Automation, Communication and Cybernetics in Science and Engineering 2009/2010

Innovative research structures provide the possibility to address new stakeholders on the topic Preventive Occupational Health and Safety. Therefore the stakeholder to the Preventive Occupational Health and Safety can be appealed, as for example health insurance schemes, chambers of commerce or ministries. This means, visibility of the research community can be raised at the network and society level ([HLBH09]:26). To reach the aim “better visibility of the research community”, “improving integration of the partners in the research groups” and the “avoidance of the "fragmenting" of a research community”, different network management methods were applied in the founding priority Preventive Occupational Health and Safety ([Hue03]:119). The choice of the methods of the network management bases on the needs of a research network in three specific network phases: phase of initiation, phase of stabilisation and finally the phase of increasing steadiness. Every phase puts different challenges to the network management.

Innovative research structures provide the possibility to address new stakeholders on the topic Preventive Occupational Health and Safety.

Therefore the stakeholder to the Preventive Occupational Health and Safety can be appealed, as for example health insurance schemes, chambers of commerce or ministries. To reach the aim “better visibility of the research community”, “improving integration of the partners in the research groups” and the “avoidance of the “fragmenting” of a research community”, different network management methods were applied in the founding priority Preventive Occupational Health and Safety. The choice of the methods of the network management bases on the needs of a research network in three specific network phases. Every phase puts different challenges to the network management.

„Wenn du Erfolg haben willst, beim Managen und beim Controlling anderer - lerne, dich selbst zu managen und zu kontrollieren“. (William J. H. Boetchker)

Aufgrund gewachsener Anforderungen, Komplexität und Dynamik – auch im universitären Sektor – entstand an deutschen Hochschulen das recht neue Berufsbild des Fakultätsmanagers/der Fakultätsmanagerin. Der vorliegende Beitrag diskutiert, welche Elemente dieses Management besonders beachten soll, um das „‚System Fakultät“‘ auf der Basis der OSTO®-Systemdiagnose diagnostizieren und aufgrund der gewonnenen Diagnoseerkenntnisse steuern zu können. An einem Praxisbeispiel wird aufgezeigt, welche Möglichkeiten in der Kenntnis und Anwendung eines umfassenden Fakultätsmanagements liegen.

Die Innovationsfähigkeit des Arbeits- und Wirtschaftsstandortes Deutschland mit seinen Technologien, leistungs- und wettbewerbsfähigen Unternehmen sowie seinen kompetenten Menschen erfordert betriebliche Prävention und eine humane Arbeitsgestaltung, die nachhaltig in der Praxis verankert ist. Sie zielt auf die Erhaltung der Kreativität und Arbeitsfähigkeit der Menschen in einer Arbeitswelt, die durch dynamische, vernetzte Arbeitsformen im demografischen Wandel geprägt ist.

Die aktuelle Stimmung in der Bundesrepublik und den europäischen Staaten ist durch die Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise mehr als getrübt. Dabei gibt es gar keinen Grund, den Kopf in den Sand zu stecken, denn Deutschland hat in den vergangenen Jahren seine Hausaufgaben gemacht, um sich erfolgreich auf die Anforderungen der modernen, digitalen und flexiblenWelt einzustellen. Die Trends sind gelegt und die erfolgversprechenden Strategien müssen weitergetrieben werden. So können Deutschland und Europa als Gewinner aus den Krisen hervorgehen.

Timetabling problems appear at every university. The degree of difficulty increases with an increasing number of students and courses for which the scheduling shall be carried out. From the mathematical point of view this is a “hard” problem, since the runtime on a computer cannot be estimated by a simple law (i.e. by a polynomial law) in the number of parameters. These kinds of problems are called “NP hard”. There are different aspects of the timetabling problem at universities and all specified problems are important for room management at universities, for the realization of courses that can be studied according to curricula, and for the satisfaction of students and teachers. These problems are related to the optimization of room management and personnel costs (e.g. by a uniform distribution of students). Thus, the solution of these problems is related to the optimization of “real” costs, a more and more important economic factor at (German) universities. Since 2003 for the solution of the post enrollment based course timetabling problem at the Technische Universität Berlin we are using an algorithm that has been realized by members of our team.Moreover, administration of homework and exams needs to be done. Thus, the Moses (Mobile Services for Students)-Account is being developed and used since 2004. This web-based software allows students to enroll in tutorials, with a list of preferences for given dates. A special algorithm, providing a globally optimized solution, processes all registrations.

In spite of social and political efforts to achieve equal opportunities, women remain a minority in natural sciences, technical and related fields. We present the gender concept of the University of Stuttgart. First, the steps for promotion of female students within natural sciences and technical fields are developed.

The main aim of the “Cross Sectional Processes” and the “Supplementary cluster activities” is the effective networking of the scientific processes in the two Clusters of Excellence. To efficiently foster the development of a “project network”, networking is conducted in the domains of Scientific Cooperation, Education and Lifelong Learning, Equal Opportunities and Diversity Management, Knowledge and Technology Transfer. In order to attract females to engineering and natural science studies specific measures are being implemented in distinct phases of scientific cooperation, such as the series of presentation with the title “I did it my way - career paths from RWTH Aachen University to industry”.

The innovation pressure as well as the huge dynamism of the working environment demand a high flexibility, autonomy and interconnection, not only of enterprise but also of employees. The meaning of the physical and mental health of employees bcomes an important factor of the innovation ability, according to the concept “only a healthy employee is an innovative employee”. Indeed, a sustainable integration of occupational security and health in operational acting can only be created by an active participation of enterprises in the development of new prevention approaches. In order to make cooperation between prevention actors (especially those of the academical field) and enterprises succeed in yielding mutual benefits a fundamental change in the comprehension of the role of entrepreneurial practice in the research process is necessary: No more research FOR practice, but research together WITH practice. That means: a strategic transfer communication concept by the use of a cooperative research design is needed. This article shows a concept that picks up on impulses especially from engineering to develop strategic transfer communication in prevention research as a contribution to innovative and competitive ability of enterprises.

In Germany demand for Emergency Medical Services (EMS) physicians is outstripping supply. Telematic Rescue Assistance Systems (TRAS) offer the opportunity to use EMS physicians more efficiently by reducing the on-scene time. By transmitting audio, vital signs and video data telematically, they bring the expertise of a remote elder EMS physician, a hospital or otherwise specialized institution to the emergency site. However, with increasing complexity of the systems the technical risks become harder to manage. A more formal approach to reduce these risks is needed to ensure patient safety. In this paper some exemplary properties that are more or less inherent in all TRAS are presented. Based on these features and existing work, a methodology to reduce technical risks in developing TRAS is introduced.

The emergence of the Social Web offers new opportunities for scientists to explore open virtual communities. Various approaches have appeared in terms of statistical evaluation, descriptive studies and network analyses, which pursue an enhanced understanding of existing mechanisms developing from the interplay of technical and social infrastructures. Unfortunately, at the moment, all these approaches are separate and no integrated approach exists. This gap is filled by our proposal of a concept which is composed of a universal description model, temporal network definitions, and a measurement system. The approach addresses the necessary interpretation of Social Web communities as dynamic systems. In addition to the explicated models, a software tool is briefly introduced employing the specified models. Furthermore, a scenario is used where an extract from the Wikipedia database shows the practical application of the software.

Researchers of computer science and social science are increasingly interested in the Social Web and its applications. To improve existing infrastructures, to evaluate the success of available services, and to build new virtual communities and their applications, an understanding of dynamics and evolution of inherent social and informational structures is essential. One key question is how communities which exist in these applications are structured in terms of author contributions. Are there similar contribution patterns in different applications? For example, does the so called onion model revealed from open source software communities apply to Social Web applications as well? In this study, author contributions in the open content project Wikipedia are investigated. Previous studies to evaluate author contributions mainly concentrate on editing activities. Extending this approach, the added significant content and investigation of which author groups contribute the majority of content in terms of activity and significance are considered. Furthermore, the social information space is described by a dynamic collaboration network and the topic coverage of authors is analyzed. In contrast to existing approaches, the position of an author in a social network is incorporated. Finally, a new composite calculation to evaluate author contributions in Wikis is proposed. The action, the content contribution, and the connectedness of an author are integrated into one equation in order to evaluate author activity.

This paper describes an ongoing exchange program between 20 partner universities; eleven from the European Union and candidate countries and nine universities form Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, where a bilateral mobility flow between the European and the neighboring countries is implemented. While the idea of this program initially intended to focus on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) subjects only, it was later opened to students from all academic fields. Nevertheless, the better part of all participating students is from engineering disciplines. The described program encompasses undergraduate, graduate, and PhD students as well as postdocs and academic staff. By broadening their technical education, we think that all participants benefit from the reevaluation of their own cultures that occurs while functioning as part of another culture and communicating in a foreign tongue. Over 100 scholarships were awarded in the first year of the program and this number was exceeded for the second year of the program, which started in September 2009. The allocation process for this year is still underway and we expect to see a similar number of scholars in this third and final phase of the program.

A part of the scholarships at the graduate and undergraduate level was granted to credit-seeking students. The rest of the graduate, undergraduate and all PhD scholarships were awarded to degree-seekers. One of the challenges that showed up was that, surprisingly for the Arab students and us, accrediting a degree obtained from some European university turns out to be much easier than getting a credit for just a single lecture attended at the very same university. The reasons for this are quite obvious: on the one hand, as a consequence of the Bologna Process, every European university today uses the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) as a standard for comparing performance and achievement of students while on the other hand, all the partner countries are using the American academic system. Actually, one of them is an American university, i.e. the degrees awarded are officially registered by the Board of Education in New York State.

First experiences are reviewed, including the not exclusively academic obstacles that we had to overcome in teaching and learning within these different educational systems .We will also report on a survey, which we will conduct to learn about the students’ experiences and thus assure the quality of their mobilities.

The system presented in this paper is part of the research project Medon-@ ix for the safe application of information technology in preclinical emergency health care. It aims at supporting emergency medical services (EMS) staff at the incident location from a remote Competence Centre (CompC). The increasing number of missions in the German EMS and the shortage of specialized emergency physicians leads to huge problems for the public health care system. Higher cost efficiency and treatment quality shall be achieved by the transfer of mission tactical data and medically relevant data such as vital signs, auscultation and video material from the emergency site to the CompC by the telematic support system. In this paper cases in which such a telematic support system can be used will be outlined. The crucial requirements and a possible hardware and software system architecture of a telematic support system for EMS will be summarised.

Nowadays’ projects have to cope with increasingly dynamic and turbulent environmental conditions [HHL09]. Agile approaches are one possibility to successfully face this challenge. While combining agile with more traditional process models seems to be usual software development practice in industry [HDGZ06], it lacks of scientific reflection. In this paper, an approach for process design is presented that may be used in information management projects and that combines the advantages of agile software development methodologies and those of traditional information management methods. The agile information management provides process designers with a tool suite that consists of roles, values and principles and a set of various methods and that implements iterative and incremental processes in small steps. Early results of a case study confirm the appropriateness of the approach for challenging frequent changes (e.g. due to changing markets, user needs or vague requirements), interdisciplinary cooperation and communication between the involved roles.

Der Erfolg von Veränderungsprojekten muss für das Management und alle Beteiligten ersichtlich sein. Um die geeigneten Methoden für einzelne Projekte empfehlen zu können, sollten die Unternehmenssituation, der Typ des Veränderungsprojekts und die vorherrschende Unternehmenskultur berücksichtigt werden. Die individuellen Projekttypen beeinflussen das Gewicht einzelner Unternehmenskulturmerkmale, welche sowohl fördernd als auch hemmend sein können. Zusätzlich lassen sich erfolgreiche Veränderungsprojekte durch den Gebrauch der richtigen Methoden zur richtigen Zeit charakterisieren. Eine Toolbox hilft hier bei der Auswahl. Der theoretische Hintergrund fußt auf Kommunikations- und Motivationsaspekten sowie organisationalen Aspekten. Die Toolbox bietet flexible methodische Unterstützung und integriert die Unternehmenskultur. Ziel ist es, Veränderungsprojekte vor dem Hintergrund unterschiedlicher Unternehmenskulturen abzusichern.

Supplementary Cluster Activities constitute an important organisational part within the structure of the German Cluster of Excellence “Tailor-Made Fuels from Biomass” at RWTH Aachen University, because they focus on the entire clusters efficient networking process and successful strategic cluster development. As research teams from different scientific fields collaborate, the strategic management of interdisciplinary processes becomes necessary to enhance scientific cooperation. Therefore, amongst other measures of cluster development, a Balanced-Scorecard-Approach is implemented to measure the performance of the entire Cluster of Excellence. With the annual implementation of the Balanced-Scorecard-Approach, crucial key performance indicators have been collected, compared and analysed for the strategic management of the Cluster of Excellence, to facilitate innovation activities through adequate measures.

A prototype of a remote laboratory to conduct electrical power experiments over the internet has been developed to allow students to access the setup and perform measurement and analysis of typical electrical power experiments. The main goal of the paper is to provide a mean of resource sharing of expensive power equipment to students from other universities in Jordan and beyond in addition to students at Tafila Technical University, where the traditional electrical power systems laboratory is located. The design approach is based on modifying the existing traditional systems to facilitate remote access via the web. One typical experiment addressing synchronization procedure of two generators has been performed with a power system simulator. The data acquisition system and remote access of the power laboratory were designed based on the Lab-View programming language. Initial on students’ evaluation of the proposed online laboratory indicates that encouraging results may be obtained with remote experimentation when improved pedagogical aspects are integrated properly in the measurement procedures.

This paper highlights the challenges environments have to face in the field of work and learning up to the year 2020. Therefore, the paper shows the results of the questionnaire “The Future of Work and Learning” from 2008. The results demonstrate that the work and learning environments are affected by a huge number of dilemmas which must be reduced on a continuous basis. This ongoing process requires that the individual and the organization have the permanent ability to change. To preserve Germany as a business location it is necessary to step into dialog with international partners and review changes and innovative solutions. This paper shows the German project “International Monitoring” as an example. The overall objective of the project is to establish a continuous International Monitoring. Through observation, networking and dialogue a national and international opinion leadership in the field of innovative ability is aimed to be achieved in order to keep Germany and Europe globally competitive in the long run.

Problem-based learning (PBL) denotes self-determined learning and learning through discovery, activity-based education, interdisciplinary education, and self-assessment. The participants in problem based learning courses learn to analyze a subject or a problem with minimal guidance by their teacher or rather their facilitator of learning. Students find and use the suitable sources of information by themselves, and finally, compare, select and convert the results. The essential highlight of the PBL approach is the examination of authentic (real life) and complex subjects. The origin of the PBL lies in application-based technical engineering subjects and later in medical education.

Robotics education is perfectly suited for the application of PBL-scenarios as robotics combines a multitude of technological disciplines (ranging from computer sciences, software engineering, artificial intelligence, electrical engineering up to technology design) and its ubiquitous popularity with a variety soft skills (team skills, complex problem-solving strategies, etc.), required in the development process. The popularity of robots can be easily deduced from the large number of robotic heroes in literature and movies. Thus, robotics is ideally suited as a model project-oriented course of combining communication skills, development of strategies to solve complex interdisciplinary challenges, and different concepts of softand hardware engineering.

Among the wide range of robotics applications, one field of particular importance is the field of “Rescue Robots”. Here, robots are developed that operate in catastrophe-scenarios, e.g. earthquakes or fires. Based on the data obtained from their various sensors (video cameras, infrared sensors, laser scanner and gas sensors), these robots have to manage their tasks autonomously in catastrophe-based scenarios. This comprises detection, rescue, and aid for victims should the situation arise. In order to fulfill these complex tasks, development of basic skills such as exact movements on unstable bedrock, field mapping, positioning and communication in weakly structured environments is necessary. Besides the construction of preferably all-terrain and robust robots, the improvement of innovative analysis procedures for complex sensor data is another focus of development. In addition, conception and realization of novel man-machine-interfaces come to the fore in order to support the operators of robots with their exhausting control tasks.

Integrated in the “RoboCup”, the “Rescue-Robot League” clarifies the intensified orientation of the “RoboCup initiative” on real life applications. Another hint that rescue robotics represents a ideal playground for PBL scenarios in academic education.

Beyond that, robotics is increasing the number of female students in the natural sciences and engineering. It has the potential of attracting girls and young females at their respective levels education by illustrating their own potential in a playful experimental setting. Independent design and construction of robots demonstrates the importance of creativity and social relevance, giving young women more confidence in their technical and scientific skills, facts affecting young women’s choice of degree.

The major aim of the BW-eLabs architecture (networked virtual and remote labs in Baden-Württemberg) is the expansion of access to heterogeneous experimental resources (remote as well as virtual or hybrid) for cooperative execution of experiments in natural sciences and engineering as well as the reuse of raw data and experiments for research and education purposes. Thus, three major tasks take center stage for the BW-eLabs portal: 1st, the creation of efficient possibilities of external access to local experimental surroundings, 2nd, the guarantee of transparency and reproducibility of experiments, and 3rd, the promotion of cooperation and collaboration within the scientific community in experiment-driven high-technology fields. Nanotechnology and robotics serve as demonstrator disciplines because especially in these cost intensive areas access to experimental equipment is an important prerequisite for ensuring access to professional tools for all scientific communities involved. Corresponding raw data and related documents are examined along their life cycle and embedded into the entire process chain of experimental environments through sustainable indexing and field specific ontologies, traceable and reusable by means of semantic search. Existing infrastructure, e.g. digital libraries, decentralized tools, and repositories, are embedded into the BW-eLabs. As a framework, the 3D platform Wonderland (Sun) comes into place, taking the complexity of professional experimental set-ups into account. The BW-eLabs portal, together with its partner projects LiLa and NetLabs, is designed as an open network for scientific data and experimental set-ups under OpenSource/Open Access/Open Content policy.

Based on the BW-eLabs platform, the goal of the NETLABS is the development of a software infrastructure, allowing for the interlinking and integration of experimental superstructures and simulations, as well as the software used for evaluation and archiving of data. In addition, a role- and rights-based model is developed, allowing access to experiments or measured data. The necessary components are integrated in the 3D Wonderland engine.

The goal of the GALILEA project is to design and implement innovative programs and curricula, providing solutions to the changed job specifications for engineers and natural scientists and are capable of attracting more female students to these programs. In this article we outline the design, implementation and the first evaluation results of our pilot program, the bachelor course of “Natural Sciences in the Information Society” that started in the winter term of 2007/08.

The Robinson curriculum uses student defined projects in robotics to achieve two basic goals. First, we are introducing students of engineering and the natural sciences to the field of robotics itself, while teaching the problem-solving skills necessary for their future work and career, Second, we aim to increase technological literacy in students of other fields and high school students (in shorter courses) while attracting more students to modern technology and technologically oriented careers through the interdisciplinary popularity robotics enjoys throughout modern society. Based on the experience gathered in these classic project-oriented courses, we propose to expand the concept, using robotics as the basis for a problembased learning (PBL) course, concentrating even more on teaching scientific and engineering skills rather than robotics itself. The interdisciplinary of robotics makes it an ideally suited candidate for such an approach as it incorporates skills and knowledge from diverse fields of engineering, the natural sciences and beyond. Such a course teaches engineering students the skills required in their future work place based on problems similar to those encountered in their professional careers.

Information flood is an essential facet of the digital age. Consequently, organizing information of an explicit subject efficiently, without losing the overview is difficult. In education and especially in academic education, information management is a sensitive issue for freshmen and sophomores. Many students are overburdened with the new situation at university having to organize and manage all the new knowledge they obtain in lectures. The use of new media by lecturers and students provides an opportunity to overcome these challenges. Moreover, communication, cooperation and interaction with each other are examples of the social skills, being nowadays’ important factors in education and professional life. We present the application OneNote by the use of Tablet PCs in a sophomore lecture at the Berlin Institute of Technology, aimed at teaching students how to cooperate in their project-work using this collaborative platform. The implementation is described and a first evaluation is presented. Finally, a highly desirable extension for integrating mathematical notation is outlined.

More and more employers qualify their employees in soft skills or make soft-skill knowledge a decision criterion when assigning new jobs. Soft-skills courses are typically highly interactive as soft skills are no factual knowledge and cannot be acquired by simple drilling. The course instructors, who very often are external experts, have to face the challenge to adapt to new media and course styles since new technologies not only shape everyday working life of the course attendees, but also demand for new soft skills due to changed communication practices. This paper proposes a community-oriented approach for professional soft-skill courses using a room-based collaboration platform.

The LiLa project – short for “Library of Labs” – is a European Community funded project to network remote experiments and virtual laboratories. The goal of this project is the composition and dissemination of a European infrastructure for mutual exchange of experimental setups and simulations, specifically targeted at undergraduate studies in engineering and science. This article discusses the architecture of the project, introduces its components and sheds some light on our motivation and background.

In this work, we present a Virtual Laboratory providing a simulation framework for discrete many-body systems. Programs defining the dynamics of the system and instruments measuring on the simulation can be easily implemented within its own programming language, and can be linked and edited at run time. The system class that can be covered within this framework reaches from discrete difference equations over classical many-body problems is physics to research problems in image processing, allowing us to apply this laboratory in education and research.

One main concern – especially after the implementation of the bachelor program in Germany – is how to manage the great number of lectures and how to give above-average students (but not only for them!) the opportunity to complete their course of studies quickly, but without loss of content or quality of teachings. In order to attack these problems we started an intensive course for selected students in order to offer them a unique learning experience by employing a special teaching concept, with appropriate training and exercises.

Die durch den Bolognaprozess [oERCtAoEUC] voran getriebene Reform der Hochschullandschaft zur Schaffung eines einheitlichen europäischen Hochschulraums bedeutet für Deutschland eine tief greifende Systemänderung. Die Diplom-/Magisterstudiengänge müssen in die neue Abschlussform Bachelor/Master inklusive aller dazu gehörenden weiteren Umstellungen überführt werden. Dabei ist eine völlige Neukonzeption eines alten Studiengangs selten, obwohl dies forciert wird. Die Evaluation der alten Studiengänge und die modernen Anforderungen führen häufig zu dem Ziel, neue methodische Ansätze in die Lehre zu integrieren. [(2008, Pan08, pro07, TBLF06] Diese schließen sowohl moderne Lehr- und Lernformen als auch eine gendersensible Ausrichtung besonders der technischen Studiengänge mit ein.1 Der erste Im Rahmen des Studienreformprojektes Galilea [DJTW06] wurde ein erster Bachelorstudiengang, „Naturwissenschaften in der Informationsgesellschaft“, konzipiert, der die oben genannten Aspekte verbindet. Ein Hauptziel ist die Erhöhung des Anteils weiblicher Studierender in einem naturwissenschaftlichen Studiengang.

Today’s working and business life is characterized by broad economic and social trends. Due to these external effects, companies face an increasing demand for up-to-date knowledge in order to stay competitive. Microtraining is one answer to increasing organizational learning needs. Its methodology is based on the concept of short learning units, supporting workplace-related learning, which is especially important in the context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Microtraining is time and cost-saving, highly flexible and can be tailored to organizational learning demands (short, medium and long term).

Since robotics holds a special fascination among all the technological fields – due to its cross-disciplinary approach as well as its popularity through movies and literature – this field is attracting even the interest of pupils and students who are normally more reserved and cautious towards technological areas. In particular, practical experiences have shown that out of all the different technological areas robotics has a very high motivation impact on women. Thus, robotics can also be utilized as an instrument to bridge the gender gap in technological areas and fields of natural sciences.

However, so far the majority of projects and initiatives focus on the instruction of the pupils and students themselves which naturally leads to restrictions concerning the scope of application. In order to enhance the impact factor, the integration of “multipliers”, in particular the “educators” in elementary schools, middle schools und high schools - and even in the kindergarten - is an important task. Within this paper, we describe a concept for teaching teachers how to implement robotics curriculum into today’s classrooms which is currently under development at the University of Stuttgart and the Technische Universität Berlin.

The focus of the project RELOAD is set on employees of the Do-It- Yourself (DIY) industry. Employees and consultants in this sector play a decisive role because they communicate directly with end customers during sales and consulting talks. Nevertheless, it is a fact that many employees and consultants in DIY stores are untrained, low qualified workers, or even workers from other sectors. Moreover, RELOAD considers customers with regard to means of informing them on products. Concerning commercial success, it is important for the DIY sectors that end customers know how to use and apply products which are purchasable in DIY stores. Only if this know-how can be transferred, the end customers will buy the respective products. In other words the maxim for this sector is true that ‘the knowing customer buys more’. RELOAD tries to address employees and costumers at the same time by offering a Knowledge Platform as a multimedia and semanticbased solution. This platform contains eLearning modules which are specified to the individual learning needs of the employees and which should enable them to actualise their knowledge much more efficient and faster. Together with the knowledge platform in DIY stores, eLearning applications in form of short learning modules will support the self-directed learning of the employees. This kind of learning can be integrated into dynamic daily work processes more easily than classical types of learning and at the same time it is also more cost-efficient. As a consequence customers of DIY stores will gain more profit through a more efficient consultancy, too.

We are offering a freshmen course called “Early Bird” where students have the opportunity to take the mathematics courses of the first semester (Calculus I for Engineers and Linear Algebra for Engineers) before they are enrolled at our university. Participants accomplishing sufficiently many homework assignments are qualified to take the final written examinations even if they are (still) not enrolled. The grades of these examinations may be accepted if the students will be enrolled afterwards. In this 9 weeks course the regular calculus I and linear algebra lectures are taught in the same lecture/tutorials together. Though the workload in this course is very high for students, 99% are recommending this course to other prospective engineering students.

The intention of this course is to provide the first semester students with the mathematics that will be usually used in non-math classes before it can be taught in the math classes. As mathematical knowledge and skills are some of the most important tools for engineers the Early Bird course has proved as very effective to prepare engineering students for their engineering courses. Before winter term 2008/09 we successfully offered this course for the third time. This year we had no additional financial resources to offer very small classes. On the other hand, in the week between this course and the final examinations a summer camp has been organized where recitation lessons were voluntarily offered by teaching assistants.

In this article, we are comparing the final examination results of Early Bird students and regular students. We are presenting the results of the Early Bird courses of the last three years. The results will be compared with the data of regular students who took the same written exams.

Companies in High-Wage countries face the so called polylemma of production. It consists out of two dilemmas. On the one hand the dilemma of value vs. planning orientation and on the other the dilemma scale vs. scope. To reduce the dilemma of planning vs. value orientation cognitive technical systems are a promising approach. To enact cognitive behavior a technical system has to incorporate an extensive knowledge base. This paper deals with the software architecture of such a system, the concept of a knowledge compiler which is able to transform different knowledge representation formalisms and the design for the ontology which is the foundation of the knowledge base.

The transport of freight and people is a basic condition for the competitiveness of industry and services in Europe. This economic sector solitary has a turnover of approx. 1,000 billion EUR (approx. 7% of the gross domestic product of the EU), employs more than 10 million people and contributes substantially to the functioning of the European economy [Com]. The general context of transport has strongly changed in Europe during the last years. Carbon dioxide emissions, noise pollution, rising oil prices and the strain of road traffic constitute important challenges and impulses for energy efficient, ecological and sustainable transport at the same time. In the following document the topical situation in the European transport sector is highlighted and the future challenges to the European transport system are pointed out. In this connection three approaches by RWTH Aachen University (Rheinisch-Westfaelische Technische Hochschule Aachen) are introduced which contribute to the aims of energy efficient, ecological and sustainable transport in Europe.

Today, the information flow within flexible production networks of small and medium enterprises for the production of hybrid micro systems is characterized by a lack of coordination and concepts as well a high portion of manual procedures. A new concept for an information system uses RFID-tags as data carriers, fixed at the load carriers, as a performance driver for these kinds of networks. As a basis for the development of a suitable information system we will present an appropriate data storage concept and an adapted modeling concept that is adjusted to the coupling of the entire information and the material flow.

One opportunity to manage the rising freight transportation and to optimize the utilization of motorway capacities is the concept of truck platoons.With the aid of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems it is possible to couple trucks electronically. In consequence, trucks can keep short distances between vehicles of approx. 10 meters at 50 mph and that way realize truck platoons on motorways. Electronically coupled truck platoons offer various improvements to the freight transportation problem, such as improved vehicle occupancy, gained road space, optimization of traffic flow, reduction of fuel consumption due to slipstream driving, a relief for professional drivers and finally an increase in safety due to the longitudinal and lateral guidance. In this paper, a brief introduction to the technical background of these truck platoons is given, as they were realized and tested on public roads within the project KONVOI. The main focus is on the contribution to the road safety of electronically coupled trucks on German motorways. Hence, German accident statistics will be discussed and the benefit for the society due to accident reduction will be monetized and calculated on the basis of the German Federal Traffic Route Plan.

One opportunity to manage the increase of freight transportation and to optimize utilization of motorway capacities is the concept of truck platoons. With the aid of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, trucks are electronically coupled keeping very short gaps (approx. 10 meters) to form truck platoons on motorways. This contributes to optimisation of traffic flow and reduction of fuel consumption advantaged by slipstream driving. In this paper, a brief introduction into these truck platoons is given as well as a short overview about the elements of the automation-, information- and automotive-technology of the experimental trucks. The paper focuses on the Driver Information System which helps truck drivers to organize and operate these platoons. A generic software architecture for the Driver Information System of the platoon system is presented, which guarantees the development of a modern, flexible, extensible and easily configurable system, especially for Human Machine Interfaces of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems.

In this paper, a brief introduction of Automated Truck Platoons on Motorways is given. It includes a description of the scenario “platoons organized by the driver”, the system architecture of the platoon system and a description of the Software architecture for a driver information system. The results of the accomplished system and acceptance tests of the platoon system in the truck driving simulator are summarized in this paper. Furthermore it contains an overview about the trial implementations on test tracks and on German motorways.

One opportunity to manage the increase of freight transportation and to optimize utilization of motorway capacities is the concept of truck platoons. With the aid of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, trucks are electronically coupled keeping very short gaps (approx. 10 meters) to form truck platoons on motorways. This contributes to optimization of traffic flow and reduction of fuel consumption advantaged by slipstream driving. In this paper, a brief introduction into these truck platoons is given as well as a short overview about the elements of the automation-, information- and automotive-technology of the experimental trucks. The paper focuses on the determination of the order of the electronically coupled trucks, which is essential to organize and operate these platoons. The order is necessary for the communication between trucks in order to receive the correct information via vehiclevehicle- communication. An algorithm for the determination of the order of vehicles on motorways based on GPS-data is derived, which finally has been applied on test drives.

We delineate a web personal information mining system that enables robots or devices (like mobile phones) possessing a visual perception system to discover a person’s identity and his personal information (such as phone number, email, etc.) based on visual perception through NLP methods. At the core of the system lies a rule based personal information extraction algorithm that does not require any supervision or manual annotation, and can be easily applied to other domains such as travel or books. This first implementation was used as a proof of concept and experimental results showed that our annotation-free method is promising and compares favorably to supervised approaches.

Als bedeutende Entwicklung im Innovationsmanagement ist seit einigen Jahren die verstärkte Einbeziehung externer Akteure in den gesamten Produktentstehungsprozess zu beobachten. Diese offene Form der Innovation wird in der Forschung unter dem Begriff Open Innovation zusammengefasst. Besonders schwer fällt es KMU, solche Open Innovation-Strategien zu implementieren. Daher gilt es für KMU am Standort Deutschland, geeignete Organisationsformen zu entwickeln, die den Einsatz von Open Innovation-Strategien zunächst ermöglichen und darüber hinaus erlauben, diese Strategien gewinnbringend für sich einsetzen zu können. Ziel ist somit, innerhalb des Beitrags folgende Fragen zu beantworten: Welche Auswirkungen auf den drei Ebenen Mensch, Organisation, Technik hat eine Implementierung von Open Innovation-Strategien innerhalb von KMU? Mit welchen Strategien können KMU diesen geänderten Anforderungen begegnen?Wie sieht eine geeignete Organisationsform aus, die den oben genannten Veränderungen gerecht wird?

The inclusion of external players in the product development process forms a significant development in the context of innovation management. This open form of innovation is summarized as Open Innovation. Especially small and mediumsized enterprises (SME) struggle with the implementation of these open innovation strategies. Therefore, it is necessary to develop suitable organisational forms for these SME. The first aim is to enable them for the use of open innovation strategies. Secondly, they have to learn how to use these strategies in a profitable way. Consequently, the objective of this article is to respond following questions: Which changes can be observed on the three levels human, organisation, technics (H-O-T) in conjunction with the implementation of open innovation strategies within SME? How can SME encounter changes mentioned above? What does an organisational form look like suitable to these changes?

In

Criteria for age based design of active vehicle safety systems

the recent results of the research project

Evaluation of active vehicle safety systems and components

in regard to their safety impact on elderly car drivers

are presented. The project is funded by the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt). The project aims to answer the question whether Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are able to support elderly drivers to stay mobile and, if so, how they need to be designed to do so. The aim of the project is to retrospectively develop a list of criteria which shall help to develop future age-based designs of driver assistance systems. Therefore an extensive market analysis was carried out at first. The market analysis contained a literature research, a survey with 70 elderly people and expert interviews. In the second phase test drives combined with workload assessments were conducted. 30 elderly and 30 younger drivers participated in the test drives.

Innovative ability is regarded as the key factor to overcoming the current worldwide economic crisis. In this context, individuals, organizations and society have to learn to cope with steadily growing dynamism and complexity. These problems manifest in various dilemmas; their balancing is one of the greatest challenges to secure the innovative ability of Germany as a business venue. The project “International Monitoring” (IMO) has, as part of various future clusters, identified and bundled important dilemmas, trends and developments to serve as thematic cornerstones for future design of work-, learning and competence development processes.

In der Direktive 96/53/EC werden Maße und Gewichte von Nutzfahrzeugen in Europa geregelt. Vor dem Hintergrund eines prognostizierten weiteren Anstiegs des Güterverkehrsaufkommens von bis zu 50% in den EU25- Staaten vom Jahr 2000 bis 2020 beschäftigen sich aktuell Politik, Wirtschaft und Forschung in Europa mit einer möglichen Anpassung dieser Direktive, um den zukünftigen Herausforderungen gewachsen zu sein und den Straßengüterverkehr effizienter zu gestalten.

Die Generaldirektion Energie und Verkehr (DG TREN) hat in diesem Kontext die Studie “Effects of adapting the rules on weight and dimensions of heavy commercial vehicles as established within Directive 96/53/EC” in Auftrag gegeben, um der Europäischen Kommission wissenschaftliche Beratung bei einer evtl. Novellierung der Direktive und bei der Frage nach zukunftsfähigen Maßen und Gewichten von Nutzfahrzeugen zu geben. Im Rahmen der Studie wurden positive sowie negative Auswirkungen der Einführung von längeren und/oder schwereren Nutzfahrzeugen untersucht. Das vorliegende Paper beschreibt die im Rahmen der Studie durchgeführte Kosten-Nutzen-Analyse und diskutiert die Fragestellung, welche Chancen und Risiken längere und/oder schwerere Nutzfahrzeuge für die europäische Gesellschaft haben.

Maximum weights and dimensions of commercial vehicles within the territory of the European Union are regulated in Directive 96/53/EC. Already today Europe is challenged by an enormous growth of freight transport which such threatens parts of the European transport system with congestion and economic costs that this entails the directive may have reached its limitations. Thus, the Directorate General for Energy and Transport (DG TREN) has recently commissioned a study for European research institutes to analyze the different effects of adapting the maximum weights and dimensions of heavy commercial vehicles for the European Commission. This paper provides an overview of the in-depth safety analysis within this study of these vehicles on European roads. A key finding of the analysis was that permitting longer and/or heavier vehicles in road traffic would not induce an inherent increase of safety risks in general. In addition, the study revealed an economic benefit regarding accident costs by the usage of such commercial vehicles.

One opportunity to manage the increase of freight transportation and to optimize utilization of motorway capacities is the concept of truck platoons. With the aid of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, trucks are electronically coupled keeping very short gaps (approx. 10 meters) to form truck platoons on motorways. This contributes to a couple of advantages, such as a reduction of the inter-vehicle distance, which leads to an improved vehicle occupancy and gained road space, an optimization of traffic flow, the reduction of fuel consumption advantaged by slipstream driving, a relief for professional drivers and finally an increase in safety due to the longitudinal and lateral guidance. In this paper, a brief introduction into these truck platoons is given, which have been realized within the project KONVOI. The paper focuses on the method of the Value Oriented Cost-Effectiveness Estimation. This method had been developed by the Institute for Management Cybernetics (IfU) at RWTH Aachen University and combines the classical analysis of investment in monetary terms with relevant nonmonetary variable or the so-called soft factors in the profitability analysis. The approach of the Value Oriented Cost-Effectiveness Estimation will be presented in this paper. Finally the method of the Value Oriented Cost-Effectiveness Estimation will be applied in excerpts on electronically coupled trucks on German motorways.

The German research project Med-on-@ix aims at optimising the efficiency and quality of preclinical emergency health care by introducing a telematic rescue assistance system into the emergency system. The Emergency Medical Services (EMS) will be supported on site by the virtual presence of a specialised physician in a remote Competence Centre. The transmission of vital parameters, auscultation signs and video material from the emergency site to the Competence Centre by a telematic support system enables a better and quicker treatment – especially in the 14,3% of emergency cases, in which the manual skills of a physician are not necessary on site [GHM03].

The interdisciplinary team of emergency physicians, university scientists and developers of industrial enterprises realised two simulation studies in September 2008 and June 2009 to evaluate the acceptance of the system by doctors and paramedics. Different emergency scenarios involving simulation manikins and actors provide an adequate basis to ascertain the critical factors and the level of acceptance within the target groups. The performance of simulation studies based on defined rescue scenarios and combined, with detailed user interviews constituted, a keystone within the user oriented development process, reflecting the effect of introducing the system into rescue working routines and the related user requirements. First results revealed that 89,6% of the probands consider the telematic system as reasonable. The impact of the systems on the rescue procedures, the teamwork and especially the communication processes within the team and with the patient was also analysed within those studies.

The results will be path breaking for the first system implementation during the field trial in the rescue service of Aachen starting in autumn 2009.

Konzeption und Design von barrierefreien1 Benutzungsschnittstellen stellen komplexe Herausforderungen an Softwarearchitekten und Entwickler. Neben individuellen Beeinträchtigungen eines Menschen (z.B. Behinderungen des Nutzers) können Störungen durch Umgebungseinflüsse (z.B. Lärm, helles Licht) sowie Einschränkungen, die sich durch die Technologie der Benutzungsschnittstelle (z.B. kleiner Bildschirm, fehlende Maus oder Tastatur) ergeben, die Benutzung erschweren. Der hier vorgestellte Ansatz untersucht und demonstriert, dass modell- und benutzungsorientierten Vorgehensweisen zur einfacheren Entwicklung zugänglicher Benutzungsschnittstellen geeignet sind. Ausgangspunkt ist dabei die Bedarfsanalyse aus Sicht des Benutzers und die Modellierung der Arbeitsprozesse, die die Applikation unterstützen soll. Mit Hilfe der Modellierung der Mensch-Maschine Kommunikation können multimodale Bedienkonzepte in den Schnittstellenentwurf integriert werden.

Design of accessible Web applications is a complex challenge. The presented concept demonstrates the potential of model-based and user-centered development. Based on Web accessibility patterns, a suitable solution is discussed which can be used to simplify the development process. Using an established approach from Web engineering, the use of patterns is demonstrated.

This paper describes an approach to manufacture high-speed Germanium MOSFETS with strained channels made from Ge

1−

x

Sn

x

-alloys while embedding the needed technology process flow into a virtual knowledge management environment based on a virtual nano electrical lab.

Produktionsprozesse in der heutigen Zeit werden zunehmend komplexer. Daher ist es notwendig solche Prozesse vor der eigentlichen Implementierung zu simulieren und zu testen. In der Vergangenheit wurde eine Vielzahl unterschiedlicher Simulationswerkzeuge, zur Simulation unterschiedlicher Prozesse und Verfahren, entwickelt. Die Simulation gesamter Produktionsprozesse ist jedoch bis heute nicht möglich. Der Grund hierfür liegt in der Inkompatibilität der unterschiedlichen Simulationswerkzeuge, die sich durch heterogene Formate und Datenmodelle auszeichnen. In dieser Arbeit wird die Architektur eines Frameworks vorgestellt, das es ermöglicht heterogene Simulationswerkzeuge miteinander zu koppeln. Die Funktionsweise des Frameworks wird anhand eines Beispiels demonstriert, in dem der Fertigungsprozess einer Linepipe simuliert wird. Dabei werden sechs unterschiedliche, heterogene Simulationswerkzeuge verwendet.

In deutschen Maschinenbauunternehmen ist Gruppenarbeit weit verbreitet. Untersuchungen zufolge fand in den 90er Jahren insbesondere bei Unternehmen mit mehr als hundert Beschäftigten eine Orientierung hin zur Arbeitsgruppenbildung an Bearbeitungsmaschinen statt. Die stärkste Ausprägung dieser Entwicklung war bei direkt-produktiven Tätigkeiten zu beobachten: Während im Jahr 1993 lediglich 40,4 % der Beschäftigten in Gruppen zusammengearbeitet hat, traf dies im Jahr 1998 bereits für 46 % der Beschäftigten zu [Sau00].

We present a knowledge management system for mathematics suggesting a combination of an information retrieval system with social networking techniques to overcome information flood in mathematical and natural scientific texts, and problems of merging databases within the system to structure our data efficiently. With regard to the increasing demand of knowledge management systems in all fields, especially mathematical knowledge management systems remain a major challenge. Particularly systems that automatically extract information using natural language processing methods require a very different semantic analysis of texts than other field specific languages. In this regard, a numerous number of information fragments has to be extracted based on the specifics of the underlying text structures. New concepts are needed to control this information flood. One possible approach is the use of social network techniques.

Möglichst präzise und detailliert virtuell abzubilden, wie aus unterschiedlichsten Rohstoffen ein fertiges Produkt hergestellt wird, ist das Ziel des Produktplanungsprozesses. Um ihn ganzheitlich anzulegen, müssen viele verschiedene Faktoren beachtet werden. So muss das Wissen von Experten unterschiedlicher Disziplinen zusammengebracht werden und der Prozess selbst muss dynamisch und flexibel angelegt sein, um an wechselnde Anforderungen adaptiert werden zu können. Da im Produktplanungsprozess viele heterogene und als Insellösungen entwickelte Softwarewerkzeuge eingesetzt werden, die jedoch lediglich Teile der Produktion vorab virtualisieren, ist es für eine durchgängige Darstellung des Prozesses notwendig, diese zu verbinden, um langfristig wettbewerbsfähige Produkte zu planen und herzustellen. Am Beispiel des Herstellungsprozesses eines Stahlrohrs für eine Pipeline wird deutlich, wo die Probleme bei einer durchgängigen Abbildung liegen. So müssen z. B. Veränderungen der Form eines Bauteils mit Veränderungen in der Werkstoffstruktur in Verbindung gebracht werden. Dies kann mit Hilfe der Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) erfolgen. In diesem Beitrag wird ein auf EAI basierendes Datenintegrationswerkzeug vorgestellt, das die Verknüpfung heterogener Simulationen ermöglicht.

The focus of this work is to promote the semantic interconnection of distributed numerical simulations for virtual production systems. The product planning phase usually requires a huge range of various numerical simulations that are used by different departments of a company. To increase productivity on the one hand and reduce complexity of simulation chains on the other hand, it is essential to be able to interconnect the differing syntax and semantics of the distributed numerical simulations. The interconnection is realized by an ontology based tool for data integration that is used within a simulation platform.

Ein Unternehmen in einem Hochlohnland muss sich in zwei Spannungsfeldern positionieren. Das erste Spannungsfeld liegt zwischen der Massenproduktion mit einem sehr eingeschränkten Produktspektrum (Scale) und der Fertigung von Produkten mit einem sehr großen Variantenreichtum bei geringen Stückzahlen (Scope). Das zweite Spannungsfeld umfasst die Dichotomie zwischen Planungs- und Wertorientierung. Im Rahmen dieses Beitrags wird eine Plattform entwickelt, mit der Simulationen, die im Produkt- oder Fertigungsplanungsprozess eingesetzt werden, zu Simulationsketten verknüpft werden können. Diese Verknüpfung soll den Aufwand für den Einsatz der Simulationen verringern und damit die Ausrichtung von der Planungsorientierung hin zur Wertorientierung ohne Einbußen bei der Planung verstärken.