Does A Loss of Social Credibility Impact Robot Safety?

This position paper discusses the safety-related functions performed by assistive robots and explores the relationship between trust and effective safety risk mitigation. We identify a measure of the robot’s social effectiveness, termed social credibility, and present a discussion of how social credibility may be gained and lost. This paper’s contribution is the identification of a link between social credibility and safety-related performance. Accordingly, we draw on analyses of existing systems to demonstrate how an assistive robot’s safety-critical functionality can be impaired by a loss of social credibility. In addition, we present a discussion of some of the consequences of prioritising either safety-related functionality or social engagement. We propose the identification of a mixed-criticality scheduling algorithm in order to maximise both safety-related performance and social engagement

Interactive Human-Guided Optimization for Logistics Planning

Mattar N, Kulms P, Kopp S. Interactive Human-Guided Optimization for Logistics Planning. In: Pielot M, ed. Mensch und Computer 2015 – Tagungsband. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG; 2015: 183-192.Logistics planning is an important problem in industry, where goods have to be parceled appropriately to meet delivery dates or reduce shipping costs. This optimization problem is classically solved offline using standard algorithms and focused heuristics, e.g. bin packing or route planning. However, in practical work environments constraints may change flexibly (e.g. when custom-tailored goods with variable size have to be handled) and it is often not clear what an optimal solution looks like. Further, logistics planning consists of multiple steps that often are handled by different human employees in different departments. In this paper we propose an interactive approach using human-guided optimization, where solution spaces can be interactively explored, manipulated, and constrained at runtime. Based on an analysis of the problem of multi-step logistics planning, we present a system that supports users in solving this optimization problem, and we report first evaluation results obtained in the first two iterations of an user-centered design process

What Is the Gaze Behavior of Pedestrians in Interactions with an Automated Vehicle When They Do Not Understand Its Intentions?

Interactions between pedestrians and automated vehicles (AVs) will increase significantly with the popularity of AV. However, pedestrians often have not enough trust on the AVs , particularly when they are confused about an AV's intention in a interaction. This study seeks to evaluate if pedestrians clearly understand the driving intentions of AVs in interactions and presents experimental research on the relationship between gaze behaviors of pedestrians and their understanding of the intentions of the AV. The hypothesis investigated in this study was that the less the pedestrian understands the driving intentions of the AV, the longer the duration of their gazing behavior will be. A pedestrian--vehicle interaction experiment was designed to verify the proposed hypothesis. A robotic wheelchair was used as the manual driving vehicle (MV) and AV for interacting with pedestrians while pedestrians' gaze data and their subjective evaluation of the driving intentions were recorded. The experimental results supported our hypothesis as there was a negative correlation between the pedestrians' gaze duration on the AV and their understanding of the driving intentions of the AV. Moreover, the gaze duration of most of the pedestrians on the MV was shorter than that on an AV. Therefore, we conclude with two recommendations to designers of external human-machine interfaces (eHMI): (1) when a pedestrian is engaged in an interaction with an AV, the driving intentions of the AV should be provided; (2) if the pedestrian still gazes at the AV after the AV displays its driving intentions, the AV should provide clearer information about its driving intentions.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure

Software und Usability Engineering und User Experience in kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen

Die Forschung zu Software Engineering, ebenso wie zum Usability Engineering und UX hat traditionell – wenn es sich nicht ohnehin um Grundlagenforschung handelt – eher auf große Unternehmen fokussiert. Dies ist sicherlich auch der Geschichte der Informationstechnologie und der Informatik geschuldet, die maßgeblich von großen Unternehmen wie IBM, Microsoft oder Apple vorangetrieben wurde. Die besonderen Herausforderungen, vor denen kleine und mittlere Unternehmen (KMU) stehen, wenn sie selbst Software entwickeln oder entwickeln lassen, haben bisher in der Forschung einen weniger deutlichen Niederschlag gefunden. Vor dem Hintergrund einer zunehmenden Digitalisierung und Vernetzung aller Wirtschaftsbereiche scheint eine Auseinandersetzung mit den Auswirkungen auf KMU besonders wichtig

Towards game theoretic AV controllers: measuring pedestrian behaviour in Virtual Reality

Understanding pedestrian interaction is of great importance for autonomous vehicles (AVs). The present study investigates pedestrian behaviour during crossing scenarios with an autonomous vehicle using Virtual Reality. The self-driving car is driven by a game theoretic controller which adapts its driving style to pedestrian crossing behaviour. We found that subjects value collision avoidance about 8 times more than saving 0.02 seconds. A previous lab study found time saving to be more important than collision avoidance in a highly unrealistic board game style version of the game. The present result suggests that the VR simulation reproduces real world road-crossings better than the lab study and provides a reliable test-bed for the development of game theoretic models for AVs

Über die Wirksamkeit von Anti-Phishing-Training

Phishing ist noch immer ein verbreitetes Problem im Internet. Konsequenzen von Phishing können sowohl finanzieller als auch persönlicher Natur sein. Phishingangriffe werden ausgefeilter und sind nicht mehr einfach anhand fehlerhafter Rechtschreibung oder Grammatik zu identifizieren. Somit ist es für Internetnutzer wichtig den Aufbau von URLs zu verstehen um sich gegen Phishingangriffe schutzen zu können. Das von uns entwickelte „NoPhish“ Training basiert auf der Idee Nutzern sowohl die notwendige Awareness als auch die notwendigen Fähigkeiten zur Identifikation von Phishingangriffen zu vermitteln. Wir haben NoPhish mit einer Nutzerstudie empirisch evaluiert und können eine signifikante Verbesserung der Teilnehmer in diesen Bereichen zeigen.&nbsp