Incidence of near accidental drowsing in locomotive driving during a period of rotation.

The incidence of drowsings as a cause of near traffic accidents was studied on the basis of daily recordings or near accidental events by 288 locomotive drivers during a rotation period of 2-3 weeks. Of 198 near accidents reported during 2,290 trips, 34 cases, or 1,5 cases per 100 trips, were operation missess involving drowsing or strong drowsiness. Improper operation due to drowsing occurred at a certain rate for any group of drivers, irrespective of the type of train, running sections, weather, and other operative conditions such as train delays, whereas 117 cases of danger caused by unforeseen obstacles on the track were related to site characteristics, and 47 cases of other disorders were frequent in unusual operative conditions such as arrival-departure, poor signal display, wrong instructions, or equipment failure. Thus continued driving under ordinary track conditions at a more or less constant speed was likely to induce drowsiness under the dominant influences of fatigue and time of the day; 79% of such cases occurred between midnight and 6 a.m. Most drowsings on the second night appeared during the first 2-4 hr of duty. Effects of monotony and insufficient rest were discussed in relation to recurrent fluctuation in vigilance.     

Monotony effects of the work of motormen dlring high-speed train operation.

The results of investigations done in 1965, 1966, and 1972 on the workload of motormen of high-speed trains operating on railroads with maximum speeds of 210 km/hr were compared in an attempt to discuss the physiological implications of the driving task. The driving time of a 515 km section was 4 hr in 1965 and was lowered to 3 hr 10 min since 1966 for the fastest super-express trains. The mean heart rate was maintained around 80 beats/min during the entire driving period in 1965, but declined gradually in 1966 or 1972. Although in 1966 the operations at constant high speed appeared to favor cerebral activities, drivers in the 1972 investigation not only showed lowered perceptual and choice reaction performances but also experienced significant increase in errors in detecting signal tones given as a subsidiary task. Polygraphic recordings in 1972 indicated that drivers sometimes fell into drowsing of short duration intermittently, accompanied by temporary drop in heart rate, absence of controller action, and increase of detection errors. These effects were dominant in periods after 90 min of driving. The need to reduce the monotomy effects during underloaded train driving is suggested.     

Group definition for underwater observation of wild Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins

Journal of Ethology - The group definition for an animal population is important for building associations among individuals (i.e., social network). Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops...