A Review and Characterization of Progressive Visual Analytics

Progressive Visual Analytics (PVA) has gained increasing attention over the past years. It brings the user into the loop during otherwise long-running and non-transparent computations by producing intermediate partial results. These partial results can be shown to the user for early and continuous interaction with the emerging end result even while it is still being computed. Yet as clear-cut as this fundamental idea seems, the existing body of literature puts forth various interpretations and instantiations that have created a research domain of competing terms, various definitions, as well as long lists of practical requirements and design guidelines spread across different scientific communities. This makes it more and more difficult to get a succinct understanding of PVA’s principal concepts, let alone an overview of this increasingly diverging field. The review and discussion of PVA presented in this paper address these issues and provide (1) a literature collection on this topic, (2) a conceptual characterization of PVA, as well as (3) a consolidated set of practical recommendations for implementing and using PVA-based visual analytics solutions

Dark matter sensitivity of multi-ton liquid xenon detectors

We study the sensitivity of multi ton-scale time projection chambers using a liquid xenon target, e.g., the proposed DARWIN instrument, to spin-independent and spin-dependent WIMP-nucleon scattering interactions. Taking into account realistic backgrounds from the detector itself as well as from neutrinos, we examine the impact of exposure, energy threshold, background rejection efficiency and energy resolution on the dark matter sensitivity. With an exposure of 200 t x y and assuming detector parameters which have been already demonstrated experimentally, spin-independent cross sections as low as $2.5 \times 10^{-49}$ cm$^2$ can be probed for WIMP masses around 40 GeV/$c^2$. Additional improvements in terms of background rejection and exposure will further increase the sensitivity, while the ultimate WIMP science reach will be limited by neutrinos scattering coherently off the xenon nuclei.Comment: 21 pages, 8 Figures; matches version accepted by JCA

TOWARDS IT-SUPPORTED MANAGEMENT BY OBJECTIVES - A DESIGN THEORY BASED ON INTRA-ORGANIZATIONAL WEBLOGS

Management by Objectives (MbO) - invented by Peter Drucker in the 1950s is a leadership approach in which superior managers and subordinate employees jointly define objectives, constantly review achievement-progress and assess final achievements. IT-support for MbO is given within Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) or Employee Performance Management Systems (EPMS). Functions to constantly document achievement-status by employees or asynchronous communication possibilities for objective-discussion are not integrated in these systems. Thus, achievement-discussion has to be done with separate media such as email. Considering this, managers might lose track about achievement-levels and employees likely lose awareness of their objectives. To overcome these problems we interpret this situation from a Principal Agent perspective and conceptualize a specific MbO-tool on a weblog-basis. Within our concept each manager and employee possesses an intra-organizational weblog, in which he/she documents his/her objectives and corresponding status reports. Managers can comment on status reports and delegate sub-objectives via an automatic transfer of objectives from his/her weblog to an employees weblog. Drawing on this, we construct an explanatory design theory for the problems above and for MbO-tools in general. The evaluation by using the Principal Agent theory shows that our approach decreases MbO information asymmetries and increase objective-awareness

Emergence of noise-induced barren plateaus in arbitrary layered noise models

In variational quantum algorithms the parameters of a parameterized quantum circuit are optimized in order to minimize a cost function that encodes the solution of the problem. The barren plateau phenomenon manifests as an exponentially vanishing dependence of the cost function with respect to the variational parameters, and thus hampers the optimization process. We discuss how, and in which sense, the phenomenon of noise-induced barren plateaus emerges in parameterized quantum circuits with a layered noise model. Previous results have shown the existence of noise-induced barren plateaus in the presence of local Pauli noise [arXiv:2007.14384]. We extend these results analytically to arbitrary completely-positive trace preserving maps in two cases: 1) when a parameter-shift rule holds, 2) when the parameterized quantum circuit at each layer forms a unitary $2$-design. The second example shows how highly expressive unitaries give rise not only to standard barren plateaus [arXiv:1803.11173], but also to noise-induced ones. In the second part of the paper, we study numerically the emergence of noise-induced barren plateaus in QAOA circuits focusing on the case of MaxCut problems on $d$-regular graphs and amplitude damping noise.Comment: 34 pages, 9 Figures, added Refs. [31,32] and fixed typo in Eq (B.30

An Enhanced Visualization Process Model for Incremental Visualization

With today’s technical possibilities, a stable visualization scenario can no longer be assumed as a matter of course, as underlying data and targeted display setup are much more in flux than in traditional scenarios. Incremental visualization approaches are a means to address this challenge, as they permit the user to interact with, steer, and change the visualization at intermediate time points and not just after it has been completed. In this paper, we put forward a model for incremental visualizations that is based on the established Data State Reference Model, but extends it in ways to also represent partitioned data and visualization operators to facilitate intermediate visualization updates. In combination, partitioned data and operators can be used independently and in combination to strike tailored compromises between output quality, shown data quantity, and responsiveness—i.e., frame rates. We showcase the new expressive power of this model by discussing the opportunities and challenges of incremental visualization in general and its usage in a real world scenario in particular

coupling of a redundant manipulator with a virtual reality environment to enhance human robot cooperation

Abstract The current trend in manufacturing is to obtain a flexible work cell in which human and robot can safely interact and collaborate. Virtual Reality (VR) represents an effective tool capable of simulating such complex systems with a high level of immersion. In order to take advantage of VR technologies to study Human-Robot Cooperation (HRC), a digital model of a redundant manipulator (KUKA LBR iiwa) has been developed starting with kinematic modeling and then coupled with the real robot. This approach allows simulating HRC in several scenarios, to reproduce the safe behavior on the real robot, as well as to train operators

Towards Gaze Interaction in Immersive Virtual Reality: Evaluation of a Monocular Eye Tracking Set-Up

Pfeiffer T. Towards Gaze Interaction in Immersive Virtual Reality: Evaluation of a Monocular Eye Tracking Set-Up. In: Schumann M, Kuhlen T, eds. Virtuelle und Erweiterte Realität - Fünfter Workshop der GI-Fachgruppe VR/AR. Berichte aus der Informatik. Aachen: Shaker Verlag GmbH; 2008: 81-92.Of all senses, it is visual perception that is predominantly deluded in Virtual Realities. Yet, the eyes of the observer, despite the fact that they are the fastest perceivable moving body part, have gotten relatively little attention as an interaction modality. A solid integration of gaze, however, provides great opportunities for implicit and explicit human-computer interaction. We present our work on integrating a lightweight head-mounted eye tracking system in a CAVE-like Virtual Reality Set-Up and provide promising data from a user study on the achieved accuracy and latency

Social Networking Services im Internet als eRecruiting-Kanal für Unternehmen

Unternehmen verwenden Social Networking Services (SNS) im Internet, bspw. Xing, Linked-In oder Facebook, vermehrt für das eRecruiting. Forschungsarbeiten betrachten hier ausschließlich einzelne Teilprozesse des eRecruitings, bspw. Bewerberbewertungen anhand von SNS-Profilen. Für diese Teilprozesse werden zudem nur SNS-Teilfunktionen untersucht. Eine vollständige Analyse von SNS-Funktionen hinsichtlich des Unterstützungspotentials im gesamten eRecruiting-Prozess ist nicht zu finden. Ein Modell, das alle Möglichkeiten von SNS im eRecruiting aufzeigt, existiert bislang nicht. Diese Forschungslücke wird adressiert, indem die Plattformen Xing, LinkedIn und Facebook auf Funktionen geprüft werden, die eRecruiting-Teilprozesse unterstützen. Darauf aufbauend wird ein Task-Technology-Fit-Modell zur Eignung idealtypischer SNS-Funktionen für eRecruiting-Teilprozesse abgeleitet

An Enhanced Visualization Process Model for Incremental Visualization

Abstract-With today's technical possibilities, a stable visualization scenario can no longer be assumed as a matter of course, as underlying data and targeted display setup are much more in flux than in traditional scenarios. Incremental visualization approaches are a means to address this challenge, as they permit the user to interact with, steer, and change the visualization at intermediate time points and not just after it has been completed. In this paper, we put forward a model for incremental visualizations that is based on the established Data State Reference Model, but extends it in ways to also represent partitioned data and visualization operators to facilitate intermediate visualization updates. In combination, partitioned data and operators can be used independently and in combination to strike tailored compromises between output quality, shown data quantity, and responsiveness-i.e., frame rates. We showcase the new expressive power of this model by discussing the opportunities and challenges of incremental visualization in general and its usage in a real world scenario in particular