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

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (3rd edition)

In 2008 we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, research on this topic has continued to accelerate, and many new scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Accordingly, it is important to update these guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Various reviews have described the range of assays that have been used for this purpose. Nevertheless, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to measure autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. For example, a key point that needs to be emphasized is that there is a difference between measurements that monitor the numbers or volume of autophagic elements (e.g., autophagosomes or autolysosomes) at any stage of the autophagic process versus those that measure fl ux through the autophagy pathway (i.e., the complete process including the amount and rate of cargo sequestered and degraded). In particular, a block in macroautophagy that results in autophagosome accumulation must be differentiated from stimuli that increase autophagic activity, defi ned as increased autophagy induction coupled with increased delivery to, and degradation within, lysosomes (inmost higher eukaryotes and some protists such as Dictyostelium ) or the vacuole (in plants and fungi). In other words, it is especially important that investigators new to the fi eld understand that the appearance of more autophagosomes does not necessarily equate with more autophagy. In fact, in many cases, autophagosomes accumulate because of a block in trafficking to lysosomes without a concomitant change in autophagosome biogenesis, whereas an increase in autolysosomes may reflect a reduction in degradative activity. It is worth emphasizing here that lysosomal digestion is a stage of autophagy and evaluating its competence is a crucial part of the evaluation of autophagic flux, or complete autophagy. Here, we present a set of guidelines for the selection and interpretation of methods for use by investigators who aim to examine macroautophagy and related processes, as well as for reviewers who need to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of papers that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a formulaic set of rules, because the appropriate assays depend in part on the question being asked and the system being used. In addition, we emphasize that no individual assay is guaranteed to be the most appropriate one in every situation, and we strongly recommend the use of multiple assays to monitor autophagy. Along these lines, because of the potential for pleiotropic effects due to blocking autophagy through genetic manipulation it is imperative to delete or knock down more than one autophagy-related gene. In addition, some individual Atg proteins, or groups of proteins, are involved in other cellular pathways so not all Atg proteins can be used as a specific marker for an autophagic process. In these guidelines, we consider these various methods of assessing autophagy and what information can, or cannot, be obtained from them. Finally, by discussing the merits and limits of particular autophagy assays, we hope to encourage technical innovation in the field

STOCK MARKET DIRECTIONAL CHANGE FORECASTING USING ARTIFICAL NEURAL NETWORKS AND DYNAMIC BINARY TIME SERIES MODELS.

Bachelor'sBachelor of Social Sciences (Honours

Autonomous Vehicles for Smart and Sustainable Cities: An In-Depth Exploration of Privacy and Cybersecurity Implications

Amidst rapid urban development, sustainable transportation solutions are required to meet the increasing demands for mobility whilst mitigating the potentially negative social, economic, and environmental impacts. This study analyses autonomous vehicles (AVs) as a potential transportation solution for smart and sustainable development. We identified privacy and cybersecurity risks of AVs as crucial to the development of smart and sustainable cities and examined the steps taken by governments around the world to address these risks. We highlight the literature that supports why AVs are essential for smart and sustainable development. We then identify the aspects of privacy and cybersecurity in AVs that are important for smart and sustainable development. Lastly, we review the efforts taken by federal governments in the US, the UK, China, Australia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Germany, France, and the EU, and by US state governments to address AV-related privacy and cybersecurity risks in-depth. Overall, the actions taken by governments to address privacy risks are mainly in the form of regulations or voluntary guidelines. To address cybersecurity risks, governments have mostly resorted to regulations that are not specific to AVs and are conducting research and fostering research collaborations with the private sector

Algorithmic Decision-Making in AVs: Understanding Ethical and Technical Concerns for Smart Cities

10.3390/su11205791Sustainability11205791-579

Mis-selling in the insurance industry

Based on current behavioural economics literature, priming individuals of their industry-specific identity and involving the aspect of reputation can influence individuals’ likelihood to be dishonest. Thus, the primary aim of the study is to extend the literature on dishonest behaviours to mis-selling in the insurance industry, by assessing the effects of priming and reputation on the likelihood that individuals (i) accurately presents the policy that they are selling and (ii) recommends an appropriate policy to the buyers. 224 participants took part in an economics experiment that paralleled real-life insurance selling. To assess the prevalence of mis-selling amongst sellers, participants who were assigned as sellers had to decide (1) the policy that they wanted to sell and (2) if they wanted to present their policies accurately to their buyer. Proportions test and binary logistic regressions were conducted to assess the independent and interactive effects of priming and reputation on sellers’ selling behaviours. Our results showed that (i) when the sellers were primed and had their reputation at stake, they were more likely to be honest in telling their buyers the type of policy they are selling, and (ii) when the sellers were primed, they were more likely to sell an insurance policy that matched with their buyers’ health type. Our research adds on to the current literature by investigating factors that increase honesty in the insurance industry.Bachelor of Arts in Economic

Association of Country Income Level With the Characteristics and Outcomes of Critically Ill Patients Hospitalized With Acute Kidney Injury and COVID-19

Introduction: Acute kidney injury (AKI) has been identified as one of the most common and significant problems in hospitalized patients with COVID-19. However, studies examining the relationship between COVID-19 and AKI in low- and low-middle income countries (LLMIC) are lacking. Given that AKI is known to carry a higher mortality rate in these countries, it is important to understand differences in this population. Methods: This prospective, observational study examines the AKI incidence and characteristics of 32,210 patients with COVID-19 from 49 countries across all income levels who were admitted to an intensive care unit during their hospital stay. Results: Among patients with COVID-19 admitted to the intensive care unit, AKI incidence was highest in patients in LLMIC, followed by patients in upper-middle income countries (UMIC) and high-income countries (HIC) (53%, 38%, and 30%, respectively), whereas dialysis rates were lowest among patients with AKI from LLMIC and highest among those from HIC (27% vs. 45%). Patients with AKI in LLMIC had the largest proportion of community-acquired AKI (CA-AKI) and highest rate of in-hospital death (79% vs. 54% in HIC and 66% in UMIC). The association between AKI, being from LLMIC and in-hospital death persisted even after adjusting for disease severity. Conclusions: AKI is a particularly devastating complication of COVID-19 among patients from poorer nations where the gaps in accessibility and quality of healthcare delivery have a major impact on patient outcomes

Erratum to: Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (3rd edition) (Autophagy, 12, 1, 1-222, 10.1080/15548627.2015.1100356

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