TY - JOUR A1 - Hu, Rongbo A1 - Iturralde, Kepa A1 - Linner, Thomas A1 - Zhao, Charlie A1 - Pan, Wen A1 - Pracucci, Alessandro A1 - Bock, Thomas T1 - A Simple Framework for the Cost–Benefit Analysis of Single-Task Construction Robots Based on a Case Study of a Cable-Driven Facade Installation Robot JF - Buildings, Architecture: Integration of Art and Engineering N2 - Single-task construction robots (STCRs) have become a popular research topic for decades. However, there is still a gap in the ubiquitous application of STCRs for onsite construction due to various reasons, such as cost concerns. Therefore, cost–benefit analysis (CBA) can be used to measure the net economic benefit of the STCRs, compared to traditional construction methods, in order to boost the implementation of STCRs. This paper presents a simple and practical framework for the economic evaluation of STCRs and conducts a case study of a cable-driven facade installation robot to verify the method. The results show that the cable-driven robot for facade installation is worth investing in in the UK, as well as in the majority of G20 countries. Furthermore, other socioenvironmental implications of STCRs and the limitations of the study are also discussed. In conclusion, the proposed method is highly adaptable and reproducible. Therefore, researchers, engineers, investors, and policy makers can easily follow and customize this method to assess the economic advantages of any STCR systems, compared to traditional construction technologies. KW - cable-driven parallel robot KW - construction robot KW - cost–benefit analysis KW - curtain wall modules KW - economic evaluation KW - facade installation Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings11010008 VL - 11 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 8 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schott, Gisela A1 - Klemperer, David A1 - Lieb, Klaus T1 - Arzneimittel: Sinnvolle Studien nach der Zulassung JF - Deutsches Ärzteblatt N2 - Die Arzneimittelkommission der deutschen Ärzteschaft erklärt, an welchen Postzulassungsstudien Ärztinnen und Ärzte teilnehmen sollten – und an welchen nicht. T2 - Drugs: Useful trials after the approval Y1 - 2021 UR - https://www.aerzteblatt.de/archiv/219443/Arzneimittel-Sinnvolle-Studien-nach-der-Zulassung VL - 118 IS - 23 SP - A-1148 / B-945 PB - Deutscher Ärzteverlag CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Plonus, Rene-Marcel A1 - Vogl, Stefanie A1 - Floeter, Jens T1 - Automatic Segregation of Pelagic Habitats JF - Frontiers in Marine Science N2 - It remains difficult to segregate pelagic habitats since structuring processes are dynamic on a wide range of scales and clear boundaries in the open ocean are non-existent. However, to improve our knowledge about existing ecological niches and the processes shaping the enormous diversity of marine plankton, we need a better understanding of the driving forces behind plankton patchiness. Here we describe a new machine-learning method to detect and quantify pelagic habitats based on hydrographic measurements. An Autoencoder learns two-dimensional, meaningful representations of higher-dimensional micro-habitats, which are characterized by a variety of biotic and abiotic measurements from a high-speed ROTV. Subsequently, we apply a density-based clustering algorithm to group similar micro-habitats into associated pelagic macro-habitats in the German Bight of the North Sea. Three distinct macro-habitats, a “surface mixed layer,” a “bottom layer,” and an exceptionally “productive layer” are consistently identified, each with its distinct plankton community. We provide evidence that the model detects relevant features like the doming of the thermocline within an Offshore Wind Farm or the presence of a tidal mixing front. KW - machine learning KW - North Sea KW - submesoscale KW - pelagic habitats KW - plankton patchiness Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.754375 PB - Frontiers ET - 8 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wein, Simon A1 - Deco, Gustavo A1 - Tomé, Ana Maria A1 - Goldhacker, Markus A1 - Malloni, Wilhelm M. A1 - Greenlee, Mark W. A1 - Lang, Elmar Wolfgang T1 - Brain Connectivity Studies on Structure-Function Relationships: A Short Survey with an Emphasis on Machine Learning JF - Computational intelligence and neuroscience N2 - This short survey reviews the recent literature on the relationship between the brain structure and its functional dynamics. Imaging techniques such as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) make it possible to reconstruct axonal fiber tracks and describe the structural connectivity (SC) between brain regions. By measuring fluctuations in neuronal activity, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) provides insights into the dynamics within this structural network. One key for a better understanding of brain mechanisms is to investigate how these fast dynamics emerge on a relatively stable structural backbone. So far, computational simulations and methods from graph theory have been mainly used for modeling this relationship. Machine learning techniques have already been established in neuroimaging for identifying functionally independent brain networks and classifying pathological brain states. This survey focuses on methods from machine learning, which contribute to our understanding of functional interactions between brain regions and their relation to the underlying anatomical substrate. KW - Brain Mapping KW - Brain/diagnostic imaging KW - Diffusion Tensor Imaging KW - Machine Learning KW - Magnetic Resonance Imaging KW - Nerve Net/diagnostic imaging KW - Neural Pathways/diagnostic imaging KW - Structure-Activity Relationship Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/5573740 SP - 1 EP - 31 PB - Hindawi ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pit, Sabrina A1 - Fisk, Malcolm A1 - Freihaut, Winona A1 - Akintunde, Fashola A1 - Aloko, Bamidele A1 - Berge, Britta A1 - Burmeister, Anne A1 - Ciacâru, Adriana A1 - Deller, Jürgen A1 - Dulmage, Rae A1 - Han, Tae Hwa A1 - Hao, Qiang A1 - Honeyman, Peter A1 - Huber, Peter C. A1 - Linner, Thomas A1 - Lundberg, Stefan A1 - Nwamara, Mofoluwaso A1 - Punpuing, Kamolpun A1 - Schramm, Jennifer A1 - Yamada, Hajime A1 - Yap, Jason C. H. T1 - COVID-19 and the ageing workforce: global perspectives on needs and solutions across 15 countries JF - International Journal for Equity in Health volume N2 - BACKGROUND: COVID-19 has a direct impact on the employment of older people. This adds to the challenge of ageism. The World Health Organization has started a worldwide campaign to combat ageism and has called for more research and evidence-based strategies that have the potential to be scaled up. This study specifically aims to identify solutions to combat the adverse effects of COVID-19 on the global ageing workforce. METHODS: We present 15 case studies from different countries and report on what those countries are doing or not doing to address the impact of COVID-19 on ageing workers. RESULTS: We provide examples of how COVID-19 influences older people's ability to work and stay healthy, and offer case studies of what governments, organizations or individuals can do to help ensure older people can obtain, maintain and, potentially, expand their current work. Case studies come from Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Germany, Israel, Japan, Nigeria, Romania, Singapore, Sweden, South Korea, Thailand, United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US). Across the countries, the impact of COVID-19 on older workers is shown as widening inequalities. A particular challenge has arisen because of a large proportion of older people, often with limited education and working in the informal sector within rural areas, e.g. in Nigeria, Thailand and China. Remedies to the particular disadvantage experienced by older workers in the context of COVID are presented. These range from funding support to encouraging business continuity, innovative product and service developments, community action, new business models and localized, national and international actions. The case studies can be seen as frequently fitting within strategies that have been proven to work in reducing ageism within the workplace. They include policy and laws that have increased benefits to workers during lockdowns (most countries); educational activities such as coaching seniorpreneurship (e,g, Australia); intergenerational contact interventions such as younger Thai people who moved back to rural areas and sharing their digital knowledge with older people and where older people reciprocate by teaching the younger people farming knowledge. CONCLUSION: Global sharing of this knowledge among international, national and local governments and organizations, businesses, policy makers and health and human resources experts will further understanding of the issues that are faced by older workers. This will facilitate the replication or scalability of solutions as called for in the WHO call to combat ageism in 2021. We suggest that policy makers, business owners, researchers and international organisations build on the case studies by investing in evidence-based strategies to create inclusive workplaces. Such action will thus help to challenge ageism, reduce inequity, improve business continuity and add to the quality of life of older workers. KW - Aged KW - Aging KW - Communicable Disease Control KW - COVID-19 KW - Humans KW - Quality of Life KW - SARS-CoV-2 KW - United States KW - Workforce Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-021-01552-w VL - 20 SP - 1 EP - 22 PB - Springer Nature ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Gebhardt, H. A1 - Linner, Thomas ED - Richter, Götz T1 - DIN Arbeitsausschuss „Alternde Gesellschaften“ : Einleitung T2 - Arbeit und Altern : Eine Bilanz nach 20 Jahren Forschung und Praxis Y1 - 2021 SN - 9783748909378 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5771/9783748909378-445 SP - 445 EP - 450 PB - Nomos ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Baumann, Timo A1 - Saboo, Ashutosh ED - Ehrmann, Maud T1 - Evaluating Heuristics for Audio-Visual Translation T2 - Proceedings of the Conference of Computational Humanities Research, (CHR2021): November 17-19, 2021, Amsterdam, The Netherlands N2 - Dubbing, i.e., the lip-synchronous translation and revoicing of audio-visual media into a target language from a different source language, is essential for the full-fledged reception of foreign audio-visual media, be it movies, instructional videos or short social media clips. In this paper, we objectify influences on the ‘dubbability’ of translations, i.e., how well a translation would be synchronously revoiceable to the lips on screen. We explore the value of traditional heuristics used in evaluating the qualitative aspects, in particular matching bilabial consonants and the jaw opening while producing vowels, and control for quantity, i.e., that translations are similar to the source in length. We perform an ablation study using an adversarial neural classifier which is trained to differentiate “true” dubbing translations from machine translations. While we are able to confirm the value of matching lip closure in dubbing, we find that the opening angle of the jaw as determined by the realized vowel may be less relevant than frequently considered in audio-visual translation. KW - ablation study KW - audiovisual translation KW - dubbing KW - lip synchrony KW - machine translation Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:gbv:18-228-7-2592 UR - http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2989/short_paper46.pdf SP - 171 EP - 180 PB - CEUR Workshops CY - Amsterdam, the Netherlands ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Cheah, Chien Chern A1 - Bock, Thomas A1 - Cao, Jianfu A1 - Linner, Thomas A1 - Liu, Yun-Hui A1 - Yamashita, Atsushi A1 - Yang, Liman T1 - Guest Editorial Introduction to the Focused Section on Mechatronics and Automation for Constructions JF - IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics N2 - Rapid advances in modern technologies have completely revolutionized many industries in recent years. It is anticipated that mechatronic and automation technologies would play an important role in transforming the construction industry to embrace for the fourth industrial revolution. However, construction automation problems bring up new research challenges that diverge from traditional methods. Unlike the factory environment, which is typically structured and predictable, construction sites are dynamic places where the working environment is unstructured and always changing. Due to lack of skilled labor, time and cost overruns, quality deficiencies, and the recent pandemics, mechatronic and automation technologies offer solutions for future safe, rapid, performative, prize worthy, and digitally protocolled construction projects. The coexistence of human workers, heavy vehicles, varying environmental conditions, and automated mechatronic systems also make safe human–machine interaction an important issue. Beyond expertise in a specific discipline, construction automation also requires multidisciplinary expertise to integrate with various fields, such as Internet of Things (IOT), robotics and its construction oriented subsystems, adaptive/robust control, machine vision, sensing technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), and building/construction/process information modeling (BIM/CIM/PIM) for automated construction process management and design. The main aims of this focused section in the IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics (TMECH) are to document the current state of the art in mechatronics and automation for constructions, and to present new results in several emerging research areas. KW - automation KW - Inspection KW - Mechatronics KW - Robot sensing systems KW - Service robots Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1109/TMECH.2021.3127237 VL - 26 IS - 6 SP - 2819 EP - 2825 PB - IEEE ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Fischer, Kerstin A1 - Naik, Lakshadeep A1 - Langedijk, Rosalyn Melissa A1 - Baumann, Timo A1 - Jelínek, Matouš A1 - Palinko, Oskar ED - Bethel, Cindy ED - Paiva, Ana T1 - Initiating Human-Robot Interactions Using Incremental Speech Adaptation T2 - HRI '21 Companion, Companion of the 2021 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction: March 8 - 11, 2021, Boulder CO, USA N2 - In this paper, we present a study in which a robot initiates interactions with people passing by in an in-the-wild scenario. The robot adapts the loudness of its voice dynamically to the distance of the respective person approached, thus indicating who it is talking to. It furthermore tracks people based on information on body orientation and eye gaze and adapts the text produced based on people's distance autonomously. Our study shows that the adaptation of the loudness of its voice is perceived as personalization by the participants and that the likelihood that they stop by and interact with the robot increases when the robot incrementally adjusts its behavior. KW - gaze KW - incrementalit KW - initiating interaction KW - personalization KW - voice Y1 - 2021 SN - 9781450382908 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1145/3434074.3447205 SP - 421 EP - 425 PB - Association for Computing Machinery CY - New York, NY ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Gehlen, Christoph A1 - Mayer, Till Felix A1 - Thiel, Charlotte A1 - Fischer, Christian T1 - Lebensdauerbemessung T2 - Beton Kalender 2021 : Fertigteile, Integrale Bauwerke N2 - Christoph Gehlen, Till Felix Mayer, Charlotte Thiel und Christian Fischer beschreiben die Lebensdauerbemessung von Beton. Umfassend werden Transport‐ und Schädigungsmodelle vorgestellt, die die Mechanismen der Carbonatisierung, der Chlorideindringung, der Korrosion und der korrosionsinduzierten Rissbildung im Stahlbeton beschreiben. Die damit einhergehende Verbundthematik wird erläutert. Auch wird auf alle Mechanismen der Betonkorrosion eingegangen. Die Bemessung in Bezug auf die Dauerhaftigkeit und damit Abschätzungen für die Lebensdauer von Beton wird in drei unterschiedlich genauen Formaten geführt. Neben dem vollprobabilistischen Format wird beschrieben, wie Bemessungen auch auf Grundlage von Nachweisen basierend auf Teilsicherheitsbeiwerten durchgeführt werden können. Daran anschließend wird aufgezeigt, welche deskriptiven Bemessungsansätze sich daraus ableiten lassen. An einigen exemplarisch herausgegriffenen Objektbeispielen wird die Lebensdauerbemessung konkret vorgeführt. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/9783433610206.ch1 VL - 110 SP - 1 EP - 57 PB - Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn ER -