4 minute read
Automated Vehicles
2 Austin South Asian | November 2022 Are You At Increased Risk Of Getting Pneumococcal Pneumonia?
Pneumococcal pneumonia is a potentially serious bacterial lung disease that can be contracted any time of year. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), pneumococcal pneumonia causes 150,000 annual hospitalizations nationwide. It can even be life-threatening in serious cases.
To help reduce the burden of this lung disease, the American Lung Association and Pfizer are partnering to share important facts about pneumococcal pneumonia for adults 65 or older and adults 19-64 with certain underlying health conditions. Here’s what to know:
What is pneumococcal pneumonia? Many people think pneumococcal pneumonia is a cold or the flu, but it’s not. Pneumococcal pneumonia is caused by bacteria that live in the upper respiratory tract, and it can spread to others through coughing or close contact. Common symptoms include high fever, excessive sweating, shaking getting severely ill, including those 19 or older with certain medical conditions such as asthma, COPD, chronic heart disease or diabetes, and adults who smoke cigarettes. Additionally, even healthy adults 65 and older are at increased risk because the body’s immune system
chills, coughing, difficulty breathing, shortness of breath and chest pain. Some symptoms can appear quickly and without warning.
Who is at risk? While anyone can get pneumococcal pneumonia, some people are at higher risk of naturally weakens with age. Visit Lung. org/pneumococcal to take a two-minute quiz to determine if you are at elevated risk.
How can you help prevent pneumococcal pneumonia? The CDC recommends pneumococcal pneumonia vaccination for adults 19 or older with certain underlying medical conditions, and for adults 65 or older. Unlike the flu shot, you don’t need pneumococcal vaccination every year. Your healthcare provider can help you determine when you should be vaccinated against pneumococcal pneumonia. Infection can strike anytime, anywhere, in any season, so now is the time to talk to a healthcare provider about pneumococcal vaccination.
“Low vaccination rates leave far too many people vulnerable to pneumococcal pneumonia,” states Dr. Albert Rizzo, chief medical officer for the American Lung Association. “Keeping up to date with vaccinations is important for everyone, especially those living with chronic health conditions such as asthma or diabetes.”
For additional information and resources, visit Lung.org/pneumococcal.
Pneumococcal pneumonia is a potentially serious disease you shouldn’t ignore. Fortunately, you can help protect yourself by asking your doctor or pharmacist about vaccination. (StatePoint)
Fatal car crashes are on the rise, causing over 35,000 deaths each year nationwide. In many cases, driver behavior and/or driver error contributes to the crash. Can selfdriving cars save lives? Experts say the answer is yes, but point out that automated vehicle technology will need to evolve from where it is today.
In particular, developing systems that allow pedestrians and computer- or AI-operated vehicles to seamlessly communicate will be key to ensuring their broad adoption. 2020 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data shows that pedestrian fatalities are up 3.9% compared to the previous year. At more than 6,000 deaths annually, this is the highest this figure has been since 1989.
This is why Toyota’s Collaborative Safety Research Center (CSRC) has been working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Cognitive Systems Lab to study how drivers and pedestrians signal their intent to one another. The teams broke down hundreds of hours of driving videos and footage from vehicle and intersection cameras to isolate, document and define the physical language used by drivers and pedestrians. The aim of the research is ultimately to inform the development of advanced vehicle safety and signaling features that perform similarly to existing drivers, as well as future automated vehicle technologies. will help us create profiles that we can use to simulate situations and adjust the vehicle behavior.
If we can do that well, it will help with advanced automated vehicle development, and will allow vehicles to exhibit the right social cues to become more integrated into society,” says Dr. Josh Domeyer, senior researcher, CSRC.
Defining “vehicle communication” as much more than turn signals and brake lights, this research is identifying and investigating the number of small behaviors that drivers perform in order to indicate their intent through movement.
For instance, drivers typically begin stopping earlier and farther away for pedestrians than they would for a stop sign. Similarly, a driver will often slowly inch forward to indicate when they intend to proceed through the crosswalk. Such behaviors are important for safe and polite interactions and can be applied to automated vehicles in the future.
“For self-driving cars to become widespread and for people to become comfortable with the idea of using them, we’ll need to design complex and intricate systems that allow these vehicles to behave and interact with pedestrians in ways that are already common,” says Dr. Domeyer.
To learn more about CSRC’s research, visit amrd.toyota.com.
As researchers identify and plug the safety gaps created by new transportation technologies, they remain hopeful that the widespread adoption of automated vehicles will pave the way to safer roads and lives saved. (StatePoint)
