In recent years, much attention in the field of intelligent transportation systems has been devoted to conceptualizing and starting development of vehicle-infrastructure integration (VII), which would provide new vehicles with the capability to communicate data with each other and with roadside transceivers located throughout the roadway network. The bulk of the federal VII activities have focused on defining an overall architecture and the wireless vehicle-infrastructure communication link, while exploring the institutional challenges to deployment. A somewhat different perspective to VII focuses on the real-world challenges that have been encountered and overcome in implementing the first VII test bed environment in California. It is important to understand these practical aspects of installing, operating, and maintaining the VII communications infrastructure when developing plans and cost estimates for large-scale national VII deployment. Lessons learned from the initial VII California test bed development and operations are provided in the hope that they can contribute to decisions about VII design and development.

Background: The present study aimed at evaluating the diagnostic value of lung transthoracic ultrasonography (TTUS) and lower extremity sonography versus computed tomography pulmonary angiography (CTPA) in the diagnosis of pulmonary embolus (PE). Materials and Methods: This study was performed on 104 patients with clinically suspected PE. CTPA and D-dimer was performed on all patients. Wells’ deep vein thrombosis criteria (WDVTC) was evaluated and recorded at the patient’s admission. Finally, the results of adding venous and lung sonography scores to the WDVTC with and without the results of D-dimer test were analyzed for predicting the diagnosis of PE. Results: There were 104 patients clinically suspected of having a PE and enrolled in the study. A PE was confirmed in 37.5% of this cohort. WDVTC had a sensitivity and specificity of 94.87% and 80.00%, respectively, to predict PE. When adding D-dimer to the WDVTC for patients unlikely to have a PE (WDVTC≤4), the sensitivity and specificity of positive D-dimer in diagnosis of PE were 94.87% and 56.92%, respectively ( P < .001). Conclusion: According to these study results, the modification of the WDVTC along with the results of lung TTUS and lower extremity venous sonogram significantly increase the diagnostic power for PE.

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The problem of vehicle-animal crashes is one of the few areas in which the number of incidents has been climbing steadily in recent years. Many strategies and technologies have been investigated over the years to try to reduce the number of vehicle-animal crashes, and each have had their own strengths and shortcomings. Thus far, no single strategy or technology has proven to be an effective solution. In this project, a 0.6 mi (1 km) site in Northern California, along State Route 3, near the city of Fort Jones, was selected based on a high frequency of vehicle-deer collisions to test a new animal detection and driver warning system. An animal detection system used microwave break-a-beam technology to detect objects along side or crossing the roadway, and warnings were provided to drivers using dynamic, LED, warning signs. These signs were typically blank in the off position and were only illuminated when the animal detection system detected a beam break. Coupled with the animal detection and driver warning system was a traffic monitoring system and data collection system, and a total of 10 months of data were collected between August 2011 and April of 2012. An analysis of the data showed that when illuminated, the warning signs reduced the traffic speeds by an average of 3.1 mph (5 km/h) to 5.1 mph (8.2 km/h), depending on the analysis method.