A framework for definition of logical scenarios for safety assurance of automated driving

Abstract

Objective: In order to introduce automated vehicles on public roads, it is necessary to ensure that these vehicles are safe to operate in traffic. One challenge is to prove that all physically possible variations of situations can be handled safely within the operational design domain of the vehicle. A promising approach to handling the set of possible situations is to identify a manageable number of logical scenarios, which provide an abstraction for object properties and behavior within the situations. These can then be transferred into concrete scenarios defining all parameters necessary to reproduce the situation in different test environments.

Methods: This article proposes a framework for defining safety-relevant scenarios based on the potential collision between the subject vehicle and a challenging object, which forces the subject vehicle to depart from its planned course of action to avoid a collision. This allows defining only safety-relevant scenarios, which can directly be related to accident classification. The first criterion for defining a scenario is the area of the subject vehicle with which the object would collide. As a second criterion, 8 different positions around the subject vehicle are considered. To account for other relevant objects in the scenario, factors that influence the challenge for the subject vehicle can be added to the scenario. These are grouped as action constraints, dynamic occlusions, and causal chains.

Results: By applying the proposed systematics, a catalog of base scenarios for a vehicle traveling on controlled-access highways has been generated, which can directly be linked to parameters in accident classification. The catalog serves as a basis for scenario classification within the PEGASUS project.

Conclusions: Defining a limited number of safety-relevant scenarios helps to realize a systematic safety assurance process for automated vehicles. Scenarios are defined based on the point of the potential collision of a challenging object with the subject vehicle and its initial position. This approach allows defining scenarios for different environments and different driving states of the subject vehicle using the same mechanisms. A next step is the generation of logical scenarios for other driving states of the subject vehicle and for other traffic environments.     

Numerical simulation of landfill aeration using computational fluid dynamics

The present study is an application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to the numerical simulation of landfill aeration systems. Specifically, the CFD algorithms provided by the commercial solver ANSYS Fluent 14.0, combined with an in-house source code developed to modify the main solver, were used. The unsaturated multiphase flow of air and liquid phases and the biochemical processes for aerobic biodegradation of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste were simulated taking into consideration their temporal and spatial evolution, as well as complex effects, such as oxygen mass transfer across phases, unsaturated flow effects (capillary suction and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity), temperature variations due to biochemical processes and environmental correction factors for the applied kinetics (Monod and 1st order kinetics). The developed model results were compared with literature experimental data. Also, pilot scale simulations and sensitivity analysis were implemented. Moreover, simulation results of a hypothetical single aeration well were shown, while its zone of influence was estimated using both the pressure and oxygen distribution. Finally, a case study was simulated for a hypothetical landfill aeration system. Both a static (steadily positive or negative relative pressure with time) and a hybrid (following a square wave pattern of positive and negative values of relative pressure with time) scenarios for the aeration wells were examined. The results showed that the present model is capable of simulating landfill aeration and the obtained results were in good agreement with corresponding previous experimental and numerical investigations.     

Induction of glutathione reductase enzyme activity by β‐aminobutyric acid in plant leaves

Abstract

Treatment of pea and tobacco leaf discs with the resistance inducer DL‐β‐amino‐n‐butyric acid (BABA) led to a substantial induction of glutathione reductase (GR, E.C. 1.6.4.2.) enzyme activity. After exposure to 1 mM BABA for 96 hrs, the GR activities were 3.2‐fold and 2.9‐fold higher in pea and tobacco leaf discs, respectively, than GR activities in untreated controls. Elevated GR levels may contribute to the antioxidative protection of plants during pathogen attack.     

Assessment of Several Test Methods for the Determination of the Anaerobic Biodegradability of Polymers

Anaerobic degradation of eight commercially available biodegradable polymers was compared in two anaerobic tests using digestion sludge, according to ISO 11734 and ASTM D.5210-91. Cotton, polyhydroxybutyrate/hydroxyvalerate copolymer (PHB/PHV), starch blend, thermoplastic cellulose acetate, and cellulose acetate fibers proved to be anaerobically degradable, but only a low extent of degradation was found for polylactide, polyvinylalcohol, and polycaprolactone. Both test methods gave the same overall results, but with the ISO medium, longer lag phases and greater ranges of variation in the results were observed. These effects are presumably due to low concentrations of carbon dioxide in the ISO medium. Carbon dioxide has been demonstrated to be essential for the growth of various anaerobic bacteria, notably homoacetogenic and methanogenic bacteria.     

Modeling instability development in layered systems

This study investigates patterns of finger development and propagation in layered porous media. Fingers are created with interfacial perturbations, formed by adding a thin zone of regularly varying hydraulic conductivity along the layer. Simulation results agree qualitatively with those observed in two-dimensional laboratory experiments. In all cases, the formation of instabilities requires seeding of perturbations, even if the system is unstably stratified. A series of simulations show how the shapes of the instabilities differ according to where along the unstable interface the instabilities form and the layer in which they develop. Pathline analyses indicate how the patterns of flow in the domain can be exceedingly complex. Concentration distributions are influenced by movements of water between layers and the formation of a large convection cell in the lowermost layer. These numerical investigations reinforce inferences from the experimental studies that classical stability theory is less useful in determining whether instabilities will form and what their shape will be. Even with the relatively simple layering, patterns of flow and resulting concentrations are complex.     

Incorporation of Spatial and Economic Analyses of Human‐Use Data in the Design of Marine Protected Areas

Abstract: Social, economic, and ecological criteria contribute to the successful design, implementation, and management of marine protected areas (MPAs). In the context of California's Marine Life Protection Act Initiative, we developed a set of methods for collecting, compiling, and analyzing data about the spatial extent and relative economic importance of commercial and recreational fishing. We interviewed 174 commercial fishers who represented the major fisheries in the initiative's north‐central coast region, which extends from Point Arena south to Pigeon Point. These fishers provided data that we used to map the extent of each of the fishing grounds, to weight the relative importance of areas within the grounds, to characterize the operating costs of each fishery, and to analyze the potential economic losses associated with proposed marine protected areas. A regional stakeholder group used the maps and impact analyses in conjunction with other data sets to iteratively identify economic and ecological trade‐offs in designations of different areas as MPAs at regional, port, and fishery extents. Their final proposed MPA network designated 20% of state waters as MPAs. Potential net economic loss ranged from 1.7% to 14.2% in the first round of network design and totaled 6.3% in the final round of design. This process is a case study in the application of spatial analysis to validate and integrate local stakeholder knowledge in marine planning.     

Identifying Reefs of Hope and Hopeful Actions: Contextualizing Environmental, Ecological, and Social Parameters to Respond Effectively to Climate Change

Abstract:  Priorities for conservation, management, and associated activities will differ based on the interplay between nearness of ecosystems to full recovery from a disturbance (pristineness), susceptibility to climate change (environmental susceptibility [ES]), and capacity of human communities to cope with and adapt to change (social adaptive capacity [AC]). We studied 24 human communities and adjacent coral reef ecosystems in 5 countries of the southwestern Indian Ocean. We used ecological measures of abundance and diversity of fishes and corals, estimated reef pristineness, and conducted socioeconomic household surveys to determine the AC of communities adjacent to selected coral reefs. We also used Web-based oceanographic and coral mortality data to predict each site's ES to climate warming. Coral reefs of Mauritius and eastern Madagascar had low ES and consequently were not predicted to be affected strongly by warm water, although these sites were differentiated by the AC of the human community. The higher AC in Mauritius may increase the chances for successful self-initiated recovery and protective management of reefs of this island. In contrast, Madagascar may require donor support to build AC as a prerequisite to preservation efforts. The Seychelles and Kenya had high ES, but their levels of AC and disturbance differed. The high AC in the Seychelles could be used to develop alternatives to dependence on coral reef resources and reduce the effects of climate change. Pristineness weighted toward measures of fish recovery was greatest for Kenya's marine protected areas; however, most protected areas in the region were far from pristine. Conservation priorities and actions with realistic chances for success require knowledge of where socioecological systems lie among the 3 axes of environment, ecology, and society.     

The social side of spatial decision support systems: Investigating knowledge integration and learning

Spatial decision support systems (SDSS) represent a step forward in efforts to account for the spatial dimension in environmental decision-making. The aim of SDSS is to help policymakers and practitioners access, interpret and understand information from data, analyses and models, and guide them in identifying possible actions during a decision-making process. Researchers, however, report difficulties in up-take of SDSS by the intended users. Some suggest that this field would benefit from investigation of the social aspects involved in SDSS design, development, testing and use. Borrowing insights from the literature on science-policy interactions, we explore two key social processes: knowledge integration and learning. Using a sample of 36 scientific papers concerning SDSS in relation to environmental issues, we surveyed whether and how the selected papers reported on knowledge integration and learning. We found that while many of the papers mentioned communication and collaboration with prospective user groups or stakeholders, this was seldom underpinned by a coherent methodology for enabling knowledge integration and learning to surface. This appears to have hindered SDSS development and later adoption by intended users.