ROTUNDE - A Smart Meeting Cinematography Initiative: Tools, Datasets, and Benchmarks for Cognitive Interpretation and Control

We construe smart meeting cinematography with a focus on professional situations such as meetings and seminars, possibly conducted in a distributed manner across socio-spatially separated groups. The basic objective in smart meeting cinematography is to interpret professional interactions involving people, and automatically produce dynamic recordings of discussions, debates, presentations etc in the presence of multiple communication modalities. Typical modalities include gestures (e.g., raising one's hand for a question, applause), voice and interruption, electronic apparatus (e.g., pressing a button), movement (e.g., standing-up, moving around) etc. ROTUNDE, an instance of smart meeting cinematography concept, aims to: (a) develop functionality-driven benchmarks with respect to the interpretation and control capabilities of human-cinematographers, real-time video editors, surveillance personnel, and typical human performance in everyday situations; (b) Develop general tools for the commonsense cognitive interpretation of dynamic scenes from the viewpoint of visuo-spatial cognition centred perceptual narrativisation. Particular emphasis is placed on declarative representations and interfacing mechanisms that seamlessly integrate within large-scale cognitive (interaction) systems and companion technologies consisting of diverse AI sub-components. For instance, the envisaged tools would provide general capabilities for high-level commonsense reasoning about space, events, actions, change, and interaction.Comment: Appears in AAAI-2013 Workshop on: Space, Time, and Ambient Intelligence (STAMI 2013

Modeling of Business Systems using Hybrid Simulation: A New Approach

Simulation models are important instruments for analysing business systems. They are classified into time-discrete and time-continuous simulation models, for example Discrete Event Systems (DEVS) or System Dynamics (SD) models. These special models are particularly suitable to analyse subsystems of a business system with either time-discrete or time-continuous behaviour. However, in general they are not appropriate to analyse a business system which shows time-discrete and time-continuous behaviour simultaneously. Analysing business systems with time-discrete and time-continuous behaviour with isolated submodels and consolidating the findings of these analyses afterwards may lead to redundancy and consistency problems. In this paper an approach for developing hybrid simulation models, which exhibit time-discrete and time-continuous behaviour, is presented. The hybrid simulation models contain DEVS and SD simulation submodels that are coupled. The approach introduces a structural model of business systems that consists of several control layers with timediscrete or time-continuous behaviour, as well as a modelling approach for integrating DEVS and SD submodels by coupling mechanisms. Finally, an investigation of a market case illustrates the use of the presented approach

The Potential of Agent-Based Simulation for Decision Support in Politics: The Case of Multicultural Societies

According to Parson’s structural functionalism, politicians are in charge of establishing and preserving a functional society. Political decisions have to be effective regarding such functionality. Due to globalization and numerous worldwide trouble spots, more and more people leave their home countries. They concentrate themselves in cities like Berlin or New York. Such societies are deemed as “multicultural” and exhibit an increasing space-time complexity. Additionally, such societies challenge politicians to make effective political decisions. For one thing, politicians have to make decisions under time pressure as well as with insufficient information in both quantity and quality. For another thing, the perception of societies’ space-time complexity by politicians is limited. As a consequence, politicians need decision support to increase the quality of their decisions. Against this background, this paper investigates the potential of agent-based simulation for decision support in politics, in particular in the context of multicultural societies

Towards the Analysis of Information Systems Flexibility: Proposition of a Method

The flexibility of information systems (IS) is a topic of growingimportance within IS analysis and design. IS have to cope withthe increasing structural and behavioral complexity of environmentaland business systems. Both increase the need for flexibilityof a company’s IS. On the one hand, researchers and practitionersagree that IS flexibility is a crucial success factor for theviability of business systems, on the other hand, however, earlierresearch has come to the conclusion that the concept of flexibilityis hard to capture. One of the reasons for this is the difficulty toperform flexibility analyses on IS. This paper investigates differentdefinitions of flexibility and methods for the analysis of ISflexibility regarding their precision, completeness and applicabilityby using a systems and organizations theoretical foundation.The paper’s research goal is to propose a certain way of understandingflexibility as well as a method for analyzing it. Furthermore,“rules of thumb” are introduced to support the developmentof IS strategies with regard to flexibility aspects. Finally, theapplicability of the IS artifact is exemplified by a scenario withinthe Plant Engineering and Construction industry

Service-oriented IT-Systems for Highly Flexible Business Processes

Der vorliegende Band „Dienstorientierte IT-Systeme für hochflexible Geschäftsprozesse“ enthält ausgewählte Ergebnisse des Forschungsverbundes forFLEX aus den Jahren 2008 - 2011. Ausgehend von einer Charakterisierung des Forschungsfeldes und zwei fallstudienbasierten Anwendungsszenarien werden Fragen der Analyse, der Modellierung und Gestaltung sowie der Infrastruktur, Sicherheit und Werkzeugunterstützung von hochflexiblen Geschäftsprozessen und ihrer Unterstützung durch dienstorientierte IT-Systeme untersucht. Das Buch wendet sich an IT-Fach- und Führungskräfte in Wirtschaft und Verwaltung sowie an Wissenschaftler, die an der Analyse und Gestaltung von Flexibilitätspotenzialen (teil-) automatisierter Geschäftsprozesse interessiert sind

Co-expression patterns of cancer associated fibroblast markers reveal distinct subgroups related to patient survival in oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma

Background: The incidence of oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) is rapidly increasing in high income countries due to its association with persistent high-risk human papilloma virus (HPV) infection. Recent scientific advances have highlighted the importance of the tumor microenvironment in OPSCC. In this study, including 216 OPSCC patients, we analyze the composition of four established markers of cancer associated fibroblasts (CAFs) in the context of intratumoral CD8 T-cell infiltration.Methods: Immunohistochemical staining for fibroblast activation protein (FAP), platelet-derived growth factor receptor beta (PDGFRb), periostin, alpha smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) and CD8 were analyzed digitally and their association with survival, tumor- and patient characteristics was assessed.Results: Co-expression of CAF markers was frequent but not associated with HPV status. FAPhigh and PDGFRbhigh expression were associated with increased CD8 T-cell infiltration. Low expression of PDGFRb improved patient survival in female patients but not in male patients. We identified PDGFRblow periostinlow α-SMAlow status as an independent predictor of improved survival (hazard ratio 0.377, p = 0.006).Conclusion: These findings elucidate the co-expression of four established CAF markers in OPSCC and underscore their association with T-cell infiltration and patient survival. Future analyses of CAF subgroups in OPSCC may enable the development of individualized therapies

Restraint of appetite and reduced regional brain volumes in anorexia nervosa: a voxel-based morphometric study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Previous Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) studies of people with anorexia nervosa (AN) have shown differences in brain structure. This study aimed to provide preliminary extensions of this data by examining how different levels of appetitive restraint impact on brain volume.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Voxel based morphometry (VBM), corrected for total intracranial volume, age, BMI, years of education in 14 women with AN (8 RAN and 6 BPAN) and 21 women (HC) was performed. Correlations between brain volume and dietary restraint were done using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Increased right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and reduced right anterior insular cortex, bilateral parahippocampal gyrus, left fusiform gyrus, left cerebellum and right posterior cingulate volumes in AN compared to HC. RAN compared to BPAN had reduced left orbitofrontal cortex, right anterior insular cortex, bilateral parahippocampal gyrus and left cerebellum. Age negatively correlated with right DLPFC volume in HC but not in AN; dietary restraint and BMI predicted 57% of variance in right DLPFC volume in AN.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In AN, brain volume differences were found in appetitive, somatosensory and top-down control brain regions. Differences in regional GMV may be linked to levels of appetitive restraint, but whether they are state or trait is unclear. Nevertheless, these discrete brain volume differences provide candidate brain regions for further structural and functional study in people with eating disorders.</p

Altered Error Processing following Vascular Thalamic Damage: Evidence from an Antisaccade Task

Event-related potentials (ERP) research has identified a negative deflection within about 100 to 150 ms after an erroneous response – the error-related negativity (ERN) - as a correlate of awareness-independent error processing. The short latency suggests an internal error monitoring system acting rapidly based on central information such as an efference copy signal. Studies on monkeys and humans have identified the thalamus as an important relay station for efference copy signals of ongoing saccades. The present study investigated error processing on an antisaccade task with ERPs in six patients with focal vascular damage to the thalamus and 28 control subjects. ERN amplitudes were significantly reduced in the patients, with the strongest ERN attenuation being observed in two patients with right mediodorsal and ventrolateral and bilateral ventrolateral damage, respectively. Although the number of errors was significantly higher in the thalamic lesion patients, the degree of ERN attenuation did not correlate with the error rate in the patients. The present data underline the role of the thalamus for the online monitoring of saccadic eye movements, albeit not providing unequivocal evidence in favour of an exclusive role of a particular thalamic site being involved in performance monitoring. By relaying saccade-related efference copy signals, the thalamus appears to enable fast error processing. Furthermore early error processing based on internal information may contribute to error awareness which was reduced in the patients

Design of Causal Coupling Patterns Supporting Causal Modeling and Flow Modeling in the System Dynamics Methodology

System dynamics (SD) is a well-known methodology for analyzing the structure and the behavior of business systems and the environment. The utility of SD has been proven in numerous cases. However, decision makers have reservations using SD to support their decision processes. The reasons can be a) decision makers have problems to design a causal model under given time constraints (aspect of methodology complexity and methodical support) and b) the constructed causal and flow model do not offer adequate structure and behavior consistency (aspect of model quality). Furthermore, there are high demands on the causal and flow model due to using it for the description of the behavior of the real system in terms of differential equations. This paper introduces causal coupling patterns using the task concept of KOSIOL (cf. Kosiol, 1976) to simplify causal modeling and to derive the corresponding flow models in order to increase the acceptance and the model quality of SD models