In-vehicle avatars to elicit social response and change driving behaviour

Social and psychological theories have provided a plethora of evidence showing that the physical difficulty to express appropriate social interactions between drivers expresses itself in aggression, selfish driving and anti-social behaviour. Therefore there is a need to improve interactions between drivers and allow clearer collective decision making between them. Personal characteristics and the driving situations play strong roles in driver’s aggression. Our approach is centered around the driving situation as opposed to focusing on personality characteristics. It examines aggression and manipulates contextual variables such as driver’s eye contact exchanges. This paper presents a new unobtrusive in-vehicle system that aims at communicating drivers’ intentions, elicit social responses and increasing mutual awareness. It uses eye gaze as a social cue to affect collective decision making with the view to contribute to safe driving. The authors used a driving simulator to design a case control experiment in which eye gaze movements are conveyed with an avatar. Participants were asked to drive through different types of intersections. An avatar representing the head of the other driver was displayed and driver behaviour was analysed. Significant eye gaze pattern difference where observed when an avatar was displayed. Drivers cautiously refer to the avatar when information is required on the intention of others (e.g. when they do not have the right of way). The majority of participants reported the perception of “being looked at”. The number of glances and time spent gazing at the avatar did not indicate an unsafe distraction by standards of in-vehicle device ergonomic design. Avatars were visually consulted primarily in less demanding driving situations, which underlines their non-distractive nature.

Impact of cognitive load and frustration on drivers’ speech [Abstract]

Secondary tasks such as cell phone calls or interaction with automated speech dialog systems (SDSs) increase the driver’s cognitive load as well as the probability of driving errors. This study analyzes speech production variations due to cognitive load and emotional state of drivers in real driving conditions. Speech samples were acquired from 24 female and 17 male subjects (approximately 8.5 h of data) while talking to a co-driver and communicating with two automated call centers, with emotional states (neutral, negative) and the number of necessary SDS query repetitions also labeled. A consistent shift in a number of speech production parameters (pitch, first format center frequency, spectral center of gravity, spectral energy spread, and duration of voiced segments) was observed when comparing SDS interaction against co-driver interaction; further increases were observed when considering negative emotion segments and the number of requested SDS query repetitions. A mel frequency cepstral coefficient based Gaussian mixture classifier trained on 10 male and 10 female sessions provided 91% accuracy in the open test set task of distinguishing co-driver interactions from SDS interactions, suggesting—together with the acoustic analysis—that it is possible to monitor the level of driver distraction directly from their speech.

Driving performance in persons with hemianopia and quadrantanopia assessed under in-traffic conditions

Purpose: To evaluate the on-road driving performance of persons with homonymous hemianopia or quadrantanopia in comparison to age-matched controls with normal visual fields. Methods: Participants were 22 hemianopes and eight quadrantanopes (mean age 53 years) and 30 persons with normal visual fields (mean age 52 years) and were either current drivers or aiming to resume driving. All participants completed a battery of tests of vision (ETDRS visual acuity, Pelli-Robson letter contrast sensitivity, Humphrey visual fields), cognitive tests (trials A and B, Mini Mental State Examination, Digit Symbol Substitution) and an on-road driving assessment. Driving performance was assessed in a dual-brake vehicle with safety monitored by a certified driving rehabilitation specialist. Backseat evaluators masked to the clinical characteristics of participants independently rated driving performance along a 22.7 kilometre route involving urban and interstate driving. Results: Seventy-three per cent of the hemianopes, 88 per cent of quadrantanopes and all of the drivers with normal fields received safe driving ratings. Those hemianopic and quadrantanopic drivers rated as unsafe tended to have problems with maintaining appropriate lane position, steering steadiness and gap judgment compared to controls. Unsafe driving was associated with slower visual processing speed and impairments in contrast sensitivity, visual field sensitivity and executive function. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that some drivers with hemianopia or quadrantanopia are capable of safe driving performance, when compared to those of the same age with normal visual fields. This finding has important implications for the assessment of fitness to drive in this population.

Head and eye movements and lane keeping in drivers with hemianopia and quadrantanopia compared to controls

Purpose: To compare the eye and head movements and lane-keeping of drivers with hemianopia and quadrantanopia with that of age-matched controls when driving under real world conditions. Methods: Participants included 22 hemianopes and 8 quadrantanopes (M age 53 yrs) and 30 persons with normal visual fields (M age 52 yrs) who were ≥ 6 months from the brain injury date and either a current driver or aiming to resume driving. All participants drove an instrumented dual-brake vehicle along a 14-mile route in traffic that included non-interstate city driving and interstate driving. Driving performance was scored using a standardised assessment system by two “backseat” raters and the Vigil Vanguard system which provides objective measures of speed, braking and acceleration, cornering, and video-based footage from which eye and head movements and lane-keeping can be derived. Results: As compared to drivers with normal visual fields, drivers with hemianopia or quadrantanopia on average were significantly more likely to drive slower, to exhibit less excessive cornering forces or acceleration, and to execute more shoulder movements off the seat. Those hemianopic and quadrantanopic drivers rated as safe to drive by the backseat evaluator made significantly more excursive eye movements, exhibited more stable lane positioning, less sudden braking events and drove at higher speeds than those rated as unsafe, while there was no difference between safe and unsafe drivers in head movements. Conclusions: Persons with hemianopic and quadrantanopic field defects rated as safe to drive have different driving characteristics compared to those rated as unsafe when assessed using objective measures of driving performance.

Investigation of highly regulated promoters for the production of recombinant proteins in plants

Plants have been identified as promising expression systems for the commercial production of recombinant proteins. Plant-based protein production or “biofarming” offers a number of advantages over traditional expression systems in terms of scale of production, the capacity for post-translation processing, providing a product free of contaminants and cost effectiveness. A number of pharmaceutically important and commercially valuable proteins, such as antibodies, biopharmaceuticals and industrial enzymes are currently being produced in plant expression systems. However, several challenges still remain to improve recombinant protein yield with no ill effect on the host plant. The ability for transgenic plants to produce foreign proteins at commercially viable levels can be directly related to the level and cell specificity of the selected promoter driving the transgene. The accumulation of recombinant proteins may be controlled by a tissue-specific, developmentally-regulated or chemically-inducible promoter such that expression of recombinant proteins can be spatially- or temporally- controlled. The strict control of gene expression is particularly useful for proteins that are considered toxic and whose expression is likely to have a detrimental effect on plant growth. To date, the most commonly used promoter in plant biotechnology is the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) 35S promoter which is used to drive strong, constitutive transgene expression in most organs of transgenic plants. Of particular interest to researchers in the Centre for Tropical Crops and Biocommodities at QUT are tissue-specific promoters for the accumulation of foreign proteins in the roots, seeds and fruit of various plant species, including tobacco, banana and sugarcane. Therefore this Masters project aimed to isolate and characterise root- and seed-specific promoters for the control of genes encoding recombinant proteins in plant-based expression systems. Additionally, the effects of matching cognate terminators with their respective gene promoters were assessed. The Arabidopsis root promoters ARSK1 and EIR1 were selected from the literature based on their reported limited root expression profiles. Both promoters were analysed using the PlantCARE database to identify putative motifs or cis-acting elements that may be associated with this activity. A number of motifs were identified in the ARSK1 promoter region including, WUN (wound-inducible), MBS (MYB binding site), Skn-1, and a RY core element (seed-specific) and in the EIR1 promoter region including, Skn-1 (seed-specific), Box-W1 (fungal elicitor), Aux-RR core (auxin response) and ABRE (ABA response). However, no previously reported root-specific cis-acting elements were observed in either promoter region. To confirm root specificity, both promoters, and truncated versions, were fused to the GUS reporter gene and the expression cassette introduced into Arabidopsis via Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Despite the reported tissue-specific nature of these promoters, both upstream regulatory regions directed constitutive GUS expression in all transgenic plants. Further, similar levels of GUS expression from the ARSK1 promoter were directed by the control CaMV 35S promoter. The truncated version of the EIR1 promoter (1.2 Kb) showed some differences in the level of GUS expression compared to the 2.2 Kb promoter. Therefore, this suggests an enhancer element is contained in the 2.2 Kb upstream region that increases transgene expression. The Arabidopsis seed-specific genes ATS1 and ATS3 were selected from the literature based on their seed-specific expression profiles and gene expression confirmed in this study as seed-specific by RT-PCR analysis. The selected promoter regions were analysed using the PlantCARE database in order to identify any putative cis elements. The seed-specific motifs GCN4 and Skn-1 were identified in both promoter regions that are associated with elevated expression levels in the endosperm. Additionaly, the seed-specific RY element and the ABRE were located in the ATS1 promoter. Both promoters were fused to the GUS reporter gene and used to transform Arabidopsis plants. GUS expression from the putative promoters was consitutive in all transgenic Arabidopsis tissue tested. Importantly, the positive control FAE1 seed-specific promoter also directed constitutive GUS expression throughout transgenic Arabidopsis plants. The constitutive nature seen in all of the promoters used in this study was not anticipated. While variations in promoter activity can be caused by a number of influencing factors, the variation in promoter activity observed here would imply a major contributing factor common to all plant expression cassettes tested. All promoter constructs generated in this study were based on the binary vector pCAMBIA2300. This vector contains the plant selection gene (NPTII) under the transcriptional control of the duplicated CaMV 35S promoter. This CaMV 35S promoter contains two enhancer domains that confer strong, constitutive expression of the selection gene and is located immediately upstream of the promoter-GUS fusion. During the course of this project, Yoo et al. (2005) reported that transgene expression is significantly affected when the expression cassette is located on the same T-DNA as the 35S enhancer. It was concluded, the trans-acting effects of the enhancer activate and control transgene expression causing irregular expression patterns. This phenomenon seems the most plausible reason for the constitutive expression profiles observed with the root- and seed-specific promoters assessed in this study. The expression from some promoters can be influenced by their cognate terminator sequences. Therefore, the Arabidopsis ARSK1, EIR1, ATS1 and ATS3 terminator sequences were isolated and incorporated into expression cassettes containing the GUS reporter gene under the control of their cognate promoters. Again, unrestricted GUS activity was displayed throughout transgenic plants transformed with these reporter gene fusions. As previously discussed constitutive GUS expression was most likely due to the trans-acting effect of the upstream CaMV 35S promoter in the selection cassette located on the same T-DNA. The results obtained in this study make it impossible to assess the influence matching terminators with their cognate promoters have on transgene expression profiles. The obvious future direction of research continuing from this study would be to transform pBIN-based promoter-GUS fusions (ie. constructs containing no CaMV 35S promoter driving the plant selection gene) into Arabidopsis in order to determine the true tissue specificity of these promoters and evaluate the effects of their cognate 3’ terminator sequences. Further, promoter truncations based around the cis-elements identified here may assist in determining whether these motifs are in fact involved in the overall activity of the promoter.

Investigation of mechanisms governing emission of odorants

The literature identifies several models that describe inter-phase mass transfer, key to the emission process. While the emission process is complex and these models may be more or less successful at predicting mass transfer rates, they identify three key variables for a system involving a liquid and an air phase in contact with it: • A concentration (or partial pressure) gradient driving force; • The fluid dynamic characteristics within the liquid and air phases, and • The chemical properties of the individual components within the system. In three applied research projects conducted prior to this study, samples collected with two well-known sampling devices resulted in very different odour emission rates. It was not possible to adequately explain the differences observed. It appeared likely, however, that the sample collection device might have artefact effects on the emission of odorants, i.e. the sampling device appeared to have altered the mass transfer process. This raised the obvious question: Where two different emission rates are reported for a single source (differing only in the selection of sampling device), and a credible explanation for the difference in emission rate cannot be provided, which emission rate is correct? This research project aimed to identify the factors that determine odour emission rates, the impact that the characteristics of a sampling device may exert on the key mass transfer variables, and ultimately, the impact of the sampling device on the emission rate itself. To meet these objectives, a series of targeted reviews, and laboratory and field investigations, were conducted. Two widely-used, representative devices were chosen to investigate the influence of various parameters on the emission process. These investigations provided insight into the odour emission process generally, and the influence of the sampling device specifically.

Mapping a suburb with a single camera using a biologically inspired SLAM system

This paper describes a biologically inspired approach to vision-only simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) on ground-based platforms. The core SLAM system, dubbed RatSLAM, is based on computational models of the rodent hippocampus, and is coupled with a lightweight vision system that provides odometry and appearance information. RatSLAM builds a map in an online manner, driving loop closure and relocalization through sequences of familiar visual scenes. Visual ambiguity is managed by maintaining multiple competing vehicle pose estimates, while cumulative errors in odometry are corrected after loop closure by a map correction algorithm. We demonstrate the mapping performance of the system on a 66 km car journey through a complex suburban road network. Using only a web camera operating at 10 Hz, RatSLAM generates a coherent map of the entire environment at real-time speed, correctly closing more than 51 loops of up to 5 km in length.

Analysis and detection of cognitive load and frustration in drivers' speech

Non-driving related cognitive load and variations of emotional state may impact a driver’s capability to control a vehicle and introduces driving errors. Availability of reliable cognitive load and emotion detection in drivers would benefit the design of active safety systems and other intelligent in-vehicle interfaces. In this study, speech produced by 68 subjects while driving in urban areas is analyzed. A particular focus is on speech production differences in two secondary cognitive tasks, interactions with a co-driver and calls to automated spoken dialog systems (SDS), and two emotional states during the SDS interactions - neutral/negative. A number of speech parameters are found to vary across the cognitive/emotion classes. Suitability of selected cepstral- and production-based features for automatic cognitive task/emotion classification is investigated. A fusion of GMM/SVM classifiers yields an accuracy of 94.3% in cognitive task and 81.3% in emotion classification.

In the Rough : In-Field evaluation of an autonomous vehicle for golf course maintenance

Maintenance is a time consuming and expensive task for any golf course or driving range manager. For a golf course the primary tasks are grass mowing and maintenance (fertilizer and herbicide spreading), while for a driving range mowing, maintenance and ball collection are required. All these tasks require an operator to drive a vehicle along paths which are generally predefined. This paper presents some preliminary in-field tsting results for an automated tractor vehicle performing golf ball collection on an actual driving range, and mowing on difficult unstructured terrain.

An examination of the factors that influence drivers’ willingness to use hand-held mobile phones

Hand-held mobile phone use while driving is illegal throughout Australia yet many drivers persist with this behaviour. This study aims to understand the internal, driver-related and external, situational-related factors influencing drivers’ willingness to use a hand-held mobile phone while driving. Sampling 160 university students, this study utilised the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to examine a range of belief-based constructs. Additionally, drivers’ personality traits of neuroticism and extroversion were measured with the Neuroticism Extroversion Openness-Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI). In relation to the external, situational-related factors, four different driving-related scenarios, which were intended to evoke differing levels of drivers’ reported stress, were devised for the study and manipulated drivers’ time urgency (low versus high) and passenger presence (alone versus with friends). In these scenarios, drivers’ willingness to use a mobile phone in general was measured. Hierarchical regression analyses across the four different driving scenarios found that, overall, the TPB components significantly accounted for drivers’ willingness to use a mobile phone above and beyond the demographic variables. Subjective norms, however, was only a significant predictor of drivers’ willingness in situations where the drivers were driving alone. Generally, neuroticism and extroversion did not significantly predict drivers’ willingness above and beyond the TPB and demographic variables. Overall, the findings broaden our understanding of the internal and external factors influencing drivers’ willingness to use a hand-held mobile phone while driving despite the illegality of this behaviour. The findings may have important practical implications in terms of better informing road safety campaigns targeting drivers’ mobile phone use which, in turn, may contribute to a reduction in the extent that mobile phone use contributes to road crashes.

The risky behaviour of young drivers : developing a measurement tool

The contribution of risky behaviour to the increased crash and fatality rates of young novice drivers is recognised in the road safety literature around the world. Exploring such risky driver behaviour has led to the development of tools like the Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ) to examine driving violations, errors, and lapses [1]. Whilst the DBQ has been utilised in young novice driver research, some items within this tool seem specifically designed for the older, more experienced driver, whilst others appear to asses both behaviour and related motives. The current study was prompted by the need for a risky behaviour measurement tool that can be utilised with young drivers with a provisional driving licence. Sixty-three items exploring young driver risky behaviour developed from the road safety literature were incorporated into an online survey. These items assessed driver, passenger, journey, car and crash-related issues. A sample of 476 drivers aged 17-25 years (M = 19, SD = 1.59 years) with a provisional driving licence and matched for age, gender, and education were drawn from a state-wide sample of 761 young drivers who completed the survey. Factor analysis based upon a principal components extraction of factors was followed by an oblique rotation to investigate the underlying dimensions to young novice driver risky behaviour. A five factor solution comprising 44 items was identified, accounting for 55% of the variance in young driver risky behaviour. Factor 1 accounted for 32.5% of the variance and appeared to measure driving violations that were transient in nature - risky behaviours that followed risky decisions that occurred during the journey (e.g., speeding). Factor 2 accounted for 10.0% of variance and appeared to measure driving violations that were fixed in nature; the risky decisions being undertaken before the journey (e.g., drink driving). Factor 3 accounted for 5.4% of variance and appeared to measure misjudgment (e.g., misjudged speed of oncoming vehicle). Factor 4 accounted for 4.3% of variance and appeared to measure risky driving exposure (e.g., driving at night with friends as passengers). Factor 5 accounted for 2.8% of variance and appeared to measure driver emotions or mood (e.g., anger). Given that the aim of the study was to create a research tool, the factors informed the development of five subscales and one composite scale. The composite scale had a very high internal consistency measure (Cronbach’s alpha) of .947. Self-reported data relating to police-detected driving offences, their crash involvement, and their intentions to break road rules within the next year were also collected. While the composite scale was only weakly correlated with self-reported crashes (r = .16, p < .001), it was moderately correlated with offences (r = .26, p < .001), and highly correlated with their intentions to break the road rules (r = .57, p < .001). Further application of the developed scale is needed to confirm the factor structure within other samples of young drivers both in Australia and in other countries. In addition, future research could explore the applicability of the scale for investigating the behaviour of other types of drivers.

Managing illegal street racing and associated risky driving behaviour : An Australian perspective

Illegal street racing has received increased attention in recent years from the media, governments and road safety professionals. At the same time, there has been a shift from treating illegal street racing as a public nuisance issue to a road safety problem in Australia, as this behaviour now attracts a penalty of increased periods of vehicle impoundment leading to permanent vehicle forfeiture for repeat offences. This severe vehicle sanction is typically applied to repeat drink driving offenders and drivers who breach suspensions and disqualifications in North American jurisdictions, but was first introduced in Australia to deal with illegal street racing and associated risky driving behaviours, grouped together under the label of ‘hooning’ in Australian jurisdictions. This paper describes how Australian jurisdictions are dealing with this issue. The research described in this paper drew on multiple data sources to explore illegal street racing and the management of this issue in Australia. First, the paper reviews the relevant legislation in each Australian state to describe the cross-jurisdictional similarities and differences in approaches. It also describes some results from focus group discussions and a quantitative online survey with drivers who self-report engaging in illegal street racing and associated behaviours in Queensland, Australia. It was found that approaches to dealing with illegal street racing and associated risky driving behaviours in each Australian state are similar, with increasing periods of vehicle impoundment (leading to vehicle forfeiture) applied to repeat hooning offences within prescribed periods. Participants in the focus groups and respondents to the questionnaire generally felt these penalty periods were severe, with perceptions of severity increasing with the length of the penalty period. It was concluded that there is a need for each jurisdiction to objectively evaluate the effectiveness of their vehicle impoundment and forfeiture programs for hooning. These evaluations should compare the relative costs of these programs (e.g., enforcement, unrecovered towing and storage fees, and court costs) to the observed benefits (e.g., reduction in target behaviours, reduction in community complaints, and reduction in the number and severity of associated crashes).