Hochautomatisiertes und autonomes Autofahren – Risiko und rechtliche Verantwortung

Gegenstand der folgenden Abhandlung ist die Frage, ob das hochautomatisierte Autofahren bzw. das autonome Autofahren Anlass gibt, traditionelle Instrumente der Verantwortungszuweisung für Schäden aus Verkehrsunfällen zu ändern oder zu ergänzen, um die Haftungsfrage im Straßenverkehr adäquat zu regeln. Noch sind viele rechtstatsächliche Rahmenbedingungen offen, etwa ob in den kommenden Jahren Autos auf öffentlichen Straßen tatsächlich vollständig ohne Fahrer auskommen werden ob die künftige Autotechnik weitgehend auf »machine learning« basieren wird oder auf klassischer Programmierung. Klar ist bereits, dass Autounfälle durch die Automatisierung des Verkehrs erheblich verringert, aber nicht ganz ausgeschlossen werden können. Wer künftig für einen Unfall als verantwortlich angesehen wird, dürfte unter anderem von Technik und Vermarktung abhängen, und lässt sich ohne Kenntnis der künftigen technischen und wirtschaftlichen Eckpunkte nicht endgültig vorhersagen. Gleichwohl müssen Abwägungen zur rechtlichen Verantwortung bereits im Grundsatz geklärt sein, bevor autonome Autos auf öffentlichen Straßen fahren, damit für alle fassbar ist, wer unter welchen Voraussetzungen in der Verantwortung steht

Data Portability - A Tale of Two Concepts

Art. 20 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) introduces a new concept to European data protection law – the right to data portability. The rule seeks to empower the consumer, to foster the inter-operability of data, and to prevent lock-in effects on closed platforms. Upon request, data controllers are required to provide personal data to the data subject in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, which enables the data subject to transfer their personal data between controllers. However, Art. 20 GDPR leaves much room for interpretation, in particular with respect to the data covered, the scope of the exceptions and the requirement of inter-operability. The proposed Directive on certain aspects concerning contracts for the supply of digital content (DCD-proposal) takes matters a step further. Under the DCD-proposal, the supplier of digital content shall provide the consumer with technical means to retrieve all content provided by the consumer (not only personal data) and any other data produced or generated through the consumer’s use of the digital content. At the same time, the proposed provisions are stricter than Art. 20 GDPR: The data portability right under Art. 20 GDPR may be exercised at any point in time, whereas the right to content portability under the DCD-proposal only arises after the contract has been terminated following a rule in said directive. The paper highlights other circumstances which warrant a right to content portability and laments the lack of an exception to safeguard the rights and interest of third parties. Three case studies are included to illustrate how the portability rules in the GDPR and the proposed Digital Content Directive might work in practice. The paper closes with a synopsis showing the commonalities and differences of Art. 20 GDPR and the portability rules in the proposed Digital Content Directive

Reliability of pedotransfer functions and field-saturated hydraulic conductivity prediction for agricultural soils in Zambia, Africa

Farming in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to be faced with more frequent droughts and storms. Most farming systems lack the infrastructure to cope with such extreme events, and rely on soil water retention and soil hydraulic conductivity to store water while allowing stormwater to infiltrate. However, research on improving soil hydraulic properties in this region has been limited due to scarce funding and resources. Pedotransfer functions (PTFs), which use easily measurable and more often readily available parameters to predict hydraulic characteristics, offer potential solutions, but only limited numbers of PTF have been developed or tested for Sub-Saharan Africa specifically. This study aims to evaluate soil hydraulic properties of agricultural soils using PTFs in Zambia (southern Africa). Twelve existing PTFs were tested on their accuracy to predict field-saturated hydraulic conductivity (Kfs) and water retention. Therefore, 32 fields in 3 districts and 2 farming systems (small-scale and commercial farms) were sampled for soil texture, organic matter, bulk density, water retention and Kfs in top and subsoil. The results revealed higher and more spatially varying infiltration rates on commercial farms (about twice the rate), while showing signigficantly higher clay content (mean= 40%). A reason might be the formation of cracks and different soil management practices like tillage, impacting soil structure and determining Kfs. Further robust driving factors were difficult to determine. PTFs predicting Kfs were scarce and the ones existing failed to adequately predict Kfs. Obtained agreements of PTF estimated and field measured field capacity (-10kPa) ranged between -0.21 0.15 vol% were performing poorly possibly due to lab analysis errors at high pressures. My results highlight the need to go beyond basic soil parameters for determining hydraulic soil properties, and a need to further build soil data from field sampling to improve PTFs applicability for agricultural soils in Zambia

Surface characterization and in vivo evaluation of laser sintered and machined implants followed by resorbable-blasting media process: a study in sheep

Background: This study aimed to compare the histomorphometric and histological bone response to laser-sintered implants followed by resorbable-blasting media (RBM) process relative to standard machined/RBM surface treated implants. Material and Methods: Six male sheep (n=6) received 2 Ti-6Al-4V implants (1 per surface) in each side of the mandible for 6 weeks in vivo. The histomorphometric parameters bone-implant contact (BIC) and bone area fraction occupancy (BAFO) were evaluated. Results: Optical interferometry revealed higher Sa and Sq values for the laser-sintered/RBM surface in relation to standard/RBM implants. No significant differences in BIC were observed between the two groups (p>0.2), but significantly higher BAFO was observed for standard/RBM implants (p<0.01). Conclusions: The present study demonstrated that both surfaces were biocompatible and osseoconductive, and the combination of laser sintering and RBM has no advantage over the standard machined implants with subsequent RBM

Wadiah Yad Dhamanah: an implementation analysis in Muamalat Bank Berhad / Muhammad Fauzan Janal

This research aims to analyze the implementation of savings products using Wadiah Yad Dhamanah contract. This study was conducted to study its implementation in Bank Muamalat Berhad. This is because the implementation of Wadiah Yad Dhamanah has become more limited and has been eradicated. In addition, the problem with the Wadiah Yad Dhamanah contract is that the customer is still unclear about the detailed implementation and still cannot distinguish the Wadiah Yad Dhamanah and conventional savings. The purpose of this first research is to identify Wadiah Yad Dhamanah from an Islamic perspective. The second is to analyze the implementation of Saving-i products at Bank Muamalat Berhad. In addition, data collection is a qualitative method of document analysis and semi-structured interviews. The present findings show that Wadiah Yad Dhamanah is a product that is in accordance with shariah guidelines. There is no element of interest, uncertainty and gambling in this contract as it would be similar to a conventional deposit

Medical and Psychological Risk Factors for Incident Hypertension in Type 1 Diabetic African-Americans

Objective. To determine risk factors for the development of hypertension among African-Americans living with type 1 diabetes. Methods. African-Americans with type 1 diabetes (n = 483) participated in a 6-year followup. At both baseline and followup blood pressure was measured twice in both sitting and standing positions using a standard protocol. Patients had a structured clinical interview, ocular examination, retinal photographs, and blood and urine assays and completed the Hostility and Direction of Hostility Questionnaire (HDHQ) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Results. Of the 280 diabetic patients with no hypertension at baseline, 82 (29.3%) subsequently developed hypertension over the 6-year followup. Baseline older age, longer duration of diabetes, family history of hypertension, greater mean arterial blood pressure, overt proteinuria, increasing retinopathy severity, peripheral neuropathy, smoking, and higher hostility scores were significantly associated with the development of hypertension. Multivariate analyses showed that higher hostility scores and overt proteinuria were significantly and independently associated with the development of hypertension in this population. Conclusions. The development of hypertension in African-Americans living with type 1 diabetes appears to be multifactorial and includes both medical (overt proteinuria) as well as psychological (high hostility) risk factors

Analysis of antioxidant in aqueous extracted of selected ulam using ferric reducing antioxidant power (frap) assay / Mohamad Azman Janal Abidin

Ulam refer as a fresh green salad by Malaysians and usually eaten with a bowl of rice as a side dishes. The salads are very good against some diseases and had positive effects that lies in some chemical substances inside the plants such as flavonoids and phenolic compounds that contributes to its antioxidants properties. The present study was to analyse the concentration of antioxidant in different types of selected ulam that was available at the Malaysia market using Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP) assay. The ulam samples were analysed by using Uv Vis spectrophotometer at wavelength 593 nm. A sample of ulam known as Anarcardium occidentade (Jambu Gajus) showed the highest antioxidant activity and the lowest was Morinda citrifolia (Mengkudu Besar). The study also was conducted to compare the amount of antioxidant content between the shoots and the leaves of the selected ulam. Based on the five samples studied, it founds that three of the samples have higher antioxidant activity at their shoots compared to the leaves. Another two have higher antioxidant activity at their leaves compared tom the shoots

Differential pain response at local and remote muscle sites following aerobic cycling exercise at mild and moderate intensity

Physical exercise has been shown to inhibit experimental pain response in the post-exercise period. Modulation of the pain system may be differentiated between muscle sites engaging in contractile activity. The purpose of this study was to assess the pain response at remote and local muscle sites following aerobic exercise at different work intensities. Participants included 10 healthy and physically active males (mean age ± SD, 21.2 ± 3.4). Somatic pressure pain threshold (PPT) at the rectus femoris (local) and brachioradialis (remote) muscle site was measured at before (Pre), 5 min after (Post1), and 15 min after (Post2) aerobic cycling exercise at 70 and 30 % of peak oxygen uptake (VO(2peak)) performed on different occasions in a counterbalanced order, separated by minimum of 3 days interval. Repeated measures ANOVA for PPT reveals significant main effect for time (f = 3.581, p = 0.049, observed power = 0.588) and muscle site (f = 17.931, p = 0.002, observed power = 0.963). There was a significant interaction shown for exercise intensity by time (f = 11.390, p = 0.012, observed power = 0.790). PPT at rectus femoris following cycling exercise at 70 % of VO(2peak) reveals a significant increase between Pre-Post1 (p = 0.040). PPT for rectus femoris following cycling exercise at 30 % of VO(2peak) revealed a significant decrease between Pre-Post1 (p = 0.026) and Pre-Post2 (p = 0.008). The PPT for brachioradialis following cycling exercise at 30 % of VO(2peak) revealed a significant decrease between Pre-Post1 (p = 0.011) and Pre-Post2 (p = 0.005). These results show that aerobic exercise increases PPT locally at the exercise muscle site following exercise at 70 % of VO(2peak) but reduces PPT following exercise at 30 % of VO(2peak)