The Impact of Situational Complexity and Familiarity on Takeover Quality in Uncritical Highly Automated Driving Scenarios

In the development of highly automated driving systems (L3 and 4), much research has been done on the subject of driver takeover. Strong focus has been placed on the takeover quality. Previous research has shown that one of the main influencing factors is the complexity of a traffic situation that has not been sufficiently addressed so far, as different approaches towards complexity exist. This paper differentiates between the objective complexity and the subjectively perceived complexity. In addition, the familiarity with a takeover situation is examined. Gold et al. show that repetition of takeover scenarios strongly influences the take-over performance. Yet, both complexity and familiarity have not been considered at the same time. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to examine the impact of objective complexity and familiarity on the subjectively perceived complexity and the resulting takeover quality. In a driving simulator study, participants are requested to take over vehicle control in an uncritical situation. Familiarity and objective complexity are varied by the number of surrounding vehicles and scenario repetitions. Subjective complexity is measured using the NASA-TLX; the takeover quality is gathered using the take-over controllability rating (TOC-Rating). The statistical evaluation results show that the parameters significantly influence the takeover quality. This is an important finding for the design of cognitive assistance systems for future highly automated and intelligent vehicles

Reading, Writing, and Moffat

Non-fiction by Miriam Scharf

Antecedents of Non-Ownership Business Model Offerings in the Mechanical Engineering Industry – A Set Theoretic Approach

The emergence of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies drives the offering of non-ownership business models (NOBMs) in the mechanical engineering industry. In a NOBM mechanical engineering firms as machine providers maintain machine ownership and sell their customers only the machine use and/or performance. While literature has already discussed the influence of multiple individual contextual antecedents on the decision of mechanical engineering firms whether to offer NOBMs, little is known about the interplay of these antecedents. By drawing on 16 interview-based cases and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), we applied a configurational perspective and identified each two configurations of four key contextual antecedents (high digital service capabilities, high machine standardization, high share of large customers, and high market competition) that lead to presence or absence of NOBM offerings by mechanical engineering firms. Moreover, we used our case insights to discuss the interplay of these antecedents within the identified configurations

"Deutsche Heereskarte von Spanien". El mapa d'Espanya a escala 1:50.000 de l'Estat Major de l'Exèrcit alemany (1940-1944)

L'objectiu d'aquest article ha estat buscar les fonts en alemany del Mapa d'Espanya a escala 1:50.000 de l'Estat Major de l'Exèrcit alemany (1940-1944), així com analitzar-les, avaluar-les i utilitzar-les. En la primera part s'ex-plica l'organització de la cartografia i de la geografia militar a Alemanya entre 1919 i 1945. Després es presenta la història de l'elaboració del mapa d'Espanya 1:50.000, fent referència a les dues edicions, tot emmarcant-la amb la informació cartogràfica i geogràfica produïda per la Wehrmacht i la història política i militar d'aquest període.El objectivo de este artículo ha sido el de buscar las fuentes en alemán del Mapa de España a escala 1:50.000 del Estado Mayor del Ejército alemán (1940-1944), así como analizarlas, evaluarlas y utilizarlas. En la primera parte se explica la organización de la cartografía y de la geografía militar en Alemania entre 1919 y 1945. Después se presenta la historia de la elaboración del mapa de España 1:50.000, describiendo las dos ediciones, relacionándola con la información cartográfica y geográfica producida por la Wehrmacht y la historia política y militar de este período.The goal of this paper is to unfold, analyze and assess the German sources used in the Map of Spain scale 1:50000 of the High Command of the German army (1940-1944). In the first section, the paper explains the organization of the German cartography and the military geography between 1919 and 1945. Second, it presents the history of the map of Spain 1:50000, analyzing both editions framing them in the context of the cartographic and geographic information produced by the Wehrmacht and the political and military history of this period

Fiskalische Einsparpotentiale einer Kreisstrukturreform in Sachsen-Anhalt

In view of the foreseeable demographic and finance-political developments the public house holds of Eastern Germany are under considerable strain to consolidate. This applies particularly to Saxony-Anhalt and there especially to local authorities. In 2003 the municipal expenses level (running material expenses and personnel expenses) of counties and communities in Saxony-Anhalt amounted 1,015 Euro per inhabitant and was clearly higher than the other East German states. Beyond the means of economisation through the efficient application of public funds, considerations are given to the potentials of country structure reforms. In the last legislative period, the CDU/FDP government already established the amalgamation of 24 counties to eleven new ones with the bill of 11.11.2005. The SPD - as an oppositional party at that time - submitted a proposal for an even further-reaching structural change with a concentration to five counties. This article comprises an estimation of the fiscal economisation potentials of both versions. In the first step, the (long term accessible) county expense levels of Saxony-Anhalt within the scope of the existing structure of a county is determined with the help of a Benchmarkanalysis. These results are then compared with expected expense levels of a reformed county structure which leads to the saving effect of the respective county reform. In the result of the analysis it appears that the suggestion of the SPD to the county structure reform allows to expect clearly higher saving effects than the suggestion of the former CDU/FDP government, a strong meaning of the already enforced community administrative reform is imputable.

Influencing Factors for the Adoption of Speech Assistance in Manufacturing

In recent years, there has been a steady increase in the use of speech assistants in the private environment. Although such assistance systems would also be beneficial for manufacturing (for example, because workers have their hands free), speech assistants have not yet been widely used in the industrial environment. Against this background, we develop in this article a model with factors that influence the decision of industrial firms whether to adopt speech assistance for manufacturing. In order to do so, we rely on the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework and conduct a multiple case study by interviewing 10 experts from firms that develop or use speech assistance solutions. Our model consists of 17 context factors that influence whether companies adopt speech assistance in manufacturing

Modeling of intra-annual abundance distributions: Constancy and variation in the phenology of marine phytoplankton species over five decades at Helgoland Roads (North Sea)

Annually recurring environmental processes such as the cycle of temperature and light drive the phenology of marine plankton populations. Improved knowledge about the homogeneity and amplitude of the phenological response of phytoplankton to climate change is essential for an assessment of ecological consequences on the marine ecosystem. We analyzed phenological variability of 21 phytoplankton species monitored work-daily at Helgoland Roads from 1962-2015. We used a function of “Weibull”-type to estimate phenological dates of species-specific abundance peaks. The combination of derived dates and peak abundances formed the basis for the analyses of long-term changes in phenological time slots and associated environmental conditions. Species-specific preferences in combination with seasonally varying environmental trends resulted in a complex pattern of phenological long-term response. Phenological trends showed both constant occurrence and shifts to an earlier or later occurrence. Co-occurring phytoplankton species were shown to exhibit different phenological trends even within identical time slots. Differences in species-specific trends in timing also reflected the seasonally varying shifts in water temperature ranges due to warming. In spring and summer, the main patterns of common variability in timing were associated with different abiotic and biotic drivers. The majority of species showed more narrow time slots related to the occurrence of higher peaks. Considering the variation of species occurrence in their “typical” time window provided insight in terms of assigning the effect of environmental drivers on inter-annual phenological variation. Phytoplankton species with similar long-term trends in timing (days) showed different trends in biomass, i.e. the phenological changes resulted from different ecological responses to environmental change. The local character of environmental trends at Helgoland underpins the limits for comparison of findings between different measuring sites or wider areas, such as the North Sea. The study emphasizes the benefit and necessity of a highly resolved phytoplankton record for a true understanding of long-term ecological changes in a highly dynamic marine environment such as the North Sea

Fast multi-core based multimodal registration of 2D cross-sections and 3D datasets

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Solving bioinformatics tasks often requires extensive computational power. Recent trends in processor architecture combine multiple cores into a single chip to improve overall performance. The Cell Broadband Engine (CBE), a heterogeneous multi-core processor, provides power-efficient and cost-effective high-performance computing. One application area is image analysis and visualisation, in particular registration of 2D cross-sections into 3D image datasets. Such techniques can be used to put different image modalities into spatial correspondence, for example, 2D images of histological cuts into morphological 3D frameworks.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We evaluate the CBE-driven PlayStation 3 as a high performance, cost-effective computing platform by adapting a multimodal alignment procedure to several characteristic hardware properties. The optimisations are based on partitioning, vectorisation, branch reducing and loop unrolling techniques with special attention to 32-bit multiplies and limited local storage on the computing units. We show how a typical image analysis and visualisation problem, the multimodal registration of 2D cross-sections and 3D datasets, benefits from the multi-core based implementation of the alignment algorithm. We discuss several CBE-based optimisation methods and compare our results to standard solutions. More information and the source code are available from <url>http://cbe.ipk-gatersleben.de</url>.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results demonstrate that the CBE processor in a PlayStation 3 accelerates computational intensive multimodal registration, which is of great importance in biological/medical image processing. The PlayStation 3 as a low cost CBE-based platform offers an efficient option to conventional hardware to solve computational problems in image processing and bioinformatics.</p

Design and Development of a Compact Magnetic Bearing Momentum Wheel for Micro and Small Satellites

Reaction and momentum wheels have become standard equipment for three-axis attitude stabilisation of conventional satellite classes as used e.g. for telecommunication and remote sensing missions. Owing to very compact mechanical designs and highly integrated electronics, wheels are now also more and more interesting for small satellites up to 100…200 kg with increasingly demanding requirements on attitude control. Wheels suitable for small satellites have a typical momentum capacity up to approximately 0.4 Nms, and masses up to about 2 kg. All existing miniature wheels known to the authors are relying on ball bearings for rotor suspension, which may limit the lifetime of a particular mission or introduce undesired levels of micro-vibrations. Magnetic bearings have the potential to overcome those disadvantages. However, the design of a sufficiently small magnetic bearing with all the necessary components and sub-assemblies involves a number of technical challenges, which are discussed in detail. The paper focuses on the magnetic bearing design process, using magnetic field CAE tools, and the overall wheel design. A prototype of a compact magnetic bearing wheel currently under construction is presented. Moreover, control aspects of the magnetic bearing and the drive motor design will be described and an outlook for further improvements and potential future developments will be given