyze the panel data. With the fixed effect on the temporal trend, the fixed-effects model turns out to be the best. Variables including relative price, license plate lottery, vehicle use restriction based on the last digit of the license plate, the average salary of employed workers, and the number of taxis per 10,000 population are all found significant. Supportive policies for alternative fuel cars do not significantly affect private car ownership. One percent increase in the relative price is associated with a 0.08% decrease in private car ownership. The license plate lottery and vehicle use restriction policies would reduce private car ownership by 18.94% and 7.7%, respectively. The finding of this study could provide a helpful reference for policymakers to develop appropriate measures to control the growth of private car ownership of a city. • Determinants of city-level car ownership are revealed based on data of 2006–2015. • Pooled OLS model, fixed-effects model, and random-effects model are compared. • Supportive policies for alternative fuel vehicles do not influence car ownership. • 1% increase in relative car price is related to 0.08% decrease in car ownership. • Implementation of vehicle use restriction leads to 7.7% decrease in car ownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR T) therapy is capable of eliciting durable responses in patients with relapsed/refractory (R/R) lymphomas. However, most treated patients relapse. Patterns of failure after CAR T have not been previously characterized, and may provide insights into the mechanisms of resistance guiding future treatment strategies.Methods and Materials: This is a retrospective analysis of patients with R/R large B-cell lymphoma who were treated with anti-CD19 CAR T at a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center between 2015 and 2019. Pre- and posttreatment positron emission/computed tomography scans were analyzed to assess the progression of existing (local failures) versus new, nonoverlapping lesions (de novo failures) and identify lesions at a high risk for progression.Results: A total of 469 pretreatment lesions in 63 patients were identified. At a median follow-up of 12.6 months, 36 patients (57%) recurred. Most (n = 31; 86%) had a component of local failure, and 13 patients (36%) exhibited strictly local failures. Even when progressing, 84% of recurrent patients continued to have a subset of pretreatment lesions maintain positron emission/computed tomography resolution. Lesions at a high risk for local failure included those with a diameter ≥5 cm (odds ratio [OR], 2.34; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.55-3.55; P < .001), maximum standardized uptake value ≥10 (OR, 2.08; 95% CI, 1.38-3.12; P < .001), or those that were extranodal (OR, 1.49; 95% CI, 1.10-2.04; P = .01). In the 69 patients eligible for survival analysis, those with any lesion ≥5 cm (n = 46; 67%) experienced inferior progression-free survival (hazard ratio, 2.41; 95% CI, 1.15-5.04; P = .02) and overall survival (hazard ratio, 3.36; 95% CI, 1.17-9.96; P = .02).Conclusions: Most patients who recur after CAR T experience a component of local progression. Furthermore, lesions with high-risk features, particularly large size, were associated with inferior treatment efficacy and patient survival. Taken together, these observations suggest that lesion-specific resistance may contribute to CAR T treatment failure. Locally directed therapies to high-risk lesions, such as radiation therapy, may be a viable strategy to prevent CAR T failures in select patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Data extraction and analyses on DUI are from documents of adjudication decisions. • A positive association is revealed between crash involvement and BAC level. • BAC level plays a dominant role in criminally DUI sentencing. • Motorcycle DUI offenders are more likely to be crash-involved and sustain injuries. • Motorcycle DUI offenders are more likely to receive lesser punishment. Introduction: Driving under the influence (DUI) increases the probability of motor-vehicle collisions, especially for motorcycles with less protections. This study aimed to identify commonalities and differences between criminally DUI offenses (i.e., with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 80 mg/dL or higher) committed by motorcyclists and car drivers. Methods: A total of 10,457 motorcycle DUIs and 8,402 car DUIs were compared using a series of logistic regression models, using data extracted from the documents of adjudication decisions by the courts of Jiangsu, China. Results: The results revealed that offenders from the high-BAC group (i.e., 200 mg/dL or higher) accounted for more than 20% of the total DUI offenses, and were more likely to be involved in a crash and punished with a longer detention. Motorcyclists had a higher likelihood of crash involvement, and were also more likely to be responsible for single-vehicle crashes associated with higher odds of injury sustained, compared to alcohol-impaired car drivers. In the verdict, motorcycle offenders were more likely to receive a less severe penalty. Conclusions: Interventions are clearly required to focus on reducing in the high-BAC group of offenders. For alcohol-impaired motorcyclists, their risks of crash and injury against BAC climb more steeply than the risks for car drivers. The factors including frequent occurrences, uncertainty of detection, and short-term sentences may weaken the deterrence effect of the criminalization of motorcycle DUI. Practical Applications: The traffic-related adjudication data support traffic safety analysis. Strategies such as combating motorcycle violations (e.g., unlicensed operators or driving unsafe vehicles), undertaking education and awareness campaigns, are expected for DUI prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We re-examine the controversial issue about whether or not high-quality bus service can significantly reduce car use while increasing bus use. • A SEM model is constructed that contains bus service quality, car ownership, bus use and car use. • Improving bus service quality can indeed reduce car use by attracting more travelers to the bus. • The extent of reducing car use by improving bus service quality is far less than that of increasing car use caused by car ownership. The State Council of China hopes to alleviate traffic congestion by implementing the bus priority policy. However, the policy consequences have not been satisfactory. Whether a good bus service can significantly reduce car use while increasing bus use is a confusing issue, hereto this study re-examines the interactions among bus service quality, car ownership, car use and bus use by constructing a SEM model. A sample of 334 individuals in Changzhou is used in the study. Results show that although high-quality bus service can cause a decrease in car use, the total negative effect of bus service quality on car use is far less than the positive effect of car ownership. Thus, when car ownership is growing rapidly, only a comprehensive and substantial improvement in bus service can alleviate and ultimately eliminate the enormous pressure on urban traffic resulted from the increasing car ownership. This study provides empirical evidence to explain why traffic congestion is still serious with the strong support in public transport from governments and gives policy implications on how to control urban traffic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, several big cities have been planning to ban private cars from city centers to reduce car use and ownership in urban areas. As an alternative, mobility services are expected to provide residents and visitors with the benefits of mobility beyond private cars. However, the development of mobility services has not led to a decrease in car ownership. In such a period of transformation, structurally understanding the essential factors affecting car ownership becomes an important research theme. In this study, several important findings were obtained by analyzing the motive structure of car ownership in 23 wards of Tokyo using structural equation modelling. The results showed that the strength of the emotional factor as a utility of owning a car was more than twice that of the convenience factor. Moreover, in the case that the focus was only on the convenience factor, the secondary utility of the car was considered to be more important than the primary utility of the means of transportation. These findings explained why the current mobility services have not appealed to private car users. Furthermore, since these results are output of structural relationship with social attributes and the economic awareness of respondents, this framework can be effectively used for policy design and alternative mobility service planning to reconstruct the urban transportation system. • Emotional factor of owning a car was much stronger than convenience factor. • The result was independent of respondents' attributes and car usage circumstances. • There was correlation between economic and convenient but not on emotional factor. • Among the convenience factors, respondents emphasized secondary utilities of a car. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We realize distorted target recognition by presenting a CapsNetSIFT architecture (cf. Fig. 1). It can simultaneously enable accurate positioning of interest regions and comprehensive learning of discriminative features whilst boasting invariance to visual distortions. • We propose a parallel MD-CapsNet in CapsNetSIFT for boosting representability. The customized structure, hyperparameter setting, and dynamic routing agreement have been demonstrated. • We propose a VM-SIFT in CapsNetSIFT to establish correspondence among capsule encoding vectors of standard images and distorted ones. This may represent the first attempt to realize feature matching of capsule vectors. • We conduct quantitative experiments of distorted target categorization on four benchmarks (CUB-200-2011, Stanford Dogs, Stanford Cars, and our hand-crafted rice growth dataset). Evaluation results reveal our advantage over state-of-the-arts. Due to overexposure, jitter, motion, and other spatiotemporal-varying perturbations, the collected images always undergo various visual distortions (e.g., deformation, partially occluded signs, fisheye respective, affine or 3D projections, in-plane and out-of-plane rotation) during acquisition or transmission procedure. Deep neural networks (DNNs) perform poorly on such pristine images in terms of high-level abstract operations, e.g., object categorization and semantic segmentation. To conquer this legacy, a distortion-tolerant model denoted as CapsNetSIFT is proposed to enhance representability and detectability of target in distorted imagery. We modify and integrate capsule network (CapsNet) with scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) together, both of which boast innate invariance to spacial-scale transformations. Two key insights, the customized multi-dimensional CapsNet (MD-CapsNet) and vector matching SIFT (VM-SIFT), can cooperate together and reinforce each other: the former encodes and provides representative feature vectors for the later, whilst the later localizes space-scale invariant interval dimensions (instead of pixels) and establish correspondence between source standard images (high-quality training images) and distorted ones (testing images). Thus, the category of one source standard image owning the most associations is the ground-truth category. Evaluation results reveal that employing CapsNetSIFT for distorted target recognition (CUB-200–2011, Stanford Dogs, Stanford Cars, and our hand-crafted dataset), significantly improves the resistance against various simulated distortions, and outperforms state-of-the-arts with relatively higher training and testing accuracy (93.97% and 91.03%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]