Making European Tort Law: The Game and its Players
In the last decades, building a common European tort law has become a primary goal for many European institutions and research groups. On the one hand, EU institutions frequently highlight the need of simplifying the current diversity in European tort law, and try to achieve this goal injecting the European legal framework with (so far quite incoherent) pieces of legislation. On the other hand, many research groups aim to enhance the Europanization process through means that are much differentiated one to the other. Some of these groups (like the European Group on Tort Law and the Study Group on a European Civil Code) adopt a top-down approach, and seek to draft a ‘soft’ European tort law. Others (e.g. the ‘Ius Commune Casebook for a Common Law of Europe’ project and the ‘Common Core of European Private Law’ project) follow a bottom-up path, committed as they are to develop a better knowledge on tort law across the European law-users. Despite the number and the qualities of such enterprises, there is no agreement on what should be done nor on who should do it. It is from this debate that the paper takes off, aiming to offer an overview of the endeavours currently under way, of the different techniques and methodologies they adopt, and of the possible outcomes that they are likely to produce in the short run as well as in the long run.
§ 6 General Remarks on the Non-Contractual Liability Regime Arising Out of Damage Caused to Another in the Draft Common Frame of Reference (PEL. Liab. Dam.)
The first academic initiatives aiming at comparing and harmonising European Private Law arose in the field of Contract Law. However, attention soon shifted to other areas of Private Law, such as non-contractual liability arising out of damage caused to another.
Color image based sorter for separating red and white wheat
A simple imaging system was developed to inspect and sort wheat samples and other grains at moderate feed-rates (30 kernels/s or 3.5 kg wheat/h). A single camera captured color images of three sides of each kernel by using mirrors, and the images were processed using a personal computer (PC). Real time image acquisition and processing was enabled on an ordinary PC under Windows XP operating system using the IEEE 1394 data transfer protocol, DirectX application software, and dual-core computer processor. Image acquisition and transfer to the PC required approximately 17 ms per kernel, and an additional 1.5 ms was required for image processing. After classification, the computer could output a signal from the parallel port to activate an air valve to divert (sort) kernels into a secondary container. Hard red and hard white wheat kernels were used in this study to test and demonstrate sorter capability. Simple image statistics and histograms were used as features. Discriminant analysis was performed with one, two, or three features to demonstrate classification improvements with increased numbers of features. The sorter was able to separate hard red kernels from hard white kernels with 95 to 99% accuracy, depending on the wheat varieties, feed-rate, and number of classification features. The system is an economical and useful instrument for sorting wheat and other grains with high accuracy.