NASA/RAE collaboration on nonlinear control using the F-8C digital fly-by-wire aircraft

Design procedures are reviewed for variable integral control to optimize response (VICTOR) algorithms and results of preliminary flight tests are presented. The F-8C aircraft is operated in the remotely augmented vehicle (RAV) mode, with the control laws implemented as FORTRAN programs on a ground-based computer. Pilot commands and sensor information are telemetered to the ground, where the data are processed to form surface commands which are then telemetered back to the aircraft. The RAV mode represents a singlestring (simplex) system and is therefore vulnerable to a hardover since comparison monitoring is not possible. Hence, extensive error checking is conducted on both the ground and airborne computers to prevent the development of potentially hazardous situations. Experience with the RAV monitoring and validation procedures is described

Ethical Matrix Manual

The ethical matrix is a conceptual tool designed to help decision-makers (as individuals or working in groups) reach sound judgements or decisions about the ethical acceptability and/or optimal regulatory controls for existing or prospective technologies in the field of food and agriculture

The moral-IT deck:A tool for ethics by design

This paper presents the design process and empirical evaluation of a new tool for enabling ethics by design: The Moral-IT Cards. Better tools are needed to support the role of technologists in addressing ethical issues during system design. These physical cards support reflection by technologists on normative aspects of technology development, specifically on emerging risks, appropriate safeguards and challenges of implementing these in the system. We discuss how the cards were developed and tested within 5 workshops with 20 participants from both research and commercial settings. We consider the role of technologists in ethics from different EU/UK policymaking initiatives and disciplinary perspectives (i.e. Science and Technology Studies (STS), IT Law, Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Computer/Engineering Ethics). We then examine existing ethics by design tools, and other cards based tools before arguing why cards can be a useful medium for addressing complex ethical issues. We present the development process for the Moral-IT cards, document key features of our card design, background on the content, the impact assessment board process for using them and how this was formulated. We discuss our study design and methodology before examining key findings which are clustered around three overarching themes. These are: the value of our cards as a tool, their impact on the technology design process and how they structure ethical reflection practices. We conclude with key lessons and concepts such as how they level the playing field for debate; enable ethical clustering, sorting and comparison; provide appropriate anchors for discussion and highlighted the intertwined nature of ethics.Comment: Governance and Regulation; Design Tools; Responsible Research and Innovation; Ethics by Design; Games; Human Computer Interaction, Card Based Tool

Robotic milking technologies and renegotiating situated ethical relationships on UK dairy farms

Robotic or automatic milking systems (AMS) are novel technologies that take over the labor of dairy farming and reduce the need for human-animal interactions. Because robotic milking involves the replacement of 'conventional' twice-a-day milking managed by people with a system that supposedly allows cows the freedom to be milked automatically whenever they choose, some claim robotic milking has health and welfare benefits for cows, increases productivity, and has lifestyle advantages for dairy farmers. This paper examines how established ethical relations on dairy farms are unsettled by the intervention of a radically different technology such as AMS. The renegotiation of ethical relationships is thus an important dimension of how the actors involved are re-assembled around a new technology. The paper draws on in-depth research on UK dairy farms comparing those using conventional milking technologies with those using AMS. We explore the situated ethical relations that are negotiated in practice, focusing on the contingent and complex nature of human-animal-technology interactions. We show that ethical relations are situated and emergent, and that as the identities, roles, and subjectivities of humans and animals are unsettled through the intervention of a new technology, the ethical relations also shift. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

The institutional shaping of management: in the tracks of English individualism

Globalisation raises important questions about the shaping of economic action by cultural factors. This article explores the formation of what is seen by some as a prime influence on the formation of British management: individualism. Drawing on a range of historical sources, it argues for a comparative approach. In this case, the primary comparison drawn is between England and Scotland. The contention is that there is a systemic approach to authority in Scotland that can be contrasted to a personal approach in England. An examination of the careers of a number of Scottish pioneers of management suggests the roots of this systemic approach in practices of church governance. Ultimately this systemic approach was to take a secondary role to the personal approach engendered by institutions like the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, but it found more success in the different institutional context of the USA. The complexities of dealing with historical evidence are stressed, as is the value of taking a comparative approach. In this case this indicates a need to take religious practice as seriously as religious belief as a source of transferable practice. The article suggests that management should not be seen as a simple response to economic imperatives, but as shaped by the social and cultural context from which it emerges

Late Ebola virus relapse causing meningoencephalitis: a case report

Background: There are thousands of survivors of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in west Africa. Ebola virus can persist in survivors for months in immune-privileged sites; however, viral relapse causing life-threatening and potentially transmissible disease has not been described. We report a case of late relapse in a patient who had been treated for severe Ebola virus disease with high viral load (peak cycle threshold value 13·2). Methods: A 39-year-old female nurse from Scotland, who had assisted the humanitarian effort in Sierra Leone, had received intensive supportive treatment and experimental antiviral therapies, and had been discharged with undetectable Ebola virus RNA in peripheral blood. The patient was readmitted to hospital 9 months after discharge with symptoms of acute meningitis, and was found to have Ebola virus in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). She was treated with supportive therapy and experimental antiviral drug GS-5734 (Gilead Sciences, San Francisco, Foster City, CA, USA). We monitored Ebola virus RNA in CSF and plasma, and sequenced the viral genome using an unbiased metagenomic approach. Findings: On admission, reverse transcriptase PCR identified Ebola virus RNA at a higher level in CSF (cycle threshold value 23·7) than plasma (31·3); infectious virus was only recovered from CSF. The patient developed progressive meningoencephalitis with cranial neuropathies and radiculopathy. Clinical recovery was associated with addition of high-dose corticosteroids during GS-5734 treatment. CSF Ebola virus RNA slowly declined and was undetectable following 14 days of treatment with GS-5734. Sequencing of plasma and CSF viral genome revealed only two non-coding changes compared with the original infecting virus. Interpretation: Our report shows that previously unanticipated, late, severe relapses of Ebola virus can occur, in this case in the CNS. This finding fundamentally redefines what is known about the natural history of Ebola virus infection. Vigilance should be maintained in the thousands of Ebola survivors for cases of relapsed infection. The potential for these cases to initiate new transmission chains is a serious public health concern

Experiments at the margins: Ethics and transgression in cinema science

Science is a discipline defined by empiricism and reliable methodologies that result in predictable outcomes. Yet, cutting-edge experiments inevitably involve an element of the unknown, an aspect which science-fiction exploits for dramatic effect. Furthermore, fictional science is freed from the ethical constraints that regulate real-world experimentation and therefore often trangressive. Even as films capitalise on unethical practices and cutting edge scenarios for dramatic and commercial reasons, the origin of the filmmaker and/or place of production may affect a film’s content. A film is also obviously subject to legal constraints, according to the country of origin, and classification codes in its place of exhibition. Thus, while the very nature of science fiction may cause it to appear morally unbridled, there are nonetheless multiple inhibitions entrenched in such depictions. By drawing on relevant cinematic examples, including Prometheus, The Hunger Games and District 9, and scientific scenarios on which these films are based, this essay explores how the unpredictable nature of advances in science, in combination with a lack of ethics, foregrounds the dangerous dimensions of science-fiction