The augmented radiologist: artificial intelligence in the practice of radiology

In medicine, particularly in radiology, there are great expectations in artificial intelligence (AI), which can “see” more than human radiologists in regard to, for example, tumor size, shape, morphology, texture and kinetics — thus enabling better care by earlier detection or more precise reports. Another point is that AI can handle large data sets in high-dimensional spaces. But it should not be forgotten that AI is only as good as the training samples available, which should ideally be numerous enough to cover all variants. On the other hand, the main feature of human intelligence is content knowledge and the ability to find near-optimal solutions. The purpose of this paper is to review the current complexity of radiology working places, to describe their advantages and shortcomings. Further, we give an AI overview of the different types and features as used so far. We also touch on the differences between AI and human intelligence in problem-solving. We present a new AI type, labeled “explainable AI,” which should enable a balance/cooperation between AI and human intelligence — thus bringing both worlds in compliance with legal requirements. For support of (pediatric) radiologists, we propose the creation of an AI assistant that augments radiologists and keeps their brain free for generic tasks.

Measuring the Occupational Impact of AI: Tasks, Cognitive Abilities and AI Benchmarks

In this paper we develop a framework for analysing the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on occupations. This framework maps 59 generic tasks from worker surveys and an occupational database to 14 cognitive abilities (that we extract from the cognitive science literature) and these to a comprehensive list of 328 AI benchmarks used to evaluate research intensity across a broad range of different AI areas. The use of cognitive abilities as an intermediate layer, instead of mapping work tasks to AI benchmarks directly, allows for an identification of potential AI exposure for tasks for which AI applications have not been explicitly created. An application of our framework to occupational databases gives insights into the abilities through which AI is most likely to affect jobs and allows for a ranking of occupations with respect to AI exposure. Moreover, we show that some jobs that were not known to be affected by previous waves of automation may now be subject to higher AI exposure. Finally, we find that some of the abilities where AI research is currently very intense are linked to tasks with comparatively limited labour input in the labour markets of advanced economies (e.g., visual and auditory processing using deep learning, and sensorimotor interaction through (deep) reinforcement learning). This article appears in the special track on AI and Society.

Perspectives on the 2 × 2 Matrix: Solving Semantically Distinct Problems Based on a Shared Structure of Binary Contingencies

Cognition is both empowered and limited by representations. The matrix lens model explicates tasks that are based on frequency counts, conditional probabilities, and binary contingencies in a general fashion. Based on a structural analysis of such tasks, the model links several problems and semantic domains and provides a new perspective on representational accounts of cognition that recognizes representational isomorphs as opportunities, rather than as problems. The shared structural construct of a 2 × 2 matrix supports a set of generic tasks and semantic mappings that provide a unifying framework for understanding problems and defining scientific measures. Our model's key explanatory mechanism is the adoption of particular perspectives on a 2 × 2 matrix that categorizes the frequency counts of cases by some condition, treatment, risk, or outcome factor. By the selective steps of filtering, framing, and focusing on specific aspects, the measures used in various semantic domains negotiate distinct trade-offs between abstraction and specialization. As a consequence, the transparent communication of such measures must explicate the perspectives encapsulated in their derivation. To demonstrate the explanatory scope of our model, we use it to clarify theoretical debates on biases and facilitation effects in Bayesian reasoning and to integrate the scientific measures from various semantic domains within a unifying framework. A better understanding of problem structures, representational transparency, and the role of perspectives in the scientific process yields both theoretical insights and practical applications.

Generic Tasks for Algorithms

Due to its links to computer science (CS), teaching computational thinking (CT) often involves the handling of algorithms in activities, such as their implementation or analysis. Although there already exists a wide variety of different tasks for various learning environments in the area of computer science, there is less material available for CT. In this article, we propose so-called Generic Tasks for algorithms inspired by common programming tasks from CS education. Generic Tasks can be seen as a family of tasks with a common underlying structure, format, and aim, and can serve as best-practice examples. They thus bring many advantages, such as facilitating the process of creating new content and supporting asynchronous teaching formats. The Generic Tasks that we propose were evaluated by 14 experts in the field of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. Apart from a general estimation in regard to the meaningfulness of the proposed tasks, the experts also rated which and how strongly six core CT skills are addressed by the tasks. We conclude that, even though the experts consider the tasks to be meaningful, not all CT-related skills can be specifically addressed. It is thus important to define additional tasks for CT that are detached from algorithms and programming.

A web system to engage people to reducing the environmental footprint of a school

This paper describes the development study of a solution to promote the Eco-Schools program for a higher school (ESTIG). The solution should communicate the actions and results of the Eco-Schools program, raise awareness from school all members to environmental education and involve the school community to save resources and to make selective waste collection through their monitoring. This Web system is composed by a front-office and a back-office and was developed according to principles and techniques of the software engineering area. The front-office were validated through user tests with 23 participants. In general, for generic tasks participants found the system easy to use and it was efficient and effective. For a more complex tasks participants had more difficulties to use and the system didn’t present so efficient and effective. There is a space to improve this system in order to involve more school members to environmental protection and education extended to other schools.

The Role of Information Patterns in Designing Crowdsourcing Contests

Crowdsourcing contests are used widely by organizations as a means of accomplishing tasks. These organizations would like to maximize the utility obtained through worker submissions to the contest. If this utility is greater than that obtained through alternative means of completing the task (e.g. hiring someone), the task should be crowdsourced. We analyze the utility generated for different types of tasks and provide a rule-of-thumb crowdsourcing contest design. Knowledge about the relative strengths of the workers participating in the contest is an important factor in contest design. When the contest organizer is unsure about the strength of the workers, crowdsourcing contests deliver higher utility than would hiring or assignment. Disseminating worker strength information acts as a lever to influence participation and increase utility in the contest. Finally, while crowdsourcing is a good option for generic tasks, it might perform poorly for highly specialized tasks.

Packet Capture and Analysis on MEDINA, A Massively Distributed Network Data Caching Platform

Traffic capture and analysis is key to many domains including network management, security and network forensics. Traditionally, it is performed by a dedicated device accessing traffic at a specific point within the network through a link tap or a port of a node mirroring packets. This approach is problematic because the dedicated device must be equipped with a large amount of computation and storage resources to store and analyze packets. Alternatively, in order to achieve scalability, analysis can be performed by a cluster of hosts. However, this is normally located at a remote location with respect to the observation point, hence requiring to move across the network a large volume of captured traffic. To address this problem, this paper presents an algorithm to distribute the task of capturing, processing and storing packets traversing a network across multiple packet forwarding nodes (e.g., IP routers). Essentially, our solution allows individual nodes on the path of a flow to operate on subsets of packets of that flow in a completely distributed and decentralized manner. The algorithm ensures that each packet is processed by n nodes, where n can be set to 1 to minimize overhead or to a higher value to achieve redundancy. Nodes create a distributed index that enables efficient retrieval of packets they store (e.g., for forensics applications). Finally, the basic principles of the presented solution can also be applied, with minimal changes, to the distributed execution of generic tasks on data flowing through a network of nodes with processing and storage capabilities. This has applications in various fields ranging from Fog Computing, to microservice architectures and the Internet of Things.