Governing autonomous vehicles: emerging responses for safety, liability, privacy, cybersecurity, and industry risks

The benefits of autonomous vehicles (AVs) are widely acknowledged, but there are concerns about the extent of these benefits and AV risks and unintended consequences. In this article, we first examine AVs and different categories of the technological risks associated with them. We then explore strategies that can be adopted to address these risks, and explore emerging responses by governments for addressing AV risks. Our analyses reveal that, thus far, governments have in most instances avoided stringent measures in order to promote AV developments and the majority of responses are non-binding and focus on creating councils or working groups to better explore AV implications. The US has been active in introducing legislations to address issues related to privacy and cybersecurity. The UK and Germany, in particular, have enacted laws to address liability issues, other countries mostly acknowledge these issues, but have yet to implement specific strategies. To address privacy and cybersecurity risks strategies ranging from introduction or amendment of non-AV specific legislation to creating working groups have been adopted. Much less attention has been paid to issues such as environmental and employment risks, although a few governments have begun programmes to retrain workers who might be negatively affected.Comment: Transport Reviews, 201

Leaching of Rare Earths from Eudialyte Minerals

The (a) sulfuric and (b) citric acid leaching of rare earths from two differently textured eudialyte minerals were investigated through leaching tests conducted using Taguchi and fractional factorial design of experiments. Results of the leaching studies showed that the use of novel method of citric acid yielded comparable leaching recoveries of 70-80 % to conventional sulfuric acid method on direct leaching of large-grained eudialyte. Fine-grained eudialyte required rigorous conditions for rare earths leaching

ALTA OR NLTA: WHAT'S IN THE NAME? LAND TENURE DILEMMA AND THE FIJI SUGAR INDUSTRY

Since 1997, the agricultural leases on Native land, issued under the 1976 Agricultural and Landlord Tenants Act (ALTA), began to expire. The sugar industry is the main commodity export earner for Fiji, directly contributing about 22% of the national GDP and supporting over 25% of the country's active labor force. Fiji exports 80% of its sugar production, earning on average of $250-300 million in foreign exchange annually. Several options have been suggested, including: non-renewal of leases, with the land reverting to Fijian owners; renewal of ALTA but with land rents pegged to the gross value of production instead of the unimproved capital value; sharecropping and contract wage arrangements; and abolishment of lease arrangement under ALTA with leases to be issued under an institutional arrangement guided by the Native Lands Trust Act (NLTA). The land tenure system adopted will have a significant impact not only on the efficiency of the sugar cane sector but also on Fiji's ability to meet its international obligations of sugar exports. This paper explores the land tenure dilemma facing Fiji today. It assesses the economic implications of the various forms of land lease system proposed. This analysis is carried out in terms of efficiency, equity, and risk sharing in the current preferential market access environment and under possible future world market conditions. Suggestions are made on institutional arrangements that could enhance efficiency in resource use and encourage sharing of production risks that arise due to variability in factor prices and climatic conditions as well as sugar prices.Land tenure -- Government policy -- Fiji, Landlord and tenant -- Law and legislation -- Fiji, Land tenure -- Economic aspects -- Fiji, Agricultural laws and legislation -- Fiji, Leases -- Fiji, Sugar trade -- Fiji, Sugarcane industry -- Economic aspects -- Fiji, Fiji. Agricultural and Landlord Tenants Act (1976), Crop Production/Industries, Land Economics/Use,

Determinants of non-farm labour participation rates among farmers in Australia

In recent decades, non‐farm employment has become prevalent and an important source of income for Australian farm families. However, models identifying the relative significance of the socioeconomic variables influencing non‐farm employment participation rates have never been estimated in Australia. In this paper, a bivariate probit model of non‐farm employment participation rates was estimated, using information from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural Resource Economics (ABARE) 1994–1995 surveys. It was found that the participation decision of the farm operator and spouse is likely to be jointly determined, that non‐farm employment participation increased at a declining rate with age among farmers and that university education enhances the participation rates particularly among spouses. Participation rates were also higher among spouses with lower other income and with no dependent children.Farm Management,

Leaching of rare earths from fine-grained zirconosilicate ore

© 2016 The Chinese Society of Rare Earths. Leaching of rare earths Y, La and Ce by sulphuric acid from fine-grained zirconosilicate ore was investigated using Taguchi method of experimental design. An orthogonal array of L8, 27 which denotes 7 factors at 2 levels was chosen to consider the various factors relevant to the leaching process: baking time, baking temperature, acid dosage, leaching time, leaching temperature, grind size and dilution. Statistical analysis showed that sulphation baking was a significant step for the leaching of rare earths from the whole-of-ore and optimized leaching of rare earths involved the following condition: baking for 3 h at 320 °C at 3.2 g acid/g ore acid dosage followed by water leaching at 20 °C for 1 h and dilution of 20 mL water/g ore using 300 um grind size. The effect of each leaching factor was also discussed

Evaluation of Loop Mediated Isothermal DNA Aplification (LAMP) Detection of Salmonella spp. in Foods and Listeria monocytogenes on Environmental Surfaces

Master'sMASTER OF SCIENC

A robust approach to differentiate human monocyte-derived microglia from peripheral blood mononuclear cells

Microglia are implicated in most neurodegenerative diseases. Here, we present a robust and efficient protocol to differentiate monocyte-derived microglia-like cells (MDMi) from whole blood. The protocol consists of three parts. The first part will describe two methods for PBMC isolation. This will be followed by MDMi differentiation, and lastly, the characterization of MDMi by immunocytochemistry. MDMi can be used to investigate microglial-related responses in various age-related neurodegenerative diseases and can be applied to drug testing on a personalized basis. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Quek et al

Structural insights into the autoregulation and cooperativity of the human transcription factor Ets-2

Ets-2, like its closely related homologue Ets-1, is a member of the Ets family of DNA binding transcription factors. Both proteins are subject to multiple levels of regulation of their DNA binding and transactivation properties. One such regulatory mechanism is the presence of an autoinhibitory module, which in Ets-1 allosterically inhibits the DNA binding activity. This inhibition can be relieved by interaction with protein partners or cooperative binding to closely separated Ets binding sites in a palindromic arrangement. In this study we describe the 2.5 Å resolution crystal structure of a DNA complex of the Ets-2 Ets domain. The Ets domain crystallized with two distinct species in the asymmetric unit, which closely resemble the autoinhibited and DNA bound forms of Ets-1. This discovery prompted us to re-evaluate the current model for the autoinhibitory mechanism and the structural basis for cooperative DNA binding. In contrast to Ets-1, in which the autoinhibition is caused by a combination of allosteric and steric mechanisms, we were unable to find clear evidence for the allosteric mechanism in Ets-2. We also demonstrated two possibly distinct types of cooperative binding to substrates with Ets binding motifs separated by four and six base pairs and suggest possible molecular mechanisms for this behavior

Management of severe hidradenitis suppurativa with biologic therapy and wide excision

Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a chronic inflammatory follicular occlusive disease that involves the intertriginous areas. Treatment methods include conventional topical and systemic medication, radiotherapy, biologic agents, and surgical excision. Of late, there has been an increased focus on the use of biologic agents in patients with moderate to severe HS. Here, we present the case of a 46-year-old man with Hurley stage III HS for whom wide excision was ultimately curative, after aggressive medical therapy with the use of infliximab and adalimumab had succeeded in limiting the body surface area affected by the disease. This case demonstrates the effective treatment of severe HS with a combination of biologic therapy and surgery