Research

Publications

Kraus Pavel, Bornemann Manfred, Alwert Kay, Matern, Andreas, Reimer, Ulrich, Kaiser Rene_DB
2020
Wissensmanagement (WM) hatte bis 2007 keinen allgemein gleich verstandenen Begriffs- und Definitionsunterbau. Gerade in wirtschaftlich schwierigen Zeiten muss WM als Disziplin für seine eigene Klarheit und Stringenz sorgen – eine Zersplitterung in verschiedene Denkschulen schwächt WM-Kommunikation, -Einsatz und -Weiterentwicklung. Das DACH-WM-Glossar erscheint in einer neuen Form und zwar aus einer pragmatischen Synthese der Glossare Praxishandbuch des WM-Forums Graz von 2007 und des DACH-WM-Glossars von 2009, ergänzt durch zusätzliche Quellen.
Velimsky Jan, Schweimer Christoph, Tran Thi Ngoc Han, Gfrerer Christine
2020
In this paper, we investigate the information sharing patterns via Twitter for the social media networks of two ideologically divergent political parties, the Freedom Party (FPOE) and the NEOS, in the lead-up to and during the 2019 Austrian National Council Elections and ask: 1) To what extent do the associated networks differ in their structure?2) Which determinants affect the spreading behaviour of messages in the two networks, and which factors explain these differences? 3) What type of political news and information did verified users (e.g., news media or politicians) share ahead of the vote and which role do these users play in the dissemination of messages in the respective networks. Analysing approximately 200,000 tweets, the study relies on qualitative and quantitative text analysis including sentiment analysis, on supervised classification of relevant attributes for the message spread combined with neural network models retrieving the retweet probabilities for source tweets and on network analysis. In addition to notable differences between the two parties in network structure and Twitter usage, we find that verified users, as well as URLs, other media elements (videos or photos) and hashtags play an important role in the spreading of messages. We also reveal that negative sentiments have a higher retweetability compared to other sentiments. Interestingly, gender seems to matter in the network related to the FPOE, where male users get more retweets than female users.
Geiger Bernhard, Kubin Gernot
2020
guest editorial for a special issue
Gursch Heimo, Schlager Elke, Feichtinger Gerald, Brandl Daniel
2020
The comfort humans perceive in rooms depends on many influencing factors and is currently only poorly recorded and maintained. This is due to circumstances like the subjective nature of perceived comfort, lack of sensors or data processing infrastructure. Project COMFORT (Comfort Orientated and Management Focused Operation of Room condiTions) researches the modelling of perceived thermal comfort of humans in office rooms. This begins at extensive and long-term measurements taking in a laboratory test chamber and in real-world office rooms. Data is collected from the installed building services engineering systems, from high-accurate reference measurement equipment and from weather services describing the outside conditions. All data is stored in a specially developed central Data Management System (DMS) creating the basis for all research and studies in project COMFORT.The collected data is the key enabler for the creation of soft sensors describing comfort relevant indices like predicted mean vote (PMV), predicted percentage of dissatisfied (PPD) and operative temperature (OT). Two different approaches are conducted complementing and extending each other in the realisation of soft sensors. Firstly, a purely data-driven modelling approach generates models for soft sensors by learning the relations between explanatory and target variables in the collected data. Secondly, simulation-based soft sensors are derived from Building Energy Simulation (BES) and Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulations.The first result of the data-driven analysis is a solar Radiation Modelling (RM) component, capable of splitting global radiation into its direct horizontal and diffuse components. This is needed, since only global radiation data is available for the investigated locations, but the global radiation needs to be divided into direct and diffuse radiation due to their hugely differences in their thermal impact on buildings. The current BES and CFD simulation provide as their results soft sensors for comfort relevant indices, which will be complemented by data-driven soft sensors in the remainder of the project.
Dumouchel Suzane, Blotiere Emilie, Breitfuß Gert, Chen Yin, Di Donato Francesca, Eskevich Maria, Forbes Paula, Georgiadis Haris, Gingold Arnaud, Gorgaini Elisa, Morainville Yoann, de Paoli Stefano, Petitfils Clara, Pohle Stefanie, Toth-Czifra Erzebeth
2020
Social sciences and humanities (SSH) research is divided across a wide array of disciplines, sub-disciplines and languages. While this specialisation makes it possible to investigate the extensive variety of SSH topics, it also leads to a fragmentation that prevents SSH research from reaching its full potential. The TRIPLE project brings answers to these issues by developing an innovative discovery platform for SSH data, researchers’ projects and profiles. Having started in October 2019, the project has already three main achievements that are presented in this paper: 1) the definition of main features of the GOTRIPLE platform; 2) its interoperability; 3) its multilingual, multicultural and interdisciplinary vocation. These results have been achieved thanks to different methodologies such as a co-design process, market analysis and benchmarking, monitoring and co-building. These preliminary results highlight the need of respecting diversity of practices and communities through coordination and harmonisation.
Ciura Krzesimir, Fedorowicz Joanna, Zuvela Petar, Lovric Mario, Kapica Hanna, Baranowski Pawel, Sawicki Wieslaw, Wong Ming Wah, Sączewski Jaroslaw
2020
Currently, rapid evaluation of the physicochemical parameters of drug candidates, such as lipophilicity, is in high demand owing to it enabling the approximation of the processes of absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination. Although the lipophilicity of drug candidates is determined using the shake flash method (n-octanol/water system) or reversed phase liquid chromatography (RP-LC), more biosimilar alternatives to classical lipophilicity measurement are currently available. One of the alternatives is immobilized artificial membrane (IAM) chromatography. The present study is a continuation of our research focused on physiochemical characterization of biologically active derivatives of isoxazolo[3,4-b]pyridine-3(1H)-ones. The main goal of this study was to assess the affinity of isoxazolones to phospholipids using IAM chromatography and compare it with the lipophilicity parameters established by reversed phase chromatography. Quantitative structure–retention relationship (QSRR) modeling of IAM retention using differential evolution coupled with partial least squares (DE-PLS) regression was performed. The results indicate that in the studied group of structurally related isoxazolone derivatives, discrepancies occur between the retention under IAM and RP-LC conditions. Although some correlation between these two chromatographic methods can be found, lipophilicity does not fully explain the affinities of the investigated molecules to phospholipids. QSRR analysis also shows common factors that contribute to retention under IAM and RP-LC conditions. In this context, the significant influences of WHIM and GETAWAY descriptors in all the obtained models should be highlighted
Lovric Mario, Meister Richard, Steck Thomas, Fadljevic Leon, Gerdenitsch Johann, Schuster Stefan, Schiefermüller Lukas, Lindstaedt Stefanie , Kern Roman
2020
In industrial electro galvanizing lines aged anodes deteriorate zinc coating distribution over the strip width, leading to an increase in electricity and zinc cost. We introduce a data-driven approach in predictive maintenance of anodes to replace the cost- and labor-intensive manual inspection, which is still common for this task. The approach is based on parasitic resistance as an indicator of anode condition which might be aged or mis-installed. The parasitic resistance is indirectly observable via the voltage difference between the measured and baseline (theoretical) voltage for healthy anode. Here we calculate the baseline voltage by means of two approaches: (1) a physical model based on electrical and electrochemical laws, and (2) advanced machine learning techniques including boosting and bagging regression. The data was collected on one exemplary rectifier unit equipped with two anodes being studied for a total period of two years. The dataset consists of one target variable (rectifier voltage) and nine predictive variables used in the models, observing electrical current, electrolyte, and steel strip characteristics. For predictive modelling, we used Random Forest, Partial Least Squares and AdaBoost Regression. The model training was conducted on intervals where the anodes were in good condition and validated on other segments which served as a proof of concept that bad anode conditions can be identified using the parasitic resistance predicted by our models. Our results show a RMSE of 0.24 V for baseline rectifier voltage with a mean ± standard deviation of 11.32 ± 2.53 V for the best model on the validation set. The best-performing model is a hybrid version of a Random Forest which incorporates meta-variables computed from the physical model. We found that a large predicted parasitic resistance coincides well with the results of the manual inspection. The results of this work will be implemented in online monitoring of anode conditions to reduce operational cost at a production site
Obermeier, Melanie Maria, Wicaksono, Wisnu Adi, Taffner, Julian, Bergna, Alessandro, Poehlein, Anja, Cernava, Tomislav, Lindstaedt Stefanie , Lovric Mario, Müller Bogota, Christina Andrea, Berg, Gabriele
2020
The expanding antibiotic resistance crisis calls for a more in depth understanding of the importance of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) in pristine environments. We, therefore, studied the microbiome associated with Sphagnum moss forming the main vegetation in undomesticated, evolutionary old bog ecosystems. In our complementary analysis of culture collections, metagenomic data and a fosmid library from different geographic sites in Europe, we identified a low abundant but highly diverse pool of resistance determinants, which targets an unexpectedly broad range of 29 antibiotics including natural and synthetic compounds. This derives both, from the extraordinarily high abundance of efflux pumps (up to 96%), and the unexpectedly versatile set of ARGs underlying all major resistance mechanisms. Multi-resistance was frequently observed among bacterial isolates, e.g. in Serratia, Rouxiella, Pandoraea, Paraburkholderia and Pseudomonas. In a search for novel ARGs, we identified the new class A β-lactamase Mm3. The native Sphagnum resistome comprising a highly diversified and partially novel set of ARGs contributes to the bog ecosystem´s plasticity. Our results reinforce the ecological link between natural and clinically relevant resistomes and thereby shed light onto this link from the aspect of pristine plants. Moreover, they underline that diverse resistomes are an intrinsic characteristic of plant-associated microbial communities, they naturally harbour many resistances including genes with potential clinical relevance
Rauter Romana, Lerch Anita, Lederer-Hutsteiner Thomas, Klinger Sabine, Mayr Andrea, Gutounig Robert, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria
2020
Barreiros Carla, Silva Nelson, Veas Eduardo Enrique, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria
2020
Kern Roman, Al-Ubaidi Tarek, Sabol Vedran, Krebs Sarah, Khodachenko Maxim, Scherf Manuel
2020
Scientific progress in the area of machine learning, in particular advances in deep learning, have led to an increase in interest in eScience and related fields. While such methods achieve great results, an in-depth understanding of these new technologies and concepts is still often lacking and domain knowledge and subject matter expertise play an important role. In regard to space science there are a vast variety of application areas, in particular with regard to analysis of observational data. This chapter aims at introducing a number of promising approaches to analyze time series data, via the introduction query by example, i.e., any signal can be provided to the system, which then responds with a ranked list of datasets containing similar signals. Building on top of this ability the system can then be trained using annotations provided by expert users, with the goal of detecting similar features and hence provide a semiautomated analysis and classification. A prototype built to work on MESSENGER data based on existing background implementations by the Know-Center in cooperation with the Space Research Institute in Graz is presented. Further, several representations of time series data that demonstrated to be required for analysis tasks, as well as techniques for preprocessing, frequent pattern mining, outlier detection, and classification of segmented and unsegmented data, are discussed. Screen shots of the developed prototype, detailing various techniques for the presentation of signals, complete the discussion.
Dennerlein Sebastian, Wolf-Brenner Christof, Gutounig Robert, Schweiger Stefan, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria
2020
Künstliche Intelligenz (KI) ist zum Gegenstand gesellschaftlicher Debatten geworden. Die Beratung durch KI unterstützt uns in der Schule, im Alltag beim Einkauf, bei der Urlaubsplanung und beim Medienkonsum, manipuliert uns allerdings auch gezielt bei Entscheidungen oder führt durch Filter-Bubble-Phänomene zur Realitätsverzerrung.Eine der jüngsten Aufregungen hierzulande galt der Nutzung moderner Algorithmik durch das österreichische Arbeitsmarktservice AMS. Der sogenannte "AMS-Algorithmus" soll Beratende bei der Entscheidung über Fördermaßnahmen unterstützen.Wenn KI in einem so erheblichen Ausmaß in menschliches Handeln eingreift, bedarf sie im Hinblick auf ethische Prinzipien einer sorgfältigen Bewertung. Das ist notwendig, um unethische Folgen zu vermeiden. Üblicherweise wird gefordert, KI bzw. Algorithmen sollen fair sein, was bedeutet, sie sollen nicht diskriminieren und transparent sollen sie sein, also Einblick in ihre Funktionsweise ermöglichen
Fessl Angela, Pammer-Schindler_TU Viktoria, Kai Pata, Mati Mõttus, Jörgen Janus, Tobias Ley
2020
This paper presents cooperative design as method to address the needs of SMEs to gain sufficient knowledge about new technologies in order for them to decide about adoption for knowledge management. We developed and refined a cooperative design method iteratively over nine use cases. In each use case, the goal was to match the SME’s knowledge management needs with offerings of new (to the SMEs) technologies. Where traditionally, innovation adoption and diffusion literature assume new knowledge to be transferred from knowledgeable stakeholders to less knowledgeable stakeholders, our method is built on cooperative design. In this, the relevant knowledge is constructed by the SMEs who wish to decide upon the adoption of novel technologies through the cooperative design process. The presented method is constituted of an analysis stage based on activity theory and a design stage based on paper prototyping and design workshops. In all nine cases, our method led to a good understanding a) of the domain by researchers – validated by the creation of meaningful first-version paper prototypes and b) of new technologies – validated by meaningful input to design and plausible assessment of technologies’ benefit for the respective SME. Practitioners and researchers alike are invited to use the here documented tools to cooperatively match the domain needs of practitioners with the offerings of new technologies. The value of our work lies in providing a concrete implementation of the cooperative design paradigm that is based on an established theory (activity theory) for work analysis and established tools of cooperative design (paper prototypes and design workshops as media of communication); and a discussion based on nine heterogeneous use cases.
Geiger Bernhard, Fischer Ian
2020
In this short note, we relate the variational bounds proposed in Alemi et al. (2017) and Fischer (2020) for the information bottleneck (IB) and the conditional entropy bottleneck (CEB) functional, respectively. Although the two functionals were shown to be equivalent, it was empirically observed that optimizing bounds on the CEB functional achieves better generalization performance and adversarial robustness than optimizing those on the IB functional. This work tries to shed light on this issue by showing that, in the most general setting, no ordering can be established between these variational bounds, while such an ordering can be enforced by restricting the feasible sets over which the optimizations take place. The absence of such an ordering in the general setup suggests that the variational bound on the CEB functional is either more amenable to optimization or a relevant cost function for optimization in its own regard, i.e., without justification from the IB or CEB functionals.
Tschinkel Gerwald
2020
One classic issue associated with being a researcher nowadays is the multitude and magnitude of search results for a given topic. Recommender systems can help to fix this problem by directing users to the resources most relevant to their specific research focus. However, sets of automatically generated recommendations are likely to contain irrelevant resources, making user interfaces that provide effective filtering mechanisms necessary.This problem is exacerbated when users resume a previously interrupted research task, or when different users attempt to tackle one extensive list of results, as confusion as to what resources should be consulted can be overwhelming.The presented recommendation dashboard uses micro-visualisations to display the state of multiple filters in a data type-specific manner. This paper describes the design and geometry of micro-visualisations and presents results from an evaluation of their readability and memorability in the context of exploring recommendation results. Based on that, this paper also proposes applying micro-visualisations for extending the use of a desktop-based dashboard to the needs of small-screen, mobile multi-touch devices, such as smartphones. A small-scale heuristic evaluation was conducted using a first prototype implementation.
Žuvela, Petar, Lovric Mario, Yousefian-Jazi, Ali, Liu, J. Jay
2020
Numerous industrial applications of machine learning feature critical issues that need to be addressed. This work proposes a framework to deal with these issues, such as competing objectives and class imbalance in designing a machine vision system for the in-line detection of surface defects on glass substrates of thin-film transistor liquid crystal displays (TFT-LCDs). The developed inspection system composes of (i) feature engineering: extraction of only the defect-relevant features from images using two-dimensional wavelet decomposition and (ii) training ensemble classifiers (proof of concept with a C5.0 ensemble, random forests (RF), and adaptive boosting (AdaBoost)). The focus is on cost sensitivity, increased generalization, and robustness to handle class imbalance and address multiple competing manufacturing objectives. Comprehensive performance evaluation was conducted in terms of accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and the Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC) by calculating their 12,000 bootstrapped estimates. Results revealed significant differences (p < 0.05) between the three developed diagnostic algorithms. RFR (accuracy of 83.37%, sensitivity of 60.62%, specificity of 89.72%, and MCC of 0.51) outperformed both AdaBoost (accuracy of 81.14%, sensitivity of 69.23%, specificity of 84.48%, and MCC of 0.50) and the C5.0 ensemble (accuracy of 78.35%, sensitivity of 65.35%, specificity of 82.03%, and MCC of 0.44) in all the metrics except sensitivity. AdaBoost exhibited stronger performance in detecting defective TFT-LCD glass substrates. These promising results demonstrated that the proposed ensemble approach is a viable alternative to manual inspections when applied to an industrial case study with issues such as competing objectives and class imbalance.
Malev, Olga, Lovric Mario, Stipaničev, Draženka, Repec, Siniša, Martinović-Weigelt, Dalma, Zanella, Davor, Đuretec, Valnea Sindiči, Barišić, Josip, Li, Mei, Klobučar, Göran
2020
Chemical analysis of plasma samples of wild fish from the Sava River (Croatia) revealed the presence of 90 different pharmaceuticals/illicit drugs and their metabolites (PhACs/IDrgs). The concentrations of these PhACs/IDrgs in plasma were 10 to 1, 000 times higher than their concentrations in river water. Antibiotics, allergy/cold medications and analgesics were categories with the highest plasma concentrations. Fifty PhACs/IDrgs were identified as chemicals of concern based on the fish plasma model (FPM) effect ratios (ER) and their potential to activate evolutionary conserved biological targets. Chemicals of concern were also prioritized by calculating exposure-activity ratios (EARs) where plasma concentrations of chemicals were compared to their bioactivities in comprehensive ToxCast suite of in vitro assays. Overall, the applied prioritization methods indicated stimulants (nicotine, cotinine) and allergy/cold medications (prednisolone, dexamethasone) as having the highest potential biological impact on fish. The FPM model pointed to psychoactive substances (hallucinogens/stimulants and opioids) and psychotropic substances in the cannabinoids category (i.e. CBD and THC). EAR confirmed above and singled out additional chemicals of concern - anticholesteremic simvastatin and antiepileptic haloperidol. Present study demonstrates how the use of a combination of chemical analyses, and bio-effects based risk predictions with multiple criteria can help identify priority contaminants in freshwaters. The results reveal a widespread exposure of fish to complex mixtures of PhACs/IDrgs, which may target common molecular targets. While many of the prioritized chemicals occurred at low concentrations, their adverse effect on aquatic communities, due to continuous chronic exposure and additive effects, should not be neglected.
Duricic Tomislav, Hussain Hussain, Lacic Emanuel, Kowald Dominik, Lex Elisabeth, Helic Denis
2020
In this work, we study the utility of graph embeddings to generate latent user representations for trust-based collaborative filtering. In a cold-start setting, on three publicly available datasets, we evaluate approaches from four method families:(i) factorization-based,(ii) random walk-based,(iii) deep learning-based, and (iv) the Large-scale Information Network Embedding (LINE) approach. We find that across the four families, random-walk-based approaches consistently achieve the best accuracy. Besides, they result in highly novel and diverse recommendations. Furthermore, our results show that the use of graph embeddings in trust-based collaborative filtering significantly improves user coverage
Havaš Auguštin, Dubravka, Šarac, Jelena, Lovric Mario, Živković, Jelena, Malev, Olga, Fuchs, Nives, Novokmet, Natalija, Turkalj, Mirjana, Missoni, Saša
2020
Maternal nutrition and lifestyle in pregnancy are important modifiable factors for both maternal and offspring’s health. Although the Mediterranean diet has beneficial effects on health, recent studies have shown low adherence in Europe. This study aimed to assess the Mediterranean diet adherence in 266 pregnant women from Dalmatia, Croatia and to investigate their lifestyle habits and regional differences. Adherence to the Mediterranean diet was assessed through two Mediterranean diet scores. Differences in maternal characteristics (diet, education, income, parity, smoking, pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI), physical activity, contraception) with regards to location and dietary habits were analyzed using the non-parametric Mann–Whitney U test. The machine learning approach was used to reveal other potential non-linear relationships. The results showed that adherence to the Mediterranean diet was low to moderate among the pregnant women in this study, with no significant mainland–island differences. The highest adherence was observed among wealthier women with generally healthier lifestyle choices. The most significant mainland–island differences were observed for lifestyle and socioeconomic factors (income, education, physical activity). The machine learning approach confirmed the findings of the conventional statistical method. We can conclude that adverse socioeconomic and lifestyle conditions were more pronounced in the island population, which, together with the observed non-Mediterranean dietary pattern, calls for more effective intervention strategies
Reiter-Haas Markus, Wittenbrink Davi, Lacic Emanuel
2020
Finding the right job is a difficult task for anyone as it usually depends on many factors like salary, job description, or geographical location. Students with almost no prior experience, especially, have a hard time on the job market, which is very competitive in nature. Additionally, students often suffer a lack of orientation, as they do not know what kind of job is suitable for their education. At Talto1, we realized this and have built a platform to help Austrian university students with finding their career paths as well as providing them with content that is relevant to their career possibilities. This is mainly achieved by guiding the students toward different types of entities that are related to their career, i.e., job postings, company profiles, and career-related articles.In this talk, we share our experiences with solving the recommendation problem for university students. One trait of the student-focused job domain is that behaviour of the students differs depending on their study progression. At the beginning of their studies, they need study-specific career information and part-time jobs to earn additional money. Whereas, when they are nearing graduation, they require information about their potential future employers and entry-level full-time jobs. Moreover, we can observe seasonal patterns in user activity in addition to the need of handling both logged-in and anonymous session users at the same time.To cope with the requirements of the job domain, we built hybrid models based on a microservice architecture that utilizes popular algorithms from the literature such as Collaborative Filtering, Content-based Filtering as well as various neural embedding approaches (e.g., Doc2Vec, Autoencoders, etc.). We further adapted our architecture to calculate relevant recommendations in real-time (i.e., after a recommendation is requested) as individual user sessions in Talto are usually short-lived and context-dependent. Here we found that the online performance of the utilized approach also depends on the location context [1]. Hence, the current location of a user on the mobile or web application impacts the expected recommendations.One optimization criterion on the Talto career platform is to provide relevant cross-entity recommendations as well as explain why those were shown. Recently, we started to tackle this by learning embeddings of entities that lie in the same embedding space [2]. Specifically, we pre-train word embeddings and link different entities by shared concepts, which we use for training the network embeddings. This embeds both the concepts and the entities into a common vector space, where the common vector space is a result of considering the textual content, as well as the network information (i.e., links to concepts). This way, different entity types (e.g., job postings, company profiles, and articles) are directly comparable and are suited for a real-time recommendation setting. Interestingly enough, with such an approach we also end up with individual words sharing the same embedding space. This, in turn, can be leveraged to enhance the textual search functionality of a platform, which is most commonly based just on a TF-IDF model.Furthermore, we found that such embeddings allow us to tackle the problem of explainability in an algorithm-agnostic way. Since the Talto platform utilizes various recommendation algorithms as well as continuously conducts AB tests, an algorithm-agnostic explainability model would be best suited to provide the students with meaningful explanations. As such, we will also go into the details on how we can adapt our explanation model to not rely on the utilized recommendation algorithm.
Lacic Emanuel, Markus Reiter-Haas, Kowald Dominik, Reddy Dareddy Mano, Cho Junghoo, Lex Elisabeth
2020
In this work, we address the problem of providing job recommendations in an online session setting, in which we do not have full user histories. We propose a recom-mendation approach, which uses different autoencoder architectures to encode ses-sions from the job domain. The inferred latent session representations are then used in a k-nearest neighbor manner to recommend jobs within a session. We evaluate our approach on three datasets, (1) a proprietary dataset we gathered from the Austrian student job portal Studo Jobs, (2) a dataset released by XING after the RecSys 2017 Challenge and (3) anonymized job applications released by CareerBuilder in 2012. Our results show that autoencoders provide relevant job recommendations as well as maintain a high coverage and, at the same time, can outperform state-of-the-art session-based recommendation techniques in terms of system-based and session-based novelty
Dennerlein Sebastian, Wolf-Brenner Christof, Gutounig Robert, Schweiger Stefan, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria
2020
In society and politics, there is a rising interest in considering ethical principles in technological innovation, especially in the intersection of education and technology. We propose a first iteration of a theory-derived framework to analyze ethical issues in technology-enhanced learning (TEL) software development. The framework understands ethical issues as an expression of the overall socio-technical system that are rooted in the interactions of human actors with technology, so-called socio-technical interactions (STIs). For guiding ethical reflection, the framework helps to explicate this human involvement, and to elicit discussions of ethical principles on these STIs. Prompts in the form of reflection questions can be inferred to reflect on the technology functionality from relevant human perspectives, and in relation to a list of fundamental ethical principles. We illustrate the framework and discuss its implications for TEL
Gayane Sedrakya, Dennerlein Sebastian, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria, Lindstaedt Stefanie
2020
Our earlier research attempts to close the gap between learning behavior analytics based dashboard feedback and learning theories by grounding the idea of dashboard feedback onto learning science concepts such as feedback, learning goals, (socio-/meta-) cognitive mechanisms underlying learning processes. This work extends the earlier research by proposing mechanisms for making those concepts and relationships measurable. The outcome is a complementary framework that allows identifying feedback needs and timing for their provision in a generic context that can be applied to a certain subject in a given LMS. The research serves as general guidelines for educators in designing educational dashboards, as well as a starting research platform in the direction of systematically matching learning sciences concepts with data and analytics concepts
Klimashevskaia Anastasia, Geiger Bernhard, Hagmüller Martin, Helic Denis, Fischer Frank
2020
(extended abstract)
Hobisch Elisbeth, Scholger Martina, Fuchs Alexandra, Geiger Bernhard, Koncar Philipp, Saric Sanja
2020
(extended abstract)
Schrunner Stefan, Geiger Bernhard, Zernig Anja, Kern Roman
2020
Classification has been tackled by a large number of algorithms, predominantly following a supervised learning setting. Surprisingly little research has been devoted to the problem setting where a dataset is only partially labeled, including even instances of entirely unlabeled classes. Algorithmic solutions that are suited for such problems are especially important in practical scenarios, where the labelling of data is prohibitively expensive, or the understanding of the data is lacking, including cases, where only a subset of the classes is known. We present a generative method to address the problem of semi-supervised classification with unknown classes, whereby we follow a Bayesian perspective. In detail, we apply a two-step procedure based on Bayesian classifiers and exploit information from both a small set of labeled data in combination with a larger set of unlabeled training data, allowing that the labeled dataset does not contain samples from all present classes. This represents a common practical application setup, where the labeled training set is not exhaustive. We show in a series of experiments that our approach outperforms state-of-the-art methods tackling similar semi-supervised learning problems. Since our approach yields a generative model, which aids the understanding of the data, it is particularly suited for practical applications.
Amjad Rana Ali, Geiger Bernhard
2020
In this theory paper, we investigate training deep neural networks (DNNs) for classification via minimizing the information bottleneck (IB) functional. We show that the resulting optimization problem suffers from two severe issues: First, for deterministic DNNs, either the IB functional is infinite for almost all values of network parameters, making the optimization problem ill-posed, or it is piecewise constant, hence not admitting gradient-based optimization methods. Second, the invariance of the IB functional under bijections prevents it from capturing properties of the learned representation that are desirable for classification, such as robustness and simplicity. We argue that these issues are partly resolved for stochastic DNNs, DNNs that include a (hard or soft) decision rule, or by replacing the IB functional with related, but more well-behaved cost functions. We conclude that recent successes reported about training DNNs using the IB framework must be attributed to such solutions. As a side effect, our results indicate limitations of the IB framework for the analysis of DNNs. We also note that rather than trying to repair the inherent problems in the IB functional, a better approach may be to design regularizers on latent representation enforcing the desired properties directly.
Gogolenko Sergiy, Groen Derek, Suleimenova Dian, Mahmood Imra, Lawenda Marcin, Nieto De Santos Javie, Hanley Joh, Vukovic Milana, Kröll Mark, Geiger Bernhard, Elsaesser Rober, Hoppe Dennis
2020
Accurate digital twinning of the global challenges (GC) leadsto computationally expensive coupled simulations. These simulationsbring together not only different models, but also various sources of mas-sive static and streaming data sets. In this paper, we explore ways tobridge the gap between traditional high performance computing (HPC)and data-centric computation in order to provide efficient technologicalsolutions for accurate policy-making in the domain of GC. GC simula-tions in HPC environments give rise to a number of technical challengesrelated to coupling. Being intended to reflect current and upcoming situ-ation for policy-making, GC simulations extensively use recent streamingdata coming from external data sources, which requires changing tradi-tional HPC systems operation. Another common challenge stems fromthe necessity to couple simulations and exchange data across data centersin GC scenarios. By introducing a generalized GC simulation workflow,this paper shows commonality of the technical challenges for various GCand reflects on the approaches to tackle these technical challenges in theHiDALGO project
Amjad Rana Ali, Bloechl Clemens, Geiger Bernhard
2020
We propose an information-theoretic Markov aggregation framework that is motivated by two objectives: 1) The Markov chain observed through the aggregation mapping should be Markov. 2) The aggregated chain should retain the temporal dependence structure of the original chain. We analyze our parameterized cost function and show that it contains previous cost functions as special cases, which we critically assess. Our simple optimization heuristic for deterministic aggregations characterizes the optimization landscape for different parameter values.
Breitfuß Gert, Fruhwirth Michael, Wolf-Brenner Christof, Riedl Angelika, Ginthör Robert, Pimas Oliver
2020
In the future, every successful company must have a clear idea of what data means to it. The necessary transformation to a data-driven company places high demands on companies and challenges management, organization and individual employees. In order to generate concrete added value from data, the collaboration of different disciplines e.g. data scientists, domain experts and business people is necessary. So far few tools are available which facilitate the creativity and co-creation process amongst teams with different backgrounds. The goal of this paper is to design and develop a hands-on and easy to use card-based tool for the generation of data service ideas that supports the required interdisciplinary cooperation. By using a Design Science Research approach we analysed 122 data service ideas and developed an innovation tool consisting of 38 cards. The first evaluation results show that the developed Data Service Cards are both perceived as helpful and easy to use.
Fruhwirth Michael, Breitfuß Gert, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria
2020
The availability of data sources and advances in analytics and artificial intelligence offers the opportunity for organizationsto develop new data-driven products, services and business models. Though, this process is challenging for traditionalorganizations, as it requires knowledge and collaboration from several disciplines such as data science, domain experts, orbusiness perspective. Furthermore, it is challenging to craft a meaningful value proposition based on data; whereas existingresearch can provide little guidance. To overcome those challenges, we conducted a Design Science Research project toderive requirements from literature and a case study, develop a collaborative visual tool and evaluate it through severalworkshops with traditional organizations. This paper presents the Data Product Canvas, a tool connecting data sources withthe user challenges and wishes through several intermediate steps. Thus, this paper contributes to the scientific body ofknowledge on developing data-driven business models, products and services.
Koncar Philipp, Fuchs Alexandra, Hobisch Elisabeth, Geiger Bernhard, Scholger Martina, Helic Denis
2020
Spectator periodicals contributed to spreading the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment, a turning point in human history and the foundation of our modern societies. In this work, we study the spirit and atmosphere captured in the spectator periodicals about important social issues from the 18th century by analyzing text sentiment of those periodicals. Specifically, based on a manually annotated corpus of over 3 700 issues published in five different languages and over a period of more than one hundred years, we conduct a three-fold sentiment analysis: First, we analyze the development of sentiment over time as well as the influence of topics and narrative forms on sentiment. Second, we construct sentiment networks to assess the polarity of perceptions between different entities, including periodicals, places and people. Third, we construct and analyze sentiment word networks to determine topological differences between words with positive and negative polarity allowing us to make conclusions on how sentiment was expressed in spectator periodicals.Our results depict a mildly positive tone in spectator periodicals underlining the positive attitude towards important topics of the Age of Enlightenment, but also signaling stylistic devices to disguise critique in order to avoid censorship. We also observe strong regional variation in sentiment, indicating cultural and historic differences between countries. For example, while Italy perceived other European countries as positive role models, French periodicals were frequently more critical towards other European countries. Finally, our topological analysis depicts a weak overrepresentation of positive sentiment words corroborating our findings about a general mildly positive tone in spectator periodicals.We believe that our work based on the combination of the sentiment analysis of spectator periodicals and the extensive knowledge available from literary studies sheds interesting new light on these publications. Furthermore, we demonstrate the inclusion of sentiment analysis as another useful method in the digital humanist’s distant reading toolbox.
Fruhwirth Michael, Ropposch Christiana, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria
2020
Purpose: This paper synthesizes existing research on tools and methods that support data-driven business model innovation, and maps out relevant directions for future research.Design/methodology/approach: We have carried out a structured literature review and collected and analysed a respectable but not excessively large number of 33 publications, due to the comparatively emergent nature of the field.Findings: Current literature on supporting data-driven business model innovation differs in the types of contribution (taxonomies, patterns, visual tools, methods, IT tool and processes), the types of thinking supported (divergent and convergent) and the elements of the business models that are addressed by the research (value creation, value capturing and value proposition).Research implications: Our review highlights the following as relevant directions for future research. Firstly, most research focusses on supporting divergent thinking, i.e. ideation. However, convergent thinking, i.e. evaluating, prioritizing, and deciding, is also necessary. Secondly, the complete procedure of developing data-driven business models and also the development on chains of tools related to this have been under-investigated. Thirdly, scarcely any IT tools specifically support the development of data-driven business models. These avenues also highlight the necessity to integrate between research on specifics of data in business model innovation, on innovation management, information systems and business analytics.Originality/Value: This paper is the first to synthesize the literature on how to identify and develop data-driven
Dumouchel Suzanne, Blotiere Emilie, Barbot Laure, Breitfuß Gert, Chen Yin, Di Donato Francesca, Forbes Paula, Petifils Clara, Pohle Stefanie
2020
SSH research is divided across a wide array of disciplines, sub-disciplines, and languages. While this specialisation makes it possible to investigate the extensive variety of SSH topics, it also leads to a fragmentation that prevents SSH research from reaching its full potential. Use and reuse of SSH research is suboptimal, interdisciplinary collaboration possibilities are often missed partially because of missing standards and referential keys between disciplines. By the way the reuse of data may paradoxically complicate a relevant sorting and a trust relationship. As a result, societal, economic and academic impacts are limited. Conceptually, there is a wealth of transdisciplinary collaborations, but in practice there is a need to help SSH researchers and research institutions to connect them and support them, to prepare the research data for these overarching approaches and to make them findable and usable. The TRIPLE (Targeting Researchers through Innovative Practices and Linked Exploration) project is a practical answer to the above issues, as it aims at designing and developing the European discovery platform dedicated to SSH resources. Funded under the European Commission program INFRAEOSC-02-2019 “Prototyping new innovative services”, thanks to a consortium of 18 partners, TRIPLE will develop a full multilingual and multicultural solution for the discovery and the reuse of SSH resources. The project started in October 2019 for a duration of 42 months thanks to European funding of 5.6 million €.
Dennerlein Sebastian, Tomberg Vladimir, Treasure-Jones, Tamsin, Theiler Dieter, Lindstaedt Stefanie , Ley Tobias
2020
PurposeIntroducing technology at work presents a special challenge as learning is tightly integrated with workplace practices. Current design-based research (DBR) methods are focused on formal learning context and often questioned for a lack of yielding traceable research insights. This paper aims to propose a method that extends DBR by understanding tools as sociocultural artefacts, co-designing affordances and systematically studying their adoption in practice.Design/methodology/approachThe iterative practice-centred method allows the co-design of cognitive tools in DBR, makes assumptions and design decisions traceable and builds convergent evidence by consistently analysing how affordances are appropriated. This is demonstrated in the context of health-care professionals’ informal learning, and how they make sense of their experiences. The authors report an 18-month DBR case study of using various prototypes and testing the designs with practitioners through various data collection means.FindingsBy considering the cognitive level in the analysis of appropriation, the authors came to an understanding of how professionals cope with pressure in the health-care domain (domain insight); a prototype with concrete design decisions (design insight); and an understanding of how memory and sensemaking processes interact when cognitive tools are used to elaborate representations of informal learning needs (theory insight).Research limitations/implicationsThe method is validated in one long-term and in-depth case study. While this was necessary to gain an understanding of stakeholder concerns, build trust and apply methods over several iterations, it also potentially limits this.Originality/valueBesides generating traceable research insights, the proposed DBR method allows to design technology-enhanced learning support for working domains and practices. The method is applicable in other domains and in formal learning.
Kowald Dominik, Lex Elisabeth, Markus Schedl
2020
In this paper, we introduce a psychology-inspired approachto model and predict the music genre preferences of differ-ent groups of users by utilizing human memory processes.These processes describe how humans access informationunits in their memory by considering the factors of (i) pastusage frequency, (ii) past usage recency, and (iii) the currentcontext. Using a publicly available dataset of more than abillion music listening records shared on the music stream-ing platform Last.fm, we find that our approach providessignificantly better prediction accuracy results than variousbaseline algorithms for all evaluated user groups, i.e., (i) low-mainstream music listeners, (ii) medium-mainstream musiclisteners, and (iii) high-mainstream music listeners. Further-more, our approach is based on a simple psychological model,which contributes to the transparency and explainability ofthe calculated predictions
Kowald Dominik, Markus Schedl, Lex Elisabeth
2020
Research has shown that recommender systems are typicallybiased towards popular items, which leads to less popular items beingunderrepresented in recommendations. The recent work of Abdollahpouriet al. in the context of movie recommendations has shown that this pop-ularity bias leads to unfair treatment of both long-tail items as well asusers with little interest in popular items. In this paper, we reproducethe analyses of Abdollahpouri et al. in the context of music recommen-dation. Specifically, we investigate three user groups from the Last.fmmusic platform that are categorized based on how much their listen-ing preferences deviate from the most popular music among all Last.fmusers in the dataset: (i) low-mainstream users, (ii) medium-mainstreamusers, and (iii) high-mainstream users. In line with Abdollahpouri et al.,we find that state-of-the-art recommendation algorithms favor popularitems also in the music domain. However, their proposed Group Aver-age Popularity metric yields different results for Last.fm than for themovie domain, presumably due to the larger number of available items(i.e., music artists) in the Last.fm dataset we use. Finally, we comparethe accuracy results of the recommendation algorithms for the three usergroups and find that the low-mainstreaminess group significantly receivesthe worst recommendations.
Dennerlein Sebastian, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria, Ebner Markus, Getzinger Günter, Ebner Martin
2020
Sustainably digitalizing higher education requires a human-centred approach. To address actual problems in teaching as well as learning and increase acceptance, the Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) solution(s) must be co-designed with affected researchers, teachers, students and administrative staff. We present research-in-progress about a sandpit-informed innovation process with a f2f-marketplace of TEL research and problemmapping as well team formation alongside a competitive call phase, which is followed by a cooperative phase of funded interdisciplinary pilot teams codesigning and implementing TEL innovations. Pilot teams are supported by a University Innovation Canvas to document and reflect on their TEL innovation from multiple viewpoints.
Fuchs Alexandra, Geiger Bernhard, Hobisch Elisabeth, Koncar Philipp, More Jacqueline, Saric Sanja, Scholger Martina
2020
Feichtinger Gerald, Gursch Heimo, Schlager Elke, Brandl Daniel, Gratzl Markus
2020
Bhat Karthik Subramanya, Bachhiesl Udo, Feichtinger Gerald, Stigler Heinz
2020
India, as a ‘developing’ country, is in the middle of a unique situation of handling its energy transition towards carbon-free energy along with its continuous economic development. With respect to the agreed COP 21 and SDG 2030 targets, India has drafted several energy strategies revolving around clean renewable energy. With multiple roadblocks for development of large hydro power capacities within the country, the long-term renewable goals of India focus highly on renewable energy technologies like solar Photo-Voltaic (PV) and wind capacities. However, with a much slower rate of development in transmission infrastructure and the given situations of the regional energy systems in the Indian subcontinent, these significant changes in India could result in severe technical and economic consequences for the complete interconnected region. The presented investigations in this paper have been conducted using ATLANTIS_India, a unique techno-economic simulation model developed at the Institute of Electricity Economics and Energy Innovation/Graz University of Technology, designed for the electricity system in the Indian subcontinent region. The model covers the electricity systems of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, and is used to analyse a scenario where around 118 GW of solar PV and wind capacity expansion is planned in India until the target year 2050. This paper presents the simulation approach as well as the simulated results and conclusions. The simulation results show the positive and negative technoeconomic impacts of the discussed strategy on the overall electricity system, while suggesting possible solutions.
Fadljevic Leon, Maitz Katharina, Kowald Dominik, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria, Gasteiger-Klicpera Barbara
2020
This paper describes the analysis of temporal behavior of 11--15 year old students in a heavily instructionally designed adaptive e-learning environment. The e-learning system is designed to support student's acquisition of health literacy. The system adapts text difficulty depending on students' reading competence, grouping students into four competence levels. Content for the four levels of reading competence was created by clinical psychologists, pedagogues and medicine students. The e-learning system consists of an initial reading competence assessment, texts about health issues, and learning tasks related to these texts. The research question we investigate in this work is whether temporal behavior is a differentiator between students despite the system's adaptation to students' reading competence, and despite students having comparatively little freedom of action within the system. Further, we also investigated the correlation of temporal behaviour with performance. Unsupervised clustering clearly separates students into slow and fast students with respect to the time they take to complete tasks. Furthermore, topic completion time is linearly correlated with performance in the tasks. This means that we interpret working slowly in this case as diligence, which leads to more correct answers, even though the level of text difficulty matches student's reading competence. This result also points to the design opportunity to integrate advice on overarching learning strategies, such as working diligently instead of rushing through, into the student's overall learning activity. This can be done either by teachers, or via additional adaptive learning guidance within the system.
Lex Elisabeth, Kowald Dominik, Schedl Markus
2020
In this paper, we address the problem of modeling and predicting the music genre preferences of users. We introduce a novel user modeling approach, BLLu, which takes into account the popularity of music genres as well as temporal drifts of user listening behavior. To model these two factors, BLLu adopts a psychological model that describes how humans access information in their memory. We evaluate our approach on a standard dataset of Last.fm listening histories, which contains fine-grained music genre information. To investigate performance for different types of users, we assign each user a mainstreaminess value that corresponds to the distance between the user’s music genre preferences and the music genre preferences of the (Last.fm) mainstream. We adopt BLLu to model the listening habits and to predict the music genre preferences of three user groups: listeners of (i) niche, low-mainstream music, (ii) mainstream music, and (iii) medium-mainstream music that lies in-between. Our results show that BLLu provides the highest accuracy for predicting music genre preferences, compared to five baselines: (i) group-based modeling, (ii) user-based collaborative filtering, (iii) item-based collaborative filtering, (iv) frequency-based modeling, and (v) recency-based modeling. Besides, we achieve the most substantial accuracy improvements for the low-mainstream group. We believe that our findings provide valuable insights into the design of music recommender systems
Thalmann Stefan, Fessl Angela, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria
2020
Digitization is currently one of the major factors changing society and the business world. Most research focused on the technical issues of this change, but also employees and especially the way how they learn changes dramatically. In this paper, we are interested in exploring the perspectives of decision makers in huge manufacturing companies on current challenges in organizing learning and knowledge distribution in digitized manufacturing environments. Moreover, weinvestigated the change process and challenges of implementing new knowledge and learning processes.To this purpose, we have conducted 24 interviews with senior representatives of large manufacturing companies from Austria, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. Our exploratory study shows that decision makers perceive significant changes in work practice of manufacturing due to digitization and they currently plan changes in organizational training and knowledge distribution processes in response. Due to the lack of best practices, companies focus verymuch on technological advancements. The delivery of knowledge just-in-time directly into work practice is afavorite approach. Overall, digital learning services are growing and new requirements regarding compliance,quality management and organisational culture arise.
Fruhwirth Michael, Rachinger Michael, Prlja Emina
2020
The modern economy relies heavily on data as a resource for advancement and growth. Data marketplaces have gained an increasing amount of attention, since they provide possibilities to exchange, trade and access data across organizations. Due to the rapid development of the field, the research on business models of data marketplaces is fragmented. We aimed to address this issue in this article by identifying the dimensions and characteristics of data marketplaces from a business model perspective. Following a rigorous process for taxonomy building, we propose a business model taxonomy for data marketplaces. Using evidence collected from a final sample of twenty data marketplaces, we analyze the frequency of specific characteristics of data marketplaces. In addition, we identify four data marketplace business model archetypes. The findings reveal the impact of the structure of data marketplaces as well as the relevance of anonymity and encryption for identified data marketplace archetypes.
Lovric Mario, Šimić Iva, Godec Ranka, Kröll Mark, Beslic Ivan
2020
Narrow city streets surrounded by tall buildings are favorable to inducing a general effect of a “canyon” in which pollutants strongly accumulate in a relatively small area because of weak or inexistent ventilation. In this study, levels of nitrogen-oxide (NO2), elemental carbon (EC) and organic carbon (OC) mass concentrations in PM10 particles were determined to compare between seasons and different years. Daily samples were collected at one such street canyon location in the center of Zagreb in 2011, 2012 and 2013. By applying machine learning methods we showed seasonal and yearly variations of mass concentrations for carbon species in PM10 and NO2, as well as their covariations and relationships. Furthermore, we compared the predictive capabilities of five regressors (Lasso, Random Forest, AdaBoost, Support Vector Machine and Partials Least squares) with Lasso regression being the overall best performing algorithm. By showing the feature importance for each model, we revealed true predictors per target. These measurements and application of machine learning of pollutants were done for the first time at a street canyon site in the city of Zagreb, Croatia.
Kaiser Rene_DB, Thalmann Stefan, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria, Fessl Angela
2020
Organisations participate in collaborative projects that include competitors for a number of strategic reasons, even whilst knowing that this requires them to consider both knowledge sharing and knowledge protection throughout collaboration. In this paper, we investigated which knowledge protection practices representatives of organizations employ in a collaborative research and innovation project that can be characterized as a co-opetitive setting. We conducted a series of 30 interviews and report the following seven practices in structured form: restrictive partner selection in operative project tasks, communication through a gatekeeper, to limit access to a central platform, to hide details of machine data dumps, to have data not leave a factory for analysis, a generic model enabling to hide usage parameters, and to apply legal measures. When connecting each practice to a priori literature, we find three practices focussing on collaborative data analytics tasks had not yet been covered so far.
Arslanovic Jasmina, Ajana Löw, Lovric Mario, Kern Roman
2020
Previous studies have suggested that artistic (synchronized) swimming athletes might showeating disorders symptoms. However, systematic research on eating disorders in artistic swimming is limited and the nature and antecedents of the development of eating disorders in this specific population of athletes is still scarce. Hence, the aim of our research was to investigate the eating disorder symptoms in artistic swimming athletes using the EAT-26 instrument, and to examine the relation of the incidence and severity of these symptoms to body mass index and body image dissatisfaction. Furthermore, we wanted to compare artistic swimmers with athletes of a non-leanness (but also an aquatic) sport, therefore we also included a group of female water-polo athletes of the same age. The sample consisted of 36 artistic swimmers and 34 female waterpolo players (both aged 13-16). To test the presence of the eating disorder symptoms the EAT-26 was used. The Mann-Whitney U Test (MWU) was used to test for the differences in EAT-26 scores. The EAT-26 total score and the Dieting subscale (one of the three subscale) showed significant differences between the two groups. The median value for EAT-26 total score was higher in the artistic swimmers’ group (C = 11) than in the waterpolo players’ group (C = 8). A decision tree classifier was used to discriminate the artistic swimmers and female water polo players based on the features from the EAT26 and calculated features. The most discriminative features were the BMI, the dieting subscale and the habit of post-meal vomiting.Our results suggest that artistic swimmers, at their typical competing age, show higher risk of developing eating disorders than female waterpoloplayers and that they are also prone to dieting weight-control behaviors to achieve a desired weight. Furthermore, results indicate that purgative behaviors, such as binge eating or self-induced vomiting, might not be a common weight-control behavior among these athletes. The results corroborate the findings that sport environment in leanness sports might contribute to the development of eating disorders. The results are also in line with evidence that leanness sports athletes are more at risk for developing restrictive than purgative eating behaviors, as the latter usually do not contribute to body weight reduction. As sport environment factors in artistic swimming include judging criteria that emphasize a specific body shape and performance, it is important to raise the awareness of mental health risks that such environment might encourage.