The logical path (to Computer Science)

Alice Tarzariol was born in Veneto, attended the university in Udine for her Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes and then joined the University of Klagenfurt to pursue her doctoral studies. Her work on logic is attracting international attention, as illustrated by her recent success at the International Conference on Logic Programming, where she won the Best Student Paper Award. We spoke to her about her path to Computer Science.

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Controlling systems in real time

The future of road transport lies in getting from A to B free of stress. Technology allows us to avoid congestion and respond to accidents and roadworks in a flexible way. Artificial intelligence based on logic systems steers traffic control systems, production plants or rail logistics of this kind. Researchers working on a project together with Siemens AG Austria have developed new approaches that allow a rapid response to new situations.

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Simulating cyber-physical threats to the City of Vienna

A large number of critical infrastructure facilities are located in cities and their surroundings, providing essential services in a compact geographical space and resulting in mutual physical and logical dependencies. The provision of services such as electricity, gas, water, communication, food, fuel, road or rail, in particular, is achieved by operating extensive networks. In the FFG-funded project ODYSSEUS, Stefan Rass (Institute of Applied Informatics) and his team are working on developing a framework for a simulation designed to forecast the consequences of attacks on such interlinked infrastructure facilities.

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Are we seeing genuine progress with recommender systems?

Recommender systems represent a key technology for e-commerce providers such as Google, Amazon, Netflix, Booking.com and Spotify. It is therefore with a certain urgency that researchers are working intensively on making ever more accurate predictions about the products and services users might want to consume next. However, in a paper published recently, Maurizio Ferrari Dacrema, Paolo Cremonesi and Dietmar Jannach were able to show that several critical issues concerning the research methodology are hindering progress in the development of recommender systems. In recognition of their work, they received the Best Full Paper Award at the renowned ACM Conference on Recommender Systems in Copenhagen in September.

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