Fuzzy knowledge representation in cognitive cities

This paper gives an insight into cognitive computing for smart cities, resulting in cognitive cities. Cognitive cities and cognitive computing research with the underlying concepts of knowledge graphs and fuzzy cognitive maps are presented and supported by existing tools (i.e., IBM Watson and Google Now) and intended tools (meta-app). The paper illustrates FCM as a suiting instrument to represent information/knowledge in a city environment driven by human-technology interaction, enforcing the concept of cognitive cities. A proposed paper prototype combines the findings of the paper and shows the next step in the implementation of the proposed meta-app.

Computer assisted planning and navigation of periacetabular osteotomy with range of motion optimization

Femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) before or after Periacetabular Osteotomy (PAO) is surprisingly frequent and surgeons need to be aware of the risk preoperatively and be able to avoid it intraoperatively. In this paper we present a novel computer assisted planning and navigation system for PAO with impingement analysis and range of motion (ROM) optimization. Our system starts with a fully automatic detection of the acetabular rim, which allows for quantifying the acetabular morphology with parameters such as acetabular version, inclination and femoral head coverage ratio for a computer assisted diagnosis and planning. The planned situation was optimized with impingement simulation by balancing acetabuar coverage with ROM. Intra-operatively navigation was conducted until the optimized planning situation was achieved. Our experimental results demonstrated: 1) The fully automated acetabular rim detection was validated with accuracy 1.1 ± 0.7mm; 2) The optimized PAO planning improved ROM significantly compared to that without ROM optimization; 3) By comparing the pre-operatively planned situation and the intra-operatively achieved situation, sub-degree accuracy was achieved for all directions.

Pangea: A Workbench for Statically Analyzing Multi-Language Software Corpora

Software corpora facilitate reproducibility of analyses, however, static analysis for an entire corpus still requires considerable effort, often duplicated unnecessarily by multiple users. Moreover, most corpora are designed for single languages increasing the effort for cross-language analysis. To address these aspects we propose Pangea, an infrastructure allowing fast development of static analyses on multi-language corpora. Pangea uses language-independent meta-models stored as object model snapshots that can be directly loaded into memory and queried without any parsing overhead. To reduce the effort of performing static analyses, Pangea provides out-of-the box support for: creating and refining analyses in a dedicated environment, deploying an analysis on an entire corpus, using a runner that supports parallel execution, and exporting results in various formats. In this tool demonstration we introduce Pangea and provide several usage scenarios that illustrate how it reduces the cost of analysis.

Towards cheap, accurate polymorphism detection

Polymorphism, along with inheritance, is one of the most important features in object-oriented languages, but it is also one of the biggest obstacles to source code comprehension. Depending on the run-time type of the receiver of a message, any one of a number of possible methods may be invoked. Several algorithms for creating accurate call-graphs using static analysis already exist, however, they consume significant time and memory resources. We propose an approach that will combine static and dynamic analysis and yield the best possible precision with a minimal trade-off between used resources and accuracy.

Fully Automatic CT Segmentation for Computer-Assisted Pre-operative Planning of Hip Arthroscopy

Extraction of both pelvic and femoral surface models of a hip joint from CT data for computer-assisted pre-operative planning of hip arthroscopy is addressed. We present a method for a fully automatic image segmentation of a hip joint. Our method works by combining fast random forest (RF) regression based landmark detection, atlas-based segmentation, with articulated statistical shape model (aSSM) based hip joint reconstruction. The two fundamental contributions of our method are: (1) An improved fast Gaussian transform (IFGT) is used within the RF regression framework for a fast and accurate landmark detection, which then allows for a fully automatic initialization of the atlas-based segmentation; and (2) aSSM based fitting is used to preserve hip joint structure and to avoid penetration between the pelvic and femoral models. Validation on 30 hip CT images show that our method achieves high performance in segmenting pelvis, left proximal femur, and right proximal femur surfaces with an average accuracy of 0.59 mm, 0.62 mm, and 0.58 mm, respectively.

The Evolution of Routines under flexible Information Technology

Many technological developments of the past two decades come with the promise of greater IT flexi-bility, i.e. greater capacity to adapt IT. These technologies are increasingly used to improve organiza-tional routines that are not affected by large, hard-to-change IT such as ERP. Yet, most findings on the interaction of routines and IT stem from contexts where IT is hard to change. Our research ex-plores how routines and IT co-evolve when IT is flexible. We review the literatures on routines to sug-gest that IT may act as a boundary object that mediates the learning process unfolding between the ostensive and the performative aspect of the routine. Although prior work has concluded from such conceptualizations that IT stabilizes routines, we qualify that flexible IT can also stimulate change because it enables learning in short feedback cycles. We suggest that, however, such change might not always materialize because it is contingent on governance choices and technical knowledge. We de-scribe the case-study method to explore how routines and flexible IT co-evolve and how governance and technical knowledge influence this process. We expect to contribute towards stronger theory of routines and to develop recommendations for the effective implementation of flexible IT in loosely coupled routines.

Digital Personal Assistant for Cognitive Cities: A Paper Prototype

This chapter presents an evaluation and initial testing of a meta-application (meta-app) for enhanced communication and improved interaction (e.g., appointment scheduling) between stakeholders (e.g., citizens) in cognitive cities. The underlying theoretical models as well as the paper prototype are presented to ensure the comprehensibility of the user interface. This paper prototype of the meta-app was evaluated through interviews with various experts in different fields (e.g., a strategic consultant, a small and medium-sized enterprises cofounder in the field of online marketing, an IT project leader, and an innovation manager). The results and implications of the evaluation show that the idea behind this meta-app has the potential to improve the living standards of citizens and to lead to a next step in the realization and maturity of the meta-app. The meta-app helps citizens more effectively manage their time and organize their personal schedules and thus allows them to have more leisure time and take full advantage of it to ensure a good work-life balance to enable them to be the most efficient and productive during their working time.

Open Source Studie Schweiz 2015

Die vierte Ausgabe der Open Source Schweiz Studie beschreibt die Erfahrungen und Meinungen von 200 Schweizer Organisationen mit Open Source Software. 38 Behörden, 98 ICT-Unternehmen sowie 64 Firmen und Organisationen aus anderen Branchen haben Einblick gegeben, wie und weshalb sie Open Source Software einsetzen und wo die Hindernisse liegen.

Verbalization of Dependencies Between Concepts Built Through Fuzzy Cognitive Maps

The new computing paradigm known as cognitive computing attempts to imitate the human capabilities of learning, problem solving, and considering things in context. To do so, an application (a cognitive system) must learn from its environment (e.g., by interacting with various interfaces). These interfaces can run the gamut from sensors to humans to databases. Accessing data through such interfaces allows the system to conduct cognitive tasks that can support humans in decision-making or problem-solving processes. Cognitive systems can be integrated into various domains (e.g., medicine or insurance). For example, a cognitive system in cities can collect data, can learn from various data sources and can then attempt to connect these sources to provide real time optimizations of subsystems within the city (e.g., the transportation system). In this study, we provide a methodology for integrating a cognitive system that allows data to be verbalized, making the causalities and hypotheses generated from the cognitive system more understandable to humans. We abstract a city subsystem—passenger flow for a taxi company—by applying fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs). FCMs can be used as a mathematical tool for modeling complex systems built by directed graphs with concepts (e.g., policies, events, and/or domains) as nodes and causalities as edges. As a verbalization technique we introduce the restriction-centered theory of reasoning (RCT). RCT addresses the imprecision inherent in language by introducing restrictions. Using this underlying combinatorial design, our approach can handle large data sets from complex systems and make the output understandable to humans.

Von Fuzzy-Sets zu Computing-with-Words

Dieser Artikel bietet einen Überblick über die Entwicklung und Zusammenhänge der einzelnen Elemente der Fuzzy-Logik, wovon Fuzzy-Set-Theorie die Grundlage bildet. Die Grundproblematik besteht in der Handhabung von linguistischen Informationen, die häufig durch Ungenauigkeit gekennzeichnet sind. Die verschiedenen technischen Anwendungen von Fuzzy-Logik bieten eine Möglichkeit, intelligentere Computersysteme zu konstruieren, die mit unpräzisen Informationen umgehen können. Solche Systeme sind Indizien für die Entstehung einer neuen Ära des Cognitive-Computing, di in diesemArtikel ebenfalls zur Sprache kommt. Für das bessere Verständnis wird der Artikel mit einem Beispiel aus der Meteorologie (d. h. Schnee in Adelboden) begleitet.