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Strings
(2020)
This article presents the currently ongoing development of an audiovisual performance work with the title Strings. This work provides an improvisation setting for a violinist, two laptop performers, and two generative systems. At the core of Strings lies an approach that establishes a strong correlation among all participants by means of a shared physical principle. The physical principle is that of a vibrating string. The article discusses how this principle is used in both natural and simulated forms as main interaction layer between all performers and as natural or generative principle for creating audio and video.
Monitoring of the molecular structure of lubricant oil using a FT-Raman spectrometer prototype
(2014)
The determination of the physical state of the lubricant materials in complex mechanical systems is highly critical from different points of view: operative, economical, environmental, etc. Furthermore, there are several parameters that a lubricant oil must meet for a proper performance inside a machine. The monitoring of these lubricants can represent a serious issue depending on the analytical approach applied. The molecular change of aging lubricant oils have been analyzed using an all-standard-components and self-designed FT-Raman spectrometer. This analytical tool allows the direct and clean study of the vibrational changes in the molecular structure of the oils without having direct contact with the samples and without extracting the sample from the machine in operation. The FT-Raman spectrometer prototype used in the analysis of the oil samples consist of a Michelson interferometer and a self-designed photon counter cooled down on a Peltier element arrangement. The light coupling has been accomplished by using a conventional 62.5/125μm multi-mode fiber coupler. The FT-Raman arrangement has been able to extract high resolution and frequency precise Raman spectra, comparable to those obtained with commercial FT-Raman systems, from the lubricant oil samples analyzed. The spectral information has helped to determine certain molecular changes in the initial phases of wearing of the oil samples. The proposed instrument prototype has no additional complex hardware components or costly software modules. The mechanical and thermal irregularities influencing the FT-Raman spectrometer have been removed mathematically by accurately evaluating the optical path difference of the Michelson interferometer. This has been achieved by producing an additional interference pattern signal with a λ= 632.8 nm helium-neon laser, which differs from the conventional zero-crossing sampling (also known as Connes advantage) commonly used by FT-devices. It enables the FT-Raman system to perform reliable and clean spectral measurements from the analyzed oil samples.
This paper describes the new Sweaty humanoid adult size robot trying to qualify for the RoboCup 2014 adult size humanoid competition. The robot is built from scratch to eventually allow it to run. One characteristic is that to prevent the motors from overheating, water evaporation is used for cooling. The robot is literally sweating which has given it its name. Another characteristic is, that the motors are not directly connected to the frame but by means of beams. This allows a variable transmission ratio depending on the angle.
The bandwidth behavior of graded-index multimode fibers (GI-MMFs) for different launching conditions is investigated to understand and characterize the effect of differential mode delay. In order to reduce the launch-power distribution the near field of a single-mode fiber is used to produce a controlled restricted launch. The baseband response is measured by observing the broadening of a narrow input pulse (time-domain measurement). The paper verifies the degradation in bandwidth due to profile distortion by scanning the spot of the single-mode fiber with a transversal offset from the center of the test sample. In addition, the impact of the launch-power distribution tuned by different spot-size diameters is demonstrated. Measurements were taken on ‘older’ 50-μm and 62.5-μm GI-MMFs as well as on laser-performance-optimized fibers more recently developed.
Logging information is more precious as it contains the execution of a system; it is produced by millions of events from simple application logins to random system errors. Most of the security related problems in the cloud ecosystem like intruder attacks, data loss, and denial of service, etc. could be avoided if Cloud Service Provider (CSP) or Cloud User (CU) analyses the logging information. In this paper we introduced few challenges, which are place of monitoring, security, and ownership of the logging information between CSP and CU.
Also we proposed a logging architecture to analyze the behaviour of the cloud ecosystem, to avoid data breaches and other security related issues at the CSP space. So that we believe our proposed architecture can provide maximum trust between CU and CSP.
In short-reach connections, large-diameter multimode fibres allow for robust and easy connections. Unfortunately, their propagation properties depend on the excitation conditions. We propose a launching technique using a fibre stub that can tolerate fabrication tolerances in terms of tilts and off-sets to a large extent. A study of the influence of displaced connectors along the transmission link shows that the power distributions approach a steady-state power distribution very similar to the initial distribution established by the proposed launching scheme.
Mobile learning (m-learning) can be considered as a new paradigm of e-learning. The developed solution enables the presentation of animations and 3D virtual reality (VR) on mobile devices and is well suited for mobile learning. Difficult relations in physics as well as intricate experiments in optics can be visualised on mobile devices without need for a personal computer. By outsourcing the computational power to a server, the coverage is worldwide.
In the work at hand, we state that privacy and malleability of data are two aspects highly desired but not easy to associate. On the one hand, we are trying to shape data to make them usable and editable in an intelligible way, namely without losing their initial information. On the other hand, we are looking for effective privacy on data such that no external or non-authorized party could learn about their content. In such a way, we get overlapping requirements by pursuing different goals; it is trivial to be malleable without being secure, and vice versa. We propose four “real-world” use cases identified as scenarios where these two contradictory features are required and taking place in distinct environments. These considered backgrounds consist of firstly, cloud security auditing, then privacy of mobile network users and industry 4.0 and finally, privacy of COVID-19 tracing app users. After presenting useful background material, we propose to employ multiple approaches to design solutions to solve the use cases. We combine homomorphic encryption with searchable encryption and private information retrieval protocol to build an effective construction for the could auditing use case. As a second step, we develop an algorithm to generate the appropriate parameters to use the somewhat homomorphic encryption scheme by considering correctness, performance and security of the respective application. Finally, we propose an alternative use of Bloom filter data structure by adding an HMAC function to allow an outsourced third party to perform set relations in a private manner. By analyzing the overlapping bits occurring on Bloom filters while testing the inclusiveness or disjointness of the sets, we show how these functions maintain privacy and allow operations directly computed on the data structure. Then, we show how these constructions could be applied to the four selected use cases. Our obtained solutions have been implemented and we provide promising results that validate their efficiency and thus relevancy.
Differences in Unemployment due to Sexual Orientation: Evidence from the Swedish Labour Market
(2021)
The right to engage in work and choose an occupation to freely work at, is declared a fundamental human right in the EU. Behaviour that restrains somebody from doing so, due to sexual orientation discrimination for example, is prohibited. Inquiries on the dimension of this particular behaviour, as well as the magnitude of harm it causes in the population, is of vital importance for policy makers and the entire civil society. A growing number of research pertaining to labour market outcomes due to sexual orientation has been conducted rececently. Most of the studies have been carried out in western countries, where annual income, hourly wages, labour market participation and employment decisions have been in the focus of researchers. Ahmet, Andersson and Hammarstedt have been the pioneering scientists in this field in Sweden and contributed by extending their inquiries from the individual to the couple level (Ahmed, et al., 2011a) and to field experiments (Ahmed, et al., 2011b) in detecting discrimination against homosexuals. The present paper aims to contribute to the labour market discrimination literature by estimating the differences in the employment probabilities and in the duration of unemployment by sexual orientation in Sweden using survival analysis techniques. Time-to-event data is rare in social sciences, which is particularly valid for data sets where the sexual orientation of individuals is observable. Due to this scarcity, the present study represents the first paper investigating the effect of sexual preferences on the duration in unemploymnet using survival analysis techniques. In contrast to other estimation methods, survival techniques enable us to incorporate the particular nature of time-to-event data, such as its particular skewness, strict non- negative nature, as well as censoring and truncation. Separately Zero Inflated Negative Binomial regression has been conducted to the duration in unemployment and Probit estimation to the event of getting employed, where differing significant outcomes by sexual orientation have been detected for some specifications. The remainder of the article is organized as follows. A detailed literature review is provided in section 2. Section 3 comprises the theoretical framework of the investigation, while section 4 contains the methodical framework and research design. Data and descriptive statistics are presented in section 5, followed by the results of the estimation in section 6. Section 7 concludes with the final discussion.
During the year 2015 almost 1.4 million refugees arrived in Europe (eurostat, 2020). Germany was with 1.1 million individuals the major destination (Statista, 2018). A huge political divide occurred over this influx. While welcoming scenes dominated the media in the advent of the so called ‘refugee crisis’, criticism over the ‘We’ll-make-it policy’ by Angela Merkel increased also among Christian Democrats.1A sudden human influx of such size into a society might not only have political, cultural and social impacts, but may also lead to economic disruptions. Human beings embody consumers as well as labour force. A significant increase in population might thus cause an increase in demand for commodities and in labour supply, which ceteris paribus simultaneously lead to increasing GDP and decreasing wages. Previous literature utilized quasi-natural experiments which can be exploited in social sciences for the detection of causal relations and the usage of methods, not applicable otherwise. The present paper applies the synthetic control methodology to wages, unemployment and economic growth in Germany in order to measure the causal impact of the 2015- refugee influx on these economic key elements. No impact on either of the economic factors has been found.
European Union labour market and welfare policies are concerned with the protection of European citizens from disruptive processes. Falling wages and increasing unemployment, as well as decreasing production and consumption embody highly disruptive political potential. Thus, the findings concerning the impact of refugee migration into the European Union might influence EU-policies in the prospect of increased migration to Europe in the upcoming century due climate change and new crises. The remainder of the article is organized as follows: The lessons from the key literature concerning quasi- natural experiments and the impact of migration on wages, unemployment and economic growth are provided in section 2. Section 3 comprises the theoretical framework concerning the differences between refugees and economic migrants. Section 4 introduces the estimation strategy, while section 5 presents data and descriptive statistics. Section 6 shows the simulation results, followed by the concluding discussion in section 7.
Automobile premium brands operate globally, which is undoubtedly required, because, for the most part, domestic markets are either decreasing or stagnating. China has become today the most important and biggest car market. Recently selling has become challenging because urban areas are well penetrated, and in poorly penetrated rural areas, incomes are low. This is particularly alarming for German brands, because of their premium orientation. Simultaneously, the after-sales market in China has been growing continuously. As a result, this market has a huge potential, which is likewise attractive because it has been scientifically proven across industries that after-sales services are high-margin profit drivers. Despite its great significance, the Chinese automobile after-sales market remains insufficiently researched, especially in terms of critical success factors and cultural influences, which therefore was the starting point for a study. The results will presented and interpreted now in this new working-paper.
Should social robots become part of our society?
Embedded in an exciting crime story, the science comic by Oliver Korn and Jonas Grund conveys the current state and outlook of science on social robots.
The story takes place in the near future: In an international project, scientists are researching the requirements for social robots for the health sector. Shortly before the prototype of a nursing robot is used in a field study, it disappears without a trace. In her first major case, the young inspector Kira embarks on a journey into the world of science. In the process, she learns a lot about social robots, AI and the world of international scientific cooperation. Again and again, critical voices are heard: anti-robot activists protest against automation and a dwindling of humanity and empathy. Even in the Commissioner's family, the possible care of elderly people by robots is controversially discussed.
The overarching goal is to build knowledge across all age groups so that the advantages and disadvantages of these new technologies can be discussed controversially but knowledgeably. "Social Robots - a Science Comic" is a contribution to an informed discussion in the fields of robotics, artificial intelligence, ethics and politics and is thus also suitable as a teaching and learning tool.
The comic was conceived and designed for young people and adults. In particular, however, for those who have hardly come into contact with social robots and artificial intelligence so far. Another target group are people working in the health care sector, because the care and nursing of elderly people are considered to be one of the most important areas of application for social robots in the future.
DINA4 portrait format, hardcover thread stitching, published in German and English. Self-published by the Affective & Cognitive Institute (ACI), Offenburg University.
Photonics meet digital art
(2014)
The paper focuses on the work of an interdisciplinary project between photonics and digital art. The result is a poster collection dedicated to the International Year of Light 2015. In addition, an internet platform was created that presents the project. It can be accessed at http://www.magic-of-light.org/iyl2015/index.htm. From the idea to the final realization, milestones with tasks and steps will be presented in the paper. As an interdisciplinary project, students from technological degree programs were involved as well as art program students. The 2015 Anniversaries: Alhazen (1015), De Caus (1615), Fresnel (1815), Maxwell (1865), Einstein (1905), Penzias Wilson, Kao (1965) and their milestone contributions in optics and photonics will be highlighted.
Recent advances in motion recognition allow the development of Context-Aware Assistive Systems (CAAS) for industrial workplaces that go far beyond the state of the art: they can capture a user's movement in real-time and provide adequate feedback. Thus, CAAS can address important questions, like Which part is assembled next? Where do I fasten it? Did an error occur? Did I process the part in time? These new CAAS can also make use of projectors to display the feedback within the corresponding area on the workspace (in-situ). Furthermore, the real-time analysis of work processes allows the implementation of motivating elements (gamification) into the repetitive work routines that are common in manual production. In this chapter, the authors first describe the relevant backgrounds from industry, computer science, and psychology. They then briefly introduce a precedent implementation of CAAS and its inherent problems. The authors then provide a generic model of CAAS and finally present a revised and improved implementation.
With major intellectual properties there is a long tradition of cross-media value chains -- usually starting with books and comics, then transgressing to film and TV and finally reaching interactive media like video games. In recent years the situation has changed: (1) smaller productions start to establish cross media value chains; (2) there is a trend from sequential towards parallel content production. In this work we describe how the production of a historic documentary takes a cross media approach right from the start. We analyze how this impacts the content creation pipelines with respect to story, audience and realization. The focus of the case study is the impact on the production of a documentary game. In a second step we reflect on the experiences gained so far and derive recommendations for future small-scale cross media productions.
Towards a gamification of industrial production: a comparative study in sheltered work environments
(2015)
Using video game elements to improve user experience and user engagement in non-game applications is called "gamification". This method of enriching human-computer interaction has been applied successfully in education, health and general business processes. However, it has not been established in industrial production so far.
After discussing the requirements specific for the production domain we present two workplaces augmented with gamification. Both implementations are based on a common framework for context-aware assistive systems but exemplify different approaches: the visualization of work performance is complex in System 1 and simple in System 2.
Based on two studies in sheltered work environments with impaired workers, we analyze and compare the systems' effects on work and on workers. We show that gamification leads to a speed-accuracy-tradeoff if no quality-related feedback is provided. Another finding is that there is a highly significant raise in acceptance if a straightforward visualization approach for gamification is used.
With projectors and depth cameras getting cheaper, assistive systems in industrial manufacturing are becoming increasingly ubiquitous. As these systems are able to continuously provide feedback using in-situ projection, they are perfectly suited for supporting impaired workers in assembling products. However, so far little research has been conducted to understand the effects of projected instructions on impaired workers. In this paper, we identify common visualizations used by assistive systems for impaired workers and introduce a simple contour visualization. Through a user study with 64 impaired participants we compare the different visualizations to a control group using no visual feedback in a real world assembly scenario, i.e. assembling a clamp. Furthermore, we introduce a simplified version of the NASA-TLX questionnaire designed for impaired participants. The results reveal that the contour visualization is significantly better in perceived mental load and perceived performance of the participants. Further, participants made fewer errors and were able to assemble the clamp faster using the contour visualization compared to a video visualization, a pictorial visualization and a control group using no visual feedback.
Design approaches for the gamification of production environments: a study focusing on acceptance
(2015)
Gamification is an ever more popular method to increase motivation and user experience in real-world settings. It is widely used in the areas of marketing, health and education. However, in production environments, it is a new concept. To be accepted in the industrial domain, it has to be seamlessly integrated in the regular work processes.
In this work we make the following contributions to the field of gamification in production: (1) we analyze the state of the art and introduce domain-specific requirements; (2) we present two implementations gamifying production based on alternative design approaches; (3) these are evaluated in a sheltered work organization. The comparative study focuses acceptance, motivation and perceived happiness.
The results reveal that a pyramid design showing each work process as a step on the way towards a cup at the top is strongly preferred to a more abstract approach where the processes are represented by a single circle and two bars.
In this work we provide an overview of gamification, i.e. the application of methods from game design to enrich non-gaming processes. The contribution is divided into five subsections: an introduction focusing on the progression of gamification through the hype cycle in the recent years (1), a brief introduction to gamification mechanics (1) and an overview of the state of the art in established areas (3). The focus is a discussion of more recent attempts of gamification in service and production (4). We also discuss the ethical implications (5) and the future perspectives (6) of gamified business processes. Gamification has been successfully applied in the domains education (serious games) and health (exergames) and is spreading to other areas. In recent years there have been various attempts to “gamify” business processes. While the first efforts date back as far as the collection of miles in frequent flyer programs, we will portray some of the more recent and comprehensive software-based approaches in the service industry, e.g. the gamification of processes in sales and marketing. We discuss their accomplishments as well as their social and ethical implicatio. Finally a very recent approach is presented: the application of gamification in the domain of industrial production. We discuss the special requirements in this domain and the effects on the business level and on the users. We conclude with a prognosis on the future development of gamification.
The authors claim that location information of stationary ICT components can never be unclassified. They describe how swarm-mapping crowd sourcing is used by Apple and Google to worldwide harvest geo-location information on wireless access points and mobile telecommunication systems' base stations to build up gigantic databases with very exclusive access rights. After having highlighted the known technical facts, in the speculative part of this article, the authors argue how this may impact cyber deterrence strategies of states and alliances understanding the cyberspace as another domain of geostrategic relevance. The states and alliances spectrum of activities due to the potential existence of such databases may range from geopolitical negotiations by institutions understanding international affairs as their core business, mitigation approaches at a technical level, over means of cyber deterrence-by-retaliation.
In a Semi-autonomic cloud auditing architecture we weaved in privacy enhancing mechanisms [15] by applying the public key version of the Somewhat homomorphic encryption (SHE) scheme from [4]. It turns out that the performance of the SHE can be significantly improved by carefully deriving relevant crypto parameters from the concrete cloud auditing use cases for which the scheme serves as a privacy enhancing approach. We provide a generic algorithm for finding good SHE parameters with respect to a given use case scenario by analyzing and taking into consideration security, correctness and performance of the scheme. Also, to show the relevance of our proposed algorithms we apply it to two predominant cloud auditing use cases.
Covert- and side-channels as well as techniques to establish them in cloud computing are in focus of research for quite some time. However, not many concrete mitigation methods have been developed and even less have been adapted and concretely implemented by cloud providers. Thus, we recently conceptually proposed C 3 -Sched a CPU scheduling based approach to mitigate L2 cache covert-channels. Instead of flushing the cache on every context switch, we schedule trusted virtual machines to create noise which prevents potential covert-channels. Additionally, our approach aims on preserving performance by utilizing existing instead of artificial workload while reducing covert-channel related cache flushes to cases where not enough noise has been achieved. In this work we evaluate cache covert-channel mitigation and performance impact of our integration of C 3 -Sched in the XEN credit scheduler. Moreover, we compare it to naive solutions and more competitive approaches.
This paper explains the realization of a concept for research-oriented photonics education. Using the example of the integration of an actual PhD project, it is shown how students are familiarized with the topic of research and scientific work in the first semesters. Typical research activities are included as essential parts of the learning process. Research should be made visible and tangible for the students. The authors will present all aspects of the learning environment, their impressions and experiences with the implemented scenario, as well as first evaluation results of the students.
Live streaming of events over an IP network as a catalyst in media technology education and training
(2020)
The paper describes how students are involved in applied research when setting up the technology and running a live event. Real-time IP transmission in broadcast environments via fiber optics will become increasingly important in the future. Therefore, it is necessary to create a platform in this area where students can learn how to handle IP infrastructure and fiber optics. With this in mind, we have built a fully functional TV control room that is completely IP-based. The authors present the steps in the development of the project and show the advantages of the proposed digital solutions. The IP network proves to be a synergy between the involved teams: participants of the robot competition and the members of the media team. These results are presented in the paper. Our activities aim to awaken enthusiasm for research and technology in young people. Broadcasts of live events are a good opportunity for "hands on" activities.
Astronomical phenomena fascinate people from the very beginning of mankind up to today. In this paper the authors will present their experience with photography of astronomical events. The main focus will be on aurora borealis, comet Neowise, total lunar eclipses and how mobile devices open up new possibilities to observe the green flash. Our efforts were motivated by the great impact and high number of viewers of these events. Visitors from over a hundred countries watched our live broadcasts.
Furthermore, we report on our experiences with the photography of optical phenomena such as polar lights Fig. 1, comet Neowise with a Delta Aquariids meteor Fig. 11, and lunar eclipses Fig. 12.
This paper describes a comparative study of two tactile systems supporting navigation for persons with little or no visual and auditory perception. The efficacy of a tactile head-mounted device (HMD) was compared to that of a wearable device, a tactile belt. A study with twenty participants showed that the participants took significantly less time to complete a course when navigating with the HMD, as compared to the belt.
Machine learning (ML) has become highly relevant in applications across all industries, and specialists in the field are sought urgently. As it is a highly interdisciplinary field, requiring knowledge in computer science, statistics and the relevant application domain, experts are hard to find. Large corporations can sweep the job market by offering high salaries, which makes the situation for small and medium enterprises (SME) even worse, as they usually lack the capacities both for attracting specialists and for qualifying their own personnel. In order to meet the enormous demand in ML specialists, universities now teach ML in specifically designed degree programs as well as within established programs in science and engineering. While the teaching almost always uses practical examples, these are somewhat artificial or outdated, as real data from real companies is usually not available. The approach reported in this contribution aims to tackle the above challenges in an integrated course, combining three independent aspects: first, teaching key ML concepts to graduate students from a variety of existing degree programs; second, qualifying working professionals from SME for ML; and third, applying ML to real-world problems faced by those SME. The course was carried out in two trial periods within a government-funded project at a university of applied sciences in south-west Germany. The region is dominated by SME many of which are world leaders in their industries. Participants were students from different graduate programs as well as working professionals from several SME based in the region. The first phase of the course (one semester) consists of the fundamental concepts of ML, such as exploratory data analysis, regression, classification, clustering, and deep learning. In this phase, student participants and working professionals were taught in separate tracks. Students attended regular classes and lab sessions (but were also given access to e-learning materials), whereas the professionals learned exclusively in a flipped classroom scenario: they were given access to e-learning units (video lectures and accompanying quizzes) for preparation, while face-to-face sessions were dominated by lab experiments applying the concepts. Prior to the start of the second phase, participating companies were invited to submit real-world problems that they wanted to solve with the help of ML. The second phase consisted of practical ML projects, each tackling one of the problems and worked on by a mixed team of both students and professionals for the period of one semester. The teams were self-organized in the ways they preferred to work (e.g. remote vs. face-to-face collaboration), but also coached by one of the teaching staff. In several plenary meetings, the teams reported on their status as well as challenges and solutions. In both periods, the course was monitored and extensive surveys were carried out. We report on the findings as well as the lessons learned. For instance, while the program was very well-received, professional participants wished for more detailed coverage of theoretical concepts. A challenge faced by several teams during the second phase was a dropout of student members due to upcoming exams in other subjects.
The interaction between agents in multiagent-based control systems requires peer to peer communication between agents avoiding central control. The sensor nodes represent agents and produce measurement data every time step. The nodes exchange time series data by using the peer to peer network in order to calculate an aggregation function for solving a problem cooperatively. We investigate the aggregation process of averaging data for time series data of nodes in a peer to peer network by using the grouping algorithm of Cichon et al. 2018. Nodes communicate whether data is new and map data values according to their sizes into a histogram. This map message consists of the subintervals and vectors for estimating the node joining and leaving the subinterval. At each time step, the nodes communicate with each other in synchronous rounds to exchange map messages until the network converges to a common map message. The node calculates the average value of time series data produced by all nodes in the network by using the histogram algorithm. The relative error for comparing the output of averaging time series data, and the ground truth of the average value in the network will decrease as the size of the network increases. We perform simulations which show that the approximate histograms method provides a reasonable approximation of time series data.
We propose in this work to solve privacy preserving set relations performed by a third party in an outsourced configuration. We argue that solving the disjointness relation based on Bloom filters is a new contribution in particular by having another layer of privacy on the sets cardinality. We propose to compose the set relations in a slightly different way by applying a keyed hash function. Besides discussing the correctness of the set relations, we analyze how this impacts the privacy of the sets content as well as providing privacy on the sets cardinality. We are in particular interested in how having bits overlapping in the Bloom filters impacts the privacy level of our approach. Finally, we present our results with real-world parameters in two concrete scenarios.
DE\GLOBALIZE
(2020)
The Effect of Gamification on Emotions - The Potential of Facial Recognition in Work Environmentsns
(2015)
Gamification means using video game elements to improve user experience and user engagement in non-game services and applications. This article describes the effects when gamification is used in work contexts. Here we focus on industrial production. We describe how facial recognition can be employed to measure and quantify the effect of gamification on the users’ emotions.
The quantitative results show that gamification significantly reduces both task completion time and error rate. However, the results concerning the effect on emotions are surprising. Without gamification there are not only more unhappy expressions (as to expect) but surprisingly also more happy expressions. Both findings are statistically highly significant.
We think that in redundant production work there are generally more (negative) emotions involved. When there is no gamification happy and unhappy balance each other. In contrast gamification seems to shift the spectrum of moods towards “relaxed”. Especially for work environments such a calm attitude is a desirable effect on the users. Thus our findings support the use of gamification.
It is the purpose of this paper to address ethical issues concerning the development and application of Assistive Technology at Workplaces (ATW). We shall give a concrete technical concept how such technology might be constructed and propose eight technical functions it should adopt in order to serve its purpose. Then, we discuss the normative questions why one should use ATW, and by what means. We argue that ATW is good to the extent that it ensures social inclusion and consider four normative domains in which its worth might consists in. In addition, we insist that ATW must satisfy two requirements of good workplaces, which we specify as (a) an exploitation restraint and (b) a duty of care.
Video game developers continuously increase the degree of details and realism in games to create more human-like characters. But increasing the human-likeness becomes a problem in regard to the Uncanny Valley phenomenon that predicts negative feelings of people towards artificial entities. We developed an avatar creation system to examine preferences towards parametrized faces and explore in regard to the Uncanny Valley phenomenon how people design faces that they like or reject. Based on the 3D model of the Caucasian average face, 420 participants generate 1341 faces of positively and negatively associated concepts of both gender. The results show that some characteristics associated with the Uncanny Valley are used to create villains or repulsive faces. Heroic faces get attractive features but are rarely and little stylized. A voluntarily designed face is very similar to the heroine. This indicates that there is a tendency of users to design feminine and attractive but still credible faces.
A Gamified and Adaptive Learning System for Neurodivergent Workers in Electronic Assembling Tasks
(2020)
Learning and work-oriented assistive systems are often designed to fit the workflow of neurotypical workers. Neurodivergent workers and individuals with learning disabilities often present cognitive and sensorimotor characteristics that are better accommodated with personalized learning and working processes. Therefore, we designed an adaptive learning system that combines an augmented interaction space with user-sensitive virtual assistance to support step-by-step guidance for neurodivergent workers in electronic assembling tasks. Gamified learning elements were also included in the interface to provide self-motivation and praise whenever users progress in their learning and work achievements.
Nowadays, the wide majority of Europeans uses smartphones. However, touch displays are still not accessible by everyone. Individuals with deafblindness, for example, often face difculties in accessing vision-based touchscreens. Moreover, they typically have few fnancial resources which increases the need for customizable, low-cost assistive devices. In this work-in-progress, we present four prototypes made from low-cost, every-day materials, that make modern pattern lock mechanisms more accessible to individuals with vision impairments or even with deafblindness. Two out of four prototypes turned out to be functional tactile overlays for accessing digital 4-by-4 grids that are regularly used to encode dynamic dot patterns. In future work, we will conduct a user study investigating whether these two prototypes can make dot-based pattern lock mechanisms more accessible for individuals with visual impairments or deafblindness.
Deafblindness, a form of dual sensory impairment, signifcantly impacts communication, access to information and mobility. Inde- pendent navigation and wayfnding are main challenges faced by individuals living with combined hearing and visual impairments. We developed a haptic wearable that provides sensory substitution and navigational cues for users with deafblindness by conveying vibrotactile signals onto the body. Vibrotactile signals on the waist area convey directional and proximity information collected via a fisheye camera attached to the garment, while semantic informa- tion is provided with a tapping system on the shoulders. A playful scenario called “Keep Your Distance” was designed to test the navigation system: individuals with deafblindness were “secret agents” that needed to follow a “suspect”, but they should keep an opti- mal distance of 1.5 meters from the other person to win the game. Preliminary fndings suggest that individuals with deafblindness enjoyed the experience and were generally able to follow the directional cues.
Co-Designing Assistive Tools to Support Social Interactions by Individuals Living with Deafblindness
(2020)
Deafblindness is a dual sensory impairment that affects many aspects of life, including mobility, access to information, communication, and social interactions. Furthermore, individuals living with deafblindness are under a high risk of social isolation. Therefore, we identified opportunities for applying assistive tools to support social interactions through co-ideation activities with members of the deafblind community. This work presents our co-design approach, lessons learned and directions for designing meaningful assistive tools for dual sensory loss.
Interaction and capturing information from the surrounding is dominated by vision and hearing. Haptics on the other side, widens the bandwidth and could also replace senses (sense switching) for impaired. Haptic technologies are often limited to point-wise actuation. Here, we show that actuation in two-dimensional matrices instead creates a richer input. We describe the construction of a full-body garment for haptic communication with a distributed actuating network. The garment is divided into attachable-detachable panels or add-ons that each can carry a two dimensional matrix of actuating haptic elements. Each panel adds to an enhanced sensoric capability of the human- garment system so that together a 720° system is formed. The spatial separation of the panels on different body locations supports semantic and theme-wise separation of conversations conveyed by haptics. It also achieves directional faithfulness, which is maintaining any directional information about a distal stimulus in the haptic input.
The findings presented in this article were obtained through a preliminary exploratory study conducted at the Offenburg University as part of the Fighting Loneliness project promoted by the institution’s Affective & Cognitive Institute (ACI) from October 2019 to February 2020. The initiative’s main objective was to answer the research question “How should an app be designed to reduce loneliness and social isolation among university students?” with the collaboration of the institution’s students.
Tactile Navigation with Checkpoints as Progress Indicators?: Only when Walking Longer Straight Paths
(2020)
Persons with both vision and hearing impairments have to rely primarily on tactile feedback, which is frequently used in assistive devices. We explore the use of checkpoints as a way to give them feedback during navigation tasks. Particularly, we investigate how checkpoints can impact performance and user experience. We hypothesized that individuals receiving checkpoint feedback would take less time and perceive the navigation experience as superior to those who did not receive such feedback. Our contribution is two-fold: a detailed report on the implementation of a smart wearable with tactile feedback (1), and a user study analyzing its effects (2). The results show that in contrast to our assumptions, individuals took considerably more time to complete routes with checkpoints. Also, they perceived navigating with checkpoints as inferior to navigating without checkpoints. While the quantitative data leave little room for doubt, the qualitative data open new aspects: when walking straight and not being "overwhelmed" by various forms of feedback in succession, several participants actually appreciated the checkpoint feedback.
Wow, You Are Terrible at This!: An Intercultural Study on Virtual Agents Giving Mixed Feedback
(2020)
While the effects of virtual agents in terms of likeability, uncanniness, etc. are well explored, it is unclear how their appearance and the feedback they give affects people's reactions. Is critical feedback from an agent embodied as a mouse or a robot taken less serious than from a human agent? In an intercultural study with 120 participants from Germany and the US, participants had to find hidden objects in a game and received feedback on their performance by virtual agents with different appearances. As some levels were designed to be unsolvable, critical feedback was unavoidable. We hypothesized that feedback would be taken more serious, the more human the agent looked. Also, we expected the subjects from the US to react more sensitively to criticism. Surprisingly, our results showed that the agents' appearance did not significantly change the participants' perception. Also, while we found highly significant differences in inspirational and motivational effects as well as in perceived task load between the two cultures, the reactions to criticism were contrary to expectations based on established cultural models. This work improves our understanding on how affective virtual agents are to be designed, both with respect to culture and to dialogue strategies.
Deafblindness, also known as dual sensory loss, is the combination of sight and hearing impairments of such extent that it becomes difficult for one sense to compensate for the other. Communication issues are a key concern for the Deafblind community. We present the design and technical implementation of the Tactile Board: a mobile Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) device for individuals with deafblindness. The Tactile Board allows text and speech to be translated into vibrotactile signs that are displayed real-time to the user via a haptic wearable. Our aim is to facilitate communication for the deafblind community, creating opportunities for these individuals to initiate and engage in social interactions with other people without the direct need of an intervener.
The TriRhenaTech alliance presents a collection of accepted papers of the cancelled tri-national 'Upper-Rhine Artificial Intelligence Symposium' planned for 13th May 2020 in Karlsruhe. The TriRhenaTech alliance is a network of universities in the Upper-Rhine Trinational Metropolitan Region comprising of the German universities of applied sciences in Furtwangen, Kaiserslautern, Karlsruhe, and Offenburg, the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University Loerrach, the French university network Alsace Tech (comprised of 14 'grandes écoles' in the fields of engineering, architecture and management) and the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland. The alliance's common goal is to reinforce the transfer of knowledge, research, and technology, as well as the cross-border mobility of students.
OVVL (the Open Weakness and Vulnerability Modeller) is a tool and methodology to support threat modeling in the early stages of the secure software development lifecycle. We provide an overview of OVVL (https://ovvl.org), its data model and browser-based UI. We equally provide a discussion of initial experiments on how identified threats in the design phase can be aligned with later activities in the software lifecycle (issue management and security testing).
Threat Modelling is an accepted technique to identify general threats as early as possible in the software development lifecycle. Previous work of ours did present an open-source framework and web-based tool (OVVL) for automating threat analysis on software architectures using STRIDE. However, one open problem is that available threat catalogues are either too general or proprietary with respect to a certain domain (e.g. .Net). Another problem is that a threat analyst should not only be presented (repeatedly) with a list of all possible threats, but already with some automated support for prioritizing these. This paper presents an approach to dynamically generate individual threat catalogues on basis of the established CWE as well as related CVE databases. Roughly 60% of this threat catalogue generation can be done by identifying and matching certain key values. To map the remaining 40% of our data (~50.000 CVE entries) we train a text classification model by using the already mapped 60% of our dataset to perform a supervised machine-learning based text classification. The generated entire dataset allows us to identify possible threats for each individual architectural element and automatically provide an initial prioritization. Our dataset as well as a supporting Jupyter notebook are openly available.
While prospect of tracking mobile devices' users is widely discussed all over European countries to counteract COVID-19 propagation, we propose a Bloom filter based construction providing users' location privacy and preventing mass surveillance.
We apply a solution based on Bloom filters data structure that allows a third party, a government agency, to perform some privacy-preserving set relations on a mobile telco's access logfile.
By computing set relations, the government agency, given the knowledge of two identified persons, has an instrument that provides a (possible) infection chain from the initial to the final infected user no matter at which location on a worldwide scale they are.
The benefit of our approach is that intermediate possible infected users can be identified and subsequently contacted by the agency. With such approach, we state that solely identities of possible infected users will be revealed and location privacy of others will be preserved. To this extent, it meets General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)requirements in this area.
Well-designed and informative product presentations can support consumers in making purchase decisions. There are plenty of facts and details about a product of interest. However, also emotions are an important aspect for the purchase decision. The unique visualization opportunities of virtual reality (VR) can give users of VR applications the feeling of being there (telepresence). The applications can intensely engage them in a flow experience, comprising the four dimensions of enjoyment, curiosity, focused attention and control. In this work, we claim that VR product presentations can create subjective product experiences for consumers and motivate them to reuse this innovative type of product presentation in the future, by immersing them in a virtual world and causing them to interact with it. To verify the conceptual model a study was conducted with 551 participants who explored a VR hotel application. The results indicate that VR product presentations evoke positive emotions among consumers. The virtual experience made potential customers focus their attention on the virtual world and aroused their curiosity about getting more information about the product in an enjoyable way. In contrast to the theoretical assumption, control did not influence the users’ behavioral intentions to reuse VR product presentation. We conclude that VR product presentations create a feeling of telepresence, which leads to a flow experience that contributes to the behavioral intention of users to reuse VR product presentations in the future.
In the past decades, developments in the fields of medicine, new media, and biotechnologies challenged many representations and practices, questioning the understanding of our corporeal limits. Using concrete examples from literary fiction, media studies, philosophy, performance arts, and social sciences, this collection underlines how bodily models and transformations, thought until recently to be only fictional products, have become a part of our reality. The essays provide a spectrum of perspectives on how the body emerges as a transitional environment between fictional and factual elements, a process understood as faction.
In the area of cloud computing, judging the fulfillment of service-level agreements on a technical level is gaining more and more importance. To support this we introduce privacy preserving set relations as inclusiveness and disjointness based ao Bloom filters. We propose to compose them in a slightly different way by applying a keyed hash function. Besides discussing the correctness of set relations, we analyze how this impacts the privacy of the sets content as well as providing privacy on the sets cardinality. Indeed, our solution proposes to bring another layer of privacy on the sizes. We are in particular interested how the overlapping bits of a Bloom filter impact the privacy level of our approach. We concretely apply our solution to a use case of cloud security audit on access control and present our results with real-world parameters.
This work discusses several use cases of post-mortem mobile device tracking in which privacy is required e.g. due to client-confidentiality agreements and sensibility of data from government agencies as well as mobile telecommunication providers. We argue that our proposed Bloomfilter based privacy approach is a valuable technical building block for the arising General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements in this area. In short, we apply a solution based on the Bloom filters data structure that allows a 3rd party to performsome privacy saving setrelations on a mobiletelco’s access logfile or other mobile access logfile from harvesting parties without revealing any other mobile users in the proximity of a mobile base station but still allowing to track perpetrators.
With this generation of devices, Virtual Reality (VR) has actually made it into the living rooms of end-users. These devices feature 6-DOF tracking, allowing them to move naturally in virtual worlds and experience them even more immersively. However, for a natural locomotion in the virtual, one needs a corresponding free space in the real environment. The available space is often limited, especially in everyday environments and under normal spatial conditions. Furnishings and objects of daily life can quickly become obstacles for VR users if they are not cleared away. Since the idea behind VR is to place users into a virtual world and to hide the real world as much as possible, invisible objects represent potential obstacles. The currently available systems offer only rudimentary assistance for this problem. If a user threatens to leave the space previously defined for use, a visual boundary is displayed to allow orientation within the space. These visual metaphors are intended to prevent users from leaving the safe area. However, there is no detection of potentially dangerous objects within this part of space. Objects that have not been cleared away or that have been added in the meantime may still become obstacles. This thesis shows how possible obstacles in the environment can be detected automatically with range imaging cameras and how users can be effectively warned about them in the virtual environment without significantly disturbing their sense of presence. Four different interactive visual metaphors are used to signalize the obstacles within the VE. With the help of a user study, the four signaling variants and the obstacle detection were evaluated and tested.
This paper describes the concept and some results of the project "Menschen Lernen Maschinelles Lernen" (Humans Learn Machine Learning, ML2) of the University of Applied Sciences Offenburg. It brings together students of different courses of study and practitioners from companies on the subject of Machine Learning. A mixture of blended learning and practical projects ensures a tight coupling of machine learning theory and application. The paper details the phases of ML2 and mentions two successful example projects.
The TriRhenaTech alliance universities and their partners presented their competences in the field of artificial intelligence and their cross-border cooperations with the industry at the tri-national conference 'Artificial Intelligence : from Research to Application' on March 13th, 2019 in Offenburg. The TriRhenaTech alliance is a network of universities in the Upper Rhine Trinational Metropolitan Region comprising of the German universities of applied sciences in Furtwangen, Kaiserslautern, Karlsruhe, and Offenburg, the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University Loerrach, the French university network Alsace Tech (comprised of 14 'grandes écoles' in the fields of engineering, architecture and management) and the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland. The alliance's common goal is to reinforce the transfer of knowledge, research, and technology, as well as the cross-border mobility of students.
Art and Photonics
(2019)
In this paper we report on our continuous efforts to apply optics and photonics in art. This results in interdisciplinary projects which sometimes lead to concrete art installations.
We presented some of these projects at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, at the opening ceremony of the International Year of Light and the inaugural ceremony of the International Day of Light.
Some newer projects, such as “A Maze: Ingenious Pipes” and “The Power of Your Eyes,” are also presented in this paper.
We present our twenty years of experience in the live broadcasting of astronomical events, with the main focus on total lunar eclipses. Our efforts were motivated by the great impact and high number of viewers of these events. Visitors from over a hundred countries watched our live broadcasts. Our viewer record was set on July 27, 2018, with the live transmission of the total lunar eclipse from the Feldberg, the highest mountain in the Black Forest, attracting nearly half a million viewers in five hours.
An especially challenging activity was the live observing of the Mercury transit on 9 May 2016, which we presented as ‘live astronomy’ with hands-on telescope. The main goal of this event was to awake our students enthusiasm for optics and astronomy.
Furthermore, we report on our experiences with the photography of optical phenomena such as polar lights and green flash.
After the successful International Year of Light 2015, the idea of sustainability became increasingly imminent. After a preparatory year on 16 May 2018, the International Day of Light was launched for the first time. This event was celebrated with a public celebration in Paris at the UNESCO headquarters. In this paper we will present our projects dedicated to the International Day of Light in Paris. Together with a group of students from our university, we had the special opportunity to be integrated in the program of the opening ceremony at UNESCO in Paris. With our interdisciplinary projects we have tried to build a bridge between optics, photonics, art and media installations.
The authors explain a developed concept for research-oriented education in optics and photonics. It is presented which goals are to be achieved, which strategies have been developed and how these can be implemented in a blended learning scenario. The goal of our education is the best possible qualification of the students on the basis of a strong scientific and research-oriented education, which also includes the acquisition of important interdisciplinary competences. All phases of a research process are to be mapped in the learning process and offer students an insight into current research topics in optics and photonics.
Increased knowledge transfer through the integration of research projects into university teaching
(2019)
This paper describes the integration of the research project "Characterization of Color Vision using Spectroscopy and Nanotechnology: Application to Media Photonics" into an engineering course in the field of media technology. The aim is to develop the existing learning concept towards a more research-oriented teaching. Involving students in research projects as part of the learning process provides a deeper insight into current research topics and the key elements of scientific work. This makes it easier for students to recognize the importance of the acquired theoretical knowledge for the practice, which enables them to derive new insights of their own.
Walking interfaces offer advantages in navigation of VE systems over other types of locomotion. However, VR helmets have the disadvantage that users cannot see their immediate surroundings. Our publication describes the prototypical implementation of a virtual environment (VE) system, capable of detecting possible obstacles using an RGB-D sensor. In order to warn users of potential collisions with real objects while they are moving throughout the VE tracking area, we designed 4 different visual warning metaphors: Placeholder, Rubber Band, Color Indicator and Arrow. A small pilot study was carried out in which the participants had to solve a simple task and avoid any arbitrarily placed physical obstacles when crossing the virtual scene. Our results show that the Placeholder metaphor (in this case: trees), compared to the other variants, seems to be best suited for the correct estimation of the position of obstacles and in terms of the ability to evade them.
Protecting software from illegal access, intentional modification or reverse engineering is an inherently difficult practical problem involving code obfuscation techniques and real-time cryptographic protection of code. In traditional systems a secure element (the "dongle") is used to protect software. However, this approach suffers from several technical and economical drawbacks such as the dongle being lost or broken.
We present a system that provides such dongles as a cloud service, and more importantly, provides the required cryptographic material to control access to software functionality in real-time.
This system is developed as part of an ongoing nationally funded research project and is now entering a first trial stage with stakeholders from different industrial sectors.
The development of secure software systems is of ever-increasing importance. While software companies often invest large amounts of resources into the upkeeping and general security properties of large-scale applications when in production, they appear to neglect utilizing threat modeling in the earlier stages of the software development lifecycle. When applied during the design phase of development, and continuously throughout development iterations, threat modeling can help to establish a "Secure by Design" approach. This approach allows issues relating to IT security to be found early during development, reducing the need for later improvement – and thus saving resources in the long term. In this paper the current state of threat modeling is investigated. This investigation drove the derivation of requirements for the development of a new threat modelling framework and tool, called OVVL. OVVL utilizes concepts of established threat modeling methodologies, as well as functionality not available in existing solutions.
New employees are supposed to quickly understand their tasks, internal processes and familiarize with colleagues. This process is called “onboarding” and is still mainly realized by organizational methods from human resource management, such as introductory events or special employee sessions. Software tools and especially mobile applications are an innovative means to support provide onboarding processes in a modern, even remote, way. In this paper we analyze how the use of gamification can enhance onboarding processes. Firstly, we describe a mobile onboarding application specifically developed for the young, technically literate generations Y and Z, who are just about to start their career. Secondly, we report on a study with 98 students and young employees. We found that participants enjoyed the gamified application. They especially appreciated the feature “Team Bingo” which facilitates social integration and teambuilding. Based on the OCEAN personality model (“Big Five”), the personality traits agreeableness and openness revealed significant correlations with a preference for the gamified onboarding application.
Robots and automata are key elements of every vision and forecast of life in the near and distant future. However, robots and automata also have a long history, which reaches back into antiquity. Today most historians think that one of the key roles of robots and automata was to amaze or even terrify the audience: They were designed to express something mythical, magical, and not explainable. Moreover, the visions of robots and their envisioned fields of application reflect the different societies. Therefore, this short history of robotics and (especially) anthropomorphic automata aims to give an overview of several historical periods and their perspective on the topic. In a second step, this work aims to encourage readers to reflect on the recent discussion about fields of application as well as the role of robotics today and in the future.
What emotional effects does gamification have on users who work or learn with repetitive tasks? In this work, we use biosignals to analyze these affective effects of gamification. After a brief discussion of related work, we describe the implementation of an assistive system augmenting work by projecting elements for guidance and gamification. We also show how this system can be extended to analyse users' emotions. In a user study, we analyse both biosignals (facial expressions and electrodermal activity), and regular performance measures (error rate and task completion time).
For the performance measures, the results confirm known effects like increased speed and slightly increased error rate. In addition, the analysis of the biosignals provides strong evidence for two major affective effects: the gamification of work and learning tasks incites highly significantly more positive emotions and increases emotionality altogether. The results add to the design of assistive systems, which are aware of the physical as well as the affective context.
Social robots not only work with humans in collaborative workspaces – we meet them in shopping malls and even more personal settings like health and care. Does this imply they should become more human, able to interpret and adequately respond to human emotions? Do we want them to help elderly persons? Do we want them to support us when we are old ourselves? Do we want them to just clean and keep things orderly – or would we accept them helping us to go to the toilet, or even feed us if we suffer from Parkinson’s disease?
The answers to these questions differ from person to person. They depend on cultural background, personal experiences – but probably most of all on the robot in question. This book covers the phenomenon of social robots from the historic roots to today’s best practices and future perspectives. To achieve this, we used a hands-on, interdisciplinary approach, incorporating findings from computer scientists, engineers, designers, psychologists, doctors, nurses, historians and many more. The book also covers a vast spectrum of applications, from collaborative industrial work over education to sales. Especially for developments with a high societal impact like robots in health and care settings, the authors discuss not only technology, design and usage but also ethical aspects.
Thus this book creates both a compendium and a guideline, helping to navigate the design space for future developments in social robotics.
For e-commerce retailers it is crucial to present their products both informatively and attractively. Virtual reality (VR) systems represent a new marketing tool that supports customers in their decision-making process and offers an extraordinary product experience. Despite these advantages, the use of this technology for e-commerce retailers is also associated with risks, namely cybersickness. The aim of the study is to investigate the occurrence of cybersickness in the context of the customer’s perceived enjoyment and the perceived challenge of a VR product presentation. Based on a conceptual research framework, a laboratory study with 533 participants was conducted to determine the influence of these factors on the occurrence of cybersickness. The results demonstrate that the perceived challenge has a substantially stronger impact on the occurrence of cybersickness, which can only be partially reduced by perceived enjoyment. When realizing VR applications in general and VR product presentations in particular, e-commerce retailers should therefore first minimize possible challenges instead of focusing primarily on entertainment aspects of such applications.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of telepresence while using a smartphone-based virtual reality system (SBVR) to explore a hotel virtually and to determine the influence of this immersive experience on the booking intention of the potential customer.
Design/methodology/approach
Within the scope of this study, a conceptual research model was developed which covered utilitarian and hedonic aspects of the user experience of SBVRs and showed their relevance for the booking intention. A virtual reality application was programmed especially for the study, in which the test persons were able to virtually explore a hotel complex. A total of 569 people participated in the study. A questionnaire was used for the data collection. The structural equation modelling and hypothesis verification were carried out using the partial least squares method.
Findings
The immersive feeling of telepresence increases the perceived enjoyment and usefulness of the potential customer. In addition, the user's curiosity is aroused by the telepresence, which also significantly increases the perceived enjoyment as well as the perceived usefulness. The hedonic and utilitarian value of the virtual hotel experience increases the probability that the customer will book the travel accommodation.
Research limitations/implications
The virtual reality application developed for the study is based on static panoramic images and does not contain audio-visual elements (e.g. sound, video, animation). Audio-visual elements might increase the degree of immersion and could therefore be investigated in future research.
Practical implications
The results of the study show that the SBVR is a suitable marketing tool to present hotels in an informative and entertaining way, and can thereby increase sales and profits.
Originality/value
For the first time, this study investigates the potential of SBVRs for the virtual product presentation of hotels and provides empirical evidence that the availability of this innovative form of presentation leads to a higher booking intention.
We generalize the fluid flow problem of an oscillating flat plate (II. Stokes problem) in two directions. We discuss first the oscillating porous flat plate with superimposed blowing or suction. The second generalization is concerned with an increasing or decreasing velocity amplitude of the oscillating flat plate. Finally we show that a combination of both effects is possible as well.
Virtual reality in the hotel industry: assessing the acceptance of immersive hotel presentation
(2019)
In the hotel industry, it is crucial to reduce the inherent information asymmetry with regard to the goods offered. This asymmetry can be minimised through the use of smartphone-based virtual reality applications (SBVRs), which allow virtual simulation of real experiences and thus enable more efficient information retrieval. The aim of the study is to determine for the first time the user acceptance of these immersive hotel presentations for assessing the performance of a travel accommodation. For this purpose, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used to explain the acceptance behaviour for this new technology. A virtual reality application was specially developed, in which the participants could explore a hotel virtually. A total of 569 participants took part in the study. The structural equation model and the hypotheses were tested using a Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis. The results illustrate that the immersive product experience leads to more efficient information gathering. The perceived usefulness significantly affects the attitude towards using the technology as well as the intention to use it. In contrast to the traditional TAM, the perceived ease of use of SBVRs has no effect on the perceived usefulness or attitude towards using the technology.
The economic dispatch (ED) problem is a large-scale optimization problem in electricity power grids. Its goal is to find a power output combination of all generator nodes that meet the demand of the customers at minimum operating cost. In recent years, distributed protocols have been proposed to replace the traditional centralized ED calculation for modern smart grid infrastructures with the most realistic being the one proposed by Binetti et al. (2014). However, we show that this protocol leaks private information of the generator nodes. We then propose a privacy-preserving distributed protocol that solves the ED problem. We analyze the security of our protocol and give experimental results from a prototype implementation to show the feasibility of the solution.
Our media-artistic performances and installations, INTERCORPOREAL SPLITS (2010–2013), BUZZ (2014–2015), W ASTELAND (2015–2016), as well as our new collaboration with Bruno Latour , DE\GLOBALIZE (2018–2020), are not just about polyphony. Here, however, we rediscover them under this heading, thus giving them a new twist, while mapping out issues, mechanisms and functional modes of the polyphonic.
Deafblindness is a condition that limits communication capabilities primarily to the haptic channel. In the EU-funded project SUITCEYES we design a system which allows haptic and thermal communication via soft interfaces and textiles. Based on user needs and informed by disability studies, we combine elements from smart textiles, sensors, semantic technologies, image processing, face and object recognition, machine learning, affective computing, and gamification. In this work, we present the underlying concepts and the overall design vision of the resulting assistive smart wearable.
Social robots are robots interacting with humans not only in collaborative settings, but also in personal settings like domestic services and healthcare. Some social robots simulate feelings (companions) while others just help lifting (assistants). However, they often incite both fascination and fear: what abilities should social robots have and what should remain exclusive to humans? We provide a historical background on the development of robots and related machines (1), discuss examples of social robots (2) and present an expert study on their desired future abilities and applications (3) conducted within the Forum of the European Active and Assisted Living Programme (AAL). The findings indicate that most technologies required for the social robots' emotion sensing are considered ready. For care robots, the experts approve health-related tasks like drawing blood while they prefer humans to do nursing tasks like washing. On a larger societal scale, the acceptance of social robots increases highly significantly with familiarity, making health robots and even military drones more acceptable than sex robots or child companion robots for childless couples. Accordingly, the acceptance of social robots seems to decrease with the level of face-to-face emotions involved.
In this article, we present a taxonomy in Robot-Assisted Training; a growing body of research in Human–Robot Interaction which focuses on how robotic agents and devices can be used to enhance user’s performance during a cognitive or physical training task. Robot-Assisted Training systems have been successfully deployed to enhance the effects of a training session in various contexts, i.e., rehabilitation systems, educational environments, vocational settings, etc. The proposed taxonomy suggests a set of categories and parameters that can be used to characterize such systems, considering the current research trends and needs for the design, development and evaluation of Robot-Assisted Training systems. To this end, we review recent works and applications in Robot-Assisted Training systems, as well as related taxonomies in Human–Robot Interaction. The goal is to identify and discuss open challenges, highlighting the different aspects of a Robot-Assisted Training system, considering both robot perception and behavior control.
Brand identification has the potential of shaping individuals' attitudes, performance and commitment within learning and work contexts. We explore these effects, by incorporating elements of branded identification within gamified environments. We report a study with 44 employees, in which task performance and emotional outcomes are assessed in a real-world assembly scenario - namely, while performing a soldering task. Our results indicate that brand identification has a direct impact on individuals' attitude towards the task at hand: while instigating positive emotions, aversion and reactance also arise.
We present the design of a system combining augmented reality (AR) and gamification to support elderly persons’ rehabilitation activities. The system is attached to the waist; it collects detailed movement data and at the same time augments the user’s path by projections. The projected AR-elements can provide location-based information or incite movement games. The collected data can be observed by therapists. Based on this data, the challenge level can be more frequently adapted, keeping up the patient’s motivation. The exercises can involve cognitive elements (for mild cognitive impairments), physiological elements (rehabilitation), or both. The overall vision is an individualized and gamified therapy. Thus, the system also offers application scenarios beyond rehabilitation in sports. In accordance with the methodology of design thinking, we present a first specification and a design vision based on inputs from business experts, gerontologists, physiologists, psychologists, game designers, cognitive scientists and computer scientists.
Bank and trust – two words but one meaning in customers’ minds. When interacting with financial service providers, customers are consistently looking for “trust signals” that comfort their decisions and “distrust signals” which create doubt. Therefore, service providers need a deep understanding of the customers’ requirements and wishes. To identify trust and distrust signals, we combine established user experience research methods with a new testing procedure to gain helpful recommendations for optimizing the online appearance of banks. The contribution is divided into three parts: Firstly, we investigate current approaches in the financial service industry. Secondly, we provide a corpus describing the relationship between the customers’ perception of a bank’s website and trust. Thirdly, an empirical study based on qualitative user experience testing with banking website customers shows the value gained by optimizing the banks’ virtual interface by enhancing “trust signals” and avoiding “distrust signals”.
In this paper we report on the commercial background as well as resulting high-level architecture and design of a cloud-based system for cryptographic software protection and licensing. This is based on the experiences and insights gained in the context of a real-world commercial R&D project at Wibu-Systems AG, a company that specialises in software encryption and licensing solutions.
We provide a privacy-friendly cloud-based smart metering storage architecture which provides few-instance storage on encrypted measurements by at the same time allowing SQL queries on them. Our approach is most flexible with respect to two axes: on the one hand it allows to apply filtering rules on encrypted data with respect to various upcoming business cases; on the other hand it provides means for a storage-efficient handling of encrypted measurements by applying server-side deduplication techniques over all incoming smart meter measurements. Although the work at hand is purely dedicated to a smart metering architecture we believe our approach to have value for a broader class of IoT cloud storage solutions. Moreover, it is an example for Privacy-by-design supporting the positive-sum paradigm.
In this work we describe the implementation details of a protocol suite for a secure and reliable over-the-air reprogramming of wireless restricted devices. Although, recently forward error correction codes aiming at a robust transmission over a noisy wireless medium have extensively been discussed and evaluated, we believe that the clear value of the contribution at hand is to share our experience when it comes to a meaningful combination and implementation of various multihop (broadcast) transmission protocols and custom-fit security building blocks: For a robust and reliable data transmission we make use of fountain codes a.k.a. rateless erasure codes and show how to combine such schemes with an underlying medium access control protocol, namely a distributed low duty cycle medium access control (DLDC-MAC). To handle the well known problem of packet pollution of forward-error-correction approaches where an attacker bogusly modifies or infiltrates some minor number of encoded packets and thus pollutes the whole data stream at the receiver side, we apply homomorphic message authentication codes (HomMAC). We discuss implementation details and the pros and cons of the two currently available HomMAC candidates for our setting. Both require as the core cryptographic primitive a symmetric block cipher for which, as we will argue later, we have opted for the PRESENT, PRIDE and PRINCE (exchangeable) ciphers in our implementation.
Monitors are in the center of media productions and hold an important function as the main visual interface. Tablets and smartphones are becoming more and more important work tools in the media industry. As an extension to our lecture contents an intensive discussion of different display technologies and its applications is taking place now. The established LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) technology and the promising OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) technology are in the focus.
The classic LCD is currently the most important display technology. The paper will present how the students should develop sense for display technologies besides the theoretical scientific basics. The workshop focuses increasingly on the technical aspects of the display technology and has the goal of deepening the students understanding of the functionality by building simple Liquid Crystal Displays by themselves.
The authors will present their experience in the field of display technologies. A mixture of theoretical and practical lectures has the goal of a deeper understanding in the field of digital color representation and display technologies. The design and development of a suitable learning environment with the required infrastructure is crucial. The main focus of this paper is on the hands-on optics workshop “Liquid Crystal Display in the do-it-yourself”.
Gamification implies the application of methods and design patterns from gaming to non-gaming areas like learning or working. We applied an existing gamification design to production processes in an organization which provides sheltered employment for impaired persons. In contrast to existing work, we investigated not only a short period but a complete workday to measure the effects on the work performance. The study indicates that gamification has (1) a negative effect on workers with considerable cognitive impairments, (2) no significant effect on workers with medium cognitive impairments and (3) a positive effect on workers with mild cognitive impairments.
In this work, we investigate how gamification can be integrated into work processes in the automotive industry. The contribution contains five parts: (1) An introduction showing how gamification has become increasingly common, especially in education, health and the service industry. (2) An analysis on the state of the art of gamified applications, discussing several best practices. (3) An analysis of the special requirements for gamification in production, regarding both external norms and the mindset of workers in this domain. (4) An overview of first approaches towards a gamification of production, focusing on solutions for impaired workers in sheltered work organizations. (5) A study with a focus group of instructors at two large car manufacturers. Based on the presentation of three potential designs for the gamification of production, the study investigates the general acceptance of gamification in modern production and determines which design is best suited for future implementations.
In the age data digitalization, important applications of optics and photonics based sensors and technology lie in the field of biometrics and image processing. Protecting user data in a safe and secure way is an essential task in this area. However, traditional cryptographic protocols rely heavily on computer aided computation. Secure protocols which rely only on human interactions are usually simpler to understand. In many scenarios development of such protocols are also important for ease of implementation and deployment. Visual cryptography (VC) is an encryption technique on images (or text) in which decryption is done by human visual system. In this technique, an image is encrypted into number of pieces (known as shares). When the printed shares are physically superimposed together, the image can be decrypted with human vision. Modern digital watermarking technologies can be combined with VC for image copyright protection where the shares can be watermarks (small identification) embedded in the image. Similarly, VC can be used for improving security of biometric authentication. This paper presents about design and implementation of a practical laboratory experiment based on the concept of VC for a course in media engineering. Specifically, our contribution deals with integration of VC in different schemes for applications like digital watermarking and biometric authentication in the field of optics and photonics. We describe theoretical concepts and propose our infrastructure for the experiment. Finally, we will evaluate the learning outcome of the experiment, performed by the students. © (2016) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Signal detection and bandwidth estimation, also known as channel segmentation or information channel estimation, is a perpetual topic in communication systems. In the field of radio monitoring this issue is extremely challenging, since unforeseeable effects like fading occur accidentally. In addition, most radio monitoring devices normally scan a wide frequency range of several hundred MHz and have to detect a multitude of different signals, varying in signal power, bandwidth and spectral shape. Since narrowband sensing techniques cannot be directly applied, most radio monitoring devices use Nyquist wideband sensing to discover the huge frequency range. In practice, sensing is normally conducted by an FFT sweep spectrum analyzer that delivers the power spectral density (PSD) values to the radio monitoring system. The channel segmentation is the initial step of a comprehensive signal analysis in a radio monitoring system based on the PSD values. In this paper, a novel approach for channel segmentation is presented that is based on a quantization and a histogram evaluation of the measured PSD. It will be shown that only the combination of both evaluations will lead to an successful automatic channel segmentation. The performance of the proposed algorithm is shown in a real radio monitoring szenario.
Critical theory and philosophy across many fields in the humanities has become awash with what has been characterised as ‘the material turn’. This material turn, which seems to involve varying combinations of what is known as Object Orientated Ontology (Harman), Actor-Network Theory (Latour), process philosophy (Whitehead), speculative realism (Bryant), or agential realism (Barad), emphasises some move toward a posthuman understanding of what the world is, and our relation to it.
Computing Aggregates on Autonomous, Self-organizing Multi-Agent System: Application "Smart Grid"
(2017)
Decentralized data aggregation plays an important role in estimating the state of the smart grid, allowing the determination of meaningful system-wide measures (such as the current power generation, consumption, etc.) to balance the power in the grid environment. Data aggregation is often practicable if the aggregation is performed effectively. However, many existing approaches are lacking in terms of fault-tolerance. We present an approach to construct a robust self-organizing overlay by exploiting the heterogeneous characteristics of the nodes and interlinking the most reliable nodes to form an stable unstructured overlay. The network structure can recover from random state perturbations in finite time and tolerates substantial message loss. Our approach is inspired from biological and sociological self-organizing mechanisms.
The Paper presents the design and development of a blended learning concept for an engineering course in the field of color representation and display technologies. A suitable learning environment is crucial for the success of the teaching scenario. A mixture of theoretical lectures and hands-on activities with practical applications and experiments, combined with the advantages of modern digital media is the main topic of the paper. Blended learning describes the didactical change of attendance periods and online periods. The e-learning environment for the online period is designed toward an easy access and interaction. Present digital media extends the established teaching scenarios and enables the presentation of videos, animations and augmented reality (AR). Visualizations are effective tools to impart learning contents with lasting effect. The preparation and evaluation of the theoretical lectures and the hands-on activities are stimulated and affects positively the attendance periods. The tasks and experiments require the students to work independently and to develop individual solution strategies. This engages and motivates the students, deepens the knowledge. The authors will present their experience with the implemented blended learning scenario in this field of optics and photonics. All aspects of the learning environment will be introduced.
Defining Recrutainment: A Model and a Survey on the Gamification of Recruiting and Human Resources
(2017)
Recrutainment, is a hybrid word combining recruiting and entertainment. It describes the combination of activities in human resources and gamification. Concepts and methods from game design are now used to assess and select future employees. Beyond this area, recrutainment is also applied for internal processes like professional development or even marketing campaigns. This paper’s contribution has four components: (1) we provide a conceptual background, leading to a more precise definition of recrutainment; (2) we develop a new model for analyzing solutions in recrutainment; (3) we present a corpus of 42 applications and use the new model to assess their strengths and potentials; (4) we provide a bird’s eye view on the state of the art in recrutainment and show the current weighting of gamification and recruiting aspects.
Applications helping us to maintain the focus on work are called “Zenware” (from concentration and Zen). While form factors, use cases and functionality vary, all these applications have a common goal: creating uninterrupted, focused attention on the task at hand. The rise of such tools exemplifies the users’ desire to control their attention within the context of omnipresent distraction. In expert interviews we investigate approaches in the context of attention-management at the workplace of knowledge workers. To gain a broad understanding, we use judgement sampling in interviews with experts from several disciplines. We especially explore how focus and flow can be stimulated. Our contribution has four components: a brief overview on the state of the art (1), a presentation of the results (2), strategies for coping with digital distractions and design guidelines for future Zenware (3) and an outlook on the overall potential in digital work environments (4).
This chapter portrays the historical and mathematical background of dynamic and procedural content generation (PCG). We portray and compare various PCG methods and analyze which mathematical approach is suited for typical applications in game design. In the next step, a structural overview of games applying PCG as well as types of PCG is presented. As abundant PCG content can be overwhelming, we discuss context-aware adaptation as a way to adapt the challenge to individual players’ requirements. Finally, we take a brief look at the future of PCG.
The number of impaired persons rises -- as a result of both regular degradation with age and psychological problems like burnout. Sheltered work organizations aim to reintegrate impaired persons into work environments and prepare them for the re-entry in the regular job market.
Both for elderly and for impaired persons it is crucial to quickly assess the abilities, to identify limits and potentials and thus find work processes suitable for their skill profile.
This work focuses on the analysis and comparison of software-tools that assess the abilities of persons with impairments. We describe two established generic tools (CANTAB, Cogstate), analyze a yet unknown specialized tool (Hamet) and present a new gamified tool (GATRAS).
Finally, we present a study with 20 participants with impairments, comparing the tools against a ground truth baseline generated by a real-world assembly task.