Marc Fredette

Safety impacts due to the incompatibility of SUVs, minivans, and pickup trucks in two-vehicle collisions

This research sets out to estimate the effects of vehicle incompatibility on the risk of death or major injury to drivers involved in two-vehicle collisions. Based on data for 2,999,395 drivers, logistic regression was used to model the risk of driver death or major injury (defined has being hospitalized). Our analyses show that pickup trucks, minivans and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) are more aggressive than cars for the driver of the other vehicle and more protective for their own drivers. The effect of the pickups is more pronounced in terms of aggressivity. The point estimates are comparable to those in the Toy and Hammitt study [Toy, E.L., Hammitt, J.K., 2003. Safety impacts of SUVs, minivans, and pickup trucks in two-vehicle crashes. Risk Analysis 23, 641-650], but, in contrast to that study, we are now able to establish that a greater number of these effects are statistically significant with a larger sample size. Like vehicle mass and type, other characteristics of drivers and the circumstances of the collision influence the drivers condition after impact. Male drivers, older drivers, drivers who are not wearing safety belts, collisions occurring in a higher speed zone and head-on collisions significantly increase the risk of death. Except for the drivers sex, all of these categories are also associated with an increased risk of death or of being hospitalized after being involved in a two-vehicle collision. For this risk, a significant increase is associated with female drivers.

A cluster randomized controlled Trial to Evaluate an Ambulatory primary care Management program for patients with dyslipidemia: the TEAM study

Background: Few studies have reported the efficacy of collaborative care involving family physicians and community pharmacists for patients with dyslipidemia. Methods: We randomly assigned clusters consisting of at least two physicians and at least four pharmacists to provide collaborative care or usual care. Under the collaborative care model, pharmacists counselled patients about their medications, requested laboratory tests, monitored the effectiveness and safety of medications and patients’ adherence to therapy, and adjusted medication dosages. After 12 months of follow-up, we assessed changes in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (the primary outcome), the proportion of patients reaching their target lipid levels and changes in other risk factors. Results: Fifteen clusters representing a total of 77 physicians and 108 pharmacists were initially recruited, and a total of 51 physicians and 49 pharmacists were included in the final analyses. The collaborative care teams followed a total of 108 patients, and the usual care teams followed a total of 117 patients. At baseline, mean LDL cholesterol level was higher in the collaborative care group (3.5 v. 3.2 mmol/L, p = 0.05). During the study, patients in the collaborative care group were less likely to receive high-potency statins (11% v. 40%), had more visits with health care professionals and more laboratory tests, were more likely to have their lipid-lowering treatment changed and were more likely to report lifestyle changes. At 12 months, the crude incremental mean reduction in LDL cholesterol in the collaborative care group was −0.2 mmol/L (95% confidence interval [CI] −0.3 to −0.1), and the adjusted reduction was −0.05 (95% CI −0.3 to 0.2). The crude relative risk of achieving lipid targets for patients in the collaborative care group was 1.10 (95% CI 0.95 to 1.26), and the adjusted relative risk was 1.16 (95% CI 1.01 to 1.34). Interpretation: Collaborative care involving physicians and pharmacists had no significant clinical impact on lipid control in patients with dyslipidemia. International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial register no. ISRCTN66345533.

Finite-Horizon Prediction of Recurrent Events, With Application to Forecasts of Warranty Claims

In this article we present prediction methods for recurrent events that occur for individuals or units in some population. The events are modeled using flexible nonhomogeneous Poisson processes, and possible heterogeneity among the individuals is modeled using random effects. We also present effective calibration techniques that provide prediction intervals with coverage probabilities close to a desired nominal level. We apply these methods to a particular warranty data setting from the automobile industry. The number of processes in this context being very large, we emphasize methods providing rapid computation of prediction intervals.

Consumers’ Cognitive Lock-in on Websites: Evidence from a Neurophysiological Study

The objective of this research was to investigate neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the development of cognitive lock-in. Cognitive lock-in describes a situation in which a consumer has learned how to use a website, based on repeated interactions with it, with the consequence that more experience reduces the probability to switch to a competitors website. A major reason for the reduced switching probability is that interaction with an unfamiliar website typically implies high levels of cognitive load. Researchers conducted an experiment measuring cognitive load while consumers performed online purchasing tasks. Results show that participants visiting the same website multiple times have different cognitive load patterns than participants visiting different websites. The former group rapidly moved from controlled processing to automatic processing, which is metabolically less costly, leading to cognitive lock-in. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed.

Leader Profiles and Their Effectiveness on Employees’ Outcomes

An underlying premise of the transformational–transactional leadership theory is that different forms of leadership can reside simultaneously within the same individual. This fundamental hypothesis has received scarce attention in the empirical literature. The objectives of this study are thus to examine whether leader profiles combining these leadership forms do exist and to evaluate how these profiles are associated with specific employee attitudes and behaviors. Results obtained from two different samples using cluster analyses revealed six different leader profiles (i.e., superleaders, transactors, moderate leaders, distant-visionary, distant-rewarding, and distant-punitive leaders). Our results showed that these types of leaders differ in terms of employees’ perceptions of trust, justice, and commitment, as well as supervisor-rated in-role and contextual performance. Results and implications for research and practice are discussed.

The delayed effect of treadmill desk usage on recall and attention

Walking while working with the use of a treadmill desk has a beneficial delayed effect on attention and memory.Participants who walked perceived themselves to be more attentive.Neurophysiological measures demonstrated increased attention and memory after walking. The treadmill desk is a new human-computer interaction (HCI) setup intended to reduce the time workers spend sitting. As most workers will not choose to spend their entire workday walking, this study investigated the short-term delayed effect of treadmill desk usage. An experiment was conducted in which participants either sat or walked while they read a text and received emails. Afterward, all participants performed a task to evaluate their attention and memory. Behavioral, neurophysiological, and perceptual evidence showed that participants who walked had a short-term increase in memory and attention, indicating that the use of a treadmill desk has a delayed effect. These findings suggest that the treadmill desk, in addition to having health benefits for workers, can also be beneficial for businesses by enhancing workforce performance.

Estimation from aggregate data

A statistical methodology to handle aggregate data is proposed. Aggregate data arise in many fields such as medical science, ecology, social science, reliability, etc. They can be described as follows: individuals are moving progressively along a finite set of states and observations are made in a time window split into several intervals. At each observation time, the only available information is the number of individuals in each state and the history of each item viewed as a stochastic process is thus lost. The time spent in a given state is unknown. Using a data completion technique, an estimation of the hazard rate in each state based on sojourn times is obtained and an estimation of the survival function is deduced. These methods are studied through simulations and applied to a data set. The simulation study shows that the algorithms involved in the methods converge and are robust.

Measuring Flow Using Psychophysiological Data in a Multiplayer Gaming Context

Flow is a desirable state where an individual is focused and satisfied. Traditional flow models are based on an individual’s skills and the challenges he faces. The objective of this ongoing research is to investigate, in a gaming context, how a player’s and his teammate’s personality and neurophysiological reactions can contribute in explaining a player’s flow assessment. Our preliminary results show that adding these measures significantly increases the performance of predicting flow models.

The Psychophysiological Effect of a Vibro-Kinetic Movie Experience: The Case of the D-BOX Movie Seat

Watching a film in a movie theater can be an immersive experience, but to what extent does the experience differ when the moviegoer is using a vibro-kinetic seat, i.e., a seat providing motion and vibration feedback synchronized with the movie scenes? This paper seeks to measure the effect of a multi-sensory cinema experience from a psychophysiological standpoint. Using electroencephalography, galvanic skin response, heart rate, and facial micro-expression measures, this study compares the difference between two movie viewing experiences, i.e. one without movement and one with artistically enhanced vibro-kinetic feedback. Results of a within-subject experiment suggest that there are significant differences in psychophysiological states of users. Users exhibit more positive emotions, greater arousal, and more cognitive immersion in the vibro-kinetic condition. Therefore, multi-sensory stimulation, in the context of cinema, appears to produce an enhanced experience for spectators.

Is Augmented Reality Leading to More Risky Behaviors? An Experiment with Pokémon Go

Released in the summer of 2016, Pokemon Go is one of the world’s most downloaded applications. Using augmented reality technology, this game has become the latest craze among young people and adults. However, it has also caused several accidents because of players getting distracted while walking. Following the research that has been conducted on texting while walking, it would be interesting to compare the risks arising from gaming while walking. This research therefore compares dangerous behaviors exhibited in three conditions using a smartphone while walking, Pokemon Go with augmented reality, Pokemon Go without, and texting while walking. We can conclude that playing Pokemon Go, with and without augmented reality, leads to more dangerous behaviors overall than texting. We also observe the appearance of a new risky behavior when playing Pokemon Go that is unseen in texting while walking, abrupt stops.