Ethical and Social Aspects of Self-Driving Cars

As an envisaged future of transportation, self-driving cars are being discussed from various perspectives, including social, economical, engineering, computer science, design, and ethics. On the one hand, self-driving cars present new engineering problems that are being gradually successfully solved. On the other hand, social and ethical problems are typically being presented in the form of an idealized unsolvable decision-making problem, the so-called trolley problem, which is grossly misleading. We argue that an applied engineering ethical approach for the development of new technology is what is needed; the approach should be applied, meaning that it should focus on the analysis of complex real-world engineering problems. Software plays a crucial role for the control of self-driving cars; therefore, software engineering solutions should seriously handle ethical and social considerations. In this paper we take a closer look at the regulative instruments, standards, design, and implementations of components, systems, and services and we present practical social and ethical challenges that have to be met, as well as novel expectations for software engineering.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, 2 table

Expanding the medical physicist curricular and professional programme to include Artificial Intelligence

Purpose: To provide a guideline curriculum related to Artificial Intelligence (AI), for the education and training of European Medical Physicists (MPs). Materials and methods: The proposed curriculum consists of two levels: Basic (introducing MPs to the pillars of knowledge, development and applications of AI, in the context of medical imaging and radiation therapy) and Advanced. Both are common to the subspecialties (diagnostic and interventional radiology, nuclear medicine, and radiation oncology). The learning outcomes of the training are presented as knowledge, skills and competences (KSC approach). Results: For the Basic section, KSCs were stratified in four subsections: (1) Medical imaging analysis and AI Basics; (2) Implementation of AI applications in clinical practice; (3) Big data and enterprise imaging, and (4) Quality, Regulatory and Ethical Issues of AI processes. For the Advanced section instead, a common block was proposed to be further elaborated by each subspecialty core curriculum. The learning outcomes were also translated into a syllabus of a more traditional format, including practical applications. Conclusions: This AI curriculum is the first attempt to create a guideline expanding the current educational framework for Medical Physicists in Europe. It should be considered as a document to top the sub-specialties' curriculums and adapted by national training and regulatory bodies. The proposed educational program can be implemented via the European School of Medical Physics Expert (ESMPE) course modules and - to some extent - also by the national competent EFOMP organizations, to reach widely the medical physicist community in Europe.Peer reviewe

Strategic Incompatibility in ATM Markets

We test whether firms use incompatibility strategically, using data from ATM markets. High ATM fees degrade the value of competitors' deposit accounts, and can in principle serve as a mechanism for siphoning depositors away from competitors or for creating deposit account differentiation. Our empirical framework can empirically distinguish surcharging motivated by this strategic concern from surcharging that simply maximizes ATM profit considered as a stand-alone operation. The results are consistent with such behavior by large banks, but not by small banks. For large banks, the effect of incompatibility seems to operate through higher deposit account fees rather than increased deposit account base.

ISO 9004 - A stimulating quality management standard for the creative leaders of contemporary sustainable organizations

International management standards can provide organizations with challenging opportunities only if they understand the intended aims and features of those standards and apply them creatively and integrated into their business management. For that to happen, the business leaders of the organizations play the key role. For this subject, this discursive article focuses on the ISO 9004 quality management (QM) standard, which is one of the international management standards, which can be applied to all kinds of organizations. In addition to the opportunities, this article discusses difficulties and pitfalls associated with the ISO 9004 standard, and their possible solutions in practical implementations. The authors highlight aspects of how ISO 9004 can be considered as the most challenging standard in the ISO 9000 series of the QM standards. However, many organizations, which have not acknowledged the differences and relationship of the ISO 9004 and ISO 9001 standards, often apply the ISO 9000 standards in inadequate ways and hence have not the ability to exploit the potential opportunities of the standards Especially, ISO 9004 considers QM from the entire business point of view and aims at the quality of the whole organization. ISO 9004 standard can provide QM guidance to achieve sustained success even in complex, demanding and ever-changing contemporary business environments, including the challenges of the 4th industrial revolution. This article gives ideas and creative theoretical and practical views for the ISO 9004 implementations. The aim is to emphasize that, according to ISO 9004, the organization's identity and its differentiating competitive advantages are the bases for the quality of the organization and its sustained success. In this context, each organization has its own and always existing QM realization, which cannot be separated from business management and which can be continually improved according to the organization's business development strategies and practices. In this respect, the ISO 9004 can be seen as flexible and challenging. Based on the authors' experience, QM targets can be achieved and developed in the most natural way through the principles and practices of the learning organization. In addition to the ISO 9000 standards, organizations also use other well-known managerial references, including performance excellence models and many various management system standards of the specific disciplines. All these may be seen as sub-domains within the ISO 9004 framework. ISO 9004 also can be used for diverse TQM and sustainability implementations. This article is based on the authors' long experience in the practical promotion and application of the ISO 9000 standard in different kinds of organizations. The first author of the article has involved in the international drafting process of the ISO 9004 standard-editions since the 1980s. He also was a co- writer of a similar ISO 9004 article about twenty years ago. That article has been publicly available on the Internet, and its over one thousand recent readers evidence a growing interest in this standard. Moreover, after 2000, ISO 9004 standard has been revised twice and rewritten completely recently. Hence, it is well-founded to re-examine this subject again in this article.Peer reviewe

Process evaluation of five integrated offender management pioneer areas

A qualitative process evaluation of five Integrated Offender Management (IOM) pioneer areas was undertaken to assess implementation of IOM, identify approaches to implementation and capture the lessons learnt. The findings indicated that IOM enabled structural changes, transforming the delivery of offender management. There was considerable commitment and enthusiasm for IOM at the sites, whilst acknowledging barriers to development such as definition, resourcing, governance and clarity of agency roles. Since the evaluation took place, the political and criminal justice landscape has changed somewhat, supporting a more locally driven approach which can draw on the learning directly from the pioneers which were shaped and delivered locally

Industry 4.0 and world class manufacturing integration: 100 technologies for a WCM-I4.0 matrix

In the last decade, technological progress has profoundly influenced the industrial world and all industrial sectors have been confronted with a change in technological paradigms. In such a context, this study aims to analyze the synergies between the technological world of Industry 4.0 and the purely organizational and managerial domain ofWorld Class Manufacturing, a model of Operational Excellence. The objective is relating the driving dimensions of the World Class Manufacturing (WCM) system to the technological macrocategories of Industry 4.0: this would allow the identification of which technological solution to leverage on, aiming at optimization in a given World Class Manufacturing pillar. The result is a "WCM-I4.0 matrix": a proposal to reconcile, exploit and trace the relations between the two complex concepts. The WCM-I4.0 matrix includes, by now, 100 Industry 4.0 technologies that best suits with the World Class Manufacturing pillars

Fit for Industry 4.0

This volume presents a further training concept on Industry 4.0 for vocational teachers, which was developed for transnational use by the "Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit" (GIZ) together with SEAMEO VOCTECH (Regional Centre for Vocational and Technical Education and Training) and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) for transnational use. In connection with the thematic focus on digitalisation and the accompanying change in the world of work, innovative teaching and learning methods for self-reliant learning and the promotion of communicative and social competences are presented. In the transfer project, the professional and didactical competences of teachers and trainers are promoted