Safe Autonomous Driving in Adverse Weather: Sensor Evaluation and Performance Monitoring

The vehicle's perception sensors radar, lidar and camera, which must work continuously and without restriction, especially with regard to automated/autonomous driving, can lose performance due to unfavourable weather conditions. This paper analyzes the sensor signals of these three sensor technologies under rain and fog as well as day and night. A data set of a driving test vehicle as an object target under different weather conditions was recorded in a controlled environment with adjustable, defined, and reproducible weather conditions. Based on the sensor performance evaluation, a method has been developed to detect sensor degradation, including determining the affected data areas and estimating how severe they are. Through this sensor monitoring, measures can be taken in subsequent algorithms to reduce the influences or to take them into account in safety and assistance systems to avoid malfunctions.Comment: Accepted for the 35th IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV 2023), 6 page

Targeted PI3K/AKT-hyperactivation induces cell death in chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Current therapeutic approaches for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) focus on the suppression of oncogenic kinase signaling. Here, we test the hypothesis that targeted hyperactivation of the phosphatidylinositol-3-phosphate/AKT (PI3K/AKT)-signaling pathway may be leveraged to trigger CLL cell death. Though counterintuitive, our data show that genetic hyperactivation of PI3K/AKT-signaling or blocking the activity of the inhibitory phosphatase SH2-containing-inositol-5'-phosphatase-1 (SHIP1) induces acute cell death in CLL cells. Our mechanistic studies reveal that increased AKT activity upon inhibition of SHIP1 leads to increased mitochondrial respiration and causes excessive accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), resulting in cell death in CLL with immunogenic features. Our results demonstrate that CLL cells critically depend on mechanisms to fine-tune PI3K/AKT activity, allowing sustained proliferation and survival but avoid ROS-induced cell death and suggest transient SHIP1-inhibition as an unexpectedly promising concept for CLL therapy

A novel approach for the test of active pedestrian safety systems

Active pedestrian safety systems are based on a variety of sensor systems and detection algorithm approaches. The activation of, e.g., an emergency brake is a critical decision. Therefore, such applications must be tested very responsibly. This paper shows the characteristic features of pedestrians, presents current test methods, and introduces a novel test system approach and pedestrian dummy, which enables the test of advanced pedestrian detection systems. This includes also detection algorithm approaches including pre-indicators and path prediction for a complex motion pattern. The complex motion pattern can be a walking or a running pedestrian, including velocity and direction changes

Context-aware system for pre-triggering irreversible vehicle safety actuators

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.New vehicle safety systems have led to a steady improvement of road safety and a reduction in the risk of suffering a major injury in vehicle accidents. A huge leap forward in the development of new vehicle safety systems are actuators that have to be activated irreversibly shortly before a collision in order to mitigate accident consequences. The triggering decision has to be based on measurements of exteroceptive sensors currently used in driver assistance systems. This paper focuses on developing a novel context-aware system designed to detect potential collisions and to trigger safety actuators even before an accident occurs. In this context, the analysis examines the information that can be collected from exteroceptive sensors (pre-crash data) to predict a certain collision and its severity to decide whether a triggering is entitled or not. A five-layer context-aware architecture is presented, that is able to collect contextual information about the vehicle environment and the actual driving state using different sensors, to perform reasoning about potential collisions, and to trigger safety functions upon that information. Accident analysis is used in a data model to represent uncertain knowledge and to perform reasoning. A simulation concept based on real accident data is introduced to evaluate the presented system concept

Targeted PI3K/AKT-hyperactivation induces cell death in chronic lymphocytic leukemia

Current therapeutic approaches for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) focus on the suppression of oncogenic kinase signaling. Here, we test the hypothesis that targeted hyperactivation of the phosphatidylinositol-3-phosphate/AKT (PI3K/AKT)-signaling pathway may be leveraged to trigger CLL cell death. Though counterintuitive, our data show that genetic hyperactivation of PI3K/AKT-signaling or blocking the activity of the inhibitory phosphatase SH2-containing-inositol-5'-phosphatase-1 (SHIP1) induces acute cell death in CLL cells. Our mechanistic studies reveal that increased AKT activity upon inhibition of SHIP1 leads to increased mitochondrial respiration and causes excessive accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), resulting in cell death in CLL with immunogenic features. Our results demonstrate that CLL cells critically depend on mechanisms to fine-tune PI3K/AKT activity, allowing sustained proliferation and survival but avoid ROS-induced cell death and suggest transient SHIP1-inhibition as an unexpectedly promising concept for CLL therapy

Recessive mutations in EPG5 cause Vici syndrome, a multisystem disorder with defective autophagy

Vici syndrome is a recessively inherited multisystem disorder characterized by callosal agenesis, cataracts, cardiomyopathy, combined immunodeficiency and hypopigmentation. To investigate the molecular basis of Vici syndrome, we carried out exome and Sanger sequence analysis in a cohort of 18 affected individuals. We identified recessive mutations in EPG5 (previously KIAA1632), indicating a causative role in Vici syndrome. EPG5 is the human homolog of the metazoan-specific autophagy gene epg-5, encoding a key autophagy regulator (ectopic P-granules autophagy protein 5) implicated in the formation of autolysosomes. Further studies showed a severe block in autophagosomal clearance in muscle and fibroblasts from individuals with mutant EPG5, resulting in the accumulation of autophagic cargo in autophagosomes. These findings position Vici syndrome as a paradigm of human multisystem disorders associated with defective autophagy and suggest a fundamental role of the autophagy pathway in the immune system and the anatomical and functional formation of organs such as the brain and hear