Criticality Metrics for Automated Driving: A Review and Suitability Analysis of the State of the Art

The large-scale deployment of automated vehicles on public roads has the potential to vastly change the transportation modalities of today's society. Although this pursuit has been initiated decades ago, there still exist open challenges in reliably ensuring that such vehicles operate safely in open contexts. While functional safety is a well-established concept, the question of measuring the behavioral safety of a vehicle remains subject to research. One way to both objectively and computationally analyze traffic conflicts is the development and utilization of so-called criticality metrics. Contemporary approaches have leveraged the potential of criticality metrics in various applications related to automated driving, e.g. for computationally assessing the dynamic risk or filtering large data sets to build scenario catalogs. As a prerequisite to systematically choose adequate criticality metrics for such applications, we extensively review the state of the art of criticality metrics, their properties, and their applications in the context of automated driving. Based on this review, we propose a suitability analysis as a methodical tool to be used by practitioners. Both the proposed method and the state of the art review can then be harnessed to select well-suited measurement tools that cover an application's requirements, as demonstrated by an exemplary execution of the analysis. Ultimately, efficient, valid, and reliable measurements of an automated vehicle's safety performance are a key requirement for demonstrating its trustworthiness

Inactivation of murine norovirus by chemical biocides on stainless steel

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Human norovirus (NoV) causes more than 80% of nonbacterial gastroenteritis in Europe and the United States. NoV transmission via contaminated surfaces may be significant for the spread of viruses. Therefore, measures for prevention and control, such as surface disinfection, are necessary to interrupt the dissemination of human NoV. Murine norovirus (MNV) as a surrogate for human NoV was used to study the efficacy of active ingredients of chemical disinfectants for virus inactivation on inanimate surfaces.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The inactivating properties of different chemical biocides were tested in a quantitative carrier test with stainless steel discs without mechanical action. Vacuum-dried MNV was exposed to different concentrations of alcohols, peracetic acid (PAA) or glutaraldehyde (GDA) for 5 minutes exposure time. Detection of residual virus was determined by endpoint-titration on RAW 264.7 cells.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>PAA [1000 ppm], GDA [2500 ppm], ethanol [50% (v/v)] and 1-propanol [30% (v/v)] were able to inactivate MNV under clean conditions (0.03% BSA) on the carriers by ≥ 4 log₁₀within 5 minutes exposure time, whereas 2-propanol showed a reduced effectiveness even at 60% (v/v). Furthermore, there were no significant differences in virus reduction whatever interfering substances were used. When testing with ethanol, 1- and 2-propanol, results under clean conditions were nearly the same as in the presence of dirty conditions (0.3% BSA plus 0.3% erythrocytes).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Products based upon PAA, GDA, ethanol and 1-propanol should be used for NoV inactivation on inanimate surfaces. Our data provide valuable information for the development of strategies to control NoV transmission via surfaces.</p

A taxonomy for quality in simulation-based development and testing of automated driving systems

Ensuring the quality of automated driving systems is a major challenge the automotive industry is facing. In this context, quality defines the degree to which an object meets expectations and requirements. Especially, automated vehicles at SAE level 4 and 5 will be expected to operate safely in various contexts and complex situations without misconduct. Thus, a systematic approach is needed to show their safe operation. A way to address this challenge is simulation-based testing as pure physical testing is not feasible. During simulation-based testing, the data used to evaluate the actual quality of an automated driving system are generated using a simulation. However, to rely on these simulation data, the overall simulation, which also includes its simulation models, must provide a certain quality level. This quality level depends on the intended purpose for which the generated simulation data should be used. Therefore, three categories of quality can be considered: quality of the automated driving system and simulation quality, consisting of simulation model quality and scenario quality. Hence, quality must be determined and evaluated in various process steps in developing and testing automated driving systems, the overall simulation, and the simulation models used for the simulation. In this paper, we propose a taxonomy to serve a better understanding of the concept of quality in the development and testing process to have a clear separation and insight where further testing is needed -- both in terms of automated driving systems and simulation, including their simulation models and scenarios used for testing.Comment: IEEE Access (submitted

Das Plauderlabor - Gesprächsforschung in der Öffentlichkeit

Schaller B, Hitzler S, Holtkamp C, Kramer J, Schürmann M. Das Plauderlabor - Gesprächsforschung in der Öffentlichkeit. Gesprächsforschung - Online-Zeitschrift zur verbalen Interaktion. 2023;(24)

Das Plauderlabor – Gesprächsforschung in der Öffentlichkeit

Wissenschaftskommunikation gehört auch in den Sprachwissenschaften inzwischen zu den regelmäßigen Aufgaben neben Forschung und Lehre. Die Aktivitäten reichen von "kleineren Formaten" wie TikTok-Videos zu linguistischen Themen bis zum Aufbau des "Forum Deutsche Sprache" durch das IDS Mannheim als eine Art "Museum für Sprachwissenschaft". Im Rahmen des Uni.Stadt.Fests 2019, einer ganztägigen Veranstaltung anlässlich des 50jährigen Jubiläums der Universität Bielefeld, haben wir – Gesprächsforschende der Universität – die Gesprächsanalyse an einem Stand als Forschungsmethode erlebbar gemacht: in einem sogenannten "Plauderlabor". Die Idee zu diesem Projekt basiert auf dem "Conversational Rollercoaster" von Albert et al. (2018), einem partizipatorischen Format zur Demonstration der konversationsanalytischen Methode, entwickelt für eine Wissenschaftsmesse in London 2016. Zur Vorbereitung des Plauderlabors organisierte sich in Bielefeld eine interdisziplinäre Gruppe mit den Lehrstuhlinhaberinnen Ruth Ayaß (Methoden der empirischen Sozialforschung mit dem Schwerpunkt qualitative Methoden, Fakultät für Soziologie), Barbara Job (Sprache und Kommunikation, Fakultät für Linguistik und Literaturwissenschaft) und Friederike Kern (Germanistik/Frühe sprachliche Bildung und frühes Lernen, Fakultät für Linguistik und Literaturwissenschaft) sowie ca. 30 wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeiter*innen, Doktorand*innen und studentischen Hilfskräften, teils aus dem Zentrum für Lehren und Lernen (ZLL) und der Bielefeld School of Education (BiSEd). Unsere Erfahrungen mit dem Plauderlabor wollen wir im Folgenden teilen

Synergistic Effects of Nonthermal Plasma and Disinfecting Agents against Dental Biofilms In Vitro

Aim. Dental biofilms play a major role in the pathogenesis of many dental diseases. In this study, we evaluated the synergistic effect of atmospheric pressure plasma and different agents in dentistry on the reduction of biofilms. Methods and Results. We used monospecies (S. mutans) and multispecies dental biofilm models grown on titanium discs in vitro. After treatment with one of the agents, the biofilms were treated with plasma. Efficacy of treatment was determined by the number of colony forming units (CFU) and by live-dead staining. For S. mutans biofilms no colonies could be detected after treatment with NaOCl or H2O2. For multispecies biofilms the combination with plasma achieved a higher CFU reduction than each agent alone. We found an additive antimicrobial effect between argon plasma and agents irrespective of the treatment order with cultivation technique. For EDTA and octenidine, antimicrobial efficacy assessed by live-dead staining differed significantly between the two treatment orders (P < 0.05). Conclusions. The effective treatment of dental biofilms on titanium discs with atmospheric pressure plasma could be increased by adding agents in vitro

Treatment of Candida albicans biofilms with low-temperature plasma induced by dielectric barrier discharge and atmospheric pressure plasma jet

Because of some disadvantages of chemical disinfection in dental practice (especially denture cleaning), we investigated the effects of physical methods on Candida albicans biofilms. For this purpose, the antifungal efficacy of three different low-temperature plasma devices (an atmospheric pressure plasma jet and two different dielectric barrier discharges (DBDs)) on Candida albicans biofilms grown on titanium discs in vitro was investigated. As positive treatment controls, we used 0.1% chlorhexidine digluconate (CHX) and 0.6% sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl). The corresponding gas streams without plasma ignition served as negative treatment controls. The efficacy of the plasma treatment was determined evaluating the number of colony-forming units (CFU) recovered from titanium discs. The plasma treatment reduced the CFU significantly compared to chemical disinfectants. While 10 min CHX or NaOCl exposure led to a CFU log10 reduction factor of 1.5, the log10 reduction factor of DBD plasma was up to 5. In conclusion, the use of low-temperature plasma is a promising physical alternative to chemical antiseptics for dental practice