Atmospheric Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs) are emitted from a wide variety of emission sources. Having information on the main emission source is very important for reducing these pollutants in the atmosphere. However, it has been rather difficult to determin the origin of these HAPs. Results of the carbon stable isotope ratio of toluene indicate that the main emission source of toluene in rural areas was not the automobile because the carbon stable isotope ratio in these areas differented from automotive exhaust, although, the main emission source of toluene at the road side is automotive exhaust.

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In Japan, truck occupants trapped in a crushed cabin by a traffic accident are rescued by fire fighters. Studies showing that rescue from a crushed cabin takes much time have been reported, but, few studies on the relationship between the original vehicle structure and the rescue procedures have been undertaken. This study compares some rescue methods that improve efficiency by enlarging the cabin space using hydraulic rescue tools (e.g. rescue cylinder) and a heavy-truck FE model. The load required to begin enlarging the door frame was lower for slanted enlargement than for horizontal enlargement. A simulation demonstrated that the door frame tends to expand at a lower load when the A-pillar is pre-cut. Based on these results, we recommended that the horizontal and slanted enlargement methods be used differently as required.

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We gathered data from experiments in a driving simulator focused on a driver's steering and pupils to determine if there were characteristic changes during careless driving. Analysis of the frequency power-spectrum density of the steering angle in response to disturbances to steady steering measured while driving revealed that a peak appears in the disturbance frequency band and that such a trend is most noticeable in the absent-minded state. Furthermore, analysis of the pupils indicated that the the pupil diameter is greater when the driver is thinking than in the normal state but smaller in the absent-minded state than in the normal state. Those results suggest that analysis of the steering power-spectrum density in the disturbance frequency band and the changes in pupil diameters with time can discriminate the absent-minded state and thinking state.

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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