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This paper embeds the early political economy of Friedrich August von Hayek in the intellectual milieu of German ordoliberalism. The urgency during the 1930s and 1940s to stabilize the disintegrating societal orders is identified as a crucial driver behind the parallelisms between Hayek and the ordoliberals. Their shared theoretical position is that in such moments, liberty can thrive sustainably only after a framework of general and stable rules has been established. Hayek’s proximity to ordoliberalism was most explicitly discernible in The Road to Serfdom and at the founding meeting of the Mont Pèlerin Society in 1947, culminating in the shared politico-economic vision of the competitive order. The contextual nature of Hayek’s ordoliberalism surfaced in the years after The Constitution of Liberty when his focus shifted, along with the postwar intellectual and institutional stabilization of the West: from how stable orders enable liberty, to how liberty enables the evolution of orders.
Model predictive control (MPC) is a promising approach to the lateral and longitudinal control of autonomous vehicles. However, the parameterization of the MPC with respect to high-level requirements such as passenger comfort, as well as lateral and longitudinal tracking, is challenging. Numerous tuning parameters and conflicting requirements need to be considered. In this paper, we formulate the MPC tuning task as a multi-objective optimization problem. Its solution is demanding for two reasons: First, MPC-parameterizations are evaluated in a computationally expensive simulation environment. As a result, the optimization algorithm needs to be as sample-efficient as possible. Second, for some poor parameterizations, the simulation cannot be completed; therefore, useful objective function values are not available (for instance, learning with crash constraints). In this work, we compare the sample efficiency of multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO), a genetic algorithm (NSGA-II), and multiple versions of Bayesian optimization (BO). We extend BO by introducing an adaptive batch size to limit the computational overhead. In addition, we devise a method to deal with crash constraints. The results show that BO works best for a small budget, NSGA-II is best for medium budgets, and none of the evaluated optimizers are superior to random search for large budgets. Both proposed BO extensions are, therefore, shown to be beneficial.
Context: VR as an application to enhance well-being is sparsely researched in the elderly population. The aim of the pilot study was to analyze the effect of 360° videos of different categories on the state of mind of seniors in nursing facilities. Furthermore, for the implementation in everyday life, the usability of the system and the experience for seniors should be evaluated.
Methods: The VR experience was used as a supplement to existing care services in three facilities on eight subjects. Mood state was assessed using the Questionnaire for the Assessment of Happiness before and after the intervention. Demographic data and technology acceptance were collected beforehand. After the intervention, subjects were interviewed about confounding factors and side effects, and nursing home staff were interviewed about the usability of the system and the organizational concept of implementation.
Results: There was a positive effect on state of mind. Gender and spatial mobility turned out to be influencing factors. Categories containing people, animals and action achieved the highest increases in the state of mind. Interest in using technical devices correlated negatively with the change in mood state. None of the subjects found the VR goggles distracting or reported motion sickness. Very good usability was indicated by the employees.
Conclusion: A very high willingness to use this technology was found among nursing staff and residents. The tendencies of the positive effect of 360° videos on the state of mind, as well as differentiation based on the mentioned characteristics gender and spatial mobility, should be verified by a larger sample to empirically validate the use of this technology to increase the quality of life.
Vitalpolitik
(2022)
Abstract: This chapter reconstructs the notion of ‘vital policy’ (Vitalpolitik), an approach to the social question whose first and strongest proponent amongst the Ordoliberals was Alexander Rüstow. It is opposed to traditional social policy as a top-down provision of material benefits (welfare). Instead, it aims at enabling those ‘conditions of life’ (Lebenslagen) that provide the prerequisites for human beings and their community to flourish. This humanistic approach attempts to complement the competitive processes in a market society and to provide access and equal opportunity to these processes, focusing on the notion of fair starting conditions for individuals. In its general thrust, Vitalpolitik is well compatible with more recent research programmes, especially the capability approach of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum.
The objective of the study is to improve the functionality of the Virtual Reality Laboratory (VR Labs) of the Faculty of Automotive Engineering and enhance its applicability in Road Traffic Engineering education and training at the University of Applied Sciences Zwickau (WHZ). In this study, a comprehensive description of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) as well as their wide application in education has been given.
An insight into the VR Labs of the Faculty of Automotive Engineering at WHZ is provided. The study built and proposed eight use cases of VR Labs in road traffic engineering training and education at WHZ. The limitations and barriers in deploying application cases are analyzed and suitable solutions are given. The adoption of virtual reality can be an easy transition based on BIM modeling software development, and 3D and 360 degrees scanning.
An extension of the VR Labs application for other areas of education at WHZ has been identified. In addition, technologies, areas of application, and future research directions are mentioned. Innovations such as 3D modeling and BIM-based workflows that are being encouraged through the development of content-created engines will provide students with opportunities for using VR/AR on road traffic and infrastructure projects in the future.
Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) as a means of public transportation is set to revolutionize the mobility behavior of elderly people in the coming future. Though the vehicle manufacturers and corporates emphasize on potential benefits of AVs to elderly citizens, very little has been researched and studied about this large cohort (age 65+) in society. This study aims to measure the experience of the elderlies in this Highly Automat Shuttle (HAS) in Berlin and find out the potential pros and cons affecting the design, trust and security, and perception to adopt this technology in the future. Among the elderly respondents surveyed, 93% found the HAS convenient, with minor design issues addressed. Respondents (90%) were willing to use it for their first and last-mile journey and considered that the HAS would help improve the social participation of elderlies with mobility restrictions. However, elderlies still have trust issues integrating a fully driverless vehicle in the domain of public transportation. The significant findings on the difference in the experience of HAS between the elderlies, adults, and younger adults could be adopted to develop the design further, making it more comfortable and trustworthy towards the elderly population.
With the help of the Laser-Speckle phenomenon different in-vivo diagnostic applications can be performed at the surfaces of different tissues such as the skin, the retinal skin and the cerebral cortex. In this study the Laser light scattering phenomenon is used to measure blood flow and hemoglobin concentration change. There are a lot of different approaches to perform these investigations for example with single-mode or multi-mode fibers. A comparison between the two illumination systems is presented together with an experimental setup. The results show that both of the approaches are feasible under specific conditions. Both fiber illumination systems have their advantages and limitations in fulfilling different tasks. The two approaches are tested and evaluated to propose specific applications for every illumination system. With these results future uses of the proposed methods are encouraged.
With the introduction of more and more stringent exhaust emission limitations for diesel engines by the legislation, engine and vehicle manufactures looking for solutions to meet this legislation limits with minimal hardware changes. In the present study experiments were performed to find possible solutions to meet TIER-4a emission limits without using a Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF). Two similar medium duty diesel engines were chosen to demonstrate this only by changing the fuel injection hardware and calibration. The study was divided into an investigation of the benefit of higher injection pressures while the second part concentrated on the investigation of multiple injection effects. It was found that with the use of high injection pressures from 1800 bar upwards together with high exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) rates the targets can be fulfilled with a single injection. This test was performed at the rated speed 100% load point. The multiple injection experiments demonstrated that the use of an early large pilot injection together with an close post injection can reduce the NOx and smoke emissions efficiently. It was found that with this injection strategy the TIER-4a emission targets can be achieved with a railpressure of only 1300 bar and lower EGR rate of 15% at a mid speed 75% load point (mode-6). The set of experiments also included a investigation into another efficient possibility to achieve TIER-4a emission standards with the use of a DPF but without the use of an EGR system. It was found that with the use of an early pilot injection and a retarded main injection timing it is possible to reduce the NOx formation to achieve the 3 g/kWh NOx limit.
Vehicular emission is often the main source of air pollution. The chief pollutants react with air and secondary pollutants resulting in adverse effects to the environment. European commission has legislated laws in order to reduce the air pollution from vehicular emissions.
Traffic modelling has been used for many decades and particularly in the last decade, flow of traffic based on vehicle type has been used to estimate emission of polluting gases and particles. Passenger car and Heavy duty Emission Model (PHEM) is used along with microscopic traffic flow simulation software VISSIM (In German: Verkehr In Städten – SIMulationsmodell meaning "Traffic in cities - simulation model") for estimation of major two major pollutants of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides) and particulate matter emitted from passenger cars and heavy-duty vehicles, based on their technical performance characteristics in a traffic flow at a typical German motorway segment. With a country’s fixed fleet composition for a particular year, PHEM gives fuel consumption and emission as outputs using fuel types used (diesel or petrol) and based on the trajectories of the vehicles.
This study is planned to exploit the developments and investigate the validation of this software with HBEFA. Different 25 scenarios are created for a German motorway segment with varying traffic behaviours; and the emission results between two emission modelling software tools are compared.