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Suggested Citation:"Appendix B International Visits ." National Research Council. 2014. Complex Operational Decision Making in Networked Systems of Humans and Machines: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18844.
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Appendix B

INTERNATIONAL VISITS

The purpose of visiting labs outside the United States was to provide the sponsor with a sense of the nature and quality of research abroad and to find out whether the committee might learn something that is largely new to American researchers.

Members of the committee and staff visited Singapore and Germany in April and August, respectively. While the delegations were impressed with the quality of the research that they learned about during the site visits, they did not find completely novel approaches to the problems that the committee is addressing. This state of affairs is not surprising: Research has become so internationalized that most discussions and citations refer to multiple country sources. In several cases, even the funding for diverse projects comes from global sponsors. The differences are therefore more cultural than scientific and more relational than absolute. Consequently, what might be the most interesting about Germany and Singapore is how their approaches to research in human-machine collaboration and development differ from those of the United States and each other.1

Singapore focuses explicitly on applied research, technology transition, and commercialization. Its research teams—whether at Singapore’s A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research) or in academia—are internationally integrated, with foreign nationals often holding the principal investigator position on a project. (Germany today is not so different in this respect. The DFKI [the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence], for example, has 154 researchers from 49 countries, with the largest number, 14, coming from China and the second largest, 13, from Russia.2) Singapore’s main distinction, at least anecdotally, might be how it merges its emphasis on application and commercialization with an utterly globalized approach to research and development (R&D) to build itself into a global hub for science and technology. Thus, while Germany and the United States (and other countries that are centers of R&D excellence) might focus more on producing cutting-edge research, Singapore is unique in its commitment to becoming an essential go-to destination for the world’s major industrial corporations.

As with Singapore, Germany also has a very strong commitment to applied research. Whereas Singapore explicitly relates their applied research to economic advancement, Germany focuses on the social aspect of applied research. For example, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the largest applied-research center in Europe, devotes their efforts “entirely to people’s needs: health, security, communication, energy and the environment.”3

Following are some of the highlights from the committee’s trips abroad.

______________________

1 See S&T Strategies of Six Countries: Implications for the United States (National Research Council, 2010).

2 Overview of DFKI’s Research Agenda, prepared for visit of CHMNI Delegation, August 1, 2013.

3 See http://www.fraunhofer.de/en/about-fraunhofer.html. Last accessed February 10, 2014.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B International Visits ." National Research Council. 2014. Complex Operational Decision Making in Networked Systems of Humans and Machines: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18844.
×

SINGAPORE, APRIL 15-19, 2013

A delegation traveled to Singapore for meetings on April 15–19 that focused on technologies related to human-machine collaboration for decision making. The institutions that the delegation visited span the spectrum between research (A*STAR and several universities) and application (such as the Defence Science Organisation and the Public Utilities Board). (The full list of institutions and brief descriptions of these visits can be found in this appendix).

Most of the technology that the delegation saw might not be considered cutting edge, although much of it is comparable to relevant efforts in the United States. Rather, one is struck by the breadth of this small country’s R&D interests and the extent to which Singapore’s scientists and technologists—regardless of national origin—exhibit a strong commitment to commercialize its research.

Two themes emerged consistently throughout the visit. The first, as described above, was the focus on applied research, technology transition, and commercialization. The pervasive message was that science and technology should serve business and industry. This principle was apparent at universities and research labs, and it led to strong efforts to develop industrial collaborations. It also contributed to the second theme, which was the development of international research collaborations and consortia and efforts to colocate researchers. The country aimed its scientific efforts not at basic research for the sake of knowledge acquisition, but at bringing people in, creating jobs, and/or inventing and improving technology.

The delegation spoke with several U.S. professors (by loan or direct hire) who, when pressed, revealed the benefits of working in Singapore. Topmost on their list was the freedom to pursue their research questions (typically advanced subjects that would push technological and privacy-related boundaries in the United States)—autonomous cars and social network research, for example (Singapore Management University and CREATE or the Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise). These professors also noted a particular type of collaboration setup spurred by the nature of Singaporean experimentation, with several universities and programs sharing a building on the same campus.

Singapore’s style of governance allows the country to do some things relevant to this report’s topic that would not be possible in the United States. In particular, it can achieve a high level of compliance in some areas that are considered personal choice in this country; similarly, Singapore’s practices regarding respect for privacy are different from those exercised here. For example, all of the intersections with signals have sensors, as do highways. If a car breaks down, the system detects that the vehicle has pulled over and alerts traffic marshals. The intense monitoring not only facilitates service for the stranded motorist but also allows measurements of performance (such as how long it takes emergency crews to arrive) that can be used for assessment and future development. Similarly, all taxis contain sensors. Their movements allow larger traffic flow to be tracked.

As a result of these and related data-gathering activities, Singapore is positioned to be a leader in the new “data economy.” Just as smart phones have stimulated a boom in cell-phone app development, large collections of new data might well prompt a flurry of innovation around how to use those data. Committee members suggested that Singapore is accumulating data in a more organized and comprehensive way than many other countries. This practice has a huge potential economic impact.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B International Visits ." National Research Council. 2014. Complex Operational Decision Making in Networked Systems of Humans and Machines: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18844.
×

SINGAPORE VISIT SCHEDULE

April 15, Monday

AM: Nanyang Technological University: Centre for Computational Intelligence

PM: A*STAR: Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R)

April 16, Tuesday

AM: CHMNI group discussion

PM: Dinner with a small group from the Symposium of Computational Intelligence, Cognitive Algorithms, Mind and Brain

April 17, Wednesday

AM: Defence Science Organization, Singapore

PM: A*STAR: Institute for High Performance Computing

Singapore Management University (LARC)

April 18, Thursday

AM: A*STAR: I2R (Part 2)

PM: Site Visits to Public Utilities Board (flood control) and Land Transport Authority (traffic control)

April 19, Friday

AM: Singapore Institute for Neurotechnology (SINAPSE)
Singapore University of Technology and Design

PM: National Research Foundation
SMART Center (Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology)

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B International Visits ." National Research Council. 2014. Complex Operational Decision Making in Networked Systems of Humans and Machines: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18844.
×

GERMANY, August 1-3, 2013

The delegation visited DFKI, the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence, in Saarbrucken and Kaiserslautern on August 1; and the Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics, located in Wachtberg (a suburb of Bonn), on August 2. A committee member also met with Peter Hagoort in Berlin on August 3. Dr. Hagoort is director of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, located in Njimgen, The Netherlands.

DFKI represents a private-public partnership of 16 companies, 3 universities, and 3 regional administrations that also receives funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the German Research Foundation, and the European Union. They have 171 ongoing projects spread out among primarily four cities across Germany. These projects range from blue-sky research to commercialization in the area of software systems based on artificial intelligence. This institute does not have an obvious corollary in the United States. DFKI also hosts six “living labs” that house real equipment for advanced demonstrations in retail, advanced driver assistance, robotics, smart factories, smart cities, and ambient assistance.

Dr. Wolfgang Wahlster, director of DFKI, organized five presentations at DFKI in Saarbrucken and three more in Kaiserslautern. The presentations at Saarbrucken emphasized how computer-assisted technologies—from suggesting restaurants close by (called “choosability engineering”) to stocking shelves, to driving and parking—can help with everyday life. The afternoon talks ranged from the “semantic desktop,” a program that acts like a personal assistant, to real-time crowd monitoring, to body, hand, and object tracking; to 3-dimensional reconstruction under controlled conditions.

The next day, the delegation visited the Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics, or FKIE. This institute is part of Fraunho fer-Gesellschaft, an organization of 59 research institutes that conducts applied research for public and private enterprise and for social benefit. FKIE’s research areas include unmanned systems, distributed information processing in heterogeneous systems, multisensor data fusion and ergonomics and human-machine systems. The delegation’s host was Frank O. Flemisch, who directs the Department of Ergonomics and Human-Machine Systems. During this afternoon visit, FKIE researchers discussed and demonstrated several of their research projects, including human-machine interface design for command and control systems, methods and tools for human-machine integration, and cooperative vehicle control.

Both of the research institutes that the delegation visited are very interested in human-machine collaboration. Interestingly, much of the research explicitly seeks to mitigate technology overreliance. For example, if the computer-assist mechanism in a car does not experience human engagement for a period of time, it will ask whether the human wants to continue using the automatic system. It is possible that the social (as opposed to economic or defense) emphasis on research is an oblique reference to and refutation of Germany’s past.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B International Visits ." National Research Council. 2014. Complex Operational Decision Making in Networked Systems of Humans and Machines: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18844.
×

AGENDA for the VISIT to DFKI, SAARBRUKEN, and KAISERSLAUTEN

August 1, 2013
 
9:00 – 9:45 Introduction: Overview of DFKI’s Research Agenda Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wahlster, CEO, DFKI
9:45 – 10:10 Introduction to Choosability Engineering Prof. Dr. Anthony Jameson and Catalin Barbu
10:10 – 10:25 Parallel Exploration as a General Approach to Decision Support Prof. Dr. Anthony Jameson and Adrian Spirescu
10:25 – 10:40 Coffee break
10:40 – 11:00 A Situation-adaptive Multimodal Dialogue Platform for the Car Dr. Michael Feld
11:00 – 11:20 Process Mining as an Instrument for Decision Making in Organizations PD Dr. Peter Fettke
11:20 – 12:00 Agents and Semantics for Human Decision Making: Showcases and Challenges PD Dr. Matthias Klusch
12:00 – 12:15 Wrap-up
12:15 – 13:15 Lunch
13:15 – 14:15 Drive to Kaiserslautern
14:30 – 15:00 Decision Support for Knowledge Workers Prof. Dr. H. C. Andreas Dengel
15:00 – 15:45 Collaborative Social Sensing: New Human Machine Systems Dr. George Kampis
15:45 – 16:15 Video Analytics for User Support in Industrial and City Context Prof. Dr. Didier Stricker
16:15 – 16:30 Wrap-up
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B International Visits ." National Research Council. 2014. Complex Operational Decision Making in Networked Systems of Humans and Machines: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18844.
×

AGENDA for VISIT to FRAUNHOFER INSTITUTE

Visit of NRC
at Fraunhofer FKIE Aug. 2nd, 2013

 
Patricia W. Wrightson, Katia Sycara
Frank Flemisch, Jessica Schwarz,Elena Dalinger et al.

13:00 – 13:30

Flemisch/NRC Lunch

14:3o- 14:55

Fl Introduction to Fraunhofer, FKIE,HSI

14:55- 15:15

emisch
NRC
Overview of program
 

15:15 – 15:35

Dalinger Assistant systems for security on civil ships

15:35 – 15:55

Schwarz Workload assessment and assistant systems
 

16:00 – 16:30 future

Schwarz I Kaster Demo Command & Control Center of the

16:30 – 17:00

Heesen/Krasni Demo Design Lab for Automation

16:30 – 17:00

All Discussion on transatlantic scientific

cooperation

Fraunhofer

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B International Visits ." National Research Council. 2014. Complex Operational Decision Making in Networked Systems of Humans and Machines: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18844.
×
Page 73
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B International Visits ." National Research Council. 2014. Complex Operational Decision Making in Networked Systems of Humans and Machines: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18844.
×
Page 74
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B International Visits ." National Research Council. 2014. Complex Operational Decision Making in Networked Systems of Humans and Machines: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18844.
×
Page 75
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B International Visits ." National Research Council. 2014. Complex Operational Decision Making in Networked Systems of Humans and Machines: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18844.
×
Page 76
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B International Visits ." National Research Council. 2014. Complex Operational Decision Making in Networked Systems of Humans and Machines: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18844.
×
Page 77
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B International Visits ." National Research Council. 2014. Complex Operational Decision Making in Networked Systems of Humans and Machines: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18844.
×
Page 78
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Over the last two decades, computers have become omnipresent in daily life. Their increased power and accessibility have enabled the accumulation, organization, and analysis of massive amounts of data. These data, in turn, have been transformed into practical knowledge that can be applied to simple and complex decision making alike. In many of today's activities, decision making is no longer an exclusively human endeavor. In both virtual and real ways, technology has vastly extended people's range of movement, speed and access to massive amounts of data. Consequently, the scope of complex decisions that human beings are capable of making has greatly expanded. At the same time, some of these technologies have also complicated the decision making process. The potential for changes to complex decision making is particularly significant now, as advances in software, memory storage and access to large amounts of multimodal data have dramatically increased. Increasingly, our decision making process integrates input from human judgment, computing results and assistance, and networks. Human beings do not have the ability to analyze the vast quantities of computer-generated or -mediated data that are now available. How might humans and computers team up to turn data into reliable (and when necessary, speedy) decisions?

Complex Operational Decision Making in Networked Systems of Humans and Machines explores the possibilities for better decision making through collaboration between humans and computers. This study is situated around the essence of decision making; the vast amounts of data that have become available as the basis for complex decision making; and the nature of collaboration that is possible between humans and machines in the process of making complex decisions. This report discusses the research goals and relevant milestones in several enabling subfields as they relate to enhanced human-machine collaboration for complex decision making; the relevant impediments and systems-integration challenges that are preventing technological breakthroughs in these subfields; and a sense of the research that is occurring in university, government and industrial labs outside of the United States, and the implications of this research for U.S. policy. The development of human-machine collaboration for complex decision making is still in its infancy relative to where cross-disciplinary research could take it over the next generation. Complex Operational Decision Making explores challenges to progress, impediments to achieving technological breakthroughs, opportunities, and key research goals.

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