Boxing headguards offer a form of head protection to minimize the risk of head injuries for athletes. Existing literature, however, lacks information regarding the protective capabilities of boxing... Show More

Boxing headguards offer a form of head protection to minimize the risk of head injuries for athletes. Existing literature, however, lacks information regarding the protective capabilities of boxing headguards. This study examined the protective capacity of three boxing headguards in minimizing impact accelerations to the head that cause concussions using a dynamic head model. The researchers implemented thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) inserts in one of the headguards and conducted static tests to examine the material properties of the headguards. The researchers also conducted dynamic testing using a surrogate headform to compare the three boxing headguards in minimizing the risk of concussion for measures of linear and rotational accelerations across different head impact locations. The results of this study revealed that TPU significantly mitigated the magnitude of linear and rotational accelerations when compared to the other headguards. This study offers an avenue to improve athlete safety.

As automation in robotics and artificial intelligence is increasing, we will need to automate a growing amount of ethical decision making. However, ethical decision-making raises novel challenges... Show More

As automation in robotics and artificial intelligence is increasing, we will need to automate a growing amount of ethical decision making. However, ethical decision-making raises novel challenges for designers, engineers, ethicists, and policymakers, who will have to explore new ways to realize this task. For example, engineers building wearable robots should take into consideration privacy aspects and their different context-based scenarios when programming the decision-making procedures. This in turn requires ethical input in order to respect norms concerning privacy and informed consent. The presented work focuses on the development and formalization of models that aim at ensuring a correct ethical behavior of artificial intelligent agents, in a provable way, extending and implementing a logic-based proving calculus. This leads to a formal theoretical framework of moral competence that could be implemented in artificial intelligent systems in order to best formalize certain parameters of ethical decision-making to ensure safety and justified trust.