The effectiveness of a rearview camera and parking sensor system alone and combined for preventing a collision with an unexpected stationary or moving object.

OBJECTIVE: This study measured the effectiveness of a parking sensor system, a rearview camera, and a sensor system combined with a camera for preventing a collision with a stationary or moving child-size object in the path of a backing vehicle. BACKGROUND: An estimated 15,000 people are injured and 210 are killed every year in backover crashes involving light vehicles. Cameras and sensor systems may help prevent these crashes. METHOD: The sample included 111 drivers (55 men, 56 women), including 16 in the no-technology condition, 32 in the sensor condition, 32 in the camera condition, and 31 in the camera-plus-sensor condition. A stationary or moving child-size object was surreptitiously deployed in the path of participants backing out of a parking stall. RESULTS: A significantly smaller proportion of participants in the camera condition hit the stationary object compared with participants in the no-technology condition; however, this benefit was greatly reduced when the stationary object was partially or completely in the shade. Significantly fewer participants hit the moving object than the stationary object. The percentage of participants in the sensor, camera, and camera-plus-sensor conditions who hit the moving object was not different from the no-technology condition. CONCLUSION: The camera was the only technology that was effective for preventing collisions with the stationary object. The variation in collision outcomes between the stationary- and moving-object conditions illustrates how the effectiveness of these technologies is dependent on the backing situation. APPLICATION: This research can help the selection and development of countermeasures to prevent backovers.

The effects of localized muscle and whole-body fatigue on single-leg balance between healthy men and women.

The purpose was to examine the effects of localized muscle and whole-body fatigue on indices of single-leg balance between healthy young men (n=10) and women (n=10). Subjects performed 10, 10-s single-leg balance trials on a force platform prior to performing each of three conditions (local, whole-body, and control), in a randomized order, on separate days. Localized muscle and whole-body fatigue consisted of single-leg, weight-bearing heel raises on an inclined platform, and exercise on a rowing ergometer, respectively, to the point of volitional failure. During the control condition, subjects remained in a seated position for 5 min. Immediately following each condition, five, 10-s, single-leg balance trials were performed. The localized muscle and whole-body fatigue protocols produced significant (p<0.05) increases in medial/lateral (M/L) and total sway (TS). Men experienced a greater (p<0.05) increase in anterior/posterior (A/P) sway following the localized muscle, than whole-body, fatigue protocol, whereas A/P sway increased more following the whole-body, than localized muscle, fatigue protocol for the women. Total sway variability increased significantly (p<0.05) more following the localized muscle fatigue protocol than the whole-body fatigue protocol for both men and women. The major findings of the present investigation demonstrated that measures of postural control, namely M/L, A/P sway and total sway, were adversely affected following fatiguing exercise, with differential effects between men and women.

Toward the nanoscopic "electronic nose": hydrogen vs carbon monoxide discrimination with an array of individual metal oxide nano- and mesowire sensors.

The array of chemiresistors made of individual pristine SnO2, surface doped (Ni)-SnO2 nanowires, and TiO2 and In2O3 mesoscopic whiskers was fabricated on a Si/SiO2 wafer. Their conductance was measured under pulses of H2 and CO reducing gases in oxygen as background gas. The nanostructures were shown to be n-type semiconductors possessing high sensitivity to the target gases. Following the "electronic nose" concept, correlation analysis of response of three-chemiresistor array is shown to be sufficient to discriminate between H2 and CO signals.

A prostate-specific antigen (PSA)-activated vinblastine prodrug selectively kills PSA-secreting cells in vivo.

Currently, there is no therapy for men with androgen-refractory prostate cancer that substantially extends survival. This report characterizes by in vitro and in vivo techniques a new chemotherapeutic that is composed of desacetyl-vinblastine covalently linked to a peptide that contains a peptide bond that can be hydrolyzed by prostate-specific antigen (PSA). This compound (referred to as vinblastine-conjugate) is minimally toxic to cells in culture which do not express PSA. In the presence of PSA, the peptide moiety is hydrolyzed, generating several highly toxic metabolites that contain vinblastine. Animals bearing PSA-positive human prostate tumors that were treated with the vinblastine-conjugate experienced a >99% reduction in PSA serum level. In contrast, animals bearing PSA-positive human prostate tumors treated with the cytotoxic metabolites derived from the PSA hydrolysis of the vinblastine-conjugate showed a nonsignificant change in both PSA and tumor weight values. The cell killing activity of the vinblastine-conjugate is PSA dependent because animals bearing non-PSA-producing human tumor xenografts had a nonsignificant increase in tumor weight after vinblastine-conjugate treatment. Exploratory efficacy/toxicity studies in LNCaP tumor-bearing nude mice were conducted with animals treated for 5 consecutive days with various doses of either the vinblastine-conjugate or a PSA-generated toxic metabolite (desacetyl-vinblastine). The desacetyl-vinblastine treatment resulted in 10-70% mortality with a very slight effect on tumor growth. In contrast, vinblastine-conjugate treatments resulted in no mortality, good to excellent antitumor efficacy, very slight to slight peripheral neuropathy and myelopathy, and slight to severe testicular degeneration. Similar treatment of beagle dogs with the vinblastine-conjugate showed even less toxicity. These data support the use of the PSA-hydrolyzable vinblastine-conjugate as an experimental therapy for prostate cancer in man.