AI as Arational Intelligence?

We introduce the notion of arational realisations of abilities. In computer science, rationality often refers to the concept of a rational agent, which is defined by the function or behavior of the agent. We focus in the way how this behavior is described and encoded. We build up on the definition of a rational process/method/argument by Günter Ropohl, which focuses on the interpretability and communicability of the realisation of said process/method. We compare arational with rational realisations of abilities and discuss key questions appearing if arationally realised methods are employed in data science. We further analyse the relevance of arational realisations of abilities for the generation of mathematical proofs, an extreme formof communicable arguments. We conclude that modern computer science could profit from a more intensive and more technical discussion with different branches of theoretical philosophy

Kinetic model for dose equivalent : an efficient way to predict systems response of irradiated cells

The response of tumours onto ionizing radiation cannot be fully understood by commonly used radiobiological models. The reason may lie in the complex structure of the cellular systems which show a high degree of compartmentalisation and which is characterised by a network of interacting processes at different time scales. To access the dynamic response of cells onto radiation, compartmental models based on a biological dose equivalent can be used. Two different models (T-LQ- and T-IR-model) are used to fit experimental data of the clonogenic survival of irradiated cells at very high dose rates. The models reveal the correct dose rate dependence over a wide range of the parameter space when adapting the kinetic constants to the dose rate. This adaption could be an indication for the multi-scale structure of the system

Multiple regimes in operation of the Swiss railway system and potential influences on power load

© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Analysis of the noise of a system is often an effective way to obtain information about its internal dynamics. In this paper, an analysis of the variance of the noise on the power load curve of the Swiss railway system guides us toward the detection of a multimodality in the distribution of punctualities. This multimodality is regarded as a strong indicator for a dynamics with multiple, possibly self-organized, regimes. The presence of multiple regimes in the dynamics is of relevance for the design of operational strategies. Based on the information about the operation of the Swiss regular interval time table, we suggest and apply a simple way to identify the part of the load signal that can be regarded as noise, and we demonstrate the use of Hartigan's dip test for the identification of multimodalities in the distribution of random variables

Opinions and Outlooks on Morphological Computation

Morphological Computation is based on the observation that biological systems seem to carry out relevant computations with their morphology (physical body) in order to successfully interact with their environments. This can be observed in a whole range of systems and at many different scales. It has been studied in animals – e.g., while running, the functionality of coping with impact and slight unevenness in the ground is "delivered" by the shape of the legs and the damped elasticity of the muscle-tendon system – and plants, but it has also been observed at the cellular and even at the molecular level – as seen, for example, in spontaneous self-assembly. The concept of morphological computation has served as an inspirational resource to build bio-inspired robots, design novel approaches for support systems in health care, implement computation with natural systems, but also in art and architecture. As a consequence, the field is highly interdisciplinary, which is also nicely reflected in the wide range of authors that are featured in this e-book. We have contributions from robotics, mechanical engineering, health, architecture, biology, philosophy, and others

Computational methods for exploring the dynamics of cancer : the potential of state variables for description of complex biological systems

Observing dynamic patterns in silico and comparing them to experimental data in vitro or in vivo could help us identify and quantify dynamic processes. Since modellers are faced with a high degree of complexity of biological systems, appropriate concepts of system descriptions are needed. The use of state variables is expected to make models applicable to a wider range of the dynamics of biological systems. This is demonstrated by the Multi-Hit-Repair (MHR-)model which is based on a transient dose equivalent. The model calculates the survival of cells irradiated by ionizing radiation and it describes correctly a large variety of radio-biological observations. In addition, the MHR-model is bridging the gap between processes at the molecular or cellular level and tissue dynamics

Liste des priorités et calcul des contingents : préparation aux pandémies en Suisse

Une étude mandatée par l’Office fédéral de la santé publique. Publication dans ZHAW digitalcollection avec l'aimable autorisation de l'ETH Zurich. 2e version révisée d'octobre 2018.Des questions d’ordre éthique se posent lors de la distribution de substances et services médicaux en cas de pénurie: Qui, et sur la base de quels critères, doit par exemple recevoir en priorité des doses vaccinales pendant une épidémie de grippe, lorsque la pénurie guette et que toutes celles et ceux pour qui une vaccination se justifie ne peuvent recevoir une dose? Les dilemmes liés à la distribution de vaccins et d’autres moyens de prévention médicale ou de traitement des maladies infectieuses en cas de pénurie ne peuvent être considérés de manière isolée comme problème de l’éthique de la santé. Il s’agit bien plus de prendre en compte un ensemble de facteurs médico-biologiques, de facteurs liés aux coûts de la santé et de réflexions éthiques. La Loi et l’Ordonnance sur les épidémies réglementent en principe la distribution des substances thérapeutiques; Motivation et objectifs le Plan suisse de pandémie esquisse des directives pour l’élaboration de priorités. La présente étude vise à concrétiser de possibles ordres de priorité en case de pandémie et préciser la répartition entre les cantons. Les buts de l’étude sont donc: (i) l’élaboration d’une liste de priorités, qui satisfait à des critères médicaux et éthiques reconnus; (ii) ainsi que la définition de profils de besoins et contingents propres à chaque canton. L’étude contient la description (1) des bases éthiques et médicales ; (2) des scénarios de pandémies élaborés en fonction de ces dernières ; (3) d’algorithmes de distribution reflétant différents principes de priorités ; ainsi que (4) des profils de besoins et des contingents de chaque canton