Nicholas H. Müller

VisRuption: intuitive and efficient visualization of temporal airline disruption data

The operation of an airline is a very complex task and disruptions to the planned operation can occur on very short notice. Already a small disruption like a delay of some minutes can cost the airline a tremendous amount of money. Hence, it is crucial to proactively control all operations of the airline and efficiently prioritize and handle disruptions. Due to the complex setting and the need for ad hoc decisions this task can only be carried out by human operation controllers. In the field of airline operations control there exists already a vast variety of different software in productive use. We analyze the different approaches from two of the market leaders and identify problematic design choices. We take into account this analysis and develop a set of rules for an intuitive visualization of airline disruption data. Finally, we introduce our tool for visualizing such data which complies to these rules. The visualization enables the user to gain a fast overview over the current problem situation and to intuitively prioritize different problems and problem hierarchies. The efficiency of the design is evaluated with the help of a user study which shows that the new system significantly outperforms the current state of the art.

Storytelling as a Means to Transfer Knowledge via Narration

Abstract The following paper describes a new form of human-computer- / human-agent-interaction. Three scientific disciplines converge their knowledge about storytelling principles, pedagogical agent design and narrative structures to form an intuitive way of sharing information as well as transferring knowledge.

An Emotional Framework for a Real-Life Worker Simulation

Within the framework of the project ‘The Smart Virtual Worker’ we put forward a sound and functioning emotional model which adequately simulates a worker’s emotional feelings throughout a typical task in an industrial setting. We restricted the model to represent the basic emotions by Ekman and focused on the implementation of ‘joy’ and ‘anger’. Since emotions are uniquely generated, based on the interpretation of a stimulus by an individual, we linked the genesis of emotions to empirical findings of the sports sciences to infer an emotional reaction. This paper describes the concept of the model from a theoretical and practical point of view as well as the preliminary state of implementation and upcoming steps of the project.

Proactive Functions of a Pedagogical Agent – Steps for Implementing a Social Catalyst Function

The development of pedagogical agents has been focused on the empirical relevance of outward appearance and the voiced conveyance of information. Rather than following these steps of analysing agents’ looks, the following paper is focused on having pedagogical agents function proactively in regard to the environment the learner is situated in. This means agents are able to listen and react to noise disturbances or obvious attention diversion by the learner. Furthermore, the agent is enhanced by a social catalyst routine, enabling the system to facilitate cooperative learning through the use of narrative techniques for the retention of information.

Deducing human emotions by robots: Computing basic non-verbal expressions of performed actions during a work task

We have established an emotional model to enhance a virtual worker simulation, which could be also used to support robots in a joined human-robot work-task inside an industrial setting. The robot is able to understand peoples individual and specific knowledge as well as capabilities, which are ultimately linked to an emotional consequence. As a result, the emotional model outputs the emotional valence calculated as positive or negative values, respective to reward and punishment. This output is applied as value function for a reinforcement learning agent. There we use an actor critic algorithm extended by eligibility traces and task specific conditions to learn the optimal action sequences. We show the influence of emotional reward leads to differences in the learned action sequences in comparison to a simple task performance evaluation reward. Therefore the robot is able to calculate emotional feelings of a human during a given working task, is able to decide if there is a better, more emotional stable path to doing this working task and moreover the robot is able to decide when the human is needed help or even not.

E-Learning Supported Martial-Arts-Training

Teaching martial-arts techniques is one of the most time consuming training activities within the domain of sports. Electronic support to teach movements, techniques and correct body postures is already an increasing factor in the martial-arts. One of the main goals of the martial-arts technique WingTsun is obstructing the reach and efficacy of an opponent’s weapons (fists, elbows, knees, feet, head) while attempting to incapacitate. The various approaches to achieving this goal are constantly being refined and evaluated. For this project, data will be collected from various test subjects via motion trackerover the course of one year. All test subjects will receive the same amount of schooling from the same instructor. But one group will be equipped with an additional E-learning self-assessment tool. Both groups will be monitored via motion-trackers throughout the entire training interval (approximately 12 months). The data will then by analyzed regarding the efficacy of E-learning pertaining to an overall improvement and/or a faster advance thereof. The paper will detail the training program, the motion-tracker setup as well as future use cases.

Analytical Steps for the Validation of a Natural User Interface

Pedagogical Agents are primarily researched regarding their depiction or appearance on screen, rather than their capabilities to react to a learner in front of it. As it has been previously reported, we developed an agent system, which is based on an electronic educational instance for a learning module to incorporate information from the environment as well as non-verbal reactions of a user. The system is then capable of proactively reacting to this additional information, establishing a natural user interface as it might be expected by any user. In order to validate our approach, the steps for our experimental setup are presented and discussed.

Investigating the Influence of Emotion in Air Traffic Controller Tasks: Pretest Evaluation

Air traffic controllers (ATC) have to perform under highly demanding circumstances, and they are often responsible for the lives of more than 5.000 people in mid-air at any given moment. Therefore, besides regular scheduled breaks to recover, it is of paramount importance to be in a level-minded state in order to maximize cognitive capabilities. Within this context and based on our previous research with active air traffic controllers, we designed a comparable scenario in which two airplanes from different directions converge and where subjects have to prevent collision. They watched an emotion inducing video shortly before participating in the experiment. The induced positive or negative valence lead to significant group-differences during their performance of the ATC task.

Peer Groups und Freundschaften auf Facebook

Unter der Pramisse, dass das digitale Netz insbesondere mit den Angeboten der Social-Media-Plattformen immer starker Teil von alltaglichen Kommunikationsprozessen ist, wird eine Untersuchung von Aushandlungs- und Akzeptanzprozessen bei Freundschaft seinladungen auf solchen Plattformen thematisiert. Im Rahmen des durchgefuhrten Experiments werden Mitglieder einer geschlossenen Gruppe bei Facebook mit Freundschaftsanfragen eines fiktiven Profils konfrontiert. Dabei kommt eine Triangulation qualitativer und quantitativer Methoden zum Einsatz, die eine konkrete Einschatzung des sozialen Kontexts als Basis fur individuelle Entscheidungsprozesse ermoglichen soll.

The Smart Virtual Worker – Digitales Menschmodell für die Simulation industrieller Arbeitsvorgänge

Im Rahmen eines interdisziplinaren Forschungsprojekts an der Technischen Universitat Chemnitz wurde das digitale Menschmodell „The Smart Virtual Worker“ (SVW) entwickelt. Mit der Entwicklung werden eine signifikante Reduktion im Simulationsaufwand sowie eine Erweiterung integrierter arbeitswissenschaftlicher Bewertungsmethoden in digitalen Menschmodellen angestrebt. Der Beitrag erklart die dazu im SVW integrierten Module und Methoden sowie deren Zusammenwirken. Im SVW erfolgt die Erstellung des Arbeitsprozesses mittels autonomer Handlungsselektion unter Nutzung von Kunstlichen Intelligenz (KI) – Algorithmen in Kombination mit einer automatischen Bewegungserzeugung. Der Nutzer kann hier entscheiden, ob der Arbeitsprozess nach zeitlichen, ergonomischen oder emotionsbasierten Kriterien optimiert wird. Die ausgewahlten Handlungen werden anschliesend in Bewegungsablaufe ubersetzt. Zur Bewertung des erzeugten Arbeitsprozesses stehen Verfahren zur ergonomischen Bewertung der Arbeitsaufgabe (RULA-/EAWS-Verfahren) und Arbeitsumwelt (Larm-, Klima- und Beleuchtungsbewertung) sowie zur psychologischen Bewertung (Emotionsmodell) zur Verfugung. Im Ergebnis konnte der Erstellungsaufwand fur eine Arbeitsprozesssimulation wesentlich reduziert und eine Erweiterung der arbeitswissenschaftlichen Bewertungsmethoden in DMM vorgenommen werden.