A thin, watery layer coating the surface of ice is what makes it slick. The reason we can gracefully glide on an ice-skating rink or clumsily slip on an icy sidewalk is that the surface of ice is coated by a thin watery layer. Scientists generally agree that this lubricating, liquidlike layer is what makes ice slippery. They disagree, though, about why the layer forms. Three main theories about the phenomenon have been debated over the past two centuries.

Artificial intelligence may help to make sporting competitions cleaner and fairer in the future. Professor of Business Informatics Wolfgang Maaß and his teams at Saarland University and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence are using self-learning computer systems to make it faster and simpler to uncover doping violations. Maaß and his team have been collaborating with the World Anti-Doping Agency WADA on research projects that use AI systems the team had previously developed for Industry 4.0 applications. By feeding these systems with data from doping tests, the systems become increasingly efficient at detecting sporting fraud. Unequal chances, unfair competition, unclean sport – doping doesn't just violate the principle of fairness, sportsmen, and women who use performance-enhancing substances are putting their own health on the line.

Professor of Business Informatics Wolfgang Maaß (photo) and his teams at Saarland University and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence are using self-learning computer systems to make it faster and simpler to uncover doping violations. Maaß and his team have been collaborating with the World Anti-Doping Agency WADA on research projects that use AI systems the team had previously developed for Industry 4.0 applications. By feeding these systems with data from doping tests, the systems become increasingly efficient at detecting sporting fraud. Artificial intelligence may help to make sporting competitions cleaner and fairer in the future. Professor of Business Informatics Wolfgang Maaß and his teams at Saarland University and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence are using self-learning computer systems to make it faster and simpler to uncover doping violations.

Artificial intelligence may help to make sporting competitions cleaner and fairer in the future. Professor of Business Informatics Wolfgang Maaß and his teams at Saarland University and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence are using self-learning computer systems to make it faster and simpler to uncover doping violations. Maaß and his team have been collaborating with the World Anti-Doping Agency WADA on research projects that use AI systems the team had previously developed for Industry 4.0 applications. By feeding these systems with data from doping tests, the systems become increasingly efficient at detecting sporting fraud. Unequal chances, unfair competition, unclean sport – doping doesn't just violate the principle of fairness, sportsmen and women who use performance-enhancing substances are putting their own health on the line.

IMAGE: Smart data packages are providing food producers with greater insight, making production greener and more cost-efficient, but also generating new revenue streams - all thanks to the Evarest platform currently... view more Food production is a complex process involving the careful monitoring and management of raw materials, supply chains, market prices and much more besides. Access to smart data enables food producers to plan intelligently and to optimize their production processes allowing them to produce the required quantities more cheaply and in a more environmentally friendly way. But this data can also be used to create additional revenue streams for producers - something that will be demonstrated at this year's digital edition of Hannover Messe by members of a research consortium led by Professor of Business Informatics Wolfgang Maaß of Saarland University and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). In their'Evarest' research project, the team turns proprietary data into a commodity that can be traded securely without disclosing any intellectual property or trade secrets. What is next year's harvest of cocoa beans or strawberries going to be like?

Languages, Compilers, and Tools for Embedded Systems, (Stockholm, Sweden, Apr.

At the beginning of June, the German Weather Service counted 177,000 lightning bolts in the night sky within a few days. The natural spectacle had consequences: Several people were injured by gusts of wind, hail and rain. Together with Germany's National Meteorological Service, the Deutscher Wetterdienst, computer science professor Jens Dittrich and his doctoral student Christian Schön from Saarland University are now working on a system that is supposed to predict local thunderstorms more precisely than before. It is based on satellite images and artificial intelligence. In order to investigate this approach in more detail, the researchers will receive 270,000 euros from the Federal Ministry of Transport.