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TMeasy 6.0, an extension to the standard TMeasy tire model of version 5.3, takes the relevant first two rigid body eigenmodes of the belt into consideration. These modes represent the in plane longitudinal and rotational movements of the belt relative to the rim. The dynamics of the longitudinal force is of higher order then and reproduces the tire wheel vibrations, required for indirect tire-pressure monitoring systems (iTPMS), sufficiently well. A tailored implicit solver, which takes the stiff coupling between the longitudinal force and the belt motions into account, still provides real-time performance in addition. Simulation examples show that a rigid body vehicle model equipped with TMeasy 6.0 makes it possible to investigate second generation indirect tire-pressure monitoring systems.
Binders with large portions of carbon-intensive Portland cement replaced by supplementary cementitious materials (e.g. fly ash) are more susceptible to carbonation mainly due to their lower CO2 buffering capacity. This conclusion is usually drawn from accelerated experiments at elevated CO2 levels involving processes that seriously differ from natural carbonation. The resulting presence of H2O reactant in the pore system and the carbonated microstructure itself may be very different. In this paper, these phenomena were investigated for High-Volume Fly Ash (HVFA) mortar via carbonation tests at ±0.04% CO2 (natural carbonation), 1% CO2 and 10% CO2. Internal humidity sensor monitoring and 1H NMR relaxometry revealed the highest water vapour and liquid water contents after carbonation at 10% CO2. Carbonation at 10% CO2 results in a coarser pore structure than carbonation at 1% CO2, and this probably due to a higher degree of C–S–H carbonation.
Blended cements, where Portland cement clinker is partially replaced by supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), provide the most feasible route for reducing carbon dioxide emissions associated with concrete production. However, lowering the clinker content can lead to an increasing risk of neutralisation of the concrete pore solution and potential reinforcement corrosion due to carbonation. carbonation of concrete with SCMs differs from carbonation of concrete solely based on Portland cement (PC). This is a consequence of the differences in the hydrate phase assemblage and pore solution chemistry, as well as the pore structure and transport properties, when varying the binder composition, age and curing conditions of the concretes. The carbonation mechanism and kinetics also depend on the saturation degree of the concrete and CO2 partial pressure which in turn depends on exposure conditions (e.g. relative humidity, volume, and duration of water in contact with the concrete surface and temperature conditions). This in turn influence the microstructural changes identified upon carbonation. This literature review, prepared by members of RILEM technical committee 281-CCC carbonation of concrete with supplementary cementitious materials, working groups 1 and 2, elucidates the effect of numerous SCM characteristics, exposure environments and curing conditions on the carbonation mechanism, kinetics and structural alterations in cementitious systems containing SCMs.
Wind turbines play a crucial role in the revolution towards renewable resources. They need to be economically competitive to be sustainable. This still requires to lower the cost of energy (COE). To this end, nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) is used within this paper. As known from literature, NMPC significantly improves the energy extracting performance as well as the mitigation of tower loads of wind turbines. As it is shown in this paper, the drivetrain fatigue strength drops disproportionally in parallel, which either increases the demands on the turbine design or decreases the lifetime of drivetrain components. Without additional boundary conditions to the underlying optimal control problems (OCPs), the application of energy-maximizing NMPC might so even raise the COE. Only penalizing axial torque oscillations by quadratic terms decreases energy-extracting performance below the level of classical wind turbine controllers. This makes more sophisticated conditions necessary. In this paper, the increase of the drivetrain damage by NMPC is analyzed, and appropriate boundary conditions are derived, to balance the two contradicting objectives of energy maximization and drivetrain load mitigation. An NMPC approach based on indirect methods is used, to obtain a solution of the OCPs very efficiently. It applies the Hamilton equations and Pontryagin's maximum principle. Its accuracy and efficiency to solve OCPs was presented over the last decades.
Algorithm selection (AS) tasks are dedicated to find the optimal algorithm for an unseen problem instance. With the knowledge of problem instances’ meta-features and algorithms’ landmark performances, Machine Learning (ML) approaches are applied to solve AS problems. However, the standard training process of benchmark ML approaches in AS either needs to train the models specifically for every algorithm or relies on the sparse one-hot encoding as the algorithms’ representation. To escape these intermediate steps and form the mapping function directly, we borrow the learning to rank framework from Recommender System (RS) and embed the bi-linear factorization to model the algorithms’ performances in AS. This Bi-linear Learning to Rank (BLR) has proven to work with competence in some AS scenarios and thus is also proposed as a benchmark approach. Thinking from the evaluation perspective in the modern AS challenges, precisely predicting the performance is usually the measuring goal. Though approaches’ inference time also needs to be counted for the running time cost calculation, it’s always overlooked in the evaluation process. The multi-objective evaluation metric Adjusted Ratio of Root Ratios (A3R) is therefore advocated in this paper to balance the trade-off between the accuracy and inference time in AS. Concerning A3R, BLR outperforms other benchmarks when expanding the candidates range to TOP3. The better effect of this candidates expansion results from the cumulative optimum performance during the AS process. We take the further step in the experimentation to represent the advantage of such TOPK expansion, and illustrate that such expansion can be considered as the supplement for the convention of TOP1 selection during the evaluation process.
Sufficient conditions for the existence of a sample mean of time series under dynamic time warping
(2020)
Time series averaging is an important subroutine for several time series data mining tasks. The most successful approaches formulate the problem of time series averaging as an optimization problem based on the dynamic time warping (DTW) distance. The existence of an optimal solution, called sample mean, is an open problem for more than four decades. Its existence is a necessary prerequisite to formulate exact algorithms, to derive complexity results, and to study statistical consistency. In this article, we propose sufficient conditions for the existence of a sample mean. A key result for deriving the proposed sufficient conditions is the Reduction Theorem that provides an upper bound for the minimum length of a sample mean.
The world’s population is aging at an unprecedented pace. Aging society is not only a severe crisis in the developed world, but also a rigorous challenge in emerging economies. Many age-related diseases are fostered by the lack of physical, cognitive, and social activities. Increasing the activity level has many benefits for the elderly and can improve their independence. Based on the analysis of the state-of-the-art and shortcomings of the current smart home solutions, the EU-funded research project REACH aims to develop a service system that will turn clinical and care environments into personalized modular sensing, prevention, and intervention systems that encourage the elderly to become healthy through various activities. To achieve that goal, the research team developed a series of smart furniture (PI2Us) that materialize the research concepts and functionality seamlessly into the various environments. Specifically, the development process and the functionality testing results of the PI2Us are reported in detail. In addition, a simulated smart home solution concept (TRACK) integrating key assistive technologies developed is proposed to create a comprehensive interior living and care environment for elderly users. Due to its modularity and flexibility, the partial or entire solution can be easily adapted and rapidly deployed in different use case settings in Europe, which allows the project consortium to execute different testing activities. In the next phase, the research team will focus on enhancing the usability and performance of the prototypes in order to eventually push them to the market. In conclusion, this research provides an innovative smart home solution for the industry to mitigate the impact of aging society.
Deliverable D32: Detailed set of privacy guidelines and schemata Responsive Engagement of the Elderly promoting Activity and Customized Healthcare 2 Deliverable D32: Detailed set of privacy guidelines and schemata: Summarization of the outcome of the development of necessary data privacy and security schemata to (1) protect sensed data; (2) ascertain computational anonymity; (3) ensure privileged intervention access (associated with task T.7.5). Abstract: This deliverable report examines the outcomes of the REACH research project with regard to data privacy and data security, associated with Task T7.5. This document gives an overview of our analyses involving ethics and privacy concerns in terms of the individual touchpoints and shows how these findings guided the project towards the determination of the medical purpose and intended use-cornerstones to on the path to market entry. In addition, we provide a brief overview of how the guidelines regarding data protection and encryption influenced the technical design and implementation of project components. Furthermore, we provide an update on the management of legal implications (and the implications resulting from this for system requirements and business strategy) of the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence in the context of REACH solutions, incorporating an external expert opinion. Finally, this deliverable report contains a summary of our approach towards risk gov-ernance and standardization in this regard: our work in REACH on privacy and security schemata, culminated in a CEN Workshop Agreement (guideline) that generalizes REACH outcomes and makes them accessible and usable beyond the REACH consortium .
A need exists for faster installation of prefabricated modules in the refurbishment market. Current solutions for installing and fitting prefabricated modules on existing buildings are time consuming. The objective of this research is to reduce the time currently required for the installation of timber-based 2D modules by using innovative technologies while improving placement accuracy. A novel installation concept was proposed based on a digitally produced matching kit interface that corrects existing building’s irregularities and connector placement deviations. This solution was tested, validated, and compared in several manufacturing contexts. The tests recorded measurable variables such as the manufacturing time and placement accuracy of the modules. The results demonstrate decreases up to 73% in installation time and placement deviations of less than 2 mm.
This deliverable report focuses on the exploitation of the results and solutions from the REACH2020 research project and subsequent business models, associated with task T8.4. In particular, this report gives an overview of the progress regarding the purpose and planning of a REACH consultancy firm, including business models and marketing strategies for systems and sub-systems. Moreover, this report provides insight into possible market segmentation solutions over the care continuum. Furthermore, status updates are provided with regard to a number of practice cases where REACH achieved external visibility and effects and gathered information on the alignment of its business system. Furthermore, the results for exemplary value chains are presented for specific REACH sub-systems. For the exploitation of the results after the end of the research project, an agreement for future collaboration was signed with the New North Zealand Hospital, reflecting REACH’s capability and aim to become a major player and partner for strengthening the ecosystem around future smart hospitals.
Structuring the context for construction robot development through integrated scenario approach
(2020)
The technological development of construction robots is underway globally. However, current development activities face significant uncertainties, particularly in terms of the definition and management of system requirements, which are primarily based on vague assumptions about the future. Thus, a new tool is required to grasp how construction robots—and their surrounding ecosystems—will be used. This research adopts an unprecedented scenario-based approach to develop and analyze future alternatives for construction robotics in a systematic manner. Hong Kong “toward 2035” is used as an initial test case, and four scenarios of the robot ecosystem, i.e., “Bottleneck,” “Age of Iron Worker,” “Dynamic Co-evolution of Robotization and Modularization,” and “Rise of the Robots,” are developed from evidence-based analysis. Scenarios highlight the crucial role of workers for construction robot utilization. Driving forces, opportunities, and challenges are identified for elaborating strategies under each scenario. The integrated scenario approach and findings lay an important foundation for systems engineering processes in construction robotics to develop a new tool for structuring system context and specifying system requirements.
Aging society is not only a crisis in the developed world but also a severe challenge in some emerging economies. However, the awareness of population aging and gerontechnology is far from sufficiently addressed in the architectural design education in universities. Therefore, an interdisciplinary approach in design education is urgently needed to raise the awareness of the aging crisis among the future architects, interior designers, and beyond. This article introduces a novel model of a design seminar offered by a German University, addressing population aging issues in the architecture department. The syllabus, formality, and the expected results of the seminar are revealed in detail. The participants are encouraged to apply interdisciplinary knowledge such as barrier-free architecture, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, robotics, medicine, psychology, and business to achieve the goals of the seminar. Based on the originality and degree of completion, several students' works are selected and reported, targeting a variety of diseases or syndromes related to aging, such as dementia, immobility, and tremors. Overall, participants of this seminar are motivated and have positive feedback on this seminar, oftentimes claiming that they have seldom studied similar topics in previous architecture education. This enables students from architecture as well as other fields to be better prepared to tackle the upcoming challenges such as labor shortages and infectious diseases in a rapidly aging world. Furthermore, the seminar creates novel concepts that serve as a win-win "honeypot" for both students and their instructors, potentially sparking research topics and start-ups with concepts fostered in this seminar.
The installation of curtain wall modules (CWMs) is a risky activity carried out in the heights and often under unfavorable weather conditions. CWMs are heavy prefabricated walls that are lifted normally with bindings and cranes. High stability is needed while positioning in order not to damage the fragile CWMs. Moreover, this activity requires high precision while positioning brackets, the modules, and for that reason, intensive survey and marking are necessary. In order to avoid such inconveniences, there were experiences to install façade modules in automatic mode using robotic devices. In the research project HEPHAESTUS, a novel system has been developed in order to install CWMs automatically. The system consists of two subsystems: a cable driven parallel robot (CDPR) and a set of robotic tools named as Modular End Effector (MEE). The platform of the CDPR hosts the MEE. This MEE performs the necessary tasks of installing the curtain wall modules. There are two main tasks that the CDPR and MEE need to achieve: first is the fixation of the brackets onto the concrete slab, and second is the picking and placing of the CWMs onto the brackets. The first integration of the aforementioned system was carried out in a controlled environment that resembled a building structure. The results of this first test show that there are minor deviations when positioning the CDPR platform. In future steps, the deviations will be compensated by the tools of the MEE and the installation of the CWM will be carried out with the required accuracy automatically.
Construction robots are devices of increased danger and, under certain conditions, can become a source of injuries to maintenance personnel, as well as lead to the failure of technological equipment. Most of the accidents are associated with the presence of maintenance personnel in the working area during programming, configuration, training, repair and maintenance of robots. The article describes measures to ensure safety during the maintenance of robots and manipulators. The stages of preparing the construction industry for the use of manipulators, robots and robotic complexes are presented. A system of measures for preparing equipment for use and its maintenance during operation is proposed.
Construction robots are expected to have disruptive impacts on the building industry, but 8 there is still a lack of utilisation. While significant attention has been paid to technical 9 advancement, little has been done to comprehensively understand the broader societal issues 10 associated with the use of this technology. This paper aims to provide a holistic exploration 11 of the influencing factors of the future utilisation of construction robots in a systems manner, 12 analyse the interactions among these factors and identify the key ones that are most 13 influential in shaping the technological transformation. A modified fuzzy decision-making 14 trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method is developed and applied. Hong Kong 15 was selected as the desirable case for the study due to its vibrant yet challenging built 16 environments. Factors were first systematically identified and synthesised before being 17 empirically verified, evaluated and analysed through the modified fuzzy DEMATEL. The 18 results demonstrate the multi-faceted and complexly interrelated factors influencing the 19 utilisation of construction robots. Eleven influencing factors were determined as critical for 20 shaping the future trajectory of robotic applications, among which “construction cost”, 21 “governmental support” and “the scale of prefabrication” are the most influential ones. The 22 findings indicate that more interdisciplinary efforts and broader non-technical discussions are 23 needed to achieve the successful transition of the industry towards robotic construction. The 24 findings further reveal the driving forces of environmental pressures behind the future 25 utilisation of construction robots. Detailed utilisation scenarios which fit to the evolution of 26 the whole society are recommended for future research.
Standardization activities
(2020)
REACH has the ambition to influence and gain from standardization on national, European, and international level. We aim to create synergies between parallel work on these levels that will finally make a beneficial impact. Systematic parallel and synergeti cwork on these levels allow REACH to create a maximized impact for all involved stakeholders, and in particular, create better health and health care “ecosystems” for potential REACH end users.
Delivering energy-efficient buildings or settlements has become a popular topic amongst architects, engineers, and building engineering physicists. There are many methods for improving building energy performances, both for new build projects and for retrofitting existing buildings. However, the construction industry faces some profound challenges to satisfy the increasing demand for energy-efficient buildings or other solutions and to be able to offer them at an affordable cost. A holistic approach has been adopted to validate whether automation robotics and off-site manufacturing technologies can yield positive changes in the delivery of energy-efficient buildings. This paper emphasizes the potential transformations and possible impacts on the design, construction, and installation process of an energy-efficient building once the advanced technologies are implemented. This paper also highlights case studies in multiple ongoing or past European Union (EU) Horizon 2020 research projects as well as private projects to demonstrate the applicability and technical feasibility of the proposed solution. The scenario proposed was used to demonstrate how to apply the proposal in a large-scale residential building project. In addition, the findings from this study will serve as proof of the concept of a larger research project, or as an inspiration for the construction industry to execute energy-efficient building projects in the future.
REACH stands for “Responsive Engagement of the Elderly Promoting Activity and Customized Healthcare”. Sustained physical activity matters greatly to the health and well-being of older people and significantly improves their chance of maintaining independent living. It can make a difference across the whole care continuum as well as in almost every setting. Therefore, REACH solutions focus on the systematic, target-oriented increase of physical activity of older people, and tackle the whole prevention spectrum (primary, secondary, and tertiary). It seeks to empower older people and their formal and informal caregivers, and works towards viable solutions for both the formal and in-formal care sector. Technology-based personalization of prevention, activation, and care services provided in various living and care settings is at the center of the developed solutions. Ideally toolkit approach would allow for the tailoring of solutions that create value for end-users, care providers and health care payers alike through the combination, integration and adaptation/re-design elements towards the different contexts of different countries, different payment and reimbursement structures. This Special Issue sheds light on such solutions, their conception, their development, and their testing.
Deliverable D28: Formalized results of final testing and optimization activities: Summarization of testing and evaluation of final testing of continuously improved system in the form of prototypes in real world environments and presentation of optimization measures (associated with tasks T6.5, T6.6, T6.7, T6.8). D28 is an update on D27. Additional associated deliverables are D12, D13, D23, D31, and D44. Abstract: In order to provide a comprehensive summary of all testing activities, the medical core group (DTU, HUG, SK, TUM) created a mini protocol template (which requested the outline of some methodological aspects of each study such as study designs, the recruitment phase, population under investigation, etc.), and ensured that data were submitted and provided by the trial manager to the core group. In this deliverable we present, structure, and interpret the formalized results of the final testing and optimization activities of all testing activities in REACH. The deliverable includes the summarization of testing and evaluation of final testing of a continuously improved system in the form of prototypes in real world environments and the presentation of optimization measures. The deliverable is an update on deliverable D27 and associated with tasks T6.5, T6.6, T6.7, T6.8. In reaction to the reviewers' comments we initiated additional trials focusing on practice cases. Those trials are specifically ladled and included in the updated overview. A review on factors, i.e., falling, frailty, cognitive decline , sarcopenia, social isolation, and malnutrician, was performed to show the most important cofactors. Addressed in this deliverable is also the role of privacy and the hierarchy of needs which are essential components of the acceptance and use of technology .
Die Gegebenheiten, die durch die zunehmende Annäherung von Mensch-Maschine-Materie und wissenschaftlicher Forschung entstehen, definieren neu, wie wir Dinge wahrnehmen, mit ihnen interagieren und sie herstellen. Generische Sensoren, Rechenleistung und drahtlose Netzwerktechnologien in unseren Körpern, Materialien, Häusern, Schulen und Arbeitsplätzen prägen die ‚Mainstream‘-Kultur neu. KI-Agenten (Künstliche Intelligenz) verarbeiten vernetzte Sensordaten in Echtzeit gegen bisherige, aktuelle und prognostizierte Modelle und liefern Informationen über Entscheidungen und Maßnahmen, deren Auswertung einst viel Zeit in Anspruch nahm. Diese technologischen Phänomene, kombiniert mit realen ökologischen und demographischen Veränderungen, greifen in bisher nicht vorhandener Größenordnung und Geschwindigkeit in die evolutionären Prozesse ein. Roboter, die einst ausschließlich mit der industriellen Serienmontage verbunden waren, fertigen individuelle Dinge, transportieren und montieren sie autonom. Handcraft und Digitalcraft fusionieren zu Cybercraft und vernetzen Menschen, Maschinen und Materie. Diese anhaltenden Phänomene verändern zwangsläufig die 600 Jahre alten Entwurfsmethoden der Architektur und die elf Jahrtausende alten Baupraktiken.
We summarize our project Rhythmicalizer in which we analyze a corpus of post-modern poetry in a combination of qualitative hermeneutical and computational methods, as we have run the project over the course of the past three years (and preparing it for some time before that). Interdisciplinary work is always challenging and we here focus on some of the highlights of our collaboration.
This paper presents the classification of rhythmical patterns detected in post-modern spoken poetry by means of machine learning algorithms that use manually engineered features or automatically learnt representations. We used the world's largest corpus of spoken poetry from our partner lyrikline. We identified nine rhythmical patterns within a spectrum raging from a more fluent to a more disfluent poetic style. The text data analyzed by a statistical parser. Prosodic features of rhythmical patterns are identified by using the parser information. For the classification of rhythmical patterns, we used a neural networks-based approach which use text, audio, and pause information between poetic lines as features. Different combinations of features as well as the integration of feature engineering in the neural networks-based approach are tested. We compared the performance of both approaches (feature-based and neural network-based) using combinations of different features. The results show – by using the weighted average of f-measure for the evaluation – that the neural networks-based approach performed much better in classification of rhythmical patterns. The important improvement of the classification results lies in the use of the audio information. The integration of feature engineering in the neural networks-based approach yielded a very small result improvement.
This paper describes the tasks, databases, baseline systems, and summarizes submissions and results for the GermEval 2020 Shared Task 1 on the Classification and Regression of Cognitive and Motivational Style from Text. This shared task is divided into two subtasks, a regression task, and a classification task. Subtask 1 asks participants to reproduce a ranking of students based on average aptitude indicators such as different high school grades and different IQ scores. The second subtask aims to classify so-called implicit motives, which are projective testing procedures that can reveal unconscious desires. Besides five implicit motives, the target labels of Subtask 2 also contain one of six levels that describe the type of self-regulation when acting out a motive, which makes this task a multiclass-classification with 30 target labels. 3 participants submitted multiple systems. Subtask 1 was solved (best r = .3701) mainly with non-neural systems and statistical language representations, submissions for Subtask 2 utilized neural approaches and word embeddings (best macro F1 = 70.40). Not only were the tasks solvable, analyses by the participants even showed connections to the implicit psychometrics theory and behavioral observations made by psychologists. This paper describes the tasks, databases, baseline systems, and summarizes submissions and results for the GermEval 2020 Shared Task 1 on the Classification and Regression of Cognitive and Motivational Style from Text. This shared task is divided into two subtasks, a regression task, and a classification task. Subtask 1 asks participants to reproduce a ranking of students based on average aptitude indicators such as different high school grades and different IQ scores. The second subtask aims to classify so-called implicit motives, which are projective testing procedures that can reveal unconscious desires. Besides five implicit motives, the target labels of Subtask 2 also contain one of six levels that describe the type of self-regulation when acting out a motive, which makes this task a multiclass-classification with 30 target labels. 3 participants submitted multiple systems. Subtask 1 was solved (best r =.3701) mainly with non-neural systems and statistical language representations, submissions for Subtask 2 utilized neural approaches and word embeddings (best macro F1 = 70.40). Not only were the tasks solvable, analyses by the participants even showed connections to the implicit psychometrics theory and behavioral observations made by psychologists.
Listeners typically provide feedback while listening to a speaker in conversation and thereby engage in the co-construction of the interaction. We analyze the influence of the listener on the speaker by investigating how her verbal feedback signals help in modeling the speaker's language. We find that feedback from the listener may help in modeling the speaker's language, whether through the listener's feedback as transcribed, or the acoustic signal directly. We find the largest positive effects for end of sentence as well as for pauses mid-utterance, but also effects that indicate we successfully model elaborations of ongoing utterances that may result from the presence or absence of listener feedback.
A large proportion of (post)-modern poetry contains no or hardly any punctuation. In our contribution, we will investigate how well punctuation information can be recovered for postmodern poetry based on the information contained in the text and speech of free verse poems. We use the world's largest corpus of spoken (post-)modern poetry from our partner lyrikline which contains the corresponding audio recording of each poem as spoken by the original author and features translations for many of the poems. We identify lines that contain a phrase break in the middle of the poetic line, which may already be helpful for philological analysis on one hand, and identify the position of the break in the line on the other hand. We select those poetic lines that contain one or more punctuation characters that typically indicate a phrase break in poetry (.,;:!?/) somewhere in the middle (rather than only at the end of the line) as our target class. We train a neural network (bidirectional recurrent neural network (RNN) based on gated recurrent units (GRU) with attention) that combines audio and textual features to identify the punctuation with the goal of applying it to reconstruct them within a corpus of unpunctuated poems. Our results clearly indicate that speech is helpful for recovering the constituency structure of post-modern poetry that is partially obfuscated by missing punctuation.
We analyze the addressee detection task for complexity-identical dialog for both human conversation and device-directed speech. Our recurrent neural model performs at least as good as humans, who have problems with this task, even native speakers, who profit from the relevant linguistic skills. We perform ablation experiments on the features used by our model and show that fundamental frequency variation is the single most relevant feature class. Therefore, we conclude that future systems can detect whether they are addressed based only on speech prosody which does not (or only to a very limited extent) reveal the content of conversations not intended for the system.
Dubbing is the art of finding a translation from a source into a target language that can be lip-synchronously revoiced, i. e., that makes the target language speech appear as if it was spoken by the very actors all along. Lip synchrony is essential for the full-fledged reception of foreign audiovisual media, such as movies and series, as violated constraints of synchrony between video (lips) and audio (speech) lead to cognitive dissonance and reduce the perceptual quality. Of course, synchrony constraints only apply to the translation when the speaker's lips are visible on screen. Therefore, deciding whether to apply synchrony constraints requires an automatic method for detecting whether an actor's lips are visible on screen for a given stretch of speech or not. In this paper, we attempt, for the first time, to classify on- from off-screen speech based on a corpus of real-world television material that has been annotated word-by-word for the visibility of talking lips on screen. We present classification experiments in which we classify
Dubbing has two shades; synchronisation constraints are applied only when the actor’s mouth is visible on screen, while the translation is unconstrained for off-screen dubbing. Consequently, different synchronisation requirements, and therefore translation strategies, are applied depending on the type of dubbing. In this work, we manually annotate an existing dubbing corpus (Heroes) for this dichotomy. We show that, even though we did not observe distinctive features between on- and off-screen dubbing at the textual level, on-screen dubbing is more difficult for MT (-4 BLEU points). Moreover, synchronisation constraints dramatically decrease translation quality for off-screen dubbing. We conclude that, distinguishing between on-screen and off-screen dubbing is necessary for determining successful strategies for dubbing-customised Machine Translation.
Road Vehicle Dynamics
(2020)
Road Vehicle Dynamics: Fundamentals and Modeling with MATLAB®, Second Edition combines coverage of vehicle dynamics concepts with MATLAB v9.4 programming routines and results, along with examples and numerous chapter exercises. Improved and updated, the revised text offers new coverage of active safety systems, rear wheel steering, race car suspension systems, airsprings, four-wheel drive, mechatronics, and other topics. Based on the lead author's extensive lectures, classes, and research activities, this unique text provides readers with insights into the computer-based modeling of automobiles and other ground vehicles. Instructor resources, including problem solutions, are available from the publisher.
The “Smart Bridge (Intelligente Brücke)” project cluster, initiated by the German Federal Highway Research Institute (Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen, BASt) and the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI), focuses on “smart” monitoring devices that allow an efficient and economic maintenance management of bridge infrastructures. Among the participating projects, the one presented herein focuses on the development of a smart expansion joint, to assess the traffic parameters on site. This is achieved by measuring velocity and weight of crossing vehicles. In reference measurements, performed with a three-axle truck and a typical tractor semi-trailer combination with five axles in total, it was shown that the interaction between the vehicle and the expansion joint is highly dynamic and depends on several factors. To get more insight into this dynamic problem, a virtual test rig was set up. Although nearly all vehicle parameters had to be estimated, the simulation results conform very well with the measurements and are robust to vehicle parameter variations. In addition, they indicate a significant influence of the expansion joint dynamic to the peak values of the measured wheel loads, in particular on higher driving velocities. By compensating the relevant dynamic effects in the measurements, a “smart” data processing algorithm makes it possible to determine the actual vehicle weights in random traffic with reliability and appropriate accuracy.
n the automotive industry, simulations are needed to analyse the dynamics of vehicles and also of its main components and subsystems, e.g. tires, brakes and suspension systems. These simulations are required for an early-stage development and in consequence, they must deliver realistic results. Suspension systems plays a key role in comfort and safety of road vehicles. They usually consist of rigid links and force elements that are arranged with a specific topology. In addition, some of their functionalities are to carry the weight of the car and the passengers, and maintain a correct wheel alignment. In simulations involving suspension systems, lookup-tables are frequently used. They are obtained from a Kinematic and Compliance (KnC) test and then standardized for a specific vehicle simulation software. Nonetheless, lookup-tables require a reasonable number of characteristic points. Additionally, derivatives, interpolation, and extrapolation are not necessarily smooth. This produces results that depend on the interpolation technique and may be inaccurate. In this paper, a novel method called “design kinematics” is proposed. This method can describe the kinematic properties of almost any type of suspension systems. Comparisons with an analytic calculation and a KnC measurement shown that the design kinematics is able to represent the kinematic and compliance properties of suspension systems extremely well and very efficiently.
Defining Criteria for Guiding Cancer Patients to Find a Reputable Complementary Medicine Provider
(2020)
Purpose: Even in cases of positive evidence for complementary medicine (CM) therapies, it is still difficult for cancer patients to identify reputable providers. The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a criteria list to provide guidance to cancer patients seeking a reputable CM provider.
Methods: The design combined a literature review, an expert consensus procedure (n=15) and an assessment from three stakeholder perspectives (patients (n=18), CM providers (n=26) and oncology physicians (n=20)).
Results: A total of 30 existing CM criteria were extracted from the literature, and 12 more were added by the experts. The main challenge was to define criteria that could easily be applied by the patients. A final comprehensive list of 8 criteria guiding cancer patients to find a reputable CM provider was developed.
Conclusion: Health professionals and cancer information services might find the criteria list helpful when aiming to strengthen patients' awareness of quality-related factors associated with CM providers. The criteria developed might be helpful when standards are established for quality assurance in CM in oncology.
OBJECTIVES:
To assess the quantity and evaluate the quality of policies and curricula focusing on conflicts of interests (COI) at medical schools across Germany.
DESIGN:
Cross-sectional study, survey of medical schools, standardised web search.
SETTING:
Medical schools, Germany.
PARTICIPANTS:
38 German medical schools. - INTERVENTIONS: We collected relevant COI policies, including teaching activities, by conducting a search of the websites of all 38 German medical schools using standardised keywords for COI policies and teaching. Further, we surveyed all medical schools' dean's offices. Finally, we adapted a scoring system for results we obtained with 13 categories based on prior similar studies. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES:
Presence or absence of COI-related policies, including teaching activities at medical school. The secondary outcome was the achieved score on a scale from 0 to 26, with high scores representing restrictive policies and sufficient teaching activities.
RESULTS:
We identified relevant policies for one medical school via the web search. The response rate of the deans' survey was 16 of 38 (42.1%). In total, we identified COI-related policies for 2 of 38 (5.3%) German medical schools, yet no policy was sufficient to address all COI-related categories that were assessed in this study. The maximum score achieved was 12 of 26. 36 (94.7%) schools scored 0. No medical school reported curricular teaching on COI.
CONCLUSIONS:
Our results indicate a low level of action by medical schools to protect students from undue commercial influence. No participating dean was aware of any curriculum or instruction on COI at the respective school and only two schools had policies in place. The German Medical Students Association and international counterparts have called for a stronger focus on COI in the classroom. We conclude that for German medical schools, there is still a long way to go.