Toward a rational and ethical sociotechnical system of autonomous vehicles: A novel application of multi-criteria decision analysis.

The impacts of autonomous vehicles (AV) are widely anticipated to be socially, economically, and ethically significant. A reliable assessment of the harms and benefits of their large-scale deployment requires a multi-disciplinary approach. To that end, we employed Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis to make such an assessment. We obtained opinions from 19 disciplinary experts to assess the significance of 13 potential harms and eight potential benefits that might arise under four deployments schemes. Specifically, we considered: (1) the status quo, i.e., no AVs are deployed; (2) unfettered assimilation, i.e., no regulatory control would be exercised and commercial entities would "push" the development and deployment; (3) regulated introduction, i.e., regulatory control would be applied and either private individuals or commercial fleet operators could own the AVs; and (4) fleets only, i.e., regulatory control would be applied and only commercial fleet operators could own the AVs. Our results suggest that two of these scenarios, (3) and (4), namely regulated privately-owned introduction or fleet ownership or autonomous vehicles would be less likely to cause harm than either the status quo or the unfettered options.

A case of posttraumatic thigh defect reconstructed using tissue expansion by elastic tube.

Reconstruction of major defects of the thigh is generally achieved by means of pedicled or free musculocutaneous flaps, and for less extensive defects, local flaps or skin grafts are currently used. In this case report we present a posttraumatic thigh defect reconstructed using tissue expansion by elastic tube. The defect was closed relatively easily without further problems, and a good result was obtained. Tissue expansion by elastic tube is reliable, easy to perform, and inexpensive. Its versatility allows its use for the reconstruction of many defects at varying locations.