Ethical regulations on robotics in Europe

There are only a few ethical regulations that deal explicitly with robots, in contrast to a vast number of regulations, which may be applied. We will focus on ethical issues with regard to “responsibility and autonomous robots”, “machines as a replacement for humans”, and “tele-presence”. Furthermore we will examine examples from special fields of application (medicine and healthcare, armed forces, and entertainment). We do not claim to present a complete list of ethical issue nor of regulations in the field of robotics, but we will demonstrate that there are legal challenges with regard to these issues.

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Multilingual language resources and interoperability

This article introduces the topic of “Multilingual language resources and interoperability”. We start with a taxonomy and parameters for classifying language resources. Later we provide examples and issues of interoperatability, and resource architectures to solve such issues. Finally we discuss aspects of linguistic formalisms and interoperability.

Interacting with mobile services: an evaluation of camera-phones and visual tags

We present a study of using camera-phones and visual-tags to access mobile services. Firstly, a user-experience study is described in which participants were both observed learning to interact with a prototype mobile service and interviewed about their experiences. Secondly, a pointing-device task is presented in which quantitative data was gathered regarding the speed and accuracy with which participants aimed and clicked on visual-tags using camera-phones. We found that participants’ attitudes to visual-tag-based applications were broadly positive, although they had several important reservations about camera-phone technology more generally. Data from our pointing-device task demonstrated that novice users were able to aim and click on visual-tags quickly (well under 3 s per pointing-device trial on average) and accurately (almost all meeting our defined speed/accuracy tradeoff of 6% error-rate). Based on our findings, design lessons for camera-phone and visual-tag applications are presented.

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Understanding and capturing people’s privacy policies in a mobile social networking application

A number of mobile applications have emerged that allow users to locate one another. However, people have expressed concerns about the privacy implications associated with this class of software, suggesting that broad adoption may only happen to the extent that these concerns are adequately addressed. In this article, we report on our work on PeopleFinder, an application that enables cell phone and laptop users to selectively share their locations with others (e.g. friends, family, and colleagues). The objective of our work has been to better understand people’s attitudes and behaviors towards privacy as they interact with such an application, and to explore technologies that empower users to more effectively and efficiently specify their privacy preferences (or “policies”). These technologies include user interfaces for specifying rules and auditing disclosures, as well as machine learning techniques to refine user policies based on their feedback. We present evaluations of these technologies in the context of one laboratory study and three field studies.

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Evolving strategy for a probabilistic game of imperfect information using genetic programming

We provide the complete record of methodology that let us evolve BrilliAnt, the winner of the Ant Wars contest. Ant Wars contestants are virtual ants collecting food on a grid board in the presence of a competing ant. BrilliAnt has been evolved through a competitive one-population coevolution using genetic programming and fitnessless selection. In this paper, we detail the evolutionary setup that lead to BrilliAnt’s emergence, assess its direct and indirect human-competitiveness, and describe the behavioral patterns observed in its strategy.

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The 2007 IEEE CEC simulated car racing competition

This paper describes the simulated car racing competition that was arranged as part of the 2007 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation. Both the game that was used as the domain for the competition, the controllers submitted as entries to the competition and its results are presented. With this paper, we hope to provide some insight into the efficacy of various computational intelligence methods on a well-defined game task, as well as an example of one way of running a competition. In the process, we provide a set of reference results for those who wish to use the simplerace game to benchmark their own algorithms. The paper is co-authored by the organizers and participants of the competition.

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Digital Khalimsky Manifolds

We consider different possibilities to define digital manifolds that are locally homeomorphic to Khalimsky n-space. We prove existence and non-existence of certain types of Khalimsky manifolds. An embedding theorem is proved. We introduce the join operator and use it to analyze the structure of adjacency neighborhoods and of intersections of neighborhoods in ℤ ⁿ .

On the Discrete Maximum Principle for the Beltrami Color Flow

We analyze the discrete maximum principle for the Beltrami color flow. The Beltrami flow can display linear as well as nonlinear behavior according to the values of a parameter β, which represents the ratio between spatial and color distances. In general, the standard schemes fail to satisfy the discrete maximum principle. In this work we show that a nonnegative second order difference scheme can be built for this flow only for small β, i.e. linear-like diffusion. Since this limitation is too severe, we construct a novel finite difference scheme, which is not nonnegative and satisfies the discrete maximum principle for all values of β. Numerical results support the analysis.

Hitchcock’s (2001) treatment of singular and general causation

Hitchcock (2001a) argues that the distinction between singular and general causation conflates the two distinctions ‘actual causation vs. causal tendencies’ and ‘wide vs. narrow causation’. Based on a recent regularity account of causation I will show that Hitchcock’s introduction of the two distinctions is an unnecessary multiplication of causal concepts.

Is emotion relevant to requirements engineering?

This viewpoint argues that the introduction of most computer-based system to an organization transforms the organization and changes the work patterns of the system’s users in the organization. These changes interact with the users’ values and beliefs and trigger emotional responses which are sometimes directed against the software system and its proponents. A requirements engineer must be aware of these emotions.

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Legal safeguards for privacy and data protection in ambient intelligence

To get the maximum benefit from ambient intelligence (AmI), we need to anticipate and react to possible drawbacks and threats emerging from the new technologies in order to devise appropriate safeguards. The SWAMI project took a precautionary approach in its exploration of the privacy risks in AmI and sought ways to reduce them. It constructed four “dark scenarios” showing possible negative implications of AmI, notably for privacy protection. Legal analysis of the depicted futures showed the shortcomings of the current legal framework in being able to provide adequate privacy protection in the AmI environment. In this paper, the authors, building upon their involvement in SWAMI research as well as the further advancement of EU privacy analysis, identify various outstanding issues regarding the legal framework that still need to be resolved in order to deal with AmI in an equitable and efficacious way. This article points out some of the lacunae in the legal framework and postulates several privacy-specific safeguards aimed at overcoming them.

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Was kann die Wirtschaftsinformatik dazu beitragen,E-Health voran zu bringen?

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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The partitioned dynamic-priority scheduling of sporadic task systems

A polynomial-time algorithm is presented for partitioning a collection of sporadic tasks among the processors of an identical multiprocessor platform. Since the partitioning problem is NP-hard in the strong sense, this algorithm is unlikely to be optimal. A quantitative characterization of its worst-case performance is provided in terms of resource augmentation.

An exploratory study for analyzing interactional processes of group discussion: the case of a focus group interview

The purposes of this study are (a) to establish a measurement for evaluating conversational impressions of group discussions, and (b) to make an exploratory investigation on their interactional processes which may affect to form those impressions. The impression rating and factor analysis undertaken first give us four factors concerning conversational impressions of “focus group interviews (FGIs)”: conversational activeness, conversational sequencing, the attitudes of participants and the relationships of participants. In relation to the factors of conversational activeness and conversational sequencing in particular, the microanalysis of four selected topical scenes from our database further shows that the behavior of the moderator and the interviewees is organized not independently but with reference to each other. The study thus emphasizes the importance of the integration of quantitative and qualitative approaches towards human interactions.

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Methods for quantitative usability requirements: a case study on the development of the user interface of a mobile phone

Quantitative usability requirements are a critical but challenging, and hence an often neglected aspect of a usability engineering process. A case study is described where quantitative usability requirements played a key role in the development of a new user interface of a mobile phone. Within the practical constraints of the project, existing methods for determining usability requirements and evaluating the extent to which these are met, could not be applied as such, therefore tailored methods had to be developed. These methods and their applications are discussed.

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Managing Next Generation Networks and Services: A Report on APNOMS 2007

This article presents a report on APNOMS 2007, which was held October 10–12, 2007 in Sapporo, Japan. The theme of APNOMS 2007 was “Managing the Next Generation Networks and Services.”

Does Japan really have robot mania? Comparing attitudes by implicit and explicit measures

Japan has more robots than any other country with robots contributing to many areas of society, including manufacturing, healthcare, and entertainment. However, few studies have examined Japanese attitudes toward robots, and none has used implicit measures. This study compares attitudes among the faculty of a US and a Japanese university. Although the Japanese faculty reported many more experiences with robots, implicit measures indicated both faculties had more pleasant associations with humans. In addition, although the US faculty reported people were more threatening than robots, implicit measures indicated both faculties associated weapons more strongly with robots than with humans. Despite the media’s hype about Japan’s robot ‘craze,’ response similarities suggest factors other than attitude better explain robot adoption. These include differences in history and religion, personal and human identity, economic structure, professional specialization, and government policy. Japanese robotics offers a unique reference from which other nations may learn.

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Developing a generalizable detector of when students game the system

Some students, when working in interactive learning environments, attempt to “game the system”, attempting to succeed in the environment by exploiting properties of the system rather than by learning the material and trying to use that knowledge to answer correctly. In this paper, we present a system that can accurately detect whether a student is gaming the system, within a Cognitive Tutor mathematics curricula. Our detector also distinguishes between two distinct types of gaming which are associated with different learning outcomes. We explore this detector’s generalizability, and find that it transfers successfully to both new students and new tutor lessons.

Using trust assumptions with security requirements

Assumptions are frequently made during requirements analysis of a system about the trustworthiness of its various components (including human components). These trust assumptions, whether implicit or explicit, affect the scope of the analysis, derivation of security requirements, and in some cases how functionality is realized. This paper presents trust assumptions in the context of analysis of security requirements. A running example shows how trust assumptions can be used by a requirements engineer to help define and limit the scope of analysis and to document the decisions made during the process. The paper concludes with a case study examining the impact of trust assumptions on software that uses the secure electronic transaction specification.

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Numerical investigation of micro shock waves generation

The shock wave propagation in the micro channel of the different sizes is studied numerically in order to estimate the possibility of the experimental apparatus development. The full compressible Navier–Stokes equations are used for the numerical simulation. The shock wave velocity attenuation is found for the channel height smaller than H = 200 μm. The influence of the channel size and of the diaphragm pressure ratio on the shock wave velocity is considered. The considerable influence of the viscous effects on the shock propagation is shown.