Introducing the NLU Showroom: A NLU Demonstrator for the German Language

We present the NLU Showroom, a platform for interactively demonstrating the functionality of natural language understanding models with easy to use visual interfaces. The NLU Showroom focuses primarily on the German language, as not many German NLU resources exist. However, it also serves corresponding English models to reach a broader audience. With the NLU Showroom we demonstrate and compare the capabilities and limitations of a variety of NLP/NLU models. The four initial demonstrators include a) a comparison on how different word representations capture semantic similarity b) a comparison on how different sentence representations interpret sentence similarity c) a showcase on analyzing reviews with NLU d) a showcase on finding links between entities. The NLU Showroom is build on state-of-the-art architectures for model serving and data processing. It targets a broad audience, from newbies to researchers but puts a focus on putting the presented models in the context of industrial applications

The WCET Tool Challenge 2011

Following the successful WCET Tool Challenges in 2006 and 2008, the third event in this series was organized in 2011, again with support from the ARTIST DESIGN Network of Excellence. Following the practice established in the previous Challenges, the WCET Tool Challenge 2011 (WCC'11) defined two kinds of problems to be solved by the Challenge participants with their tools, WCET problems, which ask for bounds on the execution time, and flow-analysis problems, which ask for bounds on the number of times certain parts of the code can be executed. The benchmarks to be used in WCC'11 were debie1, PapaBench, and an industrial-strength application from the automotive domain provided by Daimler AG. Two default execution platforms were suggested to the participants, the ARM7 as "simple target'' and the MPC5553/5554 as a "complex target,'' but participants were free to use other platforms as well. Ten tools participated in WCC'11: aiT, Astr\'ee, Bound-T, FORTAS, METAMOC, OTAWA, SWEET, TimeWeaver, TuBound and WCA

Magnetization waves in split-ring-resonator arrays: Evidence for retardation effects

We excite low-symmetry planar arrays of nanoscale magnetic split-ring resonators oscillating at around 200 THz frequency under oblique incidence of light. Due to the in-plane coupling of split-ring resonators, classical magnetic-dipole waves result in the plane. We measure the dispersion relation of "antiferromagnetic" and "ferromagnetic" modes, revealing backward waves and a wave-vector-dependent damping. The latter provides evidence for retardation effects, which play no role in the quantum-mechanical counterpart of classical magnetization waves, i.e., magnons. Our experiments are in good agreement with both simple heuristic modeling and microscopic theory

On the Online Min-Wait Relocation Problem

International audienceIn a carsharing system, a fleet of cars is distributed at stations in an urban area, customers can take and return cars at any time and station. For operating such a system in a satisfactory way, the stations have to keep a good ratio between the total number of places and cars in each station, in order to refuse as few customer requests as possible. This leads to the problem of relocating cars between stations. We consider the Online Min-Wait Relocation Problem, aiming at satisfying all customer requests with a minimal total waiting time, and show the non-existence of competitive online algorithms against several adversaries. Furthermore, we consider the max/max ratio, and show that this ratio cannot be used to theoretically evaluate online algorithms for the Online Min-Wait Relocation Problem either

Effect of recreational‐fisheries management on fish biodiversity in gravel pit lakes, with contrasts to unmanaged lakes

Gravel pit lakes are novel ecosystems that can be colonized by fish through natural or anthropogenic pathways. In central Europe, many of them are managed by recreational anglers and thus experience regular fish stocking. However, also unmanaged gravel pits may be affected by stocking, either through illegal fish introductions or, occasionally, by immigration from connected water bodies. We sampled 23 small (< 20 ha) gravel pit lakes (16 managed and 7 unmanaged) in north‐western Germany using littoral electrofishing and multimesh gillnets. Our objective was to compare the fish biodiversity in gravel pit lakes in the presence or absence of recreational fisheries. Given the size of the sampled lakes, we expected species poor communities and elevated fish diversity in the managed systems due to regular stocking of game fish species. Our study lakes were primarily mesotrophic and did not differ in key abiotic and biotic environmental characteristics. Lakes of both management types hosted similar fish abundances and biomasses, but were substantially different in terms of fish community structure and species richness. Fish were present in all lakes, with a minimum of three species. Higher α‐diversity and lower β‐diversity was discovered in managed gravel pit lakes compared to unmanaged lakes. Consequently, recreational‐fisheries management fostered homogenization of fish communities, by stocking a similar set of fish species desired by anglers such as piscivorous fish and large bodied cyprinids. However, unmanaged gravel pit lakes were also affected by human‐mediated colonization, presumably by illegal fish releases. Hardly any non‐native species were detected, suggesting that recreational‐fisheries management did not foster the spread of exotic species in our study region