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TRB\’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 431: Practices to Manage Traffic Sign Retroreflectivity includes examples of practices that illustrate how different types of transportation agencies might meet federal retroreflectivity requirements for traffic signs.

TRB\’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Synthesis 99: Uses of Social Media in Public Transportation explores the use of social media among transit agencies and documents successful practices in the United States and Canada.

For the purposes of the report, social media are defined as a group of web-based applications that encourage users to interact with one another, such as blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Foursquare, and MySpace.

TRB\’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 428: Practices and Procedures for Site-Specific Evaluations of Earthquake Ground Motions identifies and describes current practice and available methods for evaluating the influence of local ground conditions on earthquake design ground motions on a site-specific basis.

The report focuses on evaluating the response of soil deposits to strong ground shaking.

TRB\’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Synthesis 95: Practices for Wayside Rail Transit Worker Protection is designed to highlight knowledge, practice, lessons learned, and gaps in information related to wayside rail transit worker protection programs.

TRB\’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 432: Recent Roadway Geometric Design Research for Improved Safety and Operations reviews and summarizes roadway geometric design literature completed and published from 2001 through early 2011, particularly research that identified impacts on safety and operations.

The report is structured to correspond to chapters in the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials\’ A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets, more commonly referred to as the Green Book.

NCHRP Synthesis 432 is an update of NCHRP Synthesis 299 on the same topic published in 2001.

TRB\’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Synthesis 98: Ridesharing as a Complement to Transit explores current practices in using ridesharing to complement public transit and highlights ways to potentially enhance ridesharing and public transit.

TRB\’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 425: Waterproofing Membranes for Concrete Bridge Decks documents information on materials, specification requirements, design details, application methods, system performance, and costs of waterproofing membranes used on new and existing bridge decks since 1995.

The synthesis focuses on North American practices with some information provided about systems used in Europe and Asia.

NCHRP Synthesis 425 is an update to NCHRP Synthesis 220: Waterproofing Membranes for Concrete Bridge Decks that was published in 1995.

TRB\’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Legal Research Digest 57: Tort Liability Defense Practices for Design Flexibility focuses on tort liability defense practices and cases involving the exercise of discretion in design. The report is designed to help provide a framework for determining potentially successful strategies to employ when defending design decisions made following the principles of context sensitive solutions.

TRB\’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Synthesis 97: Improving Bus Transit Safety Through Rewards and Discipline addresses the practices and experiences of public transit agencies in applying both corrective actions and rewards to recognize, motivate, and reinforce a safety culture within their organizations.

TRB\’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 16: Preserving and Protecting Freight Infrastructure and Routes provides guidance to decision makers involved in freight facility operations, freight transportation planning, and land use on how to avoid conflicting land uses or mitigate existing uses.

The report provides information about freight transportation and its importance to people\’s everyday lives; illustrates the types of conflicts between freight and other land uses and their consequences; and provides tools and resources designed to help preserve facilities and corridors, including prevention or resolution of conflicts.

In addition to the report, EnvisionFreight.com was developed as part of this project. The website is designed to complement the report by including more detailed materials then could be included in the report.

A CD-ROM packaged with the print version of the report includes the appendices to the report.

The CD-ROM is also available for download from TRB\’s website as an ISO image. Links to the ISO image and instructions for burning a CD-ROM from an ISO image are provided below.

Help on Burning an .ISO CD-ROM Image

Download the .ISO CD-ROM Image

(Warning: This is a large file and may take some time to download using a high-speed connection.)

CD-ROM Disclaimer – This software is offered as is, without warranty or promise of support of any kind either expressed or implied. Under no circumstance will the National Academy of Sciences or the Transportation Research Board (collectively “TRB”) be liable for any loss or damage caused by the installation or operation of this product. TRB makes no representation or warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, in fact or in law, including without limitation, the warranty of merchantability or the warranty of fitness for a particular purpose, and shall not in any case be liable for any consequential or special damages.

TRB\’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Research Results Digest 368: State DOT Financial Auditing Requirements for Public Transportation Assistance Programs identifies various financial policies and procedures used by states for conducting grantee financial audits.

The report documents policies, procedures, and practices used by some state departments of transportation designed to enhance and streamline their current financial auditing requirements.

TRB\’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Results Digest 15: Use of Towbarless Tractors at Airports—Best Practices includes broad guidance designed to help enhance the safe operation of towbarless tractors (TBLTs) at airports.

The report is designed to assist airports and aircraft operators in gaining a basic understanding of the training and operational issues associated with TBLT operations.

TBLTs, also known as towbarless tow vehicles (TLTVs), are used to tow aircraft on the airport. TBLTs, as the name implies, do not use a towbar but instead use a pick-up device located in the center of the vehicle to cradle the nose gear tires in order to provide direct maneuvering of the aircraft.

TRB\’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 14: Guidebook for Understanding Urban Goods Movement is designed to help facilitate decisions that accommodate and expedite urban goods movement while minimizing the environmental impact and community consequences of goods movement.

The guidebook and cases studies are designed to help decision makers better understand the potential impacts of their urban goods movement decisions on transportation infrastructure and operations; land use and site design; and laws, regulations, and ordinances applicable to urban areas.

The guidebook includes case studies that explore how urban supply chains connect to the urban economy, infrastructure, and land use patterns; their impacts on land use codes and regulations governing metropolitan goods movement of private-sector freight providers; and planning strategies for potentially improving mobility and access for goods movements in urban areas.

The print version of the NCFRP Report 14 includes a CD-ROM that includes a report and appendices on the process that developed the guidebook, and two PowerPoint presentations with speaker notes that transportation planners may use to help explain how local decision makers might enhance mobility and access for goods movement in their area.

The CD-ROM is also available for download as an ISO image. Links to the ISO image and instructions for burning a CD-ROM from an ISO image are provided below.

Help on Burning an .ISO CD-ROM Image

Download the .ISO CD-ROM Image

(Warning: This is a large file and may take some time to download using a high-speed connection.)

CD-ROM Disclaimer – This software is offered as is, without warranty or promise of support of any kind either expressed or implied. Under no circumstance will the National Academy of Sciences or the Transportation Research Board (collectively “TRB”) be liable for any loss or damage caused by the installation or operation of this product. TRB makes no representation or warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, in fact or in law, including without limitation, the warranty of merchantability or the warranty of fitness for a particular purpose, and shall not in any case be liable for any consequential or special damages.

Final Book Now Available

The aim of this report is to encourage enhanced richness and relevance of the undergraduate engineering education experience, and thus produce better-prepared and more globally competitive graduates, by providing practical guidance for incorporating real world experience in US engineering programs. The report, a collaborative effort of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD), builds on two NAE reports on The Engineer of 2020 that cited the importance of grounding engineering education in real world experience. This project also aligns with other NAE efforts in engineering education, such as the Grand Challenges of Engineering, Changing the Conversation, and Frontiers of Engineering Education.

This publication presents 29 programs that have successfully infused real world experiences into engineering or engineering technology undergraduate education. The Real World Engineering Education committee acknowledges the vision of AMD in supporting this project, which provides useful exemplars for institutions of higher education who seek model programs for infusing real world experiences in their programs. The NAE selection committee was impressed by the number of institutions committed to grounding their programs in real world experience and by the quality, creativity, and diversity of approaches reflected in the submissions. A call for nominations sent to engineering and engineering technology deans, chairs, and faculty yielded 95 high-quality submissions. Two conditions were required of the nominations: (1) an accredited 4-year undergraduate engineering or engineering technology program was the lead institutions, and (2) the nominated program started operation no later than the fall 2010 semester. Within these broad parameters, nominations ranged from those based on innovations within a single course to enhancements across an entire curriculum or institution.

Infusing Real World Experiences into Engineering Education is intended to provide sufficient information to enable engineering and engineering technology faculty and administrators to assess and adapt effective, innovative models of programs to their own institution’s objectives. Recognizing that change is rarely trivial, the project included a brief survey of selected engineering deans concern in the adoption of such programs.

[Read the full report]

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Final Book Now Available

The number of new drug approvals has remained reasonably steady for the past 50 years at around 20 to 30 per year, while at the same time the total spending on health-related research and development has tripled since 1990. There are many suspected causes for this trend, including increases in regulatory barriers, the rising costs of scientific inquiry, a decrease in research and development efficiency, the downstream effects of patient expirations on investment, and the lack of production models that have successfully incorporated new technology. Regardless, this trajectory is not economically sustainable for the businesses involved, and, in response, many companies are turning toward collaborative models of drug development, whether with other industrial firms, academia, or government. Introducing greater efficiency and knowledge into these new models and aligning incentives among participants may help to reverse the trends highlighted above, while producing more effective drugs in the process.

Genome-Based Therapeutics explains that new technologies have the potential to open up avenues of development and to identify new drug targets to pursue. Specifically, improved validation of gene-disease associations through genomics research has the potential to revolutionize drug production and lower development costs. Genetic information has helped developers by increasing their understanding of the mechanisms of disease as well as individual patients’ reactions to their medications. There is a need to identify the success factors for the various models that are being developed, whether they are industry-led, academia-led, or collaborations between the two.

Genome-Based Therapeutics summarizes a workshop that was held on March 21, 2012, titled New Paradigms in Drug Discovery: How Genomic Data Are Being Used to Revolutionize the Drug Discovery and Development Process. At this workshop the goal was to examine the general approaches being used to apply successes achieved so far, and the challenges ahead.

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Final Book Now Available

In 1996, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released its report Telemedicine: A Guide to Assessing Telecommunications for Health Care. In that report, the IOM Committee on Evaluating Clinical Applications of Telemedicine found telemedicine is similar in most respects to other technologies for which better evidence of effectiveness is also being demanded. Telemedicine, however, has some special characteristics-shared with information technologies generally-that warrant particular notice from evaluators and decision makers.

Since that time, attention to telehealth has continued to grow in both the public and private sectors. Peer-reviewed journals and professional societies are devoted to telehealth, the federal government provides grant funding to promote the use of telehealth, and the private technology industry continues to develop new applications for telehealth. However, barriers remain to the use of telehealth modalities, including issues related to reimbursement, licensure, workforce, and costs. Also, some areas of telehealth have developed a stronger evidence base than others.

The Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) sponsored the IOM in holding a workshop in Washington, DC, on August 8-9 2012, to examine how the use of telehealth technology can fit into the U.S. health care system. HRSA asked the IOM to focus on the potential for telehealth to serve geographically isolated individuals and extend the reach of scarce resources while also emphasizing the quality and value in the delivery of health care services. This workshop summary discusses the evolution of telehealth since 1996, including the increasing role of the private sector, policies that have promoted or delayed the use of telehealth, and consumer acceptance of telehealth. The Role of Telehealth in an Evolving Health Care Environment: Workshop Summary discusses the current evidence base for telehealth, including available data and gaps in data; discuss how technological developments, including mobile telehealth, electronic intensive care units, remote monitoring, social networking, and wearable devices, in conjunction with the push for electronic health records, is changing the delivery of health care in rural and urban environments. This report also summarizes actions that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) can undertake to further the use of telehealth to improve health care outcomes while controlling costs in the current health care environment.

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Final Book Now Available

The first two decades of the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program have provided a successful and useful assessment of U.S. water-quality conditions, how they have changed over time, and how natural features and human activities have affected those conditions. Now, planning is underway for the third decade (Cycle 3) of the Program outlined in the Science Plan, with challenges including ensuring that the NAWQA remain a national program in the face of declining resources, balancing new activities against long-term studies, and maintaining focus amidst numerous and competing stakeholder demands.

The Science Plan for Cycle 3 articulates a forward-thinking vision for NAWQA science over the next decade, building on the previous cycles’ data, experience, and products. Preparing for the Third Decade (Cycle 3) of the National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program explains the national needs outlined in the plan, NAWQA’s need to emphasize collaboration with other USGS and external programs, other federal agencies, state and local governments, and the private sector.

[Read the full report]

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Final Book Now Available

The development of technologies to modify natural human physical and cognitive performance is one of increasing interest and concern, especially among military services that may be called on to defeat foreign powers with enhanced warfighter capabilities. Human performance modification (HPM) is a general term that can encompass actions ranging from the use of “natural” materials, such as caffeine or khat as a stimulant, to the application of nanotechnology as a drug delivery mechanism or in an invasive brain implant. Although the literature on HPM typically addresses methods that enhance performance, another possible focus is methods that degrade performance or negatively affect a military force’s ability to fight.

Advances in medicine, biology, electronics, and computation have enabled an increasingly sophisticated ability to modify the human body, and such innovations will undoubtedly be adopted by military forces, with potential consequences for both sides of the battle lines. Although some innovations may be developed for purely military applications, they are increasingly unlikely to remain exclusively in that sphere because of the globalization and internationalization of the commercial research base.

Based on its review of the literature, the presentations it received and on its own expertise, the Committee on Assessing Foreign Technology Development in Human Performance Modification chose to focus on three general areas of HPM: human cognitive modification as a computational problem, human performance modification as a biological problem, and human performance modification as a function of the brain-computer interface. Human Performance Modification: Review of Worldwide Research with a View to the Future summarizes these findings.

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UPDATED 11/26/2012:  Phone number change for Judith Mandl, NIH

Bats recovering from white-nose syndrome show evidence of immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS), according to a hypothesis proposed by the U.S. Geological Survey and collaborators at National Institutes of Health. This condition was first described in HIV-AIDS patients and, if proven in bats surviving WNS, would be the first natural occurrence of IRIS ever observed.

IRIS is a syndrome in which an organism’s immune system, having been suppressed for a time, reactivates and, perceiving a serious infection around it, goes into overdrive resulting in severe inflammation and tissue damage in infected areas.

In both human patients with HIV-AIDS and bats with WNS, the functioning of the immune system is severely reduced. For humans, this occurs when the HIV virus attacks the patient’s white blood cells, and for bats, this occurs during normal hibernation. For both humans and bats, IRIS can be fatal.

“The potential discovery of IRIS in bats infected with white-nose syndrome is incredibly significant in terms of understanding both the reasons for bat mortality and basic immune response,” said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. “This discovery could also prove significant for studies on treatment for AIDS.”

IRIS was first described in humans with HIV-AIDS after patients with low counts of helper T lymphocytes, the type of white blood cells the HIV virus attacks, had increases in those cell numbers following treatment with antiretroviral therapy. In some patients, who had secondary bacterial or other opportunistic infections due to their suppressed immune system, their condition significantly worsened as the restoration in immune cell function resulted in an over-response to pre-existing infection and substantial damage to healthy tissue.

In bats, IRIS might be a result of changes in immune system function during hibernation. During hibernation, all internal systems for the bats enter a reduced state, including the immune system, so as to conserve resources. This reduced immunity allows Geomyces destructans, the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome, to spread unchecked over the wings, muzzle, and ears of bats eroding through skin.

If they survive the fungal infection through winter, when the bats emerge in the spring, they face a new challenge—intense inflammation at sites of infection with G. destructans. This inflammation in the wings can be so severe that it contributes to death.

Scientists from the USGS National Wildlife Health Center and National Institutes of Health propose this sudden reversal of immune suppression in bats with WNS, accompanied by intense inflammation is a form of IRIS.

Although never before observed outside a clinical setting, there is strong evidence that the inflammation observed in bats with WNS is IRIS.

“We see strong similarities between human IRIS and the pathology associated with WNS , with potentially fatal outcome in bats,” said USGS lead researcher Carol Meteyer. “We hope that these findings will stimulate more experimental studies that yield insight into the role of the immune response during IRIS in humans as well as hibernating bats.”

Even as the G. destructans fungus spreads throughout the bat’s body, there is no obvious inflammation in response to this hibernation-dependent fungal skin infection. This lack of inflammatory cell response is consistent with hibernation-induced inhibition of immune cell activity as the body temperature of hibernating bats drops to ambient temperatures 35-50 degrees Fahrenheit (2-10 degrees Centigrade).

In addition, inflammation is not seen until the bat”s body temperatures reach their active levels of 93-102 degrees Fahrenheit (34-39 degrees Centigrade). These temperature levels indicate that the bat’s internal systems have come back online, including the immune system. Only then is the inflammation observed, and only in areas where the G. destructans fungus has taken hold. This behavior is consistent with IRIS observed in human HIV-AIDS patients.

The report, entitled “Pathology in euthermic bats with white nose syndrome suggests a natural manifestation of immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome,” is published in the November issue of the journal Virulence.

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