Landes-Offensive zur Entwicklung Wissenschaftlich-ökonomischer Exzellenz

LOEWE is the research promotion programme that has been used by the federal state of Hessen since 2008 to set research policy trends, the objective being to give a sustainable boost to Hesse’s research landscape. LOEWE stands for “Landes-Offensive zur Entwicklung wissenschaftlich-ökonomischer Exzellenz” (state offensive for the development of scientific and economic excellence).

Research Center “emergenCITY”: The resilient Digital City

The LOEWE Research Center “emergenCITY” will develop solutions to provide emergency response to and with information and communication technologies in crisis situations, provide rapid assistance and support an efficient return to normality.

Teams of 23 professors from computer science, electrical engineering and information technology, mechanical engineering, social and historical sciences, architecture, economics and law will conduct joint research in the university network. Th ecenter coordinatet by TU Darmstadt, partners are the University of Kassel and the University of Marburg. 		Coordinator:
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Hollick,
TU Darmstadt

Funding period: 2020 – 2023

Funding: 17,4 Millionen Euro

www.emergenCITY.de

Focus Area “WhiteBox”

Following our basic assumption, we will systematically develop and compare whitebox and blackbox models for artificial intelligence and human behavior. In order to quantify the differences between these models, we will not only develop novel blackbox and whitebox models, but also generate methods for the quantitative and interpretable comparison between these models. Particularly, we will develop new methodologies to generate explanations automatically by means of AI. As an example, deep blackbox models comprise deep neural networks whereas whitebox models can be probabilistic generative models with explicit and interpretable latent variables. Application of these techniques to intelligent goal directed human behavior will provide better computational explanations of human intelligent behavior as well as allow to transfer human level behavior to machines. Spokes Person
Prof. Dr. Kristian Kersting,
TU Darmstadt
Prof. Constantin A. Rothkopf,
TU Darmstadt

Duration: 2021 – 2024

Funding: 4,7 Million Euro

www.tu-darmstadt.de/whitebox

Focus Area “Software-Factory 4.0”

The LOEWE focus area Software Factory 4.0 (SF4.0) is a 4-year project funded by the German State of Hesse. SF4.0 is concerned with the adaptation of legacy software due to changed requirements and technical advances. The project strives to achieve this adaptation in an automated fashion. The main focus is on three topics: more flexible software systems in the context of the application area “Industrie 4.0”, the parallelization of existing software in the context of “High Performance Computing” (HPC), and simplification of the re-engineering in both areas. Spokes Person
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Heiko Mantel,
TU Darmstadt

Duration: 2018 – 2022

Funding: 4,8 Million Euro

www.software-factory-4-0.de

Former LOEWE Centers and Focus Areas

As part of the Hessian government research funding program LOEWE (national campaign to develop scientific and economic excellence), the Center for Advanced Security Research Darmstadt (CASED) has been encouraged. The department of computer science is lead by Prof. Johannes Buchmann. In addition, a number of other professors and staff of the department are active at CASED.

In this project, important principles and IT security solutions are developed for practical use. Through the broad expertise in topics and skills particularly complex projects can be implemented efficiently and effectively. The Darmstadt IT Security Cluster is open to new members who want to directly benefit from the cooperation within the cluster.

Crises, disasters and major catastrophic events are triggered by the forces of nature, human or technical failure or violence and terrorism. They present a threat to human life, public safety in the area concerned and interregional economics. Technical infrastructures are damaged or destroyed.

The LOEWE research cluster NICER (Networked Infrastructureless Cooperation for Emergency Response) is exploring how infrastructureless information and communications technology can establish links between people in the event of a crisis, thus enabling them to work together to overcome the crisis.

The interdisciplinary Research Center “Digital Humanities” is funded by the Hessian excellence program “Landes-Offensive zur Entwicklung Wissenschaftlich-ökonomischer Exzellenz” (LOEWE).

It offers a new empirical basis for digitalized, research-relevant content. This creates a foundation for scientific-methodical advances that have not been possible before. The central focus of the LOEWE is the creation, evaluation and implementation of analysis- and annotation procedures for historic and modern corpora. This data from various humanities and cultural divisions should be critically investigated, concerning the effects on the participating disciplines.

The Research Center itself is divided into several research areas: Historical corpora, contemporary corpora, archives and picture-picture/text associations. UKP Lab leads the research area “Contemporary Corpora”, which is of special interest to computational linguists.

Participation in former LOEWE centers and focal points

Ziel des Projekts ist die Überwindung von Grenzen, die Wertschöpfungssystemen durch Entwicklungen wie Globalisierung steigende Molatilität sowie Urbanisierung gesetzt sind. Integrierte Wertschöpfungsnetzwerke bestimmen zukünftig die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit von Industriestandorten, was eine übergreifende Optimierung der Teilsysteme Produktion, Logistik und Verkehr erfordert. Die nahtlose Betrachtung der Teildisziplinen ist daher notwendig, um die Entscheidungsbasis für ein integriertes Gesamtoptimum zu schaffen.

Mit dem Forschungsprojekt sollen für Wirtschaft und Politik Methoden und nstrumentebereitgestellt werden, die einen Entscheidungsprozess zur nahtlosen Gestaltung der Güter- und Informationsflüsse in Produktion, Logistik und Verkehr ermöglichen.

Weitere Informationen finden Sie auf der Webseite des Forschungsschwerpunktes.

Das LOEWE-Zentrum AdRIA befasst sich mit dem interdisziplinären Thema Adaptronik, d.h. der Erforschung und Entwicklung von autonomen Struktursystemen, die sich selbstständig an verändernde Randbedingungen anpassen. Ziel ist es hierbei, einen nachhaltigen, konsequenten Leichtbau technischer Strukturen zu ermöglichen.

Der Fachbereich Informatik arbeitet hier mit den Fachbereichen Maschinenbau, Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik, Material- und Geowissenschaften, Mathematik und Chemie der TU Darmstadt, dem Fachbereich Maschinenbau und Kunststofftechnik der Hochschule Darmstadt und dem Fraunhofer LBF zusammen.

Der LOEWE-Schwerpunkt Cocoon forscht auf dem Gebiet der Kooperativen Sensorkommunikation mit dem Ziel, der Vision einer Smart City näher zu kommen. Hierbei sollen die mobilen Sensorknoten wie Mobiltelefonen, PDAs oder Navigationsgeräte durch eine intelligente Vernetzung eine Vielzahl neuartiger Anwendungen z.B. in den Bereichen Car-to-Car und Car-to-X Kommunikation, Umweltbeobachtung und Umweltschutz, Online Monitoring von medizinischen Risikogruppen, Logistik ermöglichen.

Der Fachbereich Informatik arbeitet hier mit den Fachbereichen Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik sowie Mathematik der TU Darmstadt zusammen.