Automatisierter öffentlicher Verkehr in Grenzregionen

in Internationales Verkehrswesen (2023)

Wahrnehmung von Zusammenhalt aus Sicht von Menschen mit und ohne Behinderungserfahrungen. Erhebungsdesign und erste (Lern-)Erfahrungen des Projekts ZuSicht

Presentation (2023, February)

DenseQMC: an efficient bit-slice implementation of the Quine-McCluskey algorithm

E-print/Working paper (2023)

This note describes a new efficient bit-slice implementation DenseQMC of the Quine-McCluskey algorithm for finding all prime implicants of a Boolean function in the dense case. It is practically feasible ... [more ▼]

This note describes a new efficient bit-slice implementation DenseQMC of the Quine-McCluskey algorithm for finding all prime implicants of a Boolean function in the dense case. It is practically feasible for n <= 23 when run on a common laptop or for n <= 27 when run on a server with 1 TiB RAM. This note also outlines a very common mistake in the implementations of the Quine-McCluskey algorithm, leading to a quadratic slowdown. An optimized corrected implementation of the classic approach is also given (called SparseQMC). The implementation is freely available at https://github.com/hellman/Quine-McCluskey . [less ▲]

IDEA Heuristics: A guided checklist for Evaluating the Usability of Educational E-assessments with Children

Presentation (2023, February)

Mining revenues and quality of public goods in sub-Saharan Africa

in Journal of International Development (2023)

In this paper, we investigate the impact of public mining revenues on perception indicators of public goods quality in five mining countries that have recently experienced a boom in their government ... [more ▼]

In this paper, we investigate the impact of public mining revenues on perception indicators of public goods quality in five mining countries that have recently experienced a boom in their government revenues: Burkina Faso, Ghana, D.R. Congo, Tanzania and Zambia. The effect of the tax revenue boom is identified using a difference-in-differences estimation. Our estimations indicate that people living in mining regions have a sense of structural disadvantage in terms of the provision of public goods; however, this perception is pro-cyclical in the presence of revenue booms/busts. Our results hold even after taking into account the possible endogeneity of our measure of resource revenue. [less ▲]

Misunderstanding translanguaging in preschoolers - Video abstract

Speeches/Talks (2023)

EMN Inform "Transition of unaccompanied minors to adulthood"

Scientific Conference (2023, January 31)

This presentation shares the main results of the EMN Inform Transition of unaccompanied minors to adulthood" indicating what are the challenges that unaccompanied minors confront when they reach adulthood ... [more ▼]

This presentation shares the main results of the EMN Inform Transition of unaccompanied minors to adulthood" indicating what are the challenges that unaccompanied minors confront when they reach adulthood and how Member States respond to this situation. [less ▲]

Towards a Computational Model of General Cognitive Control Using Artificial Intelligence, Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience

Doctoral thesis (2023)

Cognitive control is essential to human cognitive functioning as it allows us to adapt and respond to a wide range of situations and environments. The possibility to enhance cognitive control in a way ... [more ▼]

Cognitive control is essential to human cognitive functioning as it allows us to adapt and respond to a wide range of situations and environments. The possibility to enhance cognitive control in a way that transfers to real life situations could greatly benefit individuals and society. However, the lack of a formal, quantitative definition of cognitive control has limited progress in developing effective cognitive control training programs. To address this issue, the first part of the thesis focuses on gaining clarity on what cognitive control is and how to measure it. This is accomplished through a large-scale text analysis that integrates cognitive control tasks and related constructs into a cohesive knowledge graph. This knowledge graph provides a more quantitative definition of cognitive control based on previous research, which can be used to guide future research. The second part of the thesis aims at furthering a computational understanding of cognitive control, in particular to study what features of the task (i.e., the environment) and what features of the cognitive system (i.e., the agent) determine cognitive control, its functioning, and generalization. The thesis first presents CogEnv, a virtual cognitive assessment environment where artificial agents (e.g., reinforcement learning agents) can be directly compared to humans in a variety of cognitive tests. It then presents CogPonder, a novel computational method for general cognitive control that is relevant for research on both humans and artificial agents. The proposed framework is a flexible, differentiable end-to-end deep learning model that separates the act of control from the controlled act, and can be trained to perform the same cognitive tests that are used in cognitive psychology to assess humans. Together, the proposed cognitive environment and agent architecture offer unique new opportunities to enable and accelerate the study of human and artificial agents in an interoperable framework. Research on training cognition with complex tasks, such as video games, may benefit from and contribute to the broad view of cognitive control. The final part of the thesis presents a profile of cognitive control and its generalization based on cognitive training studies, in particular how it may be improved by using action video game training. More specifically, we contrasted the brain connectivity profiles of people that are either habitual action video game players or do not play video games at all. We focused in particular on brain networks that have been associated with cognitive control. Our results show that cognitive control emerges from a distributed set of brain networks rather than individual specialized brain networks, supporting the view that action video gaming may have a broad, general impact of cognitive control. These results also have practical value for cognitive scientists studying cognitive control, as they imply that action video game training may offer new ways to test cognitive control theories in a causal way. Taken together, the current work explores a variety of approaches from within cognitive science disciplines to contribute in novel ways to the fascinating and long tradition of research on cognitive control. In the age of ubiquitous computing and large datasets, bridging the gap between behavior, brain, and computation has the potential to fundamentally transform our understanding of the human mind and inspire the development of intelligent artificial agents. [less ▲]

Commercial Space Operators on the Digital Battlefield

in CIGI Essay Series: Cybersecurity and Outer Space (2023)

La Grande Stratégie des petites puissances – Etude des mécanismes de fondation d’une grande stratégie face à un dilemme de sécurité appliqués au Luxembourg, à la Lituanie et à Singapour (1965-2025)-

Doctoral thesis (2023)

The capacity of small powers to think strategically remains a limited field of interest in historical thinking and international relations. Thus, beyond the debate concerning the capacity of small states ... [more ▼]

The capacity of small powers to think strategically remains a limited field of interest in historical thinking and international relations. Thus, beyond the debate concerning the capacity of small states to be full-fledged actors in the international system, there appears to be a denial of the conceptualization and doctrinal innovation capacity of small powers despite the historical redundancy of the victory of the weak over the strong. However, small powers are by nature more sensitive to threats due to their limited response capabilities, and are therefore more inclined to rationalize their action over the long term in order to develop national (military, economic, diplomatic capabilities, etc.) and international (alliances, international organizations, etc.) mechanisms for containing these threats. In this respect, this thesis proposes to look at the construction of the strategic thinking of small powers in the face of perceived threats and the means used to try to contain them. The aim is therefore to study the mechanisms by which small powers found a Grand Strategy (transcribed in the form of doctrines) to deal with the security dilemmas they face. To this end, three case studies were analyzed (Luxembourg, Singapore, Lithuania), chosen for the diversity of their strategic and historical contexts offering a variety of security dilemmas. The Grand Strategy being in essence a conceptual construction with a prospective and applicative aim, a theoretical as well as a practical methodology (through the use of immediate history and wargaming) was then implemented. Two sets of lessons can be drawn from this thesis. The first is methodological, confirming the interest of doctrinal studies as a field of strategic reflection, and establishing wargaming as a prospective tool adapted to the conduct of fundamental research. The second, conceptual, allows for a better understanding of the capacity of small powers to create great and efficient strategies, which must be taken into account within the strategic genealogy because of their conceptual dynamism, which can be used to teach lessons even to great powers. [less ▲]