GUN CRAZY AMERIKA

One minute to save lives: Teaming up with pediatricians to secure firearms

‘Nudges’ plus a little extra staff support help pediatricians deliver secure gun storage program

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Northwestern University

 

video: 

B-roll of Princicpal investigator Rinad Beidas in her office at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. 

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Credit: Northwestern University

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• Large study included 47,307 well-child visits at 30 clinics in Michigan and Colorado
• Almost 50% of clinicians receiving a prompt plus added support delivered a secure firearm storage program during well visits versus just 22% of doctors receiving prompt only
• Firearm-related injuries are the leading cause of death for young people in the U.S. 
• ‘We can save lives’ with a brief program to support parents in secure storage

CHICAGO --- If it takes a pediatrician less than one minute per visit to talk to parents about how to securely store their firearms and offer a free cable lock, why do only 2% of doctors report routinely doing so?

Turns out, they might just need a ‘nudge’ and a little extra support. 

In the largest study of its kind, scientists at Northwestern University, the University of Pennsylvania, Henry Ford Health and Kaiser Permanente Colorado tested whether pediatricians were more likely to have these conversations and offer a free cable lock — via an evidence-based program called S.A.F.E. Firearm — if they received a “Nudge” or a “Nudge+.” 

The “Nudge” consisted of a prompt in the clinician’s electronic health record (EHR) system to remind them to have the conversation with parents during the well visit. In the “Nudge+” scenario, clinicians received this reminder via the EHR system and received support from staff employed by their health system who helped problem solve logistics such as where to store hundreds of cable locks or how to navigate conversations with caregivers.

“We know we can save lives and this study offers insights on how to scale this approach nationally,” said principal investigator Rinad Beidas, chair of the department of medical social sciences and the Ralph Seal Paffenbarger professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “This is a call to action.”

The study included 47,307 well-child visits of children ages 5 to 17 at 30 clinics in Michigan and Colorado. In the Nudge group, 22% of pediatricians delivered the S.A.F.E. Firearm program whereas 49% of pediatricians in the Nudge+ group delivered the program — a significant difference. 

“Our clinical staff was very supportive of the program, especially when additional guidance was available,” said Brian Ahmedani, director of Henry Ford Health’s Center for Health Policy & Health Services Research. “Conversations around firearms can be uncomfortable. The support staff helped navigate how and when to introduce the topic and at what point to offer the cable lock.”

The findings will be published Sept. 3 in JAMA Pediatrics. 

On average, each “Nudge+” program required only 8.7 hours of additional support per clinic over the year.

“We would have expected that we’d need far more resources for that kind of effect, but with less than an hour per month per clinic, it’s something that could be done in the real world without a lot of resources,” Beidas said. 

One in three U.S. homes have a firearm

About one-third of U.S. children live in homes with firearms, and of these households, 43% contain at least one unlocked firearm. Previous research has shown individuals who have a conversation with their doctor about the importance of secure storage combined with the offer of a free cable lock were more likely to report improving their safe gun-storage practice.

Securely storing guns can reduce firearm-related injuries, which is the leading cause of death for young people in the U.S. In June, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy declared America’s firearm violence a public health crisis. In his advisory, Murthy calls out the need to conduct more implementation research to improve effectiveness of prevention strategies.

“Our study is the largest of such implementation trials, and I’m thrilled Dr. Murthy is spotlighting this type of research,” said Beidas, an internationally recognized leader in the field of implementation science. Her research focuses on designing, implementing and evaluating strategies to make it easier for clinicians, leaders and organizations to improve the quality and equity of health care.

Why don’t more pediatricians counsel on secure firearm storage?

There are numerous reasons why so few pediatricians discuss secure firearm storage with parents, Beidas said. Some are time-related or how comfortable the doctors are talking about it, whether it’s built into the workflow and if it is supported by leadership. But it’s also a divisive topic, and doctors and nurses find people are not comfortable sharing if they have a gun at home, Beidas said.  

“So, our goal is to have pediatricians counsel everyone,” she said, explaining the program is for all kids — not just those at particular risk, such as having depression or being exposed to domestic violence. “Our goal is to help people be as safe as they can as often as they can, and our study demonstrates that this can be done in a non-political manner.” 

Next up: Expanding nationally

This study was conducted in only two states, but Beidas said her goal is to expand the effort nationally. First, she’d like to empirically show this type of national effort reduces firearm injury and mortality in young people. Second, she plans to expand this work beyond pediatric primary care to other health care settings. 

“Our marker of effectiveness for this study was whether the clinicians did the program, but that’s not the final step of the cascade,” Beidas said. “We’ll have future papers that explore if the parents actually changed their firearm storage behavior.” 

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Journal

JAMA Pediatrics

Article Publication Date

3-Sep-2024

Study suggests gun-free zones do not 

attract mass shootings

University of California - Davis Health

Gun-free zones have often been blamed for making schools, malls and other public areas more attractive to shooters; however, there have been no quantitative studies examining those claims. Now, in a first of its kind study published in The Lancet Regional Health Americas, researchers at UC Davis Health and other institutions have shown that gun-free zones may, in fact, reduce the risk of mass shootings.

"Our most significant finding is that gun-free zones don't attract active shooters,” said the study’s first author, Paul Reeping, an injury epidemiologist and postdoctoral scholar at the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis. “The study actually shows that gun-free zones have a preventive effect. The biggest takeaway is that the claim that gun-free zones are more dangerous is simply not true.”

Gun-free zones vary by federal, state and local statutes. In Texas, for example, if more than 50% of a bar’s revenue comes from alcohol, that establishment is considered gun-free. While most people might think the designation mostly applies to schools, theaters, sporting venues and other public places, private companies can also implement them at their own discretion.

A unique study design to match places at risk

The study included researchers from Columbia University and the University of Michigan. The team looked at 150 places in the U.S. that had experienced active shootings between 2014 and 2020. The researchers also found 150 places that could have experienced a shooting but did not, and designated them as controls. These control places were matched to the group with shootings by county, year and type of establishment.

“For a long time, people didn't think this work could be done,” Reeping said. “We used a unique design that matched places based on similar criteria but very different outcomes — in this case, shootings.”

The team found that 72 (48%) of the shootings happened in gun-free zones. Looking at the 150 controls that had no shootings, 92 (61.3%) were gun-free. Their study suggests that the gun-free zones may have reduced the risks of a mass shooting.

“After accounting for matched pairs, our analyses showed that active shootings were 62.5% less likely to occur in gun-free establishments than in gun-allowing places,” Reeping said. “Therefore, it is very unlikely that active shooters are targeting gun-free zones; conversely, gun-free zones may be protective.”

This work could have significant policy implications. The Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision gave Americans the right to carry loaded firearms in public. However, gun-free zones provide a constitutional carve-out that some governments have embraced, although these carve-outs are still being challenged in court.

Still, more work must be done to confirm these findings. “This is the first time this type of study has ever been done, and we hope more will follow,” Reeping said. “Most people believe gun-free zones are actually more dangerous, and the evidence from our study doesn’t support that.”

Study co-authors included Christopher N. Morrison, Charles C. Branas, Ariana N. Gobaud and Sonali Rajan of Columbia University, and Douglas J. Wiebe of the University of Michigan.

 

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Journal

The Lancet

DOI

10.1016/j.lana.2024.100837 

Article Title

Gun-free zones and active shootings in the United States: a matched case-control study

People eating beef are less likely to live near the industry’s pollution, Pitt researchers found

University of Pittsburgh

 

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County-level nitrogen losses from (a) production-based accounting and (b) consumption-based accounting. The weighted average distance between consumption and nitrogen losses during production is depicted in map (c).

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Credit: Lab of Vikas Khanna

Anyone who’s researched ways to lower their environmental impact has likely heard they should eat less meat, particularly beef. Even at scale, cows are an inefficient way to feed people — it takes nearly four tons of water to recoup one ton of beef, and many farming practices emit greenhouse gasses and pollutants.

University of Pittsburgh researchers are the first to trace one of those pollutants, nitrogen, along the U.S. beef supply chain at the county level. They found high spatial disconnect between where beef is eaten and where nitrogen’s impacts are felt.

Previous research looked at production-based impacts, said Vikas Khanna, professor of civil and environmental engineering in the Swanson School of Engineering. “They’ve asked, ‘what does it take to produce a certain quantity of beef?’ And they tend to report average environmental impacts,” such as how much water, greenhouse gasses or other pollutants result over the entire process.

In a paper published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, Khanna and PhD student Anaís Ostroski map the impacts of nitrogen county by county, providing the clearest picture yet of which areas face some of the environmental effects of cattle farming. Khanna and Ostroski are joined by Oleg Prokopyev, a former professor of industrial engineering at Pitt now at the University of Zurich.  

“It is essential to measure nitrogen losses and understand where they happen due to the cascading effects on the environment,” said Ostroski, the paper’s lead author. “A single molecule of reactive nitrogen can cause multiple adverse effects until it is converted back to stable atmospheric nitrogen. Food supply chains have grown increasingly complex; we found that when beef is consumed in a given county, it is associated with nitrogen losses in more than 200 counties on average.”

Our atmosphere is 79% nitrogen, but atmospheric nitrogen has strong bonds and doesn’t react with other substances. The nitrogen used for fertilizer, however, is reactive. As it accumulates it can create surface-level ozone, which can lead to respiratory problems. When rain washes nitrogen fertilizers from croplands into waterways, it can spark runaway algae growth, which takes oxygen from the water, suffocating fish and other marine life.

In 2017, beef consumption was responsible for about 1,330 gigagrams of nitrogen released into the environment — that’s enough to fertilize about 19.5 million acres, or 20% of all the corn grown in the United States.  

When beef is consumed in a given county, it is associated with nitrogen losses in more than 200 counties on average.

Anaís Ostroski
its effects are not felt equally across the country.

The new research shows people living along the East Coast and in large swaths of California, Nevada and Arizona are more than 600 miles away from the nitrogen that entered the environment in service of their burger. 

The pollution happens in a few different ways along the supply chain. Cows are fed food that is grown using nitrogen fertilizers. Much of that is leached away by rainwater, tainting nearby land and water supplies.

Beef cattle are kept in processing facilities where nitrogen is released in wastewater. Here, Khanna sees an opportunity to minimize nitrogen pollution by implementing a circular economy model where valuable nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus are recovered from the wastewater.

“Recouping nutrients from animal wastewaters would be a win-win solution,” he said. Nitrogen would be kept out of the ecosystem, and farmers could reuse the nitrogen as fertilizer while also reusing the treated water for irrigation.

While it’s important to look at technological solutions to reduce the impact of cattle farming on the environment, Khanna has words of caution about technological exuberance, “Let's not just look at the trees and miss the forest. It is important to look at potential solutions from a holistic perspective to make sure we are not solving one problem at the expense of others.”

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Journal

Environmental Science & Technology

DOI

10.1021/acs.est.4c01651 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Tracing Nitrogen Flows Associated with Beef Supply Chains: A Consumption-Based AssessmentClick to copy article link

 

From cavities to sleep apnea: dentists can assume new role in saving lives

Rutgers University

A patient dozes off in a dental chair despite the anxiety of an impending procedure. A seemingly unremarkable act but — for dentists versed in the latest sleep research — this red flag hints at a life-threatening condition.

In a research review published in the Journal of the American Dental Association, Rutgers Health researchers identified dentists as an unexpected player in the battle against life-threatening sleep disorders.

The review suggests dental professionals have unique opportunities to screen for conditions such as obstructive sleep apnea, a disorder that affects millions of Americans and is linked to serious health risks, including cardiovascular disease and neurodegeneration.

It also challenges dentists to look beyond teeth and gums to the broader landscape of patient health.

"We have a great opportunity to change lives for the better," said Davis Thomas, a clinical associate professor at the Rutgers School of Dental Medicine and senior author of the review. "Dentists can be the first line of defense in identifying sleep disorders. They often see symptoms long before physicians. Indicators like tooth grinding, tongue scalloping or even a patient dozing off in the chair can be early signs that something more is going on."

Sleep disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea affect more than half of Americans at some point in their lives. Many cases go undiagnosed, but dentists can play an important role in reducing those numbers.

The review outlines several key indicators that dental clinicians should look for during examinations, including enlarged jaw muscles, scalloped tongue edges, white lines on the cheeks, restricted visibility of the throat, dental wear patterns and tiny cracks on teeth.

These physical signs, combined with patient history and simple screening tools, can help dentists identify at-risk patients with up to 80 percent accuracy.

"It's not just about looking at teeth anymore," Thomas said. "We need to observe the whole patient, from their behavior in the waiting room to the subtle signs in their oral cavity."

Another sign of concern, according to the review authors, is bruxism, commonly known as teeth grinding. Contrary to long-held beliefs, the studies suggest teeth griding is often a symptom of underlying sleep issues rather than a standalone problem caused by dental misalignment.

"We've been treating the symptoms without addressing the root cause for far too long," Thomas said. "By understanding the neuroscience behind sleep disorders, we can provide more comprehensive care and potentially prevent serious health complications."

This shift in perspective could have far-reaching implications. By identifying patients at risk for sleep disorders, dentists can facilitate early intervention, potentially preventing complications such as hypertension, heart disease and stroke.

To implement these findings, Thomas and his team propose a simple protocol for dental practices: Incorporate sleep-related questions into patient history forms. Other recommendations include training dental staff to recognize physical signs of sleep disorders and using validated screening tools like the STOP-BANG (snoring, tiredness, observed apnea, blood pressure, body mass index, age, neck size, gender) questionnaire, which screens for obstructive sleep apnea and establish referral networks with sleep medicine specialists.

"We're not asking dentists to diagnose sleep disorders," Thomas said. "We're asking them to recognize the signs and make appropriate referrals. This simple act can be lifesaving."

Thomas recommends that dentists looking to incorporate sleep screening into their practices start with education.

"Attend sleep medicine conferences, take continuing education courses, and stay up-to-date with the latest research," he said. "The more we learn, the more we realize how much we don't know – and how much we can do to help our patients."

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Journal

The Journal of the American Dental Association

Method of Research

Literature review

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

The enigma of sleep

 EV BATTERIES

Department of Energy awards $125 Million for research to enable next-generation batteries and energy storage

Energy Innovation Hub teams will emphasize multi-disciplinary fundamental research to address long-standing and emerging challenges for rechargeable batteries

DOE/US Department of Energy

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $125 million in funding for two Energy Innovation Hub teams to provide the scientific foundation needed to seed and accelerate next generation technologies beyond today’s generation of lithium (Li)-ion batteries. These multi-institution research teams, led by Argonne National Laboratory and Stanford University, will develop scientific concepts and understanding to impact decarbonization of transportation and incorporation of clean energy into the electricity grid.

Rechargeable batteries, such as Li-ion and lead-acid batteries, have had a tremendous impact on the nation’s economy. Emerging applications will require even greater energy storage capabilities, safer operation, lower costs, and diversity of materials to manufacture batteries. Meeting these challenges requires a better understanding of foundational battery and materials sciences to enable scalable battery designs with versatile and reversible energy storage capabilities beyond what is currently possible. Additional benefits may include mitigation of supply chain risks associated with the current generation of batteries.

"Providing the scientific foundation to accelerate this important research is key to our economy and making sure the U.S. plays a lead role in transforming the way we store and use electricity,” said Harriet Kung, DOE’s Acting Director for the Office of Science. “Today's awards provide our Energy Innovation Hub teams with the tools and resources to solve some of the most challenging science problems that are limiting our ability to decarbonize transportation and incorporate clean energy into the electricity grid."

The two Energy Innovation Hub teams are the Energy Storage Research Alliance (ESRA) led by Argonne National Laboratory and the Aqueous Battery Consortium (ABC) led by Stanford University. ESRA will provide the scientific underpinning to develop new compact batteries for heavy-duty transportation and energy storage solutions for the grid with a focus on achieving unprecedented molecular-level control of chemical reactivity, ion selectivity, and directional transport in complex electrochemical cells. ABC will focus on establishing the scientific foundation for large-scale development and deployment of aqueous batteries for long-duration grid storage technologies.  Both of these teams will prioritize study and use of Earth-abundant materials to mitigate supply chain risks.

Both Energy Innovation Hubs teams are comprised of multiple institutions, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs). The projects provide an outstanding opportunity for workforce development in energy storage research and inclusive research involving diverse individuals from diverse institutions. 

The teams were selected by competitive peer review under the DOE Funding Opportunity Announcement for the Energy Innovation Hub Program: Research to Enable Next-Generation Batteries and Energy Storage. While focused on basic science, the Funding Opportunity Announcement was developed in coordination through the DOE Joint Strategy Team for Batteries.

Total funding is $125 million for awards lasting up to five years in duration. More information can be found on the Basic Energy Sciences program homepage and Energy Innovation Hubs page.

Selection for award negotiations is not a commitment by DOE to issue an award or provide funding. Before funding is issued, DOE and the applicants will undergo a negotiation process, and DOE may cancel negotiations and rescind the selection for any reason during that time. 

Korean researchers overcome critical challenges in

 developing fire-risk-free aqueous zinc batteries

KIER and UNIST have successfully suppressed the formation of dendrites, a critical issue in aqueous zinc batteries, by using copper oxide

National Research Council of Science & Technology

The developed electrode (a) shows more uniform deposition compared to the zinc (b) and carbon (c) electrode.

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Credit: Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER)

[Video] [VIDEO] | 

Dr. Jung-Je Woo from the Gwangju Clean Energy Research Center at the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER), along with Professor Jaephil Cho's research team from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), has developed a key electrode manufacturing technology that can control dendrite formation in aqueous zinc batteries.
* Dendrite: A phenomenon where metal ions are deposited disorderly on the anode during the charging process of a battery, forming elongated, branch-like structures. If this irregular growth continues, it can cause short circuits, severely affecting the stability of the battery and shortening its lifespan.

Aqueous zinc batteries are secondary batteries that use water as the electrolyte, making them free from fire risks and environmentally friendly compared to lithium-ion batteries, which use volatile liquid electrolytes. Additionally, since aqueous zinc batteries use two electrons per ion, they can theoretically offer more than twice the capacity of lithium-ion batteries, which use only one electron per ion.

However, there is a problem with the dendrite phenomenon, where zinc is deposited in elongated forms on the surface of the anode during the charging process, leading to a shorter lifespan. The formed dendrites can pierce the separator between the anode and cathode, causing electrical short circuits and severely impacting the battery's performance. Particularly, dendrites form more actively in aqueous zinc batteries than in lithium-ion batteries, making this a significant obstacle to the commercialization of the technology.

The research team successfully used copper oxide to promote uniform zinc deposition and control dendrite formation. When electrodes made using this method were applied to batteries, they demonstrated a lifespan more than ten times longer than conventional batteries.

In the past, the primary method used to suppress dendrite formation involved adding promoters like copper to accelerate the initial growth of zinc and guide uniform deposition. However, a problem with this approach was that dendrite formation would recur with repeated charging and discharging cycles of the battery.

In response, the research team devised a method to control dendrite formation step-by-step using copper oxide. Like regular copper, copper oxide promotes the initial growth of zinc and guides its deposition. Additionally, copper oxide has optimized conductivity for depositing zinc in a uniform distribution, allowing for more efficient deposition compared to regular copper.

After distributing zinc uniformly, copper oxide self-transforms into a scaffold. The scaffold acts like a fence, suppressing disordered zinc deposition and growth. This allows for the continuous prevention of dendrite formation, even with repeated charging and discharging cycles.
* Scaffold: A structure composed at the nano-micro scale designed to physically suppress the disordered deposition of metals like zinc.

The batteries using the research team's technology demonstrated a lifespan more than ten times longer than conventional aqueous zinc batteries, increasing the potential for commercialization.
* Conventional aqueous zinc batteries: After 300 charge-discharge cycles, the formation of dendrites causes the capacity to decrease to below 80%.
** Research Outcome: By suppressing dendrite formation, the battery maintains 80% of its capacity even after 3,000 charge-discharge cycles.

The research team successfully controlled zinc deposition to achieve a world-leading capacity of 60 mAh/cm². They also demonstrated durability through more than 3,000 battery performance tests and confirmed that the technology could be applied to large-area electrodes of 64 cm².

Dr. Jung-Je Woo, the lead researcher, stated, "The significance of this research is that it provides a solution to the challenge of dendrite formation in metal batteries such as aqueous zinc batteries using low-cost processes and materials like copper oxide." He added, “We aim to contribute to the commercialization of aqueous batteries through follow-up research that standardizes and systematizes the developed electrodes.”

The technology developed by the research team was published as a cover article in the August issue of the prestigious journal Advanced Energy Materials (Impact Factor 24.4, top 2.9%) in the field of energy and materials.

Journal

Advanced Energy Materials

DOI

10.1002/aenm.202401820

Article Title

Self-Converted Scaffold Enables Dendrite-Free and Long-LifeZn-Ion Batteries

HWY I-95 NAFTA ROUTE

Guidelines to steer the future of autonomous trucking

Virginia Tech

 

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The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute Concept of Operations tractor trailer at the TMC Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida.

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Credit: Photo by Jacob Levin for Virginia Tech

After four years, a guidebook for the future of autonomous trucking has driven across the finish line.

In 2020, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) and 17 partners were awarded a $7.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to develop a concept of operations. The final report, published in July, includes best practices for the implementation of automated driving systems (ADS) in large trucks and policy issues for fleets to consider across eight topic areas.

“We’re excited that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's grant to the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute for the Fleet Concept of Operations exceeded the grant requirements for both activities and matching contributions,” said Tom Kelly, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's technical point of contact for the grant. “They accomplished their goal to demonstrate several different concepts of potential ADS truck applications and research key operational issues such as insurance, roadway readiness, and fleet safety management practices. All of this culminated in a ‘playbook’ for trucking fleets considering ADS operations in the future. In addition to the research findings, the grant created a publicly available data set containing thousands of miles of ADS operations data.”

The guidelines focus on eight topic areas:

• Fleet specifications
• System installation and maintenance guide
• ADS inspection procedures
• Drive state monitoring
• Motor carrier guide to insuring automated driving system-equipped trucks
• Identification of automated driving system-equipped truck safety metrics and variables
• Road readiness assessment system
• Data transfer and cybersecurity best practices

The guidelines were just one outcome of the work, known as the Fleet of Concept Operations project (CONOPS), which also included four other goals:

• Observe and report on practices related to safely integrating automated driving system-equipped trucks into the U.S. on-road transportation system.
• Collect datat to support the modernization of regulations by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
• Demonstrate the integration of automated driving system-equipped trucks in a productive, cooperative way into existing road freight ecosystems.
• Collaborate with government entities, university and research institutes, trucking associations, and private partners.

“The goal of the CONOPS project was to provide the trucking industry with guidelines on how to safely implement, integrate, and benefit from automated driving system-equipped trucks," said Rich Hanowski, director of the Division of Freight, Transit, and Heavy Vehicle Safety at VTTI. “The research conducted, including the on-road demonstrations, provides new insights and examples of successful deployments that fleets interested in integrating ADS can emulate."

To accomplish these four goals and develop the eight guidelines, the research team conducted in-the-field operational use cases, organized a variety of demonstrations and public outreach activities, and developed a Dataverse.

Operational use cases

The primary source of data collection was three operational use cases in which an automated driving system-equipped truck would be beneficial:

• A five-day deployment at the Port of Oakland in California
• A team completing five cross-country road trips with an automated driving system-equipped truck, totaling more than 15,000 miles
• An evaluation of drivers’ actions when a vehicle is operating in an autonomous function in Whitter, Alaska, and an analysis of other ways autonomous functions could improve the supply chain

Demonstrations and public outreach

Throughout the data collection and use cases, VTTI also hosted a series of public outreach events. This included events in Charlotte, Orlando, and Dallas, during which patrons saw automated driving system demonstrations, viewed a live streamed of the cross-country data collection, and even had the opportunity to ride in an automated truck.

These events were aided by VTTI’s multiple project partners, including the San Francisco-based autonomous trucking company Pronto.ai.

“We showcased different aspects of Level 4 truck automation [high automation that still allows for human override] operations and what those might be able to look like in the future,” said Ognen Stojanovski, co-founder of Pronto.ai. “This was a demonstration of being able to integrate and deploy these kinds of technologies into the existing transportation ecosystem.”

During the event in Dallas, Kodiak Robotics provided a demonstration of an enhanced commercial motor vehicle inspection on a truck equipped with an automated driving system.

“As a leader in the autonomous technology industry, we are incredibly excited about the opportunity to enhance the safety of American highways that use the enhanced inspection program,” said Daniel Goff, Kodiak’s head of policy. “This enhanced inspection ensures that all trucks are inspected to an incredibly high standard so that law enforcement has confidence in the quality of the inspection and the roadworthiness of the trucks.”

Data usage

To support the collected data, the CONOPS Dataverse was developed to house data from the events and deployments. Hosted by VTTI, the Dataverse includes four separate collections consisting of 94 data sets each, including the following:

• Data generated from the operation of the advanced driver assistance systems and automated driving system-equipped trucks, including video, kinematic, radar, GPS, and other sensors
• Driver monitoring datasets from the automated driving system-equipped vehicles during the three use cases
• Survey responses obtained from the public during the outreach events. The data is publicly available for use by researchers, policymakers, and others seeking insights into the future of automation in trucking.

The road ahead

While further research and development is needed for total fleet adoption, researchers said the Fleet of Concept Operations project guidelines provide the essential starting point for any fleet as well as a baseline understanding of where the industry stands with the implementation of automated driving systems in the field and what next steps are required for successful adoption.

“Automation should be developed in partnership with the humans operating around or responsible for the system,” said Andrew Krum, the project’s principal investigator and senior research associate at VTTI. “While many factors still need to be addressed, specifically fleet by fleet, this concept of operations is the first of its kind and can help to guide the future of automation in trucking fleets."

The report is available on the project website.

New provincial funding to help drive connected and autonomous vehicle research at uOttawa

University of Ottawa

 

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“Our work will not only advance technological research and development but also contribute to safer, more secure, and efficient transportation systems”

Burak Kantarci

— Full Professor, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

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Credit: University of Ottawa

The University of Ottawa has been awarded a $1 million grant from the Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence (ORF-RE) to support the “Secure, Intelligent and Trustworthy Ecosystems for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles” (SITE-CAV) project.

Led by Burak Kantarci,Full Professor, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, uOttawa’s Faculty of Engineering, the project aims to accelerate the development and integration of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs – or vehicles equipped with sensors and decision-making software that drives and controls it without direct human intervention) into Ontario’s transportation ecosystem.

This investment will enable the creation of a collaborative team of researchers from the University of Ottawa, Western University (Professors Abdallah Shami and Xianbin Wang), and the University of Toronto (Professor Birsen Donmez), in partnership with industry leaders, to develop groundbreaking solutions for the challenges posed by CAV technology.

“This funding represents a significant milestone for our research team and highlights the importance of our work,” explained Professor Kantarci. “We are committed to driving meaningful advancements in technology that will benefit not only our students and academic community but also society at large.”

The project will involve a collaboration with leading industry partners and will ensure that the research conducted is aligned with industry needs that can translate into practical applications.

SITE-CAV will also contribute to Ontario's emerging CAV sector by training some 59 highly qualified personnel over four years, including undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers.

“Our work will not only advance technological research and development but also contribute to safer, more secure, and efficient transportation systems, ultimately enhancing public safety and supporting the adoption of autonomous vehicle technologies,” concluded Professor Kantarci.

The SITE-CAV project is set to commence in January 2025 at uOttawa’s Kanata-North campus at its Smart Connected Vehicles Innovation Centre, which includes its own private test-driving track.

 

Thousands of jellyfish clones are multiplying in B.C. lakes

University of British Columbia

 

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Peach blossom jellyfish in sample jars

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Credit: Polina Orlov

An invasive, freshwater jellyfish is popping up in B.C. waters in the thousands and future sightings could increase rapidly, according to UBC research.

The peach blossom jellyfish clones have been spotted in 34 places in B.C., its furthest northern range in North America, and a recent paper predicts sightings and the number of locations will increase by the end of the decade as climate change extends this range.

Dr. Florian Lüskow, who completed the research during his postdoctoral fellowship at UBC’s department of earth, ocean and atmospheric sciences (EOAS), and Dr. Evgeny Pakhomov, professor in EOAS and the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF), discuss the mysterious jelly.

What do we know about these jellyfish?

FL: This is an introduced jellyfish species from China which has spread around the world. We know very little about how they affect ecosystems and biodiversity of these systems in Canada, because the research hasn’t been done yet. The worry is that they harm indigenous species by outcompeting them. We’re the only researchers in Canada investigating these jellyfish, with help from citizen scientists around B.C.

Peach blossom jellyfish have been reported in B.C. since 1990, mainly in the Lower Mainland, on Vancouver Island, around the Sunshine Coast and more recently, as far inland as Osoyoos Lake. Between 1990 and 2023, a 34 year span, there have been 85 sightings, counted once per location per year, where each sighting could be one or thousands of jellyfish. But in this decade alone, we are predicting about 80 sightings, and likely in more than the 34 locations currently observed.

We know that of the 100 jellyfish examined so far, each has been male comprised of the same genetic material, which means these thousands of jellyfish are effectively clones and originated from the same polyp or a small cluster of polyps—the stage of a jellyfish which lives at the bottom of a body of water.

EP: Polyps are very small, usually around a millimetre in size, and it is challenging to locate them. They inhabit shallow areas and can be found on rocks and submerged wood debris. Hence, we usually know about jellyfish introduction when we see the floating medusa form produced by polyps appear in the water, which appear only when water temperature is higher than 21 degrees Celsius —so polyps could be in many more lakes without us knowing about it. We do not know how and when introduction of the species occurred, but it was likely through medusa-producing polyps carried on recreational boats or on the bills or feet of birds when feeding.

We found medusae in ponds, quarries and lakes, but never in creeks or rivers. And, we know that the jellyfish aren’t harmful to humans, because their stings can’t pierce human skin.

How is climate change affecting these jellies?

FL: B.C. is the northernmost point in this continent for the peach blossom jellyfish’s range. It relies on mild winters and high summer temperatures to reproduce, so we wouldn’t see them in the Prairies because the winters are too cold.

EP: If climate change leads to freshwater temperature increases across B.C., we will likely see wider spread. Modelling indicates that even Alaskan reservoirs may potentially see invasion. However, there is a silver lining: So far only males, which are genetically identical, have been observed. This means that the jellyfish cannot complete their sexual reproduction and thus its adaptation to new environments will be limited. This would curtail their spread.    

What are the next steps?

EP: The priority should be two-fold: first, to properly map the actual distribution of the peach blossom jellyfish, including range, in B.C. Second, to better quantify the jellyfish impact on freshwater ecosystems, including young salmon.

FL: To achieve the first objective, we’d like to use environmental DNA, which is a tool that ascertains the DNA in a sample of water. This would allow us to find out if the jellyfish is present even if we can’t see it, say, in its polyp form.

We’d also like to receive observations wherever they occur. People who spot a peach blossom jellyfish can submit a report to iNaturalist, the Invasive Species Council of BC, or to us.

This would help us answer fundamental questions about the jellyfish and its impact on B.C. ecosystems and species, allowing better informed management recommendations.

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Journal

Canadian Journal of Zoology

DOI

10.1139/cjz-2024-0007