Rilind Balazi, Planung und Implementierung eines JBioDC-Gerätetreibers für den 3D Fastpass™ Face Reader, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2010. (Bachelor's Thesis)
Biometrics is a type of authentication, which recently gained immense importance. It is used in many applications, such as in airports, electronic passport, access control to buildings, etc. The costs involved are very low, when compared to other types of Identification, such as lost key, smartcards and other similar products. This makes Biometrics an ideal type of authentication for long term purposes. It is observed that, there is no standard software to manage different biometric devices. However, this could be accomplished by BioXes-Management software, which could manage different biometric devices centrally. So far this software has managed several fingerprint, iris scanner and a vein scanner. It is clear that this software has the capacity to manage several devices and already has a interface readily available to include more devices. The aim of this bachelor thesis is to program a JBioDC device driver for the 3D Fastpass™ Face Reader. This device is biometric facial recognition, and is a part of the range of devices that can be managed by the BioXes software. The SDK of this Face Reader runs only on Windows computers and unfortunately limits the platform independence of BioXes. To enable the communication between the driver and the SDK of the face reader a Java/-COM bridge had to be used, which operates to the COM interface of the SDK. In that case, Java2COM was chosen as Java/COM bridge. |
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Monika Seps, Non-Invasive Feedback System for Smart Prosthetic Devices, Univeristy of Zurich / ETH, 2010. (Master's Thesis)
In this thesis, we address a non-invasive sensory feedback system for prosthetic applications. Modern hand prostheses make use of electromyographic (EMG) signals of the remaining hand innervations to control an artificial limb. In contrast to our natural upper limbs, which are sensory-motor coordinated, the communication with a myoelectrically controlled hand prosthesis is only one-directional and consequently no sensory information is fed back to the body. Mainly due to this missing bidirectional information flow, the prosthesis is often not perceived as an integral part of the own body and low user acceptance of prosthesis wearers has been reported. We propose to use transcutaneous electrical stimulation on the lower back to convey pressure as well as proprioceptive feedback regarding the state of a prosthetic hand. For the representation of locally applied force and spatial movements of the hand, we suggest to make use of stationary and moving electrotactile stimulation patterns.
We developed a transcutaneous electrical stimulator to investigate to what extent the
lower back can be tackled to display sensory feedback. With the developed voltage-controlled device, we performed a series of experiments with 37 volunteer participants. The goal was to assess skin characteristics and basic properties of surface electrical stimulation and to gain insights into the amount of information that could be reliably fed back to the user of a prosthesis. We studied the influence of three different electrode sizes (4.9 cm2, 8 cm2 and 25 cm2) and frequencies (2, 4 and 6 kHz) on the comfort of evoked sensation and on skin characteristics under transcutaneous electrical stimulation. The electrode size and applied frequency did not show a significant effect on perceived stimulation comfort, but on skin impedance, inflowing current, stimulation range, comfort level voltage, current density and power consumption. The applied frequency did not influence the measured parameters to the same extent as electrode size. However, the effect of frequency increased in inverse relation to the size of the electrodes. Larger electrodes showed a reduced skin impedance together with lower required voltages
to elicit a sensation and a decreased stimulation range. Furthermore, inter-individual
differences were smaller with larger electrodes. Thus, advantages of large electrodes are system stability and low required energy. Drawbacks are the small stimulation range that can be exploited to transmit distinct levels of information and the large covered surface area, which makes stimulation localization more difficult due to a widespread activation area. Consequently, the electrode size represents a trade-off between stability and selectivity and should be determined dependent on the intended application.
To gain insights into how much electrotactile information can be reliably recognized on the lower back, we tested the ability of subjects to detect several local and moving stimulation patterns without any previous training. Four electrode pairs were arranged in a rectangular configuration on the lower back and the sensory stimulation was applied either stationary or an up or down traveling sensation between two electrode pairs was induced. We studied the accuracy of sensation detection for two different stimulation waveforms (continuous square pulsed or burst-modulated) and three frequencies (2, 4 and 6 kHz). The mean performance in correctly classifying the applied stimulation patterns was dependent on the stimulation waveform and on the number of simultaneously presented stimuli.
The results show an accuracy of unidirectional moving sensation detection of 92% for the best suited stimulation parameters (continuous square pulses). For the best stimulation parameters regarding local stimulation (burst-modulated wave), the mean performance for correct stimulus classification on one electrode pair was 89%. These scores indicate, that local as well as moving sensation patterns can be reliably recognized and the lower back may present a suitable target to display rich and reliable sensory feedback information. |
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S Amstutz, Busse verdrängt das schlechte Gewissen, In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 5, p. 83, 31 January 2010. (Newspaper Article)
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Anne Koziolek, Heiko Koziolek, Steffen Becker, Ralf H. Reussner, Automatically Improve Software Models for Performance, Reliability and Cost Using Genetic Algorithms, In: WOSP/SIPEW '10: Proceedings of the first joint WOSP/SIPEW international conference on Performance engineering, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2010. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
Quantitative prediction of quality properties (i.e. extra-functional
properties such as performance, reliability, and cost) of software
architectures during design supports a systematic software engineering
approach. Designing architectures that exhibit a good trade-off between
multiple quality criteria is hard, because even after a functional
design has been created, many remaining degrees of freedom in the
software architecture span a large, discontinuous design space. In
current practice, software architects try to find solutions manually,
which is time-consuming, can be error-prone and can lead to suboptimal
designs. We propose an automated approach to search the design space
for good solutions. Starting with a given initial architectural model,
the approach iteratively modifies and evaluates architectural models.
Our approach applies a multi-criteria genetic algorithm to software
architectures modelled with the Palladio Component Model. It supports
quantitative performance, reliability, and cost prediction and can
be extended to other quantitative quality criteria of software architectures.
We validate the applicability of our approach by applying it to an
architecture model of a component-based business information system
and analyse its quality criteria trade-offs by automatically investigating
more than 1200 alternative design candidates. |
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Reinhard Stoiber, Martin Glinz, Supporting stepwise, incremental product derivation in product line requirements engineering, In: Fourth International Workshop on Variability Modelling of Software-intensive Systems (VaMoS'10), 2010-01-27. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
Deriving products from a software product line is difficult, particularly when there are many constraints in the variability of the product line. Understanding the impact of variability binding decisions (i.e. of selecting or dismissing features) is a particular challenge: (i) the decisions taken must not violate any variability constraint, and (ii) the effects and consequences of every variability decision need to be understood well. This problem can be reduced significantly with good support both for variability specification and decision making. We have developed an extension of the \textsc{Adora} language and tool which is capable of modeling and visualizing both the functionality and the variability of a product line in a single model and provides automated reasoning on the variability space. In this paper we describe how our approach supports stepwise, incremental derivation of a product requirements specification from a product line specification. We visualize what has been derived so far, automatically re-evaluate the variability constraints and propagate the results as restrictions on the remaining product derivation options. We demonstrate our approach by showing a sequence of product derivation steps in an example from the industrial automation domain. We claim that our approach both improves the efficiency and quality of the derivation process. |
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Dana Damian, Konstantinos Dermitzakis, Morphological design for a prosthetic hand: bone curvature and ridged skin, In: International Conference on Cognitive Systems (CogSys), Zurich, Switzerland, 2010. (Conference or Workshop Paper)
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Erich Walter Farkas, Quantitative methods in operational risk: more or less?, In: University of Birmingham External Seminar. 2010. (Conference Presentation)
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P Mahler, Besseres Image dank Freiwilligenarbeit, In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 18, p. 75, 23 January 2010. (Newspaper Article)
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Christoph Eisenegger, Michael Naef, Romana Lucia Snozzi, Markus Heinrichs, Ernst Fehr, Prejudice and truth about the effect of testosterone on human bargaining behaviour, Nature, Vol. 463 (7279), 2010. (Journal Article)
Both biosociological and psychological models, as well as animal research, suggest that testosterone has a key role in social interactions. Evidence from animal studies in rodents shows that testosterone causes aggressive behaviour towards conspecifics. Folk wisdom generalizes and adapts these findings to humans, suggesting that testosterone induces antisocial, egoistic, or even aggressive human behaviours. However, many researchers have questioned this folk hypothesis, arguing that testosterone is primarily involved in status-related behaviours in challenging social interactions, but causal evidence that discriminates between these views is sparse. Here we show that the sublingual administration of a single dose of testosterone in women causes a substantial increase in fair bargaining behaviour, thereby reducing bargaining conflicts and increasing the efficiency of social interactions. However, subjects who believed that they received testosterone-regardless of whether they actually received it or not-behaved much more unfairly than those who believed that they were treated with placebo. Thus, the folk hypothesis seems to generate a strong negative association between subjects' beliefs and the fairness of their offers, even though testosterone administration actually causes a substantial increase in the frequency of fair bargaining offers in our experiment. |
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Peter Racz, SCRIPT: An Architecture for IPFIX Data Distribution, In: SCRIPT Public Workshop. 2010. (Conference Presentation)
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Cristian Morariu, Implementation of SCRIPT Mechanisms, In: SCRIPT Public Workshop. 2010. (Conference Presentation)
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Marc Chesney, Christine Hirszowicz, Brigitte Maranghino-Singer, Les paris sur la mort, le jeu dangereux des banques, In: Le Temps, p. 13, 15 January 2010. (Newspaper Article)
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Guilherme Sperb Machado, SWITCH InfoDay 2010: AMAAIS, Accounting and Monitoring of AAI Services, In: SWITCH InfoDay 2010. 2010. (Conference Presentation)
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Peter Illetschko, Thorsten Hens, Die Moral wird durch das Geld zerstört, In: Der Standard, 12 January 2010. (Media Coverage)
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Sven Seuken, Jie Tang, David C. Parkes, Accounting Mechanisms for Distributed Work Systems, In: Proceedings of the Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), Atlanta, GA, 2010. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
In distributed work systems, individual users perform
work for other users. A significant challenge in these
systems is to provide proper incentives for users to
contribute as much work as they consume, even when
monitoring is not possible. We formalize the problem
of designing incentive-compatible accounting mechanisms
that measure the net contributions of users, despite
relying on voluntary reports. We introduce the
Drop-Edge Mechanism that removes any incentive for
a user to manipulate via misreports about work contributed
or consumed. We prove that Drop-Edge provides
a good approximation to a user’s net contribution,
and is accurate in the limit as the number of users grows.
We demonstrate very good welfare properties in simulation
compared to an existing, manipulable mechanism.
In closing, we discuss our ongoing work, including a
real-world implementation and evaluation of the Drop-
Edge Mechanism in a BitTorrent client. |
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Thorsten Hens, Rendite ohne Risiko, In: Finanz und Wirtschaft, p. 1, 9 January 2010. (Newspaper Article)
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Alexandra Arnold, Chefs sollen mehr Vertrauen schenken, In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 6, p. 75, 9 January 2010. (Newspaper Article)
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Marc Chesney, Christoph Weber-Berg, Banken ohne moralischen Kompass, UZH magazin: die Wissenschaftszeitschrift, 2010. (Journal Article)
Das moderne Finanzwesen hat sich von religiösen und moralischen Grundsätzen gelöst. Nicht so das «Islamic Banking». Die Scharia verbietet viele Finanzgeschäfte, die der Wirtschaft in der aktuellen Finanzkrise zum Verhängnis wurden. Das erweist sich jetzt als Vorteil: Die Verbote führen zu einem effektiven Risikomanagement. |
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Christian Jonathan Kascha, Francesco Ravazzolo, Combining inflation density forecasts, Journal of Forecasting, Vol. 29 (1-2), 2010. (Journal Article)
In this paper, we empirically evaluate competing approaches for combining inflation density forecasts in terms of Kullback–Leibler divergence. In particular, we apply a similar suite of models to four different datasets and aim at identifying combination methods that perform well throughout different series and variations of the model suite. We pool individual densities using linear and logarithmic combination methods. The suite consists of linear forecasting models with moving estimation windows to account for structural change. We find that combining densities is a much better strategy than selecting a particular model ex ante. While combinations do not always perform better than the best individual model, combinations always yield accurate forecasts and, as we show analytically, provide insurance against selecting inappropriate models. Logarithmic combinations can be advantageous, in particular if symmetric densities are preferred. |
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Daning Hu, Xinlei Zhao, Leon Zhao, Strategic Choices of Inter-organizational Information Systems: A Customer-Supplier Network Perspective, In: the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS ‘10), 2010. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
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