Criticality Assessment Method for Automated Driving Systems by Introducing Fictive Vehicles and Variable Criticality Thresholds.

The safety approval and assessment of automated driving systems (ADS) are becoming sophisticated and challenging tasks. Because the number of traffic scenarios is vast, it is essential to assess their criticality and extract the ones that present a safety risk. In this paper, we are proposing a novel method based on the time-to-react (TTR) measurement, which has advantages in considering avoidance possibilities.

Cervical disc prostheses need a variable center of rotation for flexion / extension below disc level, plus a separate COR for lateral bending above disc level to more closely replicate in-vivo motion: MRI-based biomechanical in-vivo study.

Background: Cervical disc prostheses are used to preserve motion after discectomy, but they should also provide a near-physiological qualitative motion pattern. Nevertheless, they come in many completely different biomechanical concepts. This caused us to perform an in-vivo MR-based biomechanical study to further investigate cervical spine motion with the aim to gain new information for improving the design of future cervical arthroplasty devices.

On the Dynamic Electro-Mechanical Failure Behavior of Automotive High-Voltage Busbars Using a Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar.

High-voltage busbars are important electrical components in today's electric vehicle battery systems. Mechanical deformations in the event of a vehicle crash could lead to electrical busbar failure and hazardous situations that pose a threat to people and surroundings. In order to ensure a safe application of busbars, this study investigated their mechanical behavior under high strain rate loading using a split Hopkinson pressure bar.

Correction to: In cervical arthroplasty, only prosthesis with flexible biomechanical properties should be used for achieving a near-physiological motion pattern.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Development and evaluation of potential accident scenarios involving pedestrians and AEB-equipped vehicles to demonstrate the efficiency of an enhanced open-source simulation framework.

This study introduces a method that allows the generation and safety evaluation of a scenario catalog derived from potential car-pedestrian conflict situations. It is based on open-source software components and uses the road layout standard OpenDRIVE to derive participants' motion profiles with the support of available accident data. The method was implemented upon the open-source framework openPASS and can simulate results for different active safety system setups and facilitates the prediction of system capabilities to decrease the relative impact velocities and collision configurations such as the point of impact.

In cervical arthroplasty, only prosthesis with flexible biomechanical properties should be used for achieving a near-physiological motion pattern.

Background: In cervical arthroplasty, qualitative motion analysis generally investigates the position of the center of rotation (COR) before and after surgery. But is the pre-op COR suitable as reference? We believe that only a comparison against healthy individuals can answer whether a physiological motion pattern has been achieved. The aim of our study was to examine how the COR for flexion/extension after insertion of 3 biomechanically completely different types of disc prostheses compares to healthy volunteers, and whether and how prosthesis design contributes to a more natural or maybe even worse motion pattern.

Influences of pre-crash braking induced dummy - forward displacements on dummy behaviour during EuroNCAP frontal crashtest.

Combination of active and passive safety systems is a future key to further improvement in vehicle safety. Autonomous braking systems are able to reduce collision speeds, and therefore severity levels significantly. Passengers change their position due to pre-impact vehicle motion, a fact, which has not yet been considered in common crash tests.

Required length of guardrails before hazards.

One way to protect against impacts during run-off-road accidents with infrastructure is the use of guardrails. However, real-world accidents indicate that vehicles can leave the road and end up behind the guardrail. These vehicles have no possibility of returning to the lane.

An integrated physical and genetic map of the nematode Pristionchus pacificus.

The free-living nematode Pristionchus pacificus is one of several species that have recently been developed as a satellite system for comparative functional studies in evolutionary developmental biology. Comparisons of developmental processes between P. pacificus and the well established model organism Caenorhabditis elegans at the cellular and genetic levels provide detailed insight into the molecular changes that shape evolutionary transitions.

A bacterial artificial chromosome-based genetic linkage map of the nematode Pristionchus pacificus.

To understand the evolution of developmental processes, nonmodel organisms in the nematodes, insects, and vertebrates are compared with established model systems. Often, these comparisons suffer from the inability to apply sophisticated technologies to these nonmodel species. In the nematode Pristionchus pacificus, cellular and genetic analyses are used to compare vulva development to that of Caenorhabditis elegans.