For the research cooperation Kalkulation.KI the 3rd board meeting (quarterly meeting) took place successfully on 17.12.2020, from 10 - 12:00. Thereby, the selection of the elaboration of AI/NLP approaches, which are especially suitable for the use case in KI.Kalkulation, were discussed. In addition, as a main result, a first vertical prototype was presented, which represents and demonstrates the intended AI approach. Based on this prototype, further steps for the extension were defined, which will be addressed in the next work package.

On December 15th the virtual kick-off meeting for the project “Mobility marketplace“ took place. As part of the two-year research cooperation between the Oldenburg IT service provider worldiety and the business informatics / VLBA department, an innovative mobility platform is being developed. The joint project is funded by the German Federal Environment Foundation (DBU) and supported by the municipality of Oldenburg.

On December 10th the two sub-projects of MoveOn project group (Faversy and instaride) successfully presented their first concepts to employees of our department and to stakeholders of the respective projects (mOOWVe and instaride). In addition to presenting their motivation, the problem and the objectives, the twelve students already illustrated their first results. Among other aspects, the sub-group instaride showed a geo-model with potential meeting points in the greater Oldenburg area and the sub-group Faversy presented mock-ups of their designed vehicle comparison system to the auditorium. At this point we would like to thank both subgroups for their successful presentation.

The research cooperation WISdoM between the department VLBA and the Oldenburgisch-Ostfriesischer Wasserverband is extended for additional three years. WISdoM 2.0 will run from 01.01.2020 to 31.12.2020. Thematically, the continuation ties in with the past two years and sets new accents in the fields of data science and innovation management.

Data science and innovation management methods will be explored and applied to the two core processes of customer management and maintenance. From the first phase of the research cooperation, the two topics creative laboratory and data and information management will be continued.

Successful formats of WISdoM 1.0, such as the project group, the internship business informatics and digitization workshops with junior staff of the OOWV should also consist in WISdoM 2.0. In addition, new formats like the Data Challenge, Tech Talks, a podcast and a joint new module are planned.

On 09.12.2020 the kickoff meeting of the research cooperation "Tax Defence Analytics" (TaDeA) took place. Within the framework of the cooperation, various use cases from the field of tax fraud prevention are to be conceptualized and implemented together with the Lower Saxony State Tax Office. The focus is on the targeted application of data science methods. The project has a duration of three years and will soon be available at www.tadea-ol.de!

Today, for the first time in the WiSA big data project, we were allowed to comb through the real operational data of our industrial partners and try out the first preprocessing processes. After clearing the hurdle of cooperation, OFFIS was able to give us the first insights into the data.

We will only be able to grasp the quality and value of the data in the coming months. Nevertheless, all those involved, above all the University of Oldenburg, the University of Duisburg-Essen, IWES and OFFIS, are looking forward to the coming months in which valuable and, above all, useful information can be generated from the data. In order to then contribute to the more efficient operation of wind farms.

On 04.12.2020 the project group invited the project partners, VLBA colleagues other interested parties to its second interim presentation. The results already achieved were presented, as well as an overview of the goals the group wants to achieve by the end of the project group in March 2021.

Last but not least, the event was also very informative for the group, as the questions asked in the subsequent discussion helped to optimally implement the final requirements and to improve existing concepts and put the finishing touches on them.

All in all, the second interim presentation was a good start to the final phase of the project. The PG Bicycle Data would like to thank the numerous project partners during the project for the lively exchange during the interim presentation and in general. We will do our best to implement as much of this as possible in the coming months.

Source: Microsoft Teams

More: www.bicycle-data.de/2020/12/04/zweite-zwischenprasentation-second-interim-presentation/

We are very pleased to present the new instaride website. The website has been extensively revised in terms of content, design and structure. Our aim is to present the instaride project in a clearly structured manner.

Our colleague Mario Debiec describes in his blog post the legal challenges instaride is confronted with. The website is well worth a visit!

On 01.11. Stefan Zurborg has started as a research assistant in department VLBA. He will actively support the WiSA big data project for the next 2 years. His expertise is not only a valuable asset for the department, but also for WiSA big data.

We would like to welcome Stefan to the VLBA.

In context of the BLING project, the 5th steering committee meeting took place on 25 & 26 Nov. Due to the Covid-19 the meeting held online. All the project partner as well as the University of Oldenburg had a presentation about the status of their use-cases and future plans. 

On 25 Nov, by the end of the first day of the meeting, A workshop related to the smart contract conducted by the Edinburgh university. From university. 3 participants from VLBA department, participated in the workshop as well.

Last thursday 19.11.20 the first workshop of the PUUK project took place. This stand was dedicated to the needs of the citizens, who actively participated and thus brought us closer to their interests. It is thanks to their commitment that we have already been able to gain insightful insights. We - the PUUK team - would like to take this opportunity to thank you once again! 

Our thanks go not only to the committed participants, but also to our competent moderators: 

• Jantje von Reeken and Peter Gneuss, who were responsible for the topic "Citizen participation in environmental information portals" 
• Isabell Kiepe and Roland Hentschel, who dealt with "Environmental information from municipalities" 
• Julian Rawe, who headed the item "Mobility and environmental information" 
• as well as Hadi Ghorashi, who moderated the topic "Environmental information presentation in the PUUK environmental portal" 

Their participation was as important for the results as that of the citizens. 

In summary, we have no choice but to consider the first workshop of our PUUK project a complete success due to the efforts of all participants. 

The first step for the development of a demand-oriented environmental portal has been taken - we are looking forward to the coming ones! 

A digital exchange between the office management for traffic and road construction of the City of Oldenburg and the ECOSense project enabled the municipal representatives to learn more about the final results of the project. Project manager Kyra Pelzer of mein-dienstrad.de presented details about the participation of cyclists, while René Kessler from the VLBA department went more into detail about the findings of the data analysis and the relating advantages for the municipal traffic planning. Further cooperation possibilities and application scenarios of the developed bicycle sensor technology were also discussed. The city of Oldenburg sees a high added value also from the point of view of traffic planning, as the results can confirm previous own findings (e.g. based on the bicycle countings of the municipality) and provide a good basis for discussion for future political decisions on the improvement of bicycle infrastructures.

Picture: The City of Oldenburg's office management for traffic and road construction, the VLBA department and baron mobility service met in a digital exchange to discuss the results of the ECOSense project. Source: Microsoft Teams.  

The partners involved in the interdisciplinary research project SmartHelm recently met for a two-day digital project meeting. Important topics of discussion were the implementation of future studies for further testing of the helmet under Corona conditions. Helmet manufacturer UVEX presented the latest version of the SmartHelmet (incl. a visor for better sun protection), while Ubimax provided insights into the possibilities for the visualization of relevant information on the smart glasses display to the riders (see screenshot). The city of Oldenburg presented ideas to bring the project closer to the general public, also by digital means. Harish Moturu from the VLBA department presented the current state of development of the data management platform for analyzing awareness factors of helmet users. The Bicycle Data VLBA student project group was also present and gave insights on their current work on EEG data and the Bicycle Data Dashboard for open bicycle data, which is going to be one of the key results of the student work.    

The further steps in the project were coordinated more precisely. A field study with bicycle couriers of CITIPOST Nordwest in Oldenburg is planned for summer 2021. The SmartHelm project will be funded over a period of three years in the mFUND program of the German Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure. The aim is to develop an intelligent bicycle helmet including awareness measurement and augmented reality glass which will make the daily work of bicycle couriers easier. From the research perspective the aim is to identify stress factors of courier cyclists on the basis of new biophysiological data.  

At the digital SmartHelm meeting project partner Ubimax showed possibilities of how to visualize relevant information in the riders's field of vision on the AR-glasses. Source: Microsoft Teams.

In the frame of the EU-funded project ELEGANT (Enhancing Teaching, Learning and Graduate Employability through University-Enterprise Cooperation) Prof. Jorge Marx Gómez gave a presentation entitled "Trends in Data Science and Deep Learning from Various Perspectives" during the Webinar – Recent Trends in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

executive-bulletin.com/education/webinar-recent-trends-in-artificial-intelligence-and-machine-learning

The University of Oldenburg, Business Informatics/VLBA and abat AG are extending the research cooperation, which has been in place since November 2017, by a further three years until October 2023. In the first phase of the cooperation, the goal was to identify innovative topics and technologies in abat AG's business area and to evaluate their practical added value using prototypical implementations. In the process, the state of research was analyzed and suitable approaches were specifically transferred into practice. This not only resulted in numerous prototypes, but also in other things: 

• 14 publications (conferences, journals, trade journals)
• 7 white papers
• 20 theses
• 4 student projects
• 2 teaching modules

In the next three years, abat AG and the University of Oldenburg, Business Informatics/VLBA will continue their successful cooperation and address various use cases. In addition to Data Science, AI and Industry 4.0, the focus will also be on sustainability topics.

Two important components of the early warning system, which will be developed within the DigiSchwein project, are the support of the farmer regarding birth management in the farrowing area and the early detection of diseases in piglet raising. In order to derive concrete requirements for the system for both applications, a workshop with the responsible experts of the project partners of the Georg-August-University Göttingen and the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover was conducted. Indicators for early detection were identified, documented and prioritized. These indicators provide the information and data basis for the statistical and machine learning models that will be integrated into the early warning system.

For more information about the project, please click on the following link:

uol.de/en/vlba/projects/digischwein

Today, Thursday, the virtual study visit took place at the University of Oldenburg. Originally, a physical visit to our university was planned - but due to the current situation we had to switch to an online conference. But this did not detract from the success of the event! Numerous presentations gave new impulses which can now be taken up in the further project work.

The VLBA thanks all speakers and participants for the successful event!

Although it is only november by now, we were already holding our end-of-year meeting yesterday. It has been a great opportunity to recap this adventurous year, which surely has been a challenge for most of us. But we can reasonably point out that the progress of our project has not been affected by that. We could proudly present our first live-demo and had valuable discussions with our numerous participants. Our next step now will be finding new partners, who are willing to enter the testing phase of our software with us!
We owe special thanks to Hans J. Huber for supporting us with a keynote about #paperlesstrade and Dieter Sellner for always providing the latest market insights. And also many thanks to Thomas Arendt, Tom Kraus, Henner Schmidt for participating and for your great input!

On 03 November 2020 Dipl.-Kff. Agnetha Flore completed her dissertation with the title "Reifegradmodell für Smart Grids: Bewertung von Migrationspfaden anhand von zwei Fallstudien". The Department of Information Systems VLBA congratulates her.  

After an introduction of the research cooperation partners, the procedure for the research project was discussed. The IFB Institut für Baubetreuung AG is to support the application of methods of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which have meanwhile been proven in practice. The main focus is on the identification of potentials as well as the implementation possibilities for future questions in the field of real estate, hygiene and disinfectants for drinking water treatment as well as the control of labour migration. For this purpose, the three main topic areas "German Jobs", "Disinfectants" and "Real Estate" are subdivided, which build on each other in this order in the course of the project. Based on "German Jobs", a platform is to be developed that makes it possible to fill vacancies for foreign workers. This administrative process will be implemented in accordance with the applicable data protection laws.

On October 9, 2020 the project group Propose.AI 2 successfully presented the results of the past twelve months. The ten students first introduced the (virtually) present audience to the current challenges of fashion e-commerce and then presented the developed solution: A recommendation engine, which first extracts the style of a person via a full body image and then suggests optimally fitting glasses from the product catalog of the practice partner Brille24 GmbH.

The prototype can still be tested at propose-ai.com/prototyp/.

The VLBA thanks the students for the very successful presentation and the very good results! Further thanks go to the practice partner Brille24 GmbH.

The ECOSense project, which has produced a bicycle sensor system and new findings on bicycle use in everyday life, now presented its core results at the 11th Pegasus Annual Conference. In his 15-minute presentation, project employee Johannes Schering emphasized that the new approach to the collection of cycling data was able to reach new user groups, especially middle and higher aged cyclists. Vibrations and brakings are mainly detected in areas close to intersections. Cyclists in Oldenburg also tend to prefer main roads (see figure). The session, in which cycling experts from the TU Berlin and FH Frankfurt presented, focused on the topic of "Subjective Safety - Perception and Effect of Cycling Infrastructure".

The mFUND project ECOSense presented its results at the 11th Pegasus annual conference.

The Virtual Study Visit at the University of Alicante took place from 07-08.10.2020. Due to the current situation, the visit had to be completely virtual, but this had no influence on the successful implementation: In several exciting presentations, insights into the study programmes and other initiatives of the university and its region were given.

After one year of intensive work the project group Propose.AI 2 will present its final results on Friday (09.10.2020) at 15:00 hrs. In the project group Propose.AI 2 ten students spent one year researching and developing a recommendation engine for e-commerce (eyeglasses).

The presentation will take place online and is open to all participants (Link:bit.ly/33xffbH).

For the research cooperation Kalkulation.KI the 2nd board meeting (quarterly meeting) took place successfully on 01.10.2020, from 10 - 11:30 o'clock. In the core of the meeting the actual state as well as the determination of the next goals (presentation of an approach from NLP methods) were discussed. 

In the EU funded project BITS (Bicycles and Intelligent Transport Systems) the fifth internal project meeting (Steering Group Meeting) took place at the end of September. The department of Business Informatics VLBA presented the latest findings of the analysis of European bicycle traffic data. During the presentation, VLBA research associate Johannes Schering discussed the effects of the Corona Virus on bicycle use in the North Sea region. Due to the Corona Pandemic the meeting took place completely online.

The evaluation of data from bicycle counting stations and sensors showed that the share of leisure time trips and bicycle tours seems to have increased. With the Corona Lockdown in the spring time, the total number of trips in the Netherlands decreased, but the travel distances significantly increased. In addition, bicycles are used relatively more frequently at weekends. The topics of traffic safety at intersections and bicycle parking were also discussed. Initial data sets from the project, which is funded by the Interreg program, are to be made freely available as Open Data in the coming working steps.

The student project group Bicycle Data , which works intensively with European cycling data of the BITS project, was also presented at the digital project meeting. The master students were thus able to gain valuable experience in the international project environment. The next BITS project meeting is expected to take place from 2^nd- 4^th of March 2021 physically in Oldenburg or in an online format.

Source: Gotomeeting

The VLBA department presented new findings on bicycle use in Europe at the internal project meeting.

Twelve people, two servers, 10,000 working hours, 2,100 GB of data, 23 software services, 92 pods, 1,200 tickets, 833 pull requests and a total of 3,600 commits! These are the ROCIT key facts - a VLBA project group, that presented their project results on 25.09.2020 in front of more than 50 participants in Microsoft Teams. Here you can find more details here: rocit.space

On September 23, 2020, Dipl.-Inf. Volkan Gizli successfully defended his dissertation with the title "Präferenzorientierte Stärken- und Schwächenidentifizierung zur Effizienzsteigerung von Rechenzentren". The Department of Information Systems VLBA congratulates him.   

The potentials of new digital applications for cycling are increasingly being discussed nationwide, also due to the efforts of the VLBA department. This was also the case with the ECOSense project, which has now presented its results in an online-based WebSeminar in cooperation with the German Institute of Urban Affairs DIFU. In the study, which was sponsored by the mFUND of the BMVI, project partner CoSynth developed a bicycle sensor system and put it into practice.

Kyra Pelzner (mein-dienstrad.de), Roland Hentschel (City of Oldenburg) and Johannes Schering (Department VLBA) gave in about 60 minutes exciting insights into the use of bicycles in Oldenburg. The seminar was aimed particularly at municipal representatives and traffic planners, who are to be supported in their work with the help of the new approach. A core result of the project is that the citizens of the city are very open-minded about participation in innovation processes. The call for participation also reached a large number of middle-aged and older cyclists, as almost 50 percent of the participants were over 46 years of age.

The data analysis of the VLBA also enables interesting new statements to be made about bicycle use and the nature of the bicycle infrastructure. For example, cyclists in Oldenburg tend to prefer main traffic routes, on which they travel more slowly than on secondary routes due to intersections, traffic lights and other obstacles. Surface irregularities can be reliably detected with the sensor technology developed, but the significance of the corresponding data in terms of quality must be examined more closely in further development steps.

The web seminar on the ECOSense project was aimed particularly at municipal representatives who wanted to learn more about the bicycle sensor technology approach from Oldenburg. 

Source: Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik DIFU

On 09.09.2020 the final event of this year's Data Challenge (www.data-challenge.de) took place in the premises of worldiety GmbH. The topic of this year's Data Challenge was the development of various use cases from the area of predictive maintenance (wind turbines). The best results were presented in front of an audience at the final event and subsequently awarded prizes.

The VLBA department would like to thank the worldiety GmbH, windpunx and the FH Emden for the successful cooperation!

As part of the "DigiSchwein" research project funded by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, a first visit by the project partners to the experimental station of the Chamber of Agriculture (LWK) in Wehnen took place on 9 September. There, the project partners were given first insights into piglet raising (see picture) as well as pig fattening, and were also presented with other LWK digitisation projects currently in progress. In addition, the barn areas planned for "DigiSchwein" were visited, which will be converted and equipped with a wide variety of sensor technology in the upcoming months.

Further information on the topics and partners in the "DigiSchwein" project can be found under the two links below:
uol.de/vlba/projekte/digischwein
www.lwk-niedersachsen.de/index.cfm/portal/1/nav/1093/article/35309.html

ECOSense, a study funded by the mFUND programme which focused on bicycle sensor data, will be completed at the August 2020. To present the final results to the broader public, mein-dienstrad.de, the city of Oldenburg and the VLBA department are holding a web based seminar in cooperation with the Bicycle Academy of the German Institute of Urban Affairs (Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik DIFU). The ECOSense project will give an overview about the sensor based approach, the collected results of the data analysis and the resulting benefits that arise especially for municipalities by the use of the bicycle sensor systems and the resulting data sets. The one-hour online format will take place on 15^th of September, 2-3 p.m.

Registration for the event is now possible under the following link.
difu.de/veranstaltungen/2020-09-15/erfassung-von-radverkehrsdaten-zur-infrastrukturoptimierung-vorstellung-des-mfund-projekts-ecosense

Source: Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik DIFU

The topic of bicycle data plays an important role in more and more projects at the VLBA department. Accordingly, the student project group Bicycle Data which was started in summer term 2020 has now presented first results. As part of an online-based interim presentation, first findings were discussed were discussed with the members of the VLBA and external partners from Germany and abroad. The related data sets are part of the research projects BITS (Bicycles and Intelligent Transport Systems) and SmartHelm.

The students gave an overview about research questions, data analysis and used tools. The discussion with the participants provided important input for the further working steps. The project group, consisting of eleven students, will run for a total duration of one year and is expected to be completed in spring 2021.

Quelle: Microsoft Teams

The provision of environmental information is becoming increasingly important against the background of the growing social awareness of environmental and climate protection issues, as is currently reflected in the results of the European elections or the Fridays for Future movement, among others.

Companies are therefore called upon to maintain extensive in-house environmental information in order to meet the ever-increasing demands of politics and the public. At the same time, municipalities are increasingly informing their inhabitants and visitors about current developments in their (natural) environment. However, there is a lack of clarity both in companies and in municipalities as to whether the information provided is actually of interest to the recipients. In order for environmental data to contribute to the solution of current problems, the required information must be comprehensible for the addressees (especially local citizens) and address the issues relevant to them.

This survey will be carried out to gain the following insights:

• Which user groups visit environmental information portals?
• What should be the focus of an environmental information portal?

Link to the survey

A current press release has been published on the BMVI-sponsored StartHelm project, which is developing an intelligent bicycle helmet to support bicycle couriers in their everyday work. The magazine "Die Wirtschaft" of the NWZ Media Group reports first-hand about the current development status of the project. Among other things, the first prototype of SmartHelm will be shown for the first time.

Felix Kruse and René Kessler, together with colleagues from the Oldenburg company Hase & Igel and the L3S of the University of Hanover, have discovered inconsistencies in Google trend data and analysed them for patterns. An example of this is shown in the following figure. For the german term "Kurzarbeit", the trends were queried several times for 15.04 and 18.04 (solid lines). It can be expected that the results are always the same. In the figure you can see that the differences between the queries on 18.04 are very small and that the results are very similar. On 15.04 the individual queries differ considerably. The results lead to the need for a quality check before the data are used (e.g. in decision-making in companies or scientific studies). The full whitepaper can be downloaded from ResearchGate.

Further reporting on our study:

• Tagesschau: „Zweifel an Google Trends“
• NDR.de: „Google Trends: Such-Daten nicht aussagekräftig“
• NDR: „Google Trends: Ein umstrittenes Instrument“
• Tagesspiegel: „Wissenschaftler warnen vor Umstimmigkeiten bei Google Trends“
• t3n: „Untersuchung: Google Trends bilden Trends nicht zuverlässig ab“
• ARD: Mittagsmagazin vom 05.06.2020 ab Minute 30
• Heise.de: „Stichproben: Zweifel an der Zuverlässigkeit der Daten von Google Trends“
• derbrutkasten: „Google Trends-Studie zeigt auf, was der Internet-Gigant alles nicht kann“
• Niedersachsen.digital: „Google Trends Studie: Wie zuverlässig sind die Daten von Google?“

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Cycling is a topic that moves many citizens in Oldenburg. A survey among cyclists in Oldenburg is now to provide new insights into the use of bicycles in everyday life. The survey takes place in the context of the EU project Bicycles and Intelligent Transport Systems (BITS), in which VLBA is involved as a project partner.

The project aims to find out, among other things, what barriers exist to the use of bicycles in everyday life in Oldenburg and whether citizens are satisfied with the promotion of cycling by the city of Oldenburg.

The study also includes a number of questions specific to Oldenburg. For example, cyclists will be asked to assess whether the dam should be converted into a cycle-only road in the future.

Participation in the survey is possible until Friday, 26 June 2020, under the following link.
nl.surveymonkey.com/r/StadtOldenburg

Our research strives towards a completely new IT solution that will improve sustainability communication between companies and the financial community. To avoid time-consuming reading for several stakeholders and decision-makers, the prototype demonstrates the results of our research.

In several meetings, the project team presented interim results of the current implementation to individual experts within the company. These interim discussions were to refine this prototype regarding relevant functions.

Now, a second version of the prototype is almost complete. This version implements further important functions in addition to the basic functions. Thanks to constructive feedback, our team will start into the upcoming sprints of the ongoing implementation phase. In summer, the prototype version 2 will be completed.

Responsible pig farmers check several times a day how their animals are doing. Within the framework of the "DigiSchwein" project funded by the Federal Agency for Agriculture and Nutrition (BLE), research is to be conducted into how farmers can be supported in future in recognizing changes in the herd much earlier and thus sustainably improving the well-being of sows, piglets and fattening pigs.

The aim is to develop machine learning models that enable livestock owners to react more quickly to diseases, aggressive behavior or impending births. In addition, the efficiency of operating resources is to be increased and the environment is to be benefited through targeted nutrient reduction.

Over the next three years, the Experimental Station for Pig Farming in Wehnen (Bad Zwischenahn/ Ammerland district) of the Lower Saxony Chamber of Agriculture (LWK) will be investigating what data should be collected, which sensors should to install on the farm for this purpose, and how these should be evaluated and used in the models.

The scientific partners in "DigiSchwein" include the LWK, OFFIS (Institute for Computer Science, Oldenburg), the Johann Heinrich von Thünen Institute (Braunschweig), the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover and the Georg August University in Göttingen.

Further project information: uol.de/vlba/projekte/digischwein

On 21.04.2020, the Kick-off-meeting for Kalkulation.KI, a cooperation between the Department of Business Informatics/VLBA at the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg and STRABAG AG, was successfully held. Due to the Corona crisis, the meeting was held in digital form.

After an introduction of the research cooperation partners, the procedure for the research project was discussed. The use of meanwhile practice-proven methods of Artificial Intelligence (AI) should largely automate the processing and calculation of offers for construction projects at STRABAG and thus significantly accelerate the process. This significant increase in efficiency is the goal of the research project Kalkulation.KI.
 

Project Website: www.kalkulation-ki.com/

VLBA Project Website: uol.de/vlba/projekte/kalkulationki

On Wednesday, 15.04.2020, eleven students of the WISdoM project group presented the results of their one-year project. The results of the project are an information system for water management and the three use cases groundwater data management, precipitation data management and long-term water demand forecasting in the field of water management and sustainability.

The project group worked on the use cases in a close cooperation with the local water supplier Oldenburgisch-Ostfriesischer Wasserverband.

On 02.04.2020 the Kick-off Meeting of the PUUK project, which is funded by the DBU (Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt), was successfully held. Due to the corona crisis the meeting took place in digital form. 

The term PUUK stands for "Platform for a demand-oriented provision of environmental information by companies and municipalities with citizen participation".  After a round of introductions of the project sponsors and project partners, an exchange about the goals of the project to be achieved took place. Different points, both platform-related and organisational, were discussed. 

It is particularly worth mentioning that citizen participation is given a special role in the PUUK project. With the help of online surveys, expert interviews and workshops, the needs of citizens for environmental information portals are to be identified, which will be implemented in a prototypical development of a novel environmental information platform.  

The following project partners are in the project consortium: 

The City of Oldenburg supports PUUK in the requirements surveys for the platform to be developed and will make every effort to ensure that the platform to be developed for demand-oriented citizen information continues to be used beyond the end of the project. The city of Oldenburg will contribute its broad network of other municipalities and suitable stakeholders to the workshops to determine the specific needs of citizens for environmental information in order to support the creation of the necessary practical relevance of PUUK. In addition, the city of Oldenburg is making its environmental data available, which was collected using various sensors in the Oldenburg area.   

leanact GmbH develops software solutions for municipalities, companies and public institutions. The company supports its customers in modernizing their information technology with citizen-oriented software that is user-friendly and easy to use. In addition to software, web and individual app development, leanact GmbH focuses on the area of digital defect management and offers municipalities the possibility of simple and automated processing of defect reports by their citizens through the administration tool MeldooPLUS. More than 15 cities, municipalities and public institutions are supported by the services of the company. With the help of digital business models, leanact GmbH will expand the potential of the generated database of citizens' needs for environmental data on the basis of the platform to be developed and will advocate its continued use beyond the end of the project. 

Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH is the largest steel subsidiary in the Salzgitter Group and is an active member of the working group of the Lower Saxony government commission "Environmental Policy in Times of Digital Change". As a manufacturer of high-quality steel products, it cooperates with vehicle manufacturers and their suppliers, tube/large-diameter tube manufacturers, cold rolling mills and the construction industry. In addition to participating in the expert workshops, Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH will also be actively involved in PUUK by organizing expert interviews in order to record the demand for environmental data from a company perspective. 

The Lower Saxony Climate Protection and Energy Agency (KEAN) is participating in the PUUK project as an associated partner. As the state's climate protection agency, it supports, informs and networks the many different players involved in the energy turnaround in Lower Saxony. It is very interested in understanding how the actors can inform citizens about energy and sustainability in a way that meets their needs.    

The University of Oldenburg - Department of Business Informatics (VLBA), under the direction of Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Jorge Marx Gómez, has focused its research on company-wide corporate and inter-company information systems. Very Large Business Applications are characterized by their strategic importance, both for individual companies and for corporate networks. In particular, the handling of data in various forms (data collection, availability, preparation or preprocessing), as they can be found in a company environmental information system, is one of the department's main topics. The chair holder is also the director of the Center for Environment and Sustainability Research (COAST) and spokesperson of the department Operational Environmental Informatics in the German Informatics Society (GI e.V.). Within the project the VLBA pursues the goal of developing a platform for the demand-oriented provision of environmental data. For this purpose, expert interviews and workshops with companies and local authorities with citizen participation will be conducted.

Source: WIK GmbH

Within the framework of a joint working group meeting on mobility in rural areas, NEMo and NiMo (Network for Intelligent Mobility) have started an interdisciplinary exchange. Various projects and initiatives from all over Germany met at the University of Vechta at the 4th of March to discuss various approaches to mobility outside urban centres. The VLBA members Johannes Schering and Ali Akyol gave a detailed overview about the results of the NEMo project and discussed the possibilities of continuing the collected findings in practical life. 

The further lectures provided new exciting perspectives and insights into the activities of other actors. For example, Deutsche Bahn presented a mobile medical bus, which is in fact a mobile medical office that provides care for patients in the rural based northern part of Hessen county. With the sustainable bus stop shelter the company WSM from Waldbröl presented a new product for the public transport of the future. Further approaches from the University of Vechta and the University of Applied Sciences Osnabrück as well as from the municipality of Hoya showed various possible solutions to traffic problems in rural areas. All in all, the exchange offered a good platform to draw further attention to NEMo and to initiate new initiatives in new compositions.  

The aim of the NiMo network is to develop a realistic and comprehensive vision of future mobility through interdisciplinary cooperation of various actors from the mobility sector and beyond, as well as through exchange with interested parties from all areas of society. On this basis, NiMo and its members develop and disseminate concepts, products and services for "intelligent mobility". The network includes a wide variety of players with a focus on sustainable mobility from the economy (start-ups, large companies such as Deutsche Bahn), administration and research from all over Germany. 

Further information can be found at www.nimo.eu/de/.

Participants from all over Germany recently got first-hand information diverse approaches on mobility in rural ares at the University of Vechta as part of a joint working group meeting organized by NEMo and NiMo. [Picture: NiMo]

From 18th to 20th of February the partners of the Interreg-project BITS (Bicycles and Intelligent Transport Systems) met up in Antwerp (Belgium) for a fourth internal project meeting. The partners involved reported about their process regarding bicycle data driven implementations as sensor systems, bicycle parking or gamification apps. The VLBA department presented first results of the bicycle data analysis part.

The Province of Antwerp hosted the three day partners meeting in the Provincehuis. The participants of the meeting traveled to Antwerp from the NSR partner countries involved as the Netherlands, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Germany and other parts of Belgium. In addition, the Advisory Group (AG) which will give strategic advise to the BITS project and consists of external experts as Roland Hentschel (City of Oldenburg) met for the first time.

VLBA research assistant Johannes Schering presented first results of the data analysis part. The Province of Antwerp tested an intelligent 3D camera system to measure near accidents at a dangerous crossroad. The VLBA team calculated the geo coordinates of all near accidents and identified times of the day when the most severe situations happenend including visualization. The speed levels of the cyclists were also calculated. Afterwards it will be decided how to publish the cleaned data set to the open data portal CycleDataHub (CDH) which is developed as part of the project.

Further inormation about the implementation at the crossroad can be found at the official BITS website: northsearegion.eu/bits/news/bits-pilot-on-3d-camera-technology-nominated-for-the-flemish-road-safety-award/

The next internal BITS meeting will take place from the 29th of September to the 1st of October in Aarhus/Denmark. A partner meeting in Oldenburg will be held in Oldenburg at the beginning of 2021.

Source: BITS website

Minister of Science Björn Thümler visited the new space for knowledge and technology transfer on February 17.
The IHJO now has a second location besides the "Schlaues Haus": The so-called "Innovation(s)Campus" - located on the Haarentor campus of the University of Oldenburg - offers a metal workshop, a digital laboratory, seminar rooms and a co-working space. Thus, the campus is the contact point for questions concerning the transfer of ideas, knowledge and technology and offers infrastructure to work on ideas and prototypes. In addition to Lower Saxony's Science Minister Björn Thümler, around 100 invited guests from academia, politics and businesses had the opportunity to get to know the premises on Monday, February 17.
Prof Marx Gómez supports the IHJO project as technical director of the Innovation(s)Labor digital. During a panel discussion with Prof. Hans Michael Piper and Prof. Thomas Wegener, he emphasized the importance of cooperation between companies, administrative and cultural institutions and the scientific community.
Read more at: ihjo.de/innovationscampus/.

Credit: IHJO/Mohssen Assanimoghaddam

Stefan Wunderlich conducted a one-week module on the topic of prototyping mobile applications as part of the CENIT@EA project at the Nelson Mandela African Institution for Science and Technology in Arusha, Tanzania. The students at NM-AIST developed their own ideas for mobile apps, defined suitable business models and finally developed prototypes. 

In a three-year research cooperation between different institutions, industrial partners and the VLBA, the WiSA big data project will focus on the development of a hardware and software platform to analyse temporally high-resolution operating data of wind turbines and to open up new potentials in the data.  

The kick-off meeting took place on 14.01.2020. During the meeting, the project and organisational structure as well as the work packages were presented, the cooperation was concretised and above all, two parallel workshops were held with the aim of defining the first tasks and results.

At the 53rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences 2020 (HICSS 2020) Hauke Precht (HAPTIKproject), Felix Kruse and Jan-Philipp Awick (both TRACE project) presented their conference papers. 
Felix and Jan-Philipp presented the paper "A Qualitative Literature Review on Linkage Techniques for Data Integration" (download). Hauke Precht presented the paper "Applying Software Quality Criteria to Blockchain Applications: A Criteria Catalog" (download). 
With more than 800 submitted papers, numerous international experts were present and constructive discussions were held with them.  

(v.l.n.r.: Felix Kruse, Jan-Philipp Awick, Hauke Precht)