Effect of Static Magnetic Field of Electric Vehicles on Driving Performance and on Neuro-Psychological Cognitive Functions.

Human neuropsychological reactions and brain activities when driving electric vehicles (EVs) are considered as an issue for traffic and public safety purposes; this paper examined the effect of the static magnetic field (SMF) derived from EVs. A lane change task was adopted to evaluate the driving performance; and the driving reaction time test and the reaction time test were adopted to evaluate the variation of the neuro-psychological cognitive functions. Both the sham and the real exposure conditions were performed with a 350 µT localized SMF in this study; 17 student subjects were enrolled in this single-blind experiment. Electroencephalographs (EEGs) of the subjects were adopted and recorded during the experiment as an indicator of the brain activity for the variations of the driving performance and of the cognitive functions. Results of this study have indicated that the impact of the given SMF on both the human driving performance and the cognitive functions are not considerable; and that there is a correlation between beta sub-band of the EEGs and the human reaction time in the analysis.

In Vivo Analysis of Embryo Development and Behavioral Response of Medaka Fish under Static Magnetic Field Exposures.

The static magnetic field (SMF) in human exposure has become a health risk concern, especially with respect to prolonged exposure. The International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) has been considering cell or animal models to be adopted to estimate the possible human health impacts after such exposure. The medaka fish is a good animal model for human-related health assessment studies; this paper examines both the embryo development and behavioral responses in medaka fish in vivo to long-term SMF exposure at the mT level. SMF exposure was examined for the complete developmental period of embryos until hatched; the embryos were monitored and recorded every 24 h for different morphological abnormalities in their developmental stages. The behavioral response of adult fish was also examined by analyzing their swimming velocities and positioning as compared with that of the control group. It was observed that there were no impacts on embryo development under prolonged exposure up to about 100 mT while the swimming behavior of the adult fish under exposure was different to the control group-the swimming movement of the treated group was more static, with an average velocity of 24.6% less as observed over a 24-h duration.

Detailed modeling of palpebral fissure and its influence on SAR and temperature rise in human eye under GHz exposures.

This article investigates variations in specific absorption rate and temperature rise in human eye caused by changes in palpebral fissure, the extent of opening between eyelids, under GHz plane-wave electromagnetic (EM) exposures. Detailed human head models with different palpebral fissure features were developed with a refined spatial resolution of 0.25 mm. These head models were then incorporated into both EM and bio-heat simulations, but using finite-difference time-domain method and finite-difference method, respectively. Maximum temperature rise in lens was found to be 0.8°C under EM exposure at 100 W/m(2). Results reveal that changes in palpebral fissure would produce a 0.23°C variation in maximum temperature rise in lens.

THE EFFECT OF GAZE ANGLE ON THE EVALUATIONS OF SAR AND TEMPERATURE RISE IN HUMAN EYE UNDER PLANE-WAVE EXPOSURES FROM 0.9 TO 10 GHZ.

This article investigates the effect of gaze angle on the specific absorption rate (SAR) and temperature rise in human eye under electromagnetic exposures from 0.9 to 10 GHz. Eye models in different gaze angles are developed based on biometric data. The spatial-average SARs in eyes are investigated using the finite-difference time-domain method, and the corresponding maximum temperature rises in lens are calculated by the finite-difference method. It is found that the changes in the gaze angle produce a maximum variation of 35, 12 and 20 % in the eye-averaged SAR, peak 10 g average SAR and temperature rise, respectively. Results also reveal that the eye-averaged SAR is more sensitive to the changes in the gaze angle than peak 10 g average SAR, especially at higher frequencies.