The on-road experiences and awareness of sleepiness in a sample of Australian highway drivers: A roadside driver sleepiness study

Objective Driver sleepiness contributes substantially to road crash incidents. Simulator and on-road studies clearly reveal an impairing effect from sleepiness on driving ability. However, the degree to which drivers appreciate the dangerousness of driving while sleepy is somewhat unclear. This study sought to determine drivers’ on-road experiences of sleepiness, their prior sleep habits, and personal awareness of the signs of sleepiness. Methods Participants were a random selection of 92 drivers travelling on a major highway in the state of Queensland, Australia, who were stopped by police as part of routine drink driving operations. Participants completed a brief questionnaire that included demographic information, sleepy driving experiences (signs of sleepiness and on-road experiences of sleepiness), and prior sleep habits. A modified version of the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS) was used to assess subjective sleepiness in the 15 minutes prior to being stopped by police. Results Participants rating of subjective sleepiness were quite low, with 90% reporting being alert to extremely alert on the KSS. Participants were reasonably aware of the signs of sleepiness, with many signs of sleepiness associated with on-road experiences of sleepiness. Additionally, the number of hours spent driving was positively correlated with the drivers’ level of sleep debt. Conclusions The results suggest the participants had moderate experience of driving while sleepy and many were aware of the signs of sleepiness. The relationship between driving long distances and increased sleep debt is a concern for road safety – increased education regarding the dangers of sleepy driving seems warranted.

Examining signs of driver sleepiness, usage of sleepiness countermeasures and the associations with sleepy driving behaviours and individual factors

The impairing effect from sleepiness is a major contributor to road crashes. The ability of a sleepy driver to perceive their level of sleepiness is an important consideration for road safety as well as the type of sleepiness countermeasure used by drivers as some sleepiness countermeasures are more effective than others. The aims of the current study were to determine the extent that the signs of driver sleepiness were associated with sleepy driving behaviours, as well as determining which individual factors (demographic, work, driving, and sleep-related factors) were associated with using a roadside or in-vehicle sleepiness countermeasure. A sample of 1518 Australian drivers from the Australian State of New South Wales and the neighbouring Australian Capital Territory took part in the study. The participants’ experiences with the signs of sleepiness were reasonably extensive. A number of the early signs of sleepiness (e.g., yawning, frequent eye blinks) were related with continuing to drive while sleepy, with the more advanced signs of sleepiness (e.g., difficulty keeping eyes open, dreamlike state of consciousness) associated with having a sleep-related close call. The individual factors associated with using a roadside sleepiness countermeasure included age (being older), education (tertiary level), difficulties getting to sleep, not continuing to drive while sleepy, and having experienced many signs of sleepiness. The results suggest that these participants have a reasonable awareness and experience with the signs of driver sleepiness. Factors related to previous experiences with sleepiness were associated with implementing a roadside countermeasure. Nonetheless, the high proportions of drivers performing sleepy driving behaviours, suggest that concerted efforts are needed with road safety campaigns regarding the dangers of driving while sleepy.

The State of Coral Reef Ecosystems of the United States and Pacific Freely Associated States: 2005

Executive Summary: For over three decades, scientists have been documenting the decline of coral reef ecosystems, amid increasing recognition of their value in supporting high biological diversity and their many benefits to human society. Coral reef ecosystems are recognized for their benefits on many levels, such as supporting economies by nurturing fisheries and providing for recreational and tourism opportunities, providing substances useful for medical purposes, performing essential ecosystem services that protect against coastal erosion, and provid-ing a diversity of other, more intangible contributions to many cultures. In the past decade, the increased awareness regarding coral reefs has prompted action by governmental and non-governmental organizations, including increased funding from the U.S. Congress for conservation of these important ecosystems and creation of the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force (USCRTF) to coordinate activities and implement conservation measures [Presidential Executive Order 13089]. Numerous partnerships forged among Federal agencies and state, local, non-governmental, academic and private partners support activities that range from basic science to systematic monitoring of ecosystem com-ponents and are conducted by government agencies, non-governmental organizations, universities, and the private sector. This report shares the results of many of these efforts in the framework of a broad assessment of the condition of coral reef ecosystems across 14 U.S. jurisdictions and Pacific Freely Associated States. This report relies heavily on quantitative, spatially-explicit data that has been collected in the recent past and comparisons with historical data, where possible. The success of this effort can be attributed to the dedication of over 160 report contributors who comprised the expert writing teams for each jurisdiction. The content of the report chapters are the result of their considerable collaborative efforts. The writing teams, which were organized by jurisdiction and comprised of experts from numerous research and management institutions, were provided a basic chapter outline and a length limit, but the content of each chapter was left entirely to their discretion. Each jurisdictional chapter in the report is structured to: 1) describe how each of the primary threats identified in the National Coral Reef Action Strategy (NCRAS) has manifested in the jurisdiction; 2) introduce ongoing monitoring and assessment activities relative to three major categories of inquiry – water quality, benthic habitats, and associated biological communities – and provide summary results in a data-rich format; and 3) highlight recent management activities that promote conservation of coral reef ecosystems.

Reforming state-level coastal management and development policies: strategic retreat as an innovative, proactive and equitable coastal environmental management strategy

Atlantic and Gulf Coast shorelines include some of the most unique and biologically rich ecosystems in the United States that provide immeasurable aesthetic, habitat and economic benefits. Natural coastal ecosystems, however, are under increasing threat from rampant and irresponsible growth and development. Once a boon to local economies, complex natural forces – enhanced by global climate change and sea level rise - are now considered hazards and eroding the very foundation upon which coastal development is based. For nearly a century, beach restoration and erosion control structures have been used to artificially stabilize shorelines in an effort to protect structures and infrastructure. Beach restoration, the import and emplacement of sand on an eroding beach, is expensive, unpredictable, inefficient and may result in long-term environmental impacts. The detrimental environmental impacts of erosion control structures such as sea walls, groins, bulkheads and revetments include sediment deficits, accelerated erosion and beach loss. These and other traditional responses to coastal erosion and storm impacts- along with archaic federal and state policies, subsidies and development incentives - are costly, encourage risky development, artificially increase property values of high-risk or environmentally sensitive properties, reduce the post-storm resilience of shorelines, damage coastal ecosystems and are becoming increasingly unsustainable. Although communities, coastal managers and property owners face increasingly complex and difficult challenges, there is an emerging public, social and political awareness that, without meaningful policy reforms, coastal ecosystems and economies are in jeopardy. Strategic retreat is a sustainable, interdisciplinary management strategy that supports the proactive, planned removal of vulnerable coastal development; reduces risk; increases shoreline resiliency and ensures long term protection of coastal systems. Public policies and management strategies that can overcome common economic misperceptions and promote the removal of vulnerable development will provide state and local policy makers and coastal managers with an effective management tool that concomitantly addresses the economic, environmental, legal and political issues along developed shorelines. (PDF contains 4 pages)

Reforming state-level coastal management and development policies: strategic retreat as an innovative, proactive and equitable coastal environmental management strategy

Atlantic and Gulf Coast shorelines include some of the most unique and biologically rich ecosystems in the United States that provide immeasurable aesthetic, habitat and economic benefits. Natural coastal ecosystems, however, are under increasing threat from rampant and irresponsible growth and development. Once a boon to local economies, complex natural forces – enhanced by global climate change and sea level rise - are now considered hazards and eroding the very foundation upon which coastal development is based. For nearly a century, beach restoration and erosion control structures have been used to artificially stabilize shorelines in an effort to protect structures and infrastructure. Beach restoration, the import and emplacement of sand on an eroding beach, is expensive, unpredictable, inefficient and may result in long-term environmental impacts. The detrimental environmental impacts of erosion control structures such as sea walls, groins, bulkheads and revetments include sediment deficits, accelerated erosion and beach loss. These and other traditional responses to coastal erosion and storm impacts- along with archaic federal and state policies, subsidies and development incentives - are costly, encourage risky development, artificially increase property values of high-risk or environmentally sensitive properties, reduce the post-storm resilience of shorelines, damage coastal ecosystems and are becoming increasingly unsustainable. Although communities, coastal managers and property owners face increasingly complex and difficult challenges, there is an emerging public, social and political awareness that, without meaningful policy reforms, coastal ecosystems and economies are in jeopardy. Strategic retreat is a sustainable, interdisciplinary management strategy that supports the proactive, planned removal of vulnerable coastal development; reduces risk; increases shoreline resiliency and ensures long term protection of coastal systems. Public policies and management strategies that can overcome common economic misperceptions and promote the removal of vulnerable development will provide state and local policy makers and coastal managers with an effective management tool that concomitantly addresses the economic, environmental, legal and political issues along developed shorelines. (PDF contains 4 pages)

The Federal Fisheries Service, 1871–1940: Its Origins, Organization, and Accomplishments

The U.S. Fish Commission was initiated in 1871 with Spencer Fullerton Baird as the first U.S. Fish Commissioner as an independent entity. In 1903 it became a part of the new U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor and was renamed the Bureau of Fisheries, a name it retained when the Departments of Commerce and Labor were separated in 1912. The Bureau remained in the Commerce Department until 1941 when it was merged with the Biological Survey and placed in the Department of Interior as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It was a scientific agency with well conceived programs of action, and it provided knowledge, advice, and example to state governments and individuals with fisheries interests and needs. Its efforts were supported by timely international agreements which constituted the precedent for Federal interest in fishery matters. The Fisheries Service earned stature as an advisor through heavy emphasis on basic biological research. The lack of such knowledge was marked and universal in the 1870’s, but toward the end of that decade, strong steps had been taken to address those needs under Baird’s leadership. USFC research activities were conducted cooperatively with other prominent scientists in the United States and abroad. Biological stations were established, and the world’s first and most productive deepsea research vessel, the Albatross, was constructed, and its 40-year career gave a strong stimulus to the science of oceanography. Together, the agency’s scientists and facilities made important additions to the sum of human knowledge, derived principles of conservation which were the vital bases for effective regulatory legislation, conducted extensive fish cultural work, collected and disseminated fisheries statistics, and began important research in methods of fish harvesting, preservation, transportation, and marketing.

The state of coral reef ecosystems of the United States and Pacific Freely Associated States: 2008

In the past decade, increased awareness regarding the declining condition of U.S. coral reefs has prompted various actions by governmental and non-governmental organizations. Presidential Executive Order 13089 created the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force (USCRTF) in 1998 to coordinate federal and state/territorial activities (Clinton, 1998), and the Coral Reef Conservation Act of 2000 provided Congressional funding for activities to conserve these important ecosystems, including mapping, monitoring and assessment projects carried out through the support of NOAA’s CRCP. Numerous collaborations forged among federal agencies and state, local, non-governmental, academic and private partners now support a variety of monitoring activities. This report shares the results of many of these monitoring activities, relying heavily on quantitative, spatially-explicit data that has been collected in the recent past and comparisons with historical data where possible. The success of this effort can be attributed to the dedication of over 270 report contributors who comprised the expert writing teams in the jurisdictions and contributed to the National Level Activities and National Summary chapters. The scope and content of this report are the result of their dedication to this considerable collaborative effort. Ultimately, the goal of this report is to answer the difficult but vital question: what is the condition of U.S. coral reef ecosystems? The report attempts to base a response on the best available science emerging from coral reef ecosystem monitoring programs in 15 jurisdictions across the country. However, few monitoring programs have been in place for longer than a decade, and many have been initiated only within the past two to five years. A few jurisdictions are just beginning to implement monitoring programs and face challenges stemming from a lack of basic habitat maps and other ecosystem data in addition to adequate training, capacity building, and technical support. There is also a general paucity of historical data describing the condition of ecosystem resources before major human impacts occurred, which limits any attempt to present the current conditions within an historical context and contributes to the phenomenon of shifting baselines (Jackson, 1997; Jackson et al., 2001; Pandolfi et al., 2005).

Bulk packages for storage and transportation of salted and dried fish

The effect of bulk packaging on the storage of salted and dried fish was studied at ambient conditions. Four different packaging systems were tried, among which gusseted type high density polyethylene woven sacks having either circular loom or traditional loom laminated with 100 gauge low density polyethylene were found to be best suited for dry fish packaging as they could withstand the hazards of handling, transportation and storage.

Burning a hole in the budget: tobacco spending and its crowd-out of other goods.

Smoking is an expensive habit. Smoking households spend, on average, more than $US1000 annually on cigarettes. When a family member quits, in addition to the former smoker's improved long-term health, families benefit because savings from reduced cigarette expenditures can be allocated to other goods. For households in which some members continue to smoke, smoking expenditures crowd-out other purchases, which may affect other household members, as well as the smoker. We empirically analyse how expenditures on tobacco crowd-out consumption of other goods, estimating the patterns of substitution and complementarity between tobacco products and other categories of household expenditure. We use the Consumer Expenditure Survey data for the years 1995-2001, which we complement with regional price data and state cigarette prices. We estimate a consumer demand system that includes several main expenditure categories (cigarettes, food, alcohol, housing, apparel, transportation, medical care) and controls for socioeconomic variables and other sources of observable heterogeneity. Descriptive data indicate that, comparing smokers to nonsmokers, smokers spend less on housing. Results from the demand system indicate that as the price of cigarettes rises, households increase the quantity of food purchased, and, in some samples, reduce the quantity of apparel and housing purchased.

Contracting Freedom: Governance and East Indian Indenture in the British Atlantic, 1838-1917

This is a dissertation about identity and governance, and how they are mutually constituted. Between 1838 and 1917, the British brought approximately half a million East Indian laborers to the Atlantic to work on sugar plantations. The dissertation argues that contrary to previous historiographical assumptions, indentured East Indians were an amorphous mass of people drawn from various regions of British India. They were brought together not by their innate "Indian-ness" upon their arrival in the Caribbean, but by the common experience of indenture recruitment, transportation and plantation life. Ideas of innate "Indian-ness" were products of an imperial discourse that emerged from and shaped official approaches to governing East Indians in the Atlantic. Government officials and planters promoted visions of East Indians as "primitive" subjects who engaged in child marriage and wife murder. Officials mobilized ideas about gender to sustain racialized stereotypes of East Indian subjects. East Indian women were thought to be promiscuous, and East Indian men were violent and depraved (especially in response to East Indian women's promiscuity). By pointing to these stereotypes about East Indians, government officials and planters could highlight the promise of indenture as a civilizing mechanism. This dissertation links the study of governance and subject formation to complicate ideas of colonial rule as static. It uncovers how colonial processes evolved to handle the challenges posed by migrant populations.

The primary architects of indenture, Caribbean governments, the British Colonial Office, and planters hoped that East Indian indentured laborers would form a stable and easily-governed labor force. They anticipated that the presence of these laborers would undermine the demands of Afro-Creole workers for higher wages and shorter working hours. Indenture, however, was controversial among British liberals who saw it as potentially hindering the creation of a free labor market, and abolitionists who also feared that indenture was a new form of slavery. Using court records, newspapers, legislative documents, bureaucratic correspondence, memoirs, novels, and travel accounts from archives and libraries in Britain, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago, this dissertation explores how indenture was envisioned and constantly re-envisioned in response to its critics. It chronicles how the struggles between the planter class and the colonial state for authority over indentured laborers affected the way that indenture functioned in the British Atlantic. In addition to focusing on indenture's official origins, this dissertation examines the actions of East Indian indentured subjects as they are recorded in the imperial archive to explore how these people experienced indenture.

Indenture contracts were central to the justification of indenture and to the creation of a pliable labor force in the Atlantic. According to English common law, only free parties could enter into contracts. Indenture contracts limited the period of indenture and affirmed that laborers would be remunerated for their labor. While the architects of indenture pointed to contracts as evidence that indenture was not slavery, contracts in reality prevented laborers from participating in the free labor market and kept the wages of indentured laborers low. Further, in late nineteenth-century Britain, contracts were civil matters. In the British Atlantic, indentured laborers who violated the terms of their contracts faced criminal trials and their associated punishments such as imprisonment and hard labor. Officials used indenture contracts to exploit the labor and limit the mobility of indentured laborers in a manner that was reminiscent of slavery but that instead established indentured laborers as subjects with limited rights. The dissertation chronicles how indenture contracts spawned a complex inter-imperial bureaucracy in British India, Britain, and the Caribbean that was responsible for the transportation and governance of East Indian indentured laborers overseas.

“Hegemony Protected by the Armour of Coercion”: Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest and the State

This article argues that Dashiell Hammett's 1929 novel Red Harvest is best understood in the context of the consolidation and expansion of the US state following the First World War and the Russian Revolution. It also argues that Hammett's novel constitutes a highly significant articulation of theoretical debates about the nature of political authority and state power in the modern era and speaks about the transition of one state formation to another. Insofar as Red Harvest explores the way in which the state's coercive and ethical character are bound up together, this article argues that Hammett's novel draws upon an understanding of political authority and state power primarily derived from Gramsci, via Marx. Gramsci insists that control cannot be maintained through force alone (and his conception of hegemony, in turn, suggests a power bloc that can become fragmented and disunited in a war of position). In the same way, Red Harvest traces the transformation of the “economic-corporate” state into the expanded or “ethical” State but crucially any ethical dimension, as Gramsci notes, is always beholden to the needs of the capitalist economy. As such, the apparently arbitrary bloodshed in the novel is conceived as a relatively minor realignment in the ranks of the capitalist classes – certainly less serious than the miners' strike that prefigures the novel. What makes this realignment significant is that it calls attention to the state both as repressive and as a site of conflict and compromise. Here, the work performed by the Continental Op and by the crime novel in general – simultaneously buttressing and, to some extent, contesting the power of the state – needs to be understood as part of the process by which the state is consistently enacting hegemony (albeit protected by the armour of coercion). The article concludes by pointing out that while Gramsci is perhaps too willing to dwell upon the state's expanded reach, Red Harvest is more interested in examining possible “cracks and fissures” in the state formation, even if the critique it ultimately offers goes nowhere and yields nothing.

Early crime writing and the state: Jonathan Wild, Daniel Defoe and Bernard Mandeville in 1720s London

This article argues that the early development of crime writing needs to be understood in relation to the consolidation of the modern state. It demonstrates that London in the 1720s constitutes a significant moment in this early development for three main reasons. First, the period witnessed a crime epidemic which reached its climax in the 1720s and which precipitated a set of particularly aggressive counter-measures by the state; second, it saw the rise and eventual fall of the infamous Jonathan Wild who acted as both thief and surrogate policeman; and third, it was also marked by a surge in interests on the part of writers like Daniel Defoe and Bernard Mandeville in the related matters of crime and punishment. This article explores the ways in which accounts of crime and punishment in this period deployed and in some instances interrogated the rhetoric of social contract theory and writings on statecraft, particularly by Thomas Hobbes and Mandeville. But while the criminal biographies and gallows sermons produced by the Newgate prison’s ‘ordinaries’ provided crude and reductive accounts of the efficacy of the state, the article shows how two accounts of the life of Jonathan Wild (by Defoe and H.D) responded in highly complex ways to the issues of crime and policing and provided a consistently and self-consciously ambivalent reading of the state and state power. To conclude, I suggest that this ambivalence can be read as a critique of the impartial or neutral state and that it constitutes one of the key features of what we would later understand to be crime writing as a dedicated literary genre.

Vetting Sexual Offenders: State Over-extension, the Punishment Deficit and the Failure to Manage Risk

This article examines the state regulation of sexual offenders in the particular context of pre-employment vetting. A successive range of statutory frameworks have been put in place, culminating in the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, to prevent unsuitable individuals from working with the vulnerable, and children in particular. Contemporary legislative and policy developments are set against a backdrop of broader concerns in the area of crime and justice, namely risk regulation, preventative governance and ‘precautionary logic.’ Proponents of these approaches have largely ignored concerns over their feasibility. This article specifically addresses this fissure within the specific field of vetting. It is argued that ‘hyper innovation’ and state over-extension in this area are particularly problematic and have resulted in exceptionally uncertain and unsafe policies. These difficulties relate principally to unrealistic public expectations about the state���s ability to control crime; unintended and ambiguous policy effects; and ultimately the failure of the state to deliver on its self-imposed regulatory mandate to effectively manage risk.

Age-specific reproductive investment in female burying beetles: independent effects of state and risk of death

1.How much should an individual invest in reproduction as it grows older? Answering this question involves determining whether individuals measure their age as the time left for future reproduction or as the rate of deterioration in their state. Theory suggests that in the former case individuals should increase their allocation of resources to reproduction as opportunities for future breeding dwindle, and terminally invest when they breed for the last time. In the latter case they should reduce their investment in reproduction with age, either through adaptive reproductive restraint or as a passive by-product of senescence.
2.Here we present the results of experiments on female burying beetles, Nicrophorus vespilloides, in which we independently manipulated the perceived risk of death (by activating the immune system) and the extent of deterioration in state (by changing age of first reproduction and/or prior investment in reproduction).
3.We found that the risk of death and state each independently influenced the extent of reproductive investment. Specifically, we found a state-dependent decline in reproductive investment as females grew older that could be attributed to both adaptive reproductive restraint and senescence. A perceived increase in the risk of death, induced by activation of the immune system, caused females to switch from a strategy of reproductive restraint to terminal investment. Nevertheless, absolute reproductive investment was lower in older females, indicating constraints of senescence.
4.Our results show that a decline in reproductive investment with age does not necessarily constitute evidence of reproductive senescence but can also result from adaptive reproductive restraint.
5.Our results further suggest that the extent of reproductive investment is dependent on several different intrinsic cues and that the particular blend of cues available at any given age can yield very different patterns of investment. Perhaps this explains why age-related reproductive investment patterns seen in nature are so diverse.