Cause Of Casualties Research Articles

In-Depth Analysis of Fatal Motorcycle Accidents—Case Study in Slovenia

Motorcyclists remain a disproportionately large group of vulnerable road users, with fatality rates significantly higher than that in other road groups. Additionally, fatal accidents involving motorcyclists have a more slowly decreasing trend in comparison to that of other road users, while the number of this kind of users is growing fast. For all these reasons, there is a need to understand what the key factors leading to fatal accidents are in order to identify the possible measures to minimize the accidents themselves or at least their consequences. This would permit, indeed, to positively impact the road traffic system, leading to the creation of the safest road traffic system possible, as it is the goal of the Sustainable Safety approach. The aim of this study is to dive into the mentioned problem, analyzing fatal motorcycle accidents in Slovenia over a decade, highlighting the key factors contributing to these incidents. By integrating data from four databases, the study evaluated accident trends, infrastructural elements, and rider behavior through a multi-stage analysis. Firstly, data were collected from four national, up-to-date databases that contain information about road accidents themselves, the road infrastructure, additional police data, and media descriptions. After merging this information into one comprehensive database, where each row represents all the data available for one accident, a general analysis of accidents’ trends over the considered 10-year period was developed, considering at first all fatal road accidents, then deepening it to accidents caused by a motorcyclist, and finally to single-vehicle accidents. A statistical analysis followed, aimed at identifying a statistical correlation between the accidents and the factors leading to them. The results of the first accident analysis indicated that excessive speed, incorrect driving direction, and overtaking maneuvers are the primary causes of fatal accidents, especially on non-urban roads preferred by motorcyclists. Single-vehicle accidents frequently involve collisions with roadside objects, including safety barriers and poles, underscoring the need for targeted infrastructural improvements. The following correlation analysis revealed that a total of seven factors were statistically significant: three human factors (age, gender, experience)—which were the ones with the strongest correlations—one infrastructural factor (pavement width), and three factors belonging to external conditions (accident type, cause, and location). Of these, four were positively correlated to the causer, while three, i.e., pavement width, causes, and road location, were negatively correlated. This study provides a foundation for future research on less severe accidents and proactive risk behavior analysis, aiming to improve motorcyclist safety comprehensively.

Research on Teaching Reform of Smoke Control and Exhaust Course under the Background of New Engineering

A large number of fire cases have proven that smoke is the main cause of casualties in fires, with over 80% of victims dying directly or indirectly due to smoke. Scientific and rational design of smoke control systems is crucial for slowing down the spread of fires and ensuring safe evacuation time. At present, the process of smoke exhaust in fire scenes is still the main way of fire rescue utilization, and industries related to smoke exhaust are also one of the main employment areas for undergraduate students majoring in fire engineering. However, traditional smoke exhaust engineering courses have outdated teaching content, teaching methods, and assessment methods, which cannot meet the demand for cultivating technical talents in energy engineering majors under the background of new engineering construction. This study first starts from the characteristics of smoke control engineering courses and the problems existing in teaching. Using advanced online teaching platforms, advanced teaching aids, mature commercial software, and computer programming language design environments, the teaching content of smoke control engineering courses is upgraded and transformed towards modular computing, intelligent design, and other directions. In the context of new engineering disciplines, students' learning interests are enhanced, and their practical, innovative, and comprehensive computing abilities are exercised.

Statistical Analysis of Occupational Fatal Accidents for Risk Assessment

Abstract According to Malaysia's Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH), workplace accidents have increased dramatically as the country's economy has grown rapidly. The purpose of this study is to identify the trends that lead to fatal workplace accidents in Malaysia. This study investigated 505 fatal accident instances from fifteen industries, using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The DOSH discovered and reported these fatalities (2010-2020). Data was organized and coded, then analyzed using Spearman's rank order correlation, frequency analysis, Eta squared, Cramer's V, and Chi-square. Moreover, neurolinguistic programming was used to generate the word cloud and sentiment analysis. Furthermore, light gradient-boosting machine learning was used to better understand the causes of fatalities. The outcomes indicated that fatal falls from heights were the leading cause of fatal accidents (32%). General laborers were the most susceptible to fatal accidents (60%). Contract workers were more likely to die in construction accidents (64%). The findings of this study gave useful insights into workplace fatal accident trends and preventive measures throughout sectors.

Dynamics of gas composition and thermal behavior post explosions: An experimental investigation across varied initial concentrations

Gas explosion accidents are a leading cause of casualties in underground coal mines. This study investigates the variation patterns of explosion temperature and pressure under different initial gas concentration conditions using a 20 L explosion characteristic test system and high-precision sensors. Accurate post-explosion gas analyses were conducted using a GC9560 gas chromatograph. Our research aligns with global research, finding that initial gas concentrations within the range of 5.8%–13.3% generate maximum explosion pressures between 0.3 and 0.9 MPa, posing a significant overpressure hazard to humans. Comprehensive fitting analyses of various post-explosion gases reveal that at an initial gas concentration of 10.6%, the produced H2 can reach its lower explosion limit, indicating a risk of secondary explosions. Furthermore, post-explosion CO levels can peak at 9.87%, potentially causing poisoning or death, while elevated CO2 levels and diminished O2 concentrations could lead to asphyxiation. A unique observation at a 9.5% concentration was a secondary temperature rise, with the relationship between temperature delay, heating time, and initial gas concentration presenting a U-shaped pattern that mirrors theoretical expectations. This study advances the field by addressing research gaps in post-explosion gas analysis and emphasizing the necessity of precise monitoring and control of gas concentrations, thereby offering novel insights and substantial theoretical and practical contributions to the prevention of gas explosion incidents in underground coal mines.

Cascaded framework for earthquake building damage detection combining spatial and frequency domain feature integration

Abstract. Building collapse is a major cause of casualties after an earthquake, so accurately extracting building damage information is critical for post-earthquake assessment and rescue. Currently, most deep learning methods focus on the end-to-end detection of building collapse. However, in real-world earthquake scenarios, the end-to-end computational process often lacks flexibility and struggles to meet the requirements of rapid emergency response. To address this issue, this paper proposes a cascaded framework that combines pre-earthquake building extraction and post-earthquake building damage classification. The proposed framework includes two sections: (1) Progressive building semantic segmentation model in the joint frequency domain. This model is designed to accurately extract buildings prior to an earthquake, with the goal of minimizing error propagation throughout the cascading process. The model addresses the spatial similarity of buildings under complicated backgrounds, as well as the high internal heterogeneity of buildings, by utilizing frequency domain techniques. It compensates for the shortcomings of traditional models in terms of incomplete information extraction through the effective integration of global and local information. Finally, the model employs edge priors for edge regularization. (2) Rapid building damage classification process. Based on the accurate building extraction results, a fast and efficient classification process is developed. This process uses a simple and lightweight classification network to effectively extract building damage information caused by the earthquake. The superiority of the proposed framework is validated through comparison with traditional cascading architectures and end-to-end models. The results show that the cascading framework not only provides accurate pre-earthquake building extraction, but also enables efficient and accurate post-earthquake damage classification, which meets the requirements of rapid post-earthquake emergency response. This balance of accuracy and speed is essential for effective disaster management and recovery.

Analysis of the Low-Frequency Debris Flow Disaster Induced by a Local Rainstorm on 12 July 2022, in Pingwu County, China

Low-frequency debris flows often lead to severe disasters due to large energy releases and strong concealment. However, the understanding of formation conditions, movement processes, and disaster-causing mechanisms of low-frequency debris flow is still limited, especially regarding occurrences within the large catchment (>50 km2). This study presents a typical case of large-scale, low-frequency debris flow occurring in the Heishui catchment (102.65 km2), Pingwu County, China. The movement process, disaster characteristics, and causes of the Heishui debris flow were analyzed in detail through field investigations and remote sensing interpretation. The results indicated that the Heishui debris flow is a large-scale, low-frequency, dilute debris flow with a recurrence period of over 100 years. The debris flow was primarily initiated from the right branch gully, Longchi gully, triggered by a local rainstorm with a maximum hourly rainfall return period of over 20 years. The main cause of casualties and building damage is attributed to large energy releases from boulder blockages and outbursts that occurred in the middle part of the main channel. This led to a sudden increase in peak discharge to 1287 m3/s, with a volume of 3.5 × 105 m3 of solid materials being transported to the outlet of the gully. It is essential to enhance the identification of debris flows by comprehensively considering tributary gullies’ susceptibility and strengthening joint meteorological and hydrological monitoring networks in the middle and upper reaches within large catchments. This preliminary work contributes towards improving prevention and mitigation strategies for low-frequency debris flows occurring within large catchments.

Computational modelling of the key stages of placing bioresorbable polymeric coronary stent

Cardiovascular diseases are one of the main problems in the world in medicine. It ranks first in the list of causes of fatal accidents, in addition, more than a half of cases are a result of ischemic heart diseases. One of the most effective method of treatment is coronary stenting. The main purpose of the study is to outline bioresorbable polymeric coronary stent’s behaviour using computational modelling and to demonstrate benefits of application of polymer materials instead of standard metallic alloys. During the research the main stages of coronary stenting that are necessary for general understanding of process were analyzed: the strain after crimping, the shape of angioplasty balloon after deployment and the stress-strain state of vessel and atherosclerotic plaque after coronary stent deployment. PLLA (poly-L-lactic acid) was taken as a material for the research. It allows to create stent construction that will provide the required lumen of the vessel during rehabilitation. Moreover, with the progress of poly-L-lactic acid vasomotor function will restore thereby forming «golden section». The results showed the possibility of use of approaches that were given in this paper for examination of polymer material’s behaviour with coronary stenting. It can be concluded that polymer bioresorbable coronary stents in medicine are promising for further application for improvement of quality of invasive coronary operation.

Analytical Hierarchy Process for Risk Management in the Stabilized Flight Approach - Expert Judgment

Destabilised approaches have been the primary cause of fatal accidents during the approach and landing phase, as stated in  (Airbus, 2023). The stabilised approach concept is of great importance for the safe operation of an airline during the approach and landing phases (Acarbay & Kiyak, 2020). The elements highlighted in the approach phases are the runway's dry or contaminated condition and length. In the crew, we analyse their competence, recurrence, and fatigue. Another variable is the type of approach, whether it is precision, non-precision or visual. The external conditions of the aerodrome include obstacles, wind, and wildlife—the type of aircraft, whether light, medium or heavy.  Due to the large amount of qualitative information derived from the pilots' experience about risk management in the approach and landing phases, this paper proposes an Analytic Hierarchy Process model (AHP) for threat characterisation and risk analysis to achieve a stabilised approach. The results show that AHP proposed model establishes a new methodology for identifying potential in-flight risks to air operations based on expert criteria, improving the decisions to land at an alternate airport based on qualitative information from expert pilots in the risk management field.

Critical Ergonomics and (Dis)Comfort Factors While Performing Tasks with Hand Tools on a Ladder: A Pilot Study

Falls at height are among the major causes of fatal accidents at work, especially in the construction sector. Maintaining balance while performing a tool with both hands generates physical efforts and mental loading that needs to be managed for workers’ safety and health. The purpose of the study is to compare perceived (dis)comfort (overall and localized), the ergonomic risk, and the perceived effort through the acquired postures that subjects assumed during the execution of simple and common tasks both on a ladder and on the ground. 26 subjects were asked to perform four tasks in both conditions: top screwing, frontal screwing, object picking from the bottom forward, and object picking from the bottom sideways. Subjective and objective data were gathered for assessing subjective experience (discomfort and effort, perceived) and ergonomic risk. Results highlighted few ergonomic risk differences among “on ladder” and “on ground” tasks, while subjective data reveal significant differences in different scenarios. Furthermore, the knees and neck areas are the most critical ones.

Profile of Autopsy Cases at Government Medical College Kanpur: A Retrospective Study

Background: The profiling of medico-legal cases is imperative in order to avert preventable casualties in the future and to analyze the authentic crime rate within a specific region. Presently, road traffic accidents are the primary cause of casualties, resulting in numerous fatalities. Objective: The objective is to establish a comprehensive profile of deaths caused by either natural or unnatural factors, thereby enabling us to channel rigorous efforts towards mitigating their occurrence. Materials and Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on the mortality cases subjected to medico-legal postmortem examination at the Mortuary, Government Medical College, Kanpur, U.P., India, during the year 2022. Throughout this duration, a total of 2326 autopsy cases were conducted. Results: October had the highest number of autopsy cases. Males accounted for 63.23% of cases, with most falling in the 21-30 age group. Injury-related deaths were the largest proportion (47.36%), followed by natural deaths (19.93%), violent asphyxial deaths (10.48%), thermal injuries (9.89%), and poisoning (9.04%). Conclusion: The analysis reveals that road traffic accidents are the most common cause of death, potentially due to the increased frequency of transportation. Specifically, vehicular accidents resulting in head injuries were the leading cause of death.

The Road Safety Debate

Paul-Henri Renard, CEO of Parifex, discusses the key causes of fatal accidents in France and looks at how innovative speed measurement and monitoring solutions can help save lives

A Rapid Earthquake Disaster Assessment Platform Based on Cloud Computing

In the past few decades, earthquakes have been a major cause of casualties and economic losses. The rapid assessment system for earthquake disasters plays an important role in earthquake prevention, disaster reduction, and emergency command by calculating the economic losses and casualties caused by earthquakes in a relatively short time after the occurrence of an earthquake. Although there are now many rapid assessment systems for earthquake disasters, most of them adopt C/S and B/S architectures, which have limited computational efficiency during large-scale earthquakes. Based on these factors, this study aims to build a cloud computing-based rapid assessment system for earthquake disasters. The main modules of the system include intensity impact field calculation, building damage assessment, economic loss assessment, casualties assessment, and model parameter calibration. The results show that the system significantly speeds up the calculation process and shortens the assessment time. It can provide timely disaster assessment information to relevant departments in a short period and provide technical support for emergency decision-making.

Development of Numerical Simulation Techniques for the Analysis of a Rollover Tractor

AbstractOne of the leading causes of death in the word is the injury in the field of agriculture. Agricultural machinery, in fact, is very dangerous for workers and rollover accidents are due to several reasons. First, it must be considered that these machines operate on nonlinear land and on extremely steep slopes, so the causes are due to operational, tractor, and soil characteristics. Furthermore, recent studies have shown that in 33% of the rollovers that are analyzed, passive safety devices, such as seat belt, are not used by workers (who got thrown out of the safety zone). Another cause of fatal accidents is that, until now, the mechanical design of tractors has not provided for occupant protection. In fact, there are no standard tests that assess the safety of the occupant. This study aims to conduct an explicit finite element (FE) analysis of a rollover test of a generic T5 category tractor to assess the structural characteristics and the biomechanical performance of the occupant.

Study of Aerated Lightweight Mortar Using Aluminium Powder and Local Materials

Conventional burnt clay bricks are still mostly used as building materials for both load-bearing and non-load-bearing walls in Nepal. The use of brick walls not only increases the dead loads on the structures but also becomes the main cause of casualties during the earthquake. This paper describes the development of an alternative lightweight mortar using aluminium powder to replace the bricks. The base mixture of the mortar was experimentally determined and the properties were studied with the ranging content of the aluminium powder by weight of cement. The result showed a decrease in the density and compressive strength but an increase in the water absorption while increasing aluminium powder content. The density was possible to decrease by about 52% with the use of 0.9% aluminium powder. The decrease was very less while increasing the aluminium content from 0.6% to 0.9%. The 28-day compressive strength was decreased by 59% and 63% at aluminium content of 0.6% and 0.9% respectively. With the achievement of a density of less than 1000 kg/m3 and a 28-day compressive strength of more than 7.5 MPa, the optimum content of the aluminium powder was 0.6%. The implementation of this result implies producing lightweight bricks, blocks and panels replacing the burnt clay bricks. It not only lightens the building structures and avoids the casualties during big earthquakes but also saves the environment by minimizing the carbon-di-oxide, avoids the degrading of agricultural soils and even minimizes the risk of climate change.

An experimental study on the moisture migration characteristics of liquefiable iron ore

Cargo liquefaction is still the biggest causes of casualties during its sea transportation. To understand the liquefaction mechanism deeply, research of moisture migration characteristics of liquefiable cargo is the priority. Closer to the actual transportation conditions of iron ore, unsaturated undrained, saturated undrained and saturated drained experiments were all carried out. Effects of ship motion accelerations, frequencies and sample densities were also taken into account. Results indicate that the largest drainage happens in the first ten minutes when drained, and accounts for 75.3% of the total volume. The external loads have a little promotion for the drainage. The pore water pressure dissipates quickly and its value goes below zero. When undrained, the water would migrates upward and the middle part have a relative higher water content. The pore water pressure accumulates and increases quickly in the first 50–100 s, and also the middle part has the largest increase of pore water pressure. A larger motion acceleration could enhance the accumulation of the pore water pressure and the water migration. There are critical motion frequencies, under which the accumulation of the pore water pressure and the water migration become obvious. For the sample with a higher density, the accumulation of the pore water pressure and the ability of water migration are all bounded. This study could be provided as an useful reference to reveal the liquefaction mechanism.

A review of the contribution of smoke management systems in building design by CFD analysis

As it is broadly known smoke is the major cause of casualties in the event of fire incidents in buildings. Accordingly, the majority of fire related-deaths are not caused by fire flames, but by inhaling smoke. Apart from that, as fire-generated gases exceed a certain level, lower visibility can be attained. Aiming to break this vicious cycle between building design and fire safety, smoke management systems underline a fruitful way to tackle this problem. Within this framework, this work focuses on a thorough presentation of smoke control systems in building design. In an effort to assess the significance of such kinds of systems, as well as to justify their contribution from a quotative point of view, highly sophisticated numerical approaches are mostly adopted. In this context, CFD techniques illustrate a rational way to enhance the arrangement of buildings in terms of fire safety (risk assessment). In a nutshell, this paper discusses the main conclusions of earlier research in this important area of study.

Risk Analysis of Airplane Upsets in Flight: An Integrated System Framework and Analysis Methodology

Generally, airplane upsets in flight are considered a precursor to loss of control in flight (LOC-I) accidents, and unfortunately LOC-I is classified as the leading cause of fatal accidents. To further explore the risk factors, causal relationships, and coupling mechanism of airplane upsets, this study proposed a risk analysis model integrating the Interpretative Structural Modeling (ISM) and Bayesian Network (BN). Seventeen key risk factors leading to airplane upsets were identified through the analysis of typical accident cases and the literature. The ISM approach was used to construct the multi-level interpretative structural model of airplane upsets, which could reveal the causal relationship among various risk factors and risk propagation paths. Then, taking 286 accident/incident investigation data as training samples, a data-driven BN model was established using machine learning for dependency intensity assessment and inference analysis. The results reveal that the interaction among risk factors of fatal accidents caused by airplane upsets is more significant than that of non-fatal accidents/incidents. Risk factors such as pilot-induced oscillations/airplane-pilot coupling and non-adherence to Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)/neglect of cross-validation have a significant effect on airplane upsets in flight among seventeen risk factors. Moreover, this study also identifies the most likely set of risk factors that lead to fatal accidents caused by airplane upsets. The research results have an important theoretical significance and application value for preventing airplane upsets risk.

Hepatoprotective effect of the Hexane extract of Luffa echinata root and Stem bark against Tetrachloromethane Induced Hepatic Disorder in rats

In many nations, long term liver syndromes are the principal cause of casualty. Medicinal drug obtained from fauna and floras are well-thought-out and valuable in the treatment of chronic diseases that require long-term treatment. An experiment was conducted to determine the potential outcome of a hexane extract of the root and stem bark of Luffa echinata (L.echinata) Roxb on tetra chloromethane (TCM) induced liver toxicity in female albino rats. The root and stem bark of L. echinata were treated with hexane (C6H6), and exposed to preliminary secondary metabolite screening for the presence of various therapeutic component. Tetra chloromethane has been used to cause the hepatic disease in albino rats, which was subsequently treated with Hexane extract. Biochemical markers including entire bilirubin (BR), serum glutamic–oxaloacetic transaminase (SGOT) enzyme, serum glutamic –pyruvic transaminase (SGPT) enzyme, and total serum protein (TSP) in blood serum were used to assess the patient. The synergistic outcome of root and stem bark hexane extract on the damage liver tissues were also investigated histopathologically. According to the findings, Hexane extract has a strong hepatoprotective effect.

REQUIREMENTS FOR HAZARD ANALYSIS MODELS AND CALCULATIONS DEGREE OF RISK

Based on statistical data, the main reasons for the low level of labor protection organization in Ukraine are formulated. In recent years, there has been a sharp increase in cases of industrial injuries. UAH 334 million was spent on monthly insurance payments to families who lost breadwinners. for temporary incapacity for work due to an accident or occupational disease - UAH 138.1 million. The data presented in the article indicate that the main causes of fatal accidents are organizational, psychophysical, technogenic, and technical. The main reasons for the low level of labor protection organization in Ukraine are given by the authors, who say that in today's conditions, the labor protection management system should be based not only on measures from the state, but also on the interest of the subjects of labor relations in maintaining the proper physical condition of the employee. A real health risk assessment is impossible without a sufficient information base on the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of risk factors and data on the health status of those contingents of the population that are exposed to these factors. The effect of potentiating with the combined influence of professional and non-professional factors has been established. Therefore, there was a need to develop new methods of analysis and modeling of the conditional probability of the occurrence of an industrial injury, acceptable for practical engineering calculations. The proposed indicators of the level of ensuring the safety of people at the objects are the probability of preventing exposure to dangerous factors of the production environment and work process, which can be determined by the full risk of an accident. Thus, on the basis of the application of the probabilistic method for modeling the conditional probability of injury to an employee during technological operations, an assessment of the probability of an accident and the development of various variants of dangerous situations was carried out. This will make it possible to get an assessment of the circumstances and conditions that contribute to the occurrence and development of traumatic situations at work. Keywords: labor protection, occupational injuries, industrial environment, accident, risk, danger, harmfulness, probability.

Earthquake-induced building damage recognition from unmanned aerial vehicle remote sensing using scale-invariant feature transform characteristics and support vector machine classification

Building damage is the main cause of casualties and economic losses from earthquakes. Therefore, understanding building damage is critical for emergency handling. Current information acquisition methods for assessing earthquake damage using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) remote sensing systems offer great flexibility and high efficiency with the capability to obtain high-resolution images, which can reflect actual damage to affected areas intuitively. Consequently, UAV remote sensing has become a convenient and important means to acquire earthquake-induced building damage information. Although manual visual interpretation can achieve high recognition accuracy, it is extremely time-consuming. In contrast, although current automatic recognition methods require less time, they have relatively poor recognition accuracy. Neither approach can satisfactorily simultaneously meet efficiency and accuracy requirements for earthquake emergency handling. This article applies image classification algorithms based on the support vector machine (SVM) to earthquake-induced building damage recognition, and proposes a recognition method based on scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) characteristics and SVM classification. We use the magnitude 6.4 earthquake at Yangbi (2021) as an example to validate the proposed method. Results verify that the proposed method can recognize earthquake damage quickly and accurately, providing effective support for decision-making regarding rescue actions.