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Entwicklung eines Portfolios von Energieeffizienzdienstleistungen für kommunale EVU. - Kurzfassung
(2016)
The digitization of our society changes the way we live, work, learn, communicate, and collaborate. The Internet of Things, enterprise social networks, adaptive case management, mobility systems, analytics for big data, and cloud services environments are emerging to support smart connected products and services and the digital transformation. Biological metaphors of living and adaptable ecosystems provide the logical foundation for self-optimizing and resilient run-time environments for intelligent business services and service-oriented enterprise architectures. Our aim is to support flexibility and agile transformations for both business domains and related information technology. The present research paper investigates mechanisms for decision analytics in the context of multi-perspective explorations of enterprise services and their digital enterprise architectures by extending original architecture reference models with state of art elements for agile architectural engineering for the digitization and collaborative architectural decision support. The paper’s context focuses on digital transformations of business and IT and integrates fundamental mappings between adaptable digital enterprise architectures and service-oriented information systems. We are putting a spotlight on the example domain – Internet of Things.
The composition of vascularized adipose tissue is still an ongoing challenge as no culture medium is available to supply adipocytes and endothelial cells appropriately. Endothelial cell medium is typically supplemented with epidermal growth factor (EGF) as well as hydrocortisone (HC). The effect of EGF on adipocytes is discussed controversially. Some studies say it inhibits adipocyte differentiation while others reported of improved adipocyte lipogenesis. HC is known to have lipolytic activities, which might result in mature adipocyte dedifferentiation. In this study, we evaluated the influence of EGF and HC on the co-culture of endothelial cells and mature adipocytes regarding their cell morphology and functionality. We showed in mono-culture that high levels of HC promoted dedifferentiation and proliferation of mature adipocytes, whereas EGF seemed to have no negative influence. Endothelial cells kept their typical cobblestone morphology and showed a proliferation rate comparable to the control independent of EGF and HC concentration. In co-culture, HC promoted dedifferentiation of mature adipocytes, which was shown by a higher glycerol release. EGF had no negative impact on adipocyte morphology. No negative impact on endothelial cell morphology and functionality could be seen with reduced EGF and HC supplementation in co-culture with mature adipocytes. Taken together, our results demonstrate that reduced levels of HC are needed for co-culturing mature adipocytes and endothelial cells. In co-culture, EGF had no influence on mature adipocytes. Therefore, for the composition of vascularized adipose tissue constructs, the media with low levels of HC and high or low levels of EGF can be used.
Large, deep full-thickness skin wounds from high-graded burns or trauma are not able to reepithelialize sufficiently, resulting in scar formation, mobility limitations, and cosmetic deformities. In this study, in vitro-constructed tissue replacements are needed. Furthermore, such full-skin equivalents would be helpful as in vivo-like test systems for toxicity, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical testing. Up to date, no skin equivalent is available containing the underlying subcutaneous fatty tissue. In this study, we composed a full-skin equivalent and evaluated three different media for the coculture of mature adipocytes, fibroblasts, and keratinocytes. Therefore, adipocyte medium was supplemented with ascorbyl-2-phosphate and calcium chloride, which are important for successful epidermal stratification (Air medium). This medium was further supplemented with two commercially available factor combinations often used for the in vitro culture of keratinocytes (Air-HKGS and Air- KGM medium). We showed that in all media, keratinocytes differentiated successfully to build a stratified epidermal layer and expressed cytokeratin 10 and 14. Perilipin A-positive adipocytes could be found in all tissue models for up to 14 days, whereas adipocytes in the Air-HKGS and Air-KGM medium seemed to be smaller. Adipocytes in all tissue models were able to release adipocyte-specific factors, whereas the supplementation of keratinocyte-specific factors had a slightly negative effect on adipocyte functionality. The permeability of the epidermis of all models was comparable since they were able to withstand a deep penetration of cytotoxic Triton X in the same manner. Taken together, we were able to compose functional three-layered fullskin equivalents by using the Air medium.
In vitro cultured cells produce a complex extracellular matrix (ECM) that remains intact after decellularization. The biological complexity derived from the variety of distinct ECM molecules makes these matrices ideal candidates for biomaterials. Biomaterials with the ability to guide cell function are a topic of high interest in biomaterial development. However, these matrices lack specific addressable functional groups, which are often required for their use as a biomaterial. Due to the biological complexity of the cell-derived ECM, it is a challenge to incorporate such functional groups without affecting the integrity of the biomolecules within the ECM. The azide-alkyne cycloaddition (click reaction, Huisgen-reaction) is an efficient and specific ligation reaction that is known to be biocompatible when strained alkynes are used to avoid the use of copper (I) as a catalyst. In our work, the ubiquitous modification of a fibroblast cell-derived ECM with azides was achieved through metabolic oligosaccharide engineering by adding the azide-modified monosaccharide Ac4GalNAz (1,3,4,6 tetra-O-acetyl-N-azidoacetylgalactosamine) to the cell culture medium. The resulting azide-modified network remained intact after removing the cells by lysis and the molecular structure of the ECM proteins was unimpaired after a gentle homogenization process. The biological composition was characterized in order to show that the functionalization does not impair the complexity and integrity of the ECM. The azides within this ‘‘clickECM” could be accessed by small molecules (such as an alkyne modified fluorophore) or by surface-bound cyclooctynes to achieve a covalent coating with clickECM.
Blood vessel reconstruction is still an elusive goal for the development of in vitro models as well as artificial vascular grafts. In this study, we used a novel photo curable cytocompatible polyacrylate material (PA) for freeform generation of synthetic vessels. We applied stereolithography for the fabrication of arbitrary 3D tubular structures with total dimensions in the centimeter range, 300 µm wall thickness, inner diameters of 1 to 2 mm and defined pores with a constant diameter of approximately 100 µm or 200 µm. We established a rinsing protocol to remove remaining cytotoxic substances from the photo-cured PA and applied thio-modified heparin and RGDC-peptides to functionalize the PA surface for enhanced endothelial cell adhesion. A rotating seeding procedure was introduced to ensure homogenous endothelial monolayer formation at the inner luminal tube wall. We showed that endothelial cells stayed viable and adherent and aligned along the medium flow under fluid-flow conditions comparable to native capillaries. The combined technology approach comprising of freeform additive manufacturing (AM), biomimetic design, cytocompatible materials which are applicable to AM, and biofunctionalization of AM constructs has been introduced as BioRap® technology by the authors.
The development of in vitro adipose tissue constructs is highly desired to cope with the increased demand for substitutes to replace damaged soft tissue after high graded burns, deformities or tumor removal. To achieve clinically relevant dimensions, vascularization of soft tissue constructs becomes inevitable but still poses a challenge. Adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) represent a promising cell source for the setup of vascularized fatty tissue constructs as they can be differentiated into adipocytes and endothelial cells in vitro and are thereby available in sufficiently high cell numbers.
This review summarizes the currently known characteristics of ASCs and achievements in adipogenic and endothelial differentiation in vitro. Further, the interdependency of adipogenesis and angiogenesis based on the crosstalk of endothelial cells, stem cells and adipocytes is addressed at the molecular level. Finally, achievements and limitations of current co-culture conditions for the construction of vascularized adipose tissue are evaluated.
In bioprinting approaches, the choice of bioink plays an important role since it must be processable with the selected printing method, but also cytocompatible and biofunctional. Therefore, a crosslinkable gelatin-based ink was modified with hydroxyapatite (HAp) particles, representing the composite buildup of natural bone. The inks’ viscosity was significantly increased by the addition of HAp, making the material processable with extrusion-based methods. The storage moduli of the formed hydrogels rose significantly, depicting improved mechanical properties. A cytocompatibility assay revealed suitable ranges for photoinitiator and HAp concentrations. As a proof of concept, the modified ink was printed together with cells, yielding stable three-dimensional constructs containing a homogeneously distributed mineralization and viable cells.
Adapting characteristics of biomaterials specifically for in vitro and in vivo applications is becoming increasingly important in order to control interactions between material and biological systems. These complex interactions are influenced by surface properties like chemical composition, charge, mechanical and topographic attributes. In many cases it is not useful or even not possible to alter the base material but changing surface, to improve biocompatibility or to make surfaces bioactive, may be achieved by thin coatings. An already established method is the coating with polyelectrolyte multilayers (PEM). To adjust adhesion, proliferation and improve vitality of certain cell types, we modified the roughness of PEM coatings. We included different types nanoparticles (NP’s) in different concentrations into PEM coatings for controlling surface roughness. Surface properties were characterized and the reaction of 3 different cell types on these coatings was tested.
In thermopervaporation the same economically favorable driving force as in membrane distillation, i.e., a temperature difference between feed and permeate for the transport, is used but with non-porous thin-film composite membranes. Membrane pores cannot be wetted and long-term operational stability can be achieved with the appropriate coating layer, but normally with a decrease of the flux compared to membrane distillation with porous hydrophobic membranes.
Porous asymmetric PVDF membranes were made to achieve low permeation resistance and pores which could be overcoated with polyelectrolyte polymers. This coating prohibits pore wetting and strongly reduces adsorption of organic substances.
Those membranes showed a high permeation rate for water due to a structure of phase-separated hydrophilic and hydrophobic three-dimensional domains. The permeation rates of these composite membranes for water is between 6 and 12 l/(h m²) at a feed temperature of 60 °C and permeate at a temperature of 40 °C of a 2% saline solution feed depending on the operational parameters. This is only a slight reduction of 10–15% in permeation rate compared to membrane distillation with porous hydrophobic membranes.
In whey dewatering experiment this membrane showed a constant performance over 4 days in intermittent operation mode and stability in cleaning with strong alkaline solution.
Indium tin oxide (ITO) particle coatings are known for high transparency in the visible, good conductive properties and near-infrared absorption. These properties depend on ITO particle's stiochiometric composition, defects and size. Here we present a method to gradually change ITO particle's optical properties by a simple and controlled laser irradiation process. The defined irradiation process and controlled energy dose input allows one to engineer the absorption and transsmission of coatings made from these particles. We investigate the role of the surrounding solvent, influence of laser fluence and the specific energy dose targeting modification of the ITO particle's morphology and chemistry by stepwise laser irradiation in a free liquid jet. TEM, SEM, EDX, XPS, XRD and Raman are used to elucidate the structural, morphological and chemical changes of the laser-induced ITO particles. On the basis of these results the observed modification of the optical properties is tentatively attributed to chemical changes, e.g. laser-induced defects or partial reduction.
This book showcases new and innovative approaches to biometric data capture and analysis, focusing especially on those that are characterized by non-intrusiveness, reliable prediction algorithms, and high user acceptance. It comprises the peer-reviewed papers from the international workshop on the subject that was held in Ancona, Italy, in October 2014 and featured sessions on ICT for health care, biometric data in automotive and home applications, embedded systems for biometric data analysis, biometric data analysis: EMG and ECG, and ICT for gait analysis. The background to the book is the challenge posed by the prevention and treatment of common, widespread chronic diseases in modern, aging societies. Capture of biometric data is a cornerstone for any analysis and treatment strategy. The latest advances in sensor technology allow accurate data measurement in a non-intrusive way, and in many cases it is necessary to provide online monitoring and real-time data capturing to support a patient’s prevention plans or to allow medical professionals to access the patient’s current status. This book will be of value to all with an interest in this expanding field.
Besides the optimisation of the car, energy-efficiency and safety can also be increased by optimising the driving behaviour. Based on this fact, a driving system is in development whose goal is to educate the driver in energy efficient and safe driving. It monitors the driver, the car and the environment and gives energy-efficiency and safety relevant recommendations. However, the driving system tries not to distract or bother the driver by giving recommendations for example during stressful driving situations or when the driver is not interested in that recommendation. Therefore, the driving system monitors the stress level of the driver as well as the reaction of the driver to a given recommendation and decideswhether to give a recommendation or not. This allows to suppress recommendations when needed and, thus, to increase the road safety and the user acceptance of
the driving system.
A lot of people need help in their daily life to wash, select and manage their clothing. The goal of this work is to design an assistant system (eKlarA) to support the user by giving recommendations to choose the clothing combinations, to find the clothing and to wash the clothing. The idea behind eKlarA is to generate a system that uses sensors to identify the clothing and their state in the clothing cycle. The clothing cycle consists of the stations: closets, laundry basket and washing machine in one or several places. The system uses the information about the clothing, weather and calendar to support the user in the different steps of the clothing cycle. The first prototype of this system has been developed and tested. The test results are presented in this work.
Stress is recognized as a predominant disease with raising costs for rehabilitation and treatment. Currently there are several different approaches that can be used for determining and calculating the stress levels. Usually the methods for determining stress are divided in two categories. The first category do not require any special equipment for measuring the stress. This category useless the variation in the behaviour patterns that occur while stress. The core disadvantage for the category is their limitation to specific use case. The second category uses laboratories instruments and biological sensors. This category allow to measure stress precisely and proficiently but on the same time they are not mobile and transportable and do not support real-time feedback. This work presents a mobile system that provides the calculation of stress. For achieving this, the of a mobile ECG sensor is analysed, processed and visualised over a mobile system like a smartphone. This work also explains the used stress measurement algorithm. The result of this work is a portable system that can be used with a mobile system like a smartphone as visual interface for reporting the current stress level.
Stress is becoming an important topic in modern life. The influence of stress results in a higher rate of health disorders such as burnout, heart problems, obesity, asthma, diabetes, depressions and many others. Furthermore individual’s behavior and capabilities could be directly affected leading to altered cognition, inappropriate decision making and problem solving skills. In a dynamic and unpredictable environment, such as automotive, this can result in a higher risk for accidents. Different papers faced the estimation as well as prediction of drivers’ stress level during driving. Another important question is not only the stress level of the driver himself, but also the influence on and of a group of other drivers in the near area. This paper proposes a system, which determines a group of drivers in a near area as clusters and it derives the individual stress level. This information will be analyzed to generate a stress map, which represents a graphical view about road section with a higher stress influence. Aggregated data can be used to generate navigation routes with a lower stress influence to decrease stress influenced driving as well as improve road safety.
Knee osteoarthritis is a common complication and can lead to total loss of joint function in patients. Treatment by either partial or total knee replacement with appropriate UHMWPE based implantsis highly invasive, may cause complications and may show unsatisfying results. Alternatively, treatment may be done by insertion of an elastic interpositional knee spacer with optimized material characteristics.
We report the development of high performance polyurethane-based polymers modified with bioactive molecules for fabrication of such knee spacers. In order to tailor mechanical and tribological properties and to improve resist to enzymatic degradation we propose a core-shell model for the spacer with specifically adapted properties.
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the service of the new business model Curated Shopping in the fashion industry as well as to analyze if the service provides a higher costumer added value in comparison to traditional services in retail stores and e-commerce platforms. It gives implications to curated shop operators how to optimize the service in each stage of the customer buying process.
Design/methodology/approach: The research methodology applied is an empirical study that uses the principal of mystery shopping in order to investigate the provided services during the selling process.
Findings: The study showed that information about the customer should be collected carefully and as holistic as possible in order to assort a suitable outfit. The consumer is able to benefit from the service by saving time and enjoying a stress-free way of shopping. Nevertheless there are limitations in the personal service to give individual and inspiring advice by the curator caused by the physical distance to the customer.
Research limitations: The survey was conducted under 10 mystery shoppers and 4 curated shop operators in Germany, limiting findings to these mystery shoppers and operators.
Practical implications: One implication for the shop operators is to collect consumer information carefully and expand the assortment and brand portfolio in order to provide fashion goods to inspire the consumer. The shop operators are on the right track still there is huge potential to provide a more shopper-oriented service.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the value of the web representation of certain fashion hot spots and how these results can be shown on fashion maps in an illustrated way.
Design/methodology/approach: A new ranking was created, which was evaluated with a self-instructed index, to gain solid results. Numbers were collected from Google, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and web.alert.io. Additionally, fashion maps were created for an illustrative visualization of the results.
Findings: Compared with the ranking of a trend forecasting agency, called Global Language Monitor, which concepted a ranking of non-virtual fashion cities, the web representation and therefore the ranking of the research project, differs mainly in the situation of the cities among the first 10, viz. the rank on which a city occurs, but fewer in the actual cities mentioned.
Research limitations: The research was limited to subjective analysis of data, leading to partly subjective results, as well as the selected number of social media platforms, that had been used.
Originality/value: This is the first study to explore the web representation value of fashion metropolises in comparison to their non-virtual ranking. The results are partly based on results that already existed, concerning transformations of fashion cities or in general which cities own the status of a fashion city.
Efficiency in supply chain risk management (SCRM) is a major topic in industries with serial production and a complex supply chain due to limited management and financial resources. A high number of possible risk situations and intertwined processes create a more challenging environment for resource allocation. Managers cannot perform SCRM in all possible supply chain areas and hence have to decide where available resources should be utilised for highest possible risk reduction. This makes it important to quickly and systematically evaluate input and output relationships among risk mitigation actions to determine which actions are deployed first for efficient risk level reduction. This paper introduces a new SCRM method based on the failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) in order to perform an efficiency-oriented risk action prioritisation. By considering the cost-benefit evaluation of identified risk mitigation actions for each assessed risk and by determining the implementation effort for risk mitigation actions, also considered as the cost for realising a specific risk action the method allows finding those risk and risk mitigation actions, which are most efficient for risk reduction and should be implemented first in the process of risk steering.
Gamification, the use of game elements for non-gaming purposes, may just make a huge impact on education, a contribution the world in general and South Africa in particular, desperately needs. In today’s fast-paced work environment, there is not only a severe skills shortage, but also a great need for graduates with practical knowledge - students that are not purely “book smart”. Didactic teaching habits have created an education realm in which reciting facts is more often than not what gets students to pass. Learning factories are physical, operational factories that serve as exemplary and realistic hands-on learning environments and provide an important step towards more industry-prepared graduates. Top universities around the world are establishing such environments and are showing superb results. This paper explores the potential benefit of applying gamification in such a setting to enhance the learning environment even further, and provide opportunities for training otherwise difficult to teach topics, such as shop floor management.
During the first years of their employment, the graduates are a liability to industry. The employer goes an extra mile to bridge the gap between university-exiting and profitable employment of engineering graduates. Unfortunately some cannot take this risk. Given this scenario, this paper presents a learning factory approach as a platform for the application of knowledge so as to develop the required engineering competences in South African engineering graduates before they enter the labour market. It spells out the components of a Stellenbosch University Learning Factory geared towards production of engineering graduates with the required industrial skills. It elaborates on the didactics embedded in the learning factory environment, tailor-made to produce engineers who can productively contribute to the growth of the industry upon exiting the university.
Increasingly volatile market conditions and manufacturing environments combined with a rising demand for highly personalized products, the emergence of new technologies like cyber-physical systems and additive manufacturing as well as an increasing cross-linking of different entities (Industrie 4.0) will result in fundamental changes of future work and logistics systems. The place of production, the logistical network and the respective production system will underlie the requirements of constant changes and therefore sources and sinks of logistical networks have to obey the versatility of (cyber-physical) production systems. To cope with the arising complexity to control and monitor changeable production and logistics systems, decentralized control systems are the mean of choice since centralized systems are pushed to their limits in this regard. This paradigm shift will affect the overall concept under which production and logistics is planned, managed and controlled and how companies interact and collaborate within the emerging value chains by using dynamic methods to generate and execute the created network and to allocate available resources to fulfill the demand for customized products. In this field of research learning factories, like the ESB Logistics Learning Factory at ESB Business School (Reutlingen University), provide a great potential as a risk free test bed to develop new methods and technical solutions, to investigate new technologies regarding their practical use and to transfer the latest state of knowledge and specific competences into the training of students and professionals. Keeping with these guiding principles ESB Business School is transferring its existing production system into a cyber-physical production system to investigate innovative solutions for the design of human-machine collaboration and technical assistance systems as wells as to develop decentralized control methods for intralogistics systems following the requirements of changeable work systems including the respective design of dynamic inbound and outbound logistic networks.
The fast moving process of digitization1 demands flexibility in order to adapt to rapidly changing business requirements and newly emerging business opportunities. New features have to be developed and deployed to the production environment a lot faster. To be able to cope with this increased velocity and pressure, a lot of software developing companies have switched to a Microservice Architecture (MSA) approach. Applications built this way consist of several fine-grained and heterogeneous services that are independently scalable and deployable. However, the technological and business architectural impacts of microservices based applications directly affect their integration into the digital enterprise architecture. As a consequence, traditional Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) approaches are not able to handle the extreme distribution, diversity, and volatility of micro-granular systems and services. We are therefore researching mechanisms for dynamically integrating large amounts of microservices into an adaptable digital enterprise architecture.
Disclosed is an electronic drive circuit and a drive method. The drive circuit includes an output; a first output transistor comprising a control node and a load path, wherein the load path is coupled between the output and a first supply node; a voltage regulator configured to control a voltage across the load path of the first output transistor; and a first driver configured to drive the first output transistor based on a first control signal.
This paper is concerned with the study, optimization and control of the moisture sorption kinetics of agricultural products at temperatures typically found in processing and storage. A nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous inputs (NARX) neural network was developed to predict moisture sorption kinetics and consequently equilibrium moisture contents of shiitake mushrooms (Lentinula edodes (Berk.) Pegler) over a wide range of relative humidity and different temperatures. Sorption kinetic data of mushroom caps was separately generated using a continuous, gravimetric dynamic vapour sorption analyser at emperatures of 25-40 °C over a stepwise variation of relative humidity ranging from 0 to 85%. The predictive power of the neural network was based on physical data, namely relative humidity and temperature. The model was fed with a total of 4500 data points by dividing them into three subsets, namely, 70% of the data was used for training, 15% of the data for testing and 15% of the data for validation, randomly selected from the whole dataset. The NARX neural network was capable of precisely simulating equilibrium moisture contents of mushrooms derived from the dynamic vapour sorption kinetic data throughout the entire range of relative humidity.
Pegelumsetzer mit einem ersten Eingang, der ein erstes Signal erfasst, wobei das erste Signal einen ersten Spannungspegel aufweist, einem Ausgang, der ein zweites Signal erzeugt, wobei das zweite Signal einen zweiten Spannungspegel aufweist, wobei der zweite Spannungspegel größer als der erste Spannungspegel ist und einem Differenzverstärker, der eine Differenzspannung erfasst, wobei der Differenzverstärker mit einer Versorgungsspannung und einer hochseitige Masse verbunden ist, wobei die Versorgungsspannung ein erstes Spannungspotential und die hochseitige Masse ein zweites Spannungspotential aufweist, dadurch gekennzeichnet, dass der erste Eingang mit einer ersten Teilschaltung verbunden ist, wobei die erste Teilschaltung mit einer zweiten Teilschaltung unidirektional verbunden ist, wobei die zweite Teilschaltung mit der Versorgungsspannung und der hochseitigen Masse verbunden ist, wobei die zweite Teilschaltung mindestens zwei Ausgänge aufweist, die die Differenzspannung des Differenzverstärkers erzeugen, wobei über einen Versorgungsspannungseingang und einen hochseitigen Masseeingang eine zusätzliche Spannung einkoppelt und der Differenzverstärker das zweite Signal in Abhängigkeit der Differenzspannung, der Versorgungsspannung, der hochseitigen Masse und der zusätzlichen Spannung erzeugt.
This case study describes the emerging customized omnichannel loyalty solution of Marc O’Polo from a customer’s perspective. After the introduction of Marc O’Polo and their general omnichannel strategy, the loyalty program is described in detail, like Marc O’Polo for members and the mobile app, social media, direct mail and in-store capabilities. A discussion chapter closes the case study with research implications and open questions for Marc O’Polo.
Loyalty programs become more important in an omnichannel environment of fashion retail business. After the definition of customer loyalty and loyalty programs the main characteristics of omnichannel loyalty programs are described. As touchpoints of omnichannel loyalty programs mobile, social media, direct mail and in-store capabilities are detailed. A discussion chapter closes with recommendations for fashion retailers.
This case study of Breuninger aims to analyze how Breuninger adapts to the emerging omnichannel environment in fashion business. From a consumer’s perspective Breuninger and the general omnichannel strategy of Breuninger is explained, before the loyalty program of Breuninger is analyzed in detail. Key factors as the mobile app and the mobile Breuninger card, social media, direct mail and in-store capabilities are described. A discussion chapter finalizes the case.
There is no doubt that the amplification of channel integration towards an omni-channel structure is a powerful idea whose time has finally come. The digitally cross-linked world postulates all-encompassing, ubiquitous, and unobtrusive future services. In the concomitant, increasingly competitive market, retailers are starting to lay the foundation for omnichannel, meeting the expectations of a digitally cunning audience wanting their shopping experience to be as seamless and uncomplicated as possible. Nevertheless, recent researches show that there are still enough avenues for further research on omnichannel. Until now, the performance of companies was solely considered by experts from a suppliers’ point of view. It would be rather interesting to find out whether the desire to meet the increased cus-tomer expectations is also recognized by the customers themselves. This paper seeks to answering how the purchasing behavior has changed and what customers demand. In addition, it elaborates the opportunities that are promoted by omni-channel. Searching out all the effects, the paper will get to a final step, where it can be attested how the omnichannel performance of fashion and lifestyle retailers can be measured from a consumers’ perspective by developing an exclusive index. The study is confined to four fashion and lifestyle retailers: Hugo Boss AG, Levi Strauss & Co, Pull and Bear as well as COS. Using the scientific method of mystery shopping and a multi-item checklist including 54 key performance indicators, the paper aims to examine to which extend the four selected retailers provide a seamless customer journey, according to the five decision-making phases.
In a globalized world the importance of a proper segmentation method for identifying target consumers has been increasing. Vast majority of the research in this area focuses on the usage or development of different techniques. Lifestyle is a good criterion for dividing people into groups which then can be better targeted. This article addresses the research question, which classical methods exist to segment markets with the aid of lifestyle. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate several instruments, such as A.I.O., Roper Consumer Styles, VALS-Method, the Sinus-Milieus, Sigma-Milieus, RISC-Method and Semiometrie but also Discriminant and Conjoint Analysis which proved of value in the past. Furthermore it deals with the benefits of this methods but weaknesses are also considered. Therefore several existing literature is examined, and information is collected by institutes providing the typologies. Obvious is, that new methods e.g. predictive analytics already play a major role in marketing, because it can be found much literature about it. In the literature research also appear research implications, because besides the provided information from institutes and journals, there is hardly no data to find if and how companies use the instruments. Furthermore, some important databases cannot be scanned because they are not accessible without paying.
The following paper is dealing with the issue on which actual consumer lifestyle segmentation methods there are for particular European countries and accordingly for Europe as a whole. This is important for corporations to be able to place their products accurately by a consumer orientated marketing concerning the constant change of values and minds. Researching current literature, internet sources and documents, the state of the science is presented by a detailed description of the most popular lifestyle segmentation methods used in European countries. In addition to that, these instruments are discussed individually and then compared to each other. All instruments, the Sinus-Milieus, Euro-Socio-Styles, Roper-Consumer-Styles, RISC and Mosaic, are serving the same purpose even so they differ pretty much from each other. Each market research company has its own method to generate their model just as different segments and definitions for them. Furthermore every segmentation method is illustrated in a different way. This paper demonstrates all these instruments in detail and shows its advantages and disadvantages. Summing up literature research concerning the main research question, there are several models segmenting consumers in different lifestyle groups for e.g. in Germany, France or Great Britain, but still less models referring to the entire European market.
Knowing your customer, i.e. your target market, is critical for the success of a company and its’ products. The current socio-demographic changes in the United States issue new challenges to marketers and practitioners. Actual fashion consumer seg-mentation approaches within the United States have received little attention in media and scholarly literature. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to present the existing academic literature addressing fashion consumer style preferences, particularly highlighting the most promising consumer groups within the United States: Hispanics and African-Americans. For this, a literature review was chosen with a subsequent critical discussion and comparison of both segments including findings of academic researches as well as market research agencies and actual lifestyle clustering approaches regarding these consumer groups. The findings show, whilst the published literature on consumer segmentation in the apparel industry provides only a surficial understanding of the fashion buying behaviors of Hispanics and Black Americans, it could be found that both ethnic groups are highly interested in fashion, price sensitive, and they are over indexed in apparel spending habits. Especially within the Hispanic population factors such as age and level of acculturation play a vital role in the purchasing choice of apparel, footwear and accessories and require further research.
This research is about Omnichannel Retailing and addresses the question how the omnichanneling of retailers in the fashion market can be measured. Our sources will include books, interviews, newspapers and scientific databases.
Omnichanneling is a current topic in the fashion market, retailers all over the world face the question on how to adapt to the challenges Omnichannel Retailing sets. We are going to define what Omnichanneling is by explaining the differences between Multiple-, Multi-, Cross- and Omnichannel Retailing. After we defined omnichanneling itself, we took a set of 26 retailers to evaluate regarding their Omnichannel capabilities. Then we create an index with criteria that can measure the Omnichannel capability of each retailer.
The Omnichannel Score is based on 31 criteria, which analyze the retailers in offline, online, mobile and social aspects enables to see differences between retailers. Our findings were that retailers in the US fashion market are more advanced in Omnichannel Retailing than retailers in the German fashion market. Our top three Omnichannel retailers were Sears with an Omnichannel Score of 91, followed by KOHL’S and Marks&Spencer, both with a Omnichannel Score of 88. The best Omnichannel Retailer from Germany was Adidas with the fourth place and an Omnichannel Score of 81.
Purpose of this research paper is to assess the state of the art concerning the relevance of consumer segmentation models in the fashion industry with regards to current changes in technology, market structure and consumer behavior.
The paper is composed of a qualitative literature review and an empirical study in form of a survey. They are contrasted in order to identify both similarities and differences.
Findings reveal that consumer segmentation is still relevant. Notwithstanding, an adaptation of classification models is necessary according to occurring changes. External models, segmenting consumers by means of lifestyle or fashion typologies, are used. However, it is striking that most companies of the empirical study already apply internal segmentation models with tendency to rise. Moreover, research has shown that consumer classification models in the USA make use of different criteria than in Europe.
Language barriers within the literature review and a low sample size in the empirical study give research limitations. Future management implications can be directed to the identification of procedures for the efficient application of internal segmentation models.
The purpose of this paper is to determine the relevance of social media for luxury brand management. It employs both a multi-methodological approach: After analyzing the online performance of the three luxury brands Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Gucci, the empirical research includes a survey as well as an eye tracking test executed with Tobii Studio. The findings reveal that online and social media have given luxury fashion businesses the opportunity to establish a sustainable interaction with their customers and distinguish themselves from the competition. Still, the online business holds many challenges for luxury companies to overcome. This paper gives instructions as to how social media can be effectively incorporated into a luxury company.
In times of e-commerce and digitalization, new markets are opening, young companies have the possibility to grow and new perspectives arise in terms of customer relationship. Customers require more possibilities of personalization. In the same time, companies have access to new and especially more information about the customer. Seems like it was a correlation that could evolve greatly if there weren't privacy issues. Vast amount of data about consumers are collected in Big Data warehouses. These shall be analyzed via predictive analytics and customers shall be classified by algorithms like clustering models, propensity models or collaborative filtering. All these subjects are growing in importance, as they are shaping the global marketing landscape. Marketers develop together with IT scientists new ways of analyzing customer databases and benefit from more accurate segmentation methods as that have been used until now. The following paper shall provide a literature review on new methods of consumer segmentation regarding the high inflow of new information via e-commerce. It will introduce readers in the subject of predictive analytics and will discuss several predictive models. The writing of the paper is not based on own empirical researches, but shall serve as a reference text for further researches. A conclusion will complete the paper.
Like many others, fashion companies have to deal with a global and very competitive environment. Thus companies rely on accurate sales forecasts - as key success factor of an efficient supply chain management. However, forecasters have to take into account some specificities of the fashion industry. To respond to these constraints, a variety of different forecasting methods exists, including new, computer-based predictive analytics. After the evaluation of different methods, their application to the fashion industry is investigated through semi structured expert interviews. Despite several benefits predictive analytics is not yet frequently used in practice. This research does not only reflect an industry profile, but also gives important insights about the future potential and obstacles of predictive analytics.
Um einen reibungslosen Produktionsablauf zu gewährleisten und Produktionsstillstände zu vermeiden, ist eine kontinuierliche Materialverfügbarkeit erforderlich. Bei der Auswahl von Materialbereitstellungsprinzipien gilt es, unternehmensspezifische Gegebenheiten zu berücksichtigen. Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt am Beispiel der ERBE Elektromedizin GmbH, Tübingen, ein mögliches Vorgehen.
Geschäftsmodelle in der Energiewirtschaft : ein Kompendium von der Methodik bis zur Anwendung
(2017)
Ob Student oder Angestellter, Forscher oder Unternehmer, Politiker oder Dozent, ob im Start-up oder im Unternehmens-Oldie „Energieversorger“ – heute kommt vermeintlich keiner ohne ein gutes Geschäftsmodell aus. Warum ist das so? Was macht Geschäftsmodelle zu „fleißigen Lieschen“ nicht nur der Betriebswirtschaftslehre, sondern auch der Ingenieure, Volkswirte oder Informatiker? Das Geschäftsmodell beschreibt das Prinzip, nach dem eine Organisation Werte schafft, vermittelt und erfasst. Es ermöglicht durch diese Vereinfachung und Strukturierung eine leichtere Kommunikation und Analyse des Gesamtkonstrukts oder seiner Bestandteile. Es dient als Planungsinstrument, mit dessen Hilfe Innovationen effizienter und gezielter identifiziert werden können. Geschäftsmodelle können auf Ebene von Unternehmen oder einzelner Geschäftseinheiten entwickelt werden. Das vorliegende Kompendium dient dem Studenten wie dem Praktiker der Energiewirtschaft als methodische Basis zur eigenständigen Entwicklung von Geschäftsmodellen. Daher wird im 1. Kapitel aus Wissenschaft und Forschung abgeleitet, was ein Geschäftsmodell ist und wie es angewendet wird. Kapitel 2 beschreibt die Herausforderungen der Energiewirtschaft. Die Branche ist seit Jahrzehnten im Wandel. Neue Technologien zur (dezentralen) Erzeugung, Digitalisierung, sich wandelnde politische Ziele und Instrumente (Liberalisierung, Kernkraftausstieg, Energiewende,…) und neue Kundenbedürfnisse erfordern, dass die Unternehmen – große wie kleine, etablierte wie neue Anbieter, in öffentlichem wie in privatem Eigentum – angesichts erodierender Margen und zunehmendem Wettbewerb in diesem Umfeld erfolgversprechende Wege in die Zukunft suchen. Schon mit dem Begriff „Geschäftsmodell“ wird heute die Hoffnung eines Heilsbringers in diesem Dickicht erhofft, dem natürlich ein Strukturierungsinstrument – mehr ist das Geschäftsmodell schließlich nicht – nicht gerecht werden kann. In Kapitel 3 werden im Prinzip bekannte Geschäftsmodelle der Energiewirtschaft geschildert, sowie ihre Patterns, angelehnt an andere Branchen, ausdifferenziert. Dies sollte dem relativen Neuling den Einstieg in die Branche erleichtern und dem nach neuen Geschäftsmodellen Suchenden die Basis für eigene Innovation bieten. In Kapitel 4 werden Geschäftsmodelle für virtuelle Kraftwerke geschildert. Anhand dieses Beispiels wird auch ausgeführt, wie Geschäftsmodelle von Partnern entlang der Wertschöpfungskette ineinander greifen müssen. Im letzten Kapitel 5 wird schließlich auf Erfolgsfaktoren zur Entwicklung und Umsetzung von Geschäftsmodellen eingegangen.
Farben umgeben den Menschen tagtäglich und beeinflussen unser Befinden und Verhalten – teils bewusst, teils unbewusst. Diese Tatsache veranlasst auch das Marketing, sich mit den Wirkungen von Farben auseinanderzusetzen, um diese gezielt anwenden zu können. Der richtige Einsatz von Farben im Marketing kann die (Werbe-)Botschaft und die gewünschte Wirkung einer Aktivität oder Marke unterstützen und zudem Aufmerksamkeit bei Konsumenten generieren. Die Erkenntnisse über Wirkungen von Farben im Marketing sind somit entscheidend für die Wahrnehmung der Konsumenten sowie für den Erfolg des Marketings eines Unternehmens. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit werden zunächst Farben und deren Wirkungen im Hinblick auf die Farbsymbolik sowie Farbkombinationen und Farbtöne beschrieben. Im Anschluss wird auf den Einsatz von Farben im Marketing eingegangen. Anhand von Beispielen aus der Marketing-Praxis werden Farben als Element der Corporate Identity sowie der Marke vorgestellt und die Anwendung von Farben in der Werbung analysiert. Zur Verdeutlichung der Wirkung von Farben im Marketing wird ein Moodboard für einen Aktionsartikel des Discounters ALDI Süd entworfen. Abschließend werden die Erkenntnisse zusammengefasst und eine Handlungsempfehlung für den Einsatz von Farben im Marketing ausgesprochen.
Marketing mit Instagram
(2017)
In einer reizüberfluteten Konsumgesellschaft gestaltet es sich nicht immer einfach, potentielle Kunden über den passenden Kanal zu erreichen. Für die Markenpositionierung müssen steigende Budgets in die Produktion von qualitativ hochwertigen Inhalten investiert werden, um durch den wachsenden digitalen Wettbewerb Authentizität und Relevanz für den Konsumenten zu wahren. Dabei ist der Fokus längst von der reinen Werbebotschaft zum "Storytelling" gewandert. Die Bedeutung der Erlebnisqualität einer Marke rückt in den Vordergrund, denn die Zielgruppe möchte nicht nur den objektiven Mehrwert erfahren, sondern zugleich eine spannende Geschichte, die sie auch selbst mit dem Produkt oder der Dienstleistung erleben können. Durch die Zunahme des mobilen Konsums von Content finden gerade soziale Netzwerke wie Instagram bei der Planung der Marketing-Aktivitäten eines Unternehmens steigende Beachtung. Im Textileinzelhandel wird diese Erkenntnis bereits seit längerer Zeit aktiv genutzt, nicht so im deutschen Lebensmitteleinzelhandel. Vor diesem Hintergrund stellt sich die Frage, ob eine ästhetische Inszenierung von Lebensmitteln auf Instagram überhaupt beim Rezipienten ankommt? Die Antwort ist eindeutig: Amerikanische Unternehmen wie Wholefoods machen es vor. Mit über 1,9 Millionen Abonnenten und fast 2.500 geposteten Beiträgen (Stand Februar 2017) erfreut sich das Unternehmensprofil des Lebensmitteleinzelhändlers aus Texas großer Beliebtheit. Marketing mit Instagram und Le-bensmittel kann also erfolgreich verknüpft werden, aber wie? Dies soll im Rahmen der vorliegenden Arbeit untersucht werden.
THE PROBLEM: Companies create problems for customers and employees when product innovation goes unmanaged. Eventually, excessive operational complexity hurts the bottom line.
THREE SOLUTIONS: Focus on product integration, not product proliferation. Make sure your product developers work closely with customerfacing and operational employees. And settle on a high-level purpose that can guide decision making.
Es wird ein Verfahren zum Ermitteln von Deskriptoren DI, welche mit Eigenschaften eines Partikelkollektivs korrelieren, beschrieben. Die Deskriptoren Di werden durch Auswerten von Messsignalen, welche mittels einer optischen Reflexions- oder Transmissionsmethode ermittelt wurden, bei der Licht in das Partikelkollektiv eingestrahlt und rückreflektiertes Licht mittels eines Fotodetektors detektiert wird, ermittelt. Das Verfahren weist die folgenden Schritte auf: a) Aufnehmen eines Intensitätssignals I(t) von dem Fotodetektor, wobei das Intensitätssignals I(t) eine zeitabhängige Intensität von durch den Fotodetektor detektiertem Licht angibt; b) Erstellen eines digitalisierten Intensitätssignals It durch Digitalisieren des aufgenommenen Intensitätssignals I(t) mit einer Samplingperiode &Dgr;t innerhalb eines Abtastfensters T vorbestimmter Zeitdauer; c) Erstellen eines Satzes von Koeffizientenwerten ai durch Umwandeln des digitalisierten Intensitätssignals It mithilfe einer mathematischen, vorzugsweise surjektiven Transformation; d) Ableiten der Deskriptoren DI aus den erstellten Koeffizientenwerten. Das Verfahren und eine zu dessen Ausführung vorgesehene Vorrichtung können deutlich einfacher implementiert werden als herkömmliche Verfahren, bei denen Partikelkollektive durch Erstellen einer Sehnenlängenverteilung (CLD) untersucht werden sollen. Die mittels des Verfahrens ermittelten Deskriptoren können bei einer Prozessanalyse verwendet werden, um beispielsweise einfach und schnell erkennen zu können, wenn sich ein Partikelkollektiv anomal verhält.
Broad acceptance of finite-element-based analysis of structural problems and the increased availability of CAD-systems for structural tasks, which help to generate meshes of non-trivial geometries, have been setting a standard for the evaluation of designs in mechanical engineering in the last few decades. The development of automated or semi-automated optimizers, integrated into the Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE)-packages or working as outer loop machines, requiring the solver to do the analysis of the specific designs, has been accepted by most advanced users of the simulation community as well. The availability and inexpensive processing power of computers is increasing without any limitations foreseen in the coming years. There is little doubt that virtual product development will continue using the tools that have proved to be so successful and so easy to handle.
Current fields of interest
(2016)
If we review the research done in the field of optimization, the following topics appear to be the focus of current development:
– Optimization under uncertainties, taking into account the inevitable scatter of parts, external effects and internal properties. Reliability and robustness both have to be taken into account when running optimizations, so the name Robust Design Optimization (RDO) came into use.
– Multi-Objective Optimization (MOO) handles situations in which different participants in the development process are developing in different directions. Typically we think of commercial and engineering aspects, but other constellations have to be looked at as well, such as comfort and performance or price and consumption.
– Process development of the entire design process, including optimization from early stages, might help avoid inefficient efforts. Here the management of virtual development has to be re-designed to fit into a coherent scheme.
...
There are many other fields where interesting progress is being made. We limit our discussion to the first three questions.
To illustrate the power and the pitfalls of Bionic Optimization, we will show some examples spanning classes of applications and employing various strategies. These applications cover a broad range of engineering tasks. Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that our experiences and our examples will be sufficient to deal with all questions and issues in a comprehensive way. As general rule it might be stated, that for each class of problems, novices should begin with a learning phase. So, in this introductory phase, we use simple and quick examples, e.g., using small FE-models, linear load cases, short time intervals and simple material models. Here beginners within the Bionic Optimization community can learn which parameter combinations to use. In Sect. 3.3 we discuss strategies for optimization study acceleration. Making use of these parameters as starting points is one way to set the specific ranges, e.g., number of parents and kids, crossing, mutation radii and, numbers of generations. On the other hand, these trial runs will doubtless indicate that Bionic Optimization needs large numbers of individual designs, and considerable time and computing power. We recommend investing enough time preparing each task in order to avoid the frustration should large jobs fail after long calculation times.
Application to CAE systems
(2016)
Due to the broad acceptance of CAD-systems based on 3D solids, the geometric data of all common CAE (Computer-Aided Engineering) software, at least in mechanical engineering, are based on these solids. We use solid models, where the space filled by material is defined in a simple and easily useable way. Solid models allow for the development of automated meshers that transform solid volumes into finite elements. Even after some unacceptable initial trials, users are able to generate meshes of non-trivial geometries within minutes to hours, instead of days or weeks. Once meshing had no longer been the cost limiting factor of finite element studies, numerical simulation became a tool for smaller industries as well.
Due to the broad acceptance of CAD-systems based on 3D solids , the geometric data of all common CAE (Computer-Aided Engineering) software, at least in mechanical engineering, are based on these solids. We use solid models , where the space filled by material is defined in a simple and easily useable way. Solid models allow for the development of automated meshers that transform solid volumes into finite elements. Even after some unacceptable initial trials, users are able to generate meshes of non-trivial geometries within minutes to hours, instead of days or weeks. Once meshing had no longer been the cost limiting factor of finite element studies, numerical simulation became a tool for smaller industries as well.
In the early days of automated meshing development, there were discussions over the use of tetragonal (Fig. 4.1) or hexagonal based meshes. But, after a short period of time, it became evident, that there were and will always be many problems using automated meshers to generate hexagonal elements . So today nearly all automated 3D-meshing systems use tetragonal elements .
We have seen that bionic optimization can be a powerful tool when applied to problems with non-trivial landscapes of goals and restrictions. This, in turn, led us to a discussion of useful methodologies for applying this optimization to real problems. On the other hand, it must be stated that each optimization is a time consuming process as soon as the problem expands beyond a small number of free parameters related to simple parabolic responses. Bionic optimization is not a quick approach to solving complex questions within short times. In some cases it has the potential to fail entirely, either by sticking to local maxima or by random exploration of the parameter space without finding any promising solutions. The following sections present some remarks on the efficiency and limitations users must be aware of. They aim to increase the knowledge base of using and encountering bionic optimization. But they should not discourage potential users from this promising field of powerful strategies to find good or even the best possible designs.
In this chapter we introduce methods to improve mechanical designs by bionic methods. In most cases we assume that a general idea of the part or system is given by a set of data or parameters. Our task is to modify these free parameters so that a given goal or objective is optimized without violation of any of the existing restrictions.
Motivation
(2016)
Since human beings started to work consciously with their environment, they have tried to improve the world they were living in. Early use of tools, increasing quality of these tools, use of new materials, fabrication of clay pots, and heat treatment of metals: all these were early steps of optimization. But even on lower levels of life than human beings or human society, we find optimization processes. The organization of a herd of buffalos to face their enemies, the coordinated strategies of these enemies to isolate some of the herd’s members, and the organization of bird swarms on their long flights to their winter quarters: all these social interactions are optimized strategies of long learning processes, most of them the result of a kind of collective intelligence acquired during long selection periods.
Wissen schaffen für klimafreundliche Energietechnik : das Erfolgsgeheimnis der Kraft-Wärme-Kopplung
(2017)
Als hocheffiziente Energieerzeugungstechnologie spielt die KWK eine wichtige Rolle bei der Energiewende und dem Klimaschutz. Gerade für den Gebäudebereich und Unternehmen kann die KWK eine wirtschaftliche und umweltschonende Möglichkeit sein, Strom und Wärme zu erzeugen. Für die Planung, Umsetzung und den Betrieb von KWK-Anlagen werden fachkundige Handwerke und Ingenieure gebraucht. Aus diesem Grund hat das Ministerium für Umwelt, Klima und Energiewirtschaft in den Jahren 2015 und 2016 zusammen mit dem Handwerkstag Baden-Württemberg ... den Qualifizierungskurs "Kraft-Wärme-Kopplung - Kompetenz für den Wärme- und Energiemarkt von heute und morgen" durchgeführt... Aufgrund des Erfolges der Seminarreihe wird diese auch 2017 ff. fortgesetzt.
Durch den Anstieg volatiler Stromerzeugung aus Wind und Sonne benötigt die deutsche Energiewirtschaft in zunehmendem Ausmaß flexibel verfügbare Leistung und Arbeit. Diese Flexibiliät können bspw. Batteriespeicher bereitstellen. In welchem Ausmaß jene diese Rolle übernehmen können und somit der Markt wachsen wird, hängt von der Professionalität der Marktakteure und den Umfeldparametern ab. Wenn diese stimmen, steigen Akteure in die Entwicklung von Geschäftsmodellen ein. Gleichzeitig streben sie an, die Weiterentwicklung dieser Umfeldparameter im eigenen Interesse zu beeinflussen, womit ein weiteres Marktpotenzial entsteht.Im Folgenden werden erkennbare Geschäftsmodelle aufgezeigt und in den Kontext der Ergebnisse aktueller Potenzialanalysen gestellt. Dabei entwickeln sich die zwei Teilmärkte für Batteriespeicher - Heimspeicher und Großspeicher - unter unterschiedlichen Rahmenbedingungen.
Primäres Ziel und Aufgabe dieser Arbeit ist ... die Entwicklung einer neuen Recyclingmethode für PET, die die Nachteile der bisherigen Verwertungsmethoden vermeidet und unter weitgehendem Erhalt der bereits erbrachten Syntheseleistung definierte Oligomere liefert. Aus diesen können in Folge hochwertige Produkte hergestellt werden.
Es werden eine elektronische Treiberschaltung und ein Ansteuerverfahren offenbart. Die Treiberschaltung weist einen Ausgang auf; einen ersten Ausgangstransistor mit einem Steuerknoten und einer Laststrecke, wobei die Laststrecke zwischen den Ausgang und einen ersten Versorgungsknoten geschaltet ist; einen Spannungsregler, der dazu ausgebildet ist, eine Spannung über der Laststrecke des ersten Ausgangstransistors zu steuern; und einen ersten Treiber, der dazu ausgebildet ist, den ersten Ausgangstransistor in Abhängigkeit von einem ersten Steuersignal anzusteuern.
Die vorliegende Erfindung betrifft ein Verfahren zur Regelung einer Totzeit in einem Synchronwandler (100), in welchem ein zyklisches Schalten eines Steuerschalters (2) und eines Synchronschalters (3) erfolgen, wobei der Steuerschalter (2) mittels eines ersten Schaltsignals (S1) und der Synchronschalter (3) mittels eines zweiten Schaltsignals (S2) geschaltet werden. Das Verfahren umfasst ein Erfassen und Vorhalten eines Spannungswertes, welcher eine Spannung (VSW) über den Synchronschalter (3) zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt beschreibt, und ein Anpassen des ersten und/oder zweiten Schaltsignals (S1, S2) für einen folgenden Zyklus basierend auf dem vorgehaltenen Spannungswert.
Die Erfindung betrifft einen Energieübertrager (100) zur induktiven Energieübertragung von einem primären Schaltkreis (10) des Energieübertragers (100) an eine erste (5) und eine zweite (15) Spannungsdomäne eines sekundären Schaltkreises (20) des Energieübertragers (100) und zur Informationsübertragung vom sekundären Schaltkreis (20) zum primären Schaltkreis (10). Dabei umfasst der Energieübertrager (100): – einen Transformator (30), über den der primäre Schaltkreis (10) und der sekundäre Schaltkreis (20) induktiv miteinander gekoppelt sind und über den sowohl die Energieübertragung als auch die Informationsübertragung erfolgt; und – ein Amplitudenmodulationsmodul (50) zum Modulieren der Strom- und/oder Spannungsamplitude im sekundären Schaltkreis (20) mit Hilfe eines Amplitudenmodulationsschalters (55), wobei der Amplitudenmodulationsschalter (55) zwischen der ersten (5) und zweiten (15) Spannungsdomäne des sekundären Schaltkreises (20) angeordnet ist und ausgelegt ist, durch Öffnen und Schließen des Amplitudenmodulationsschalters (55) die Strom- und/oder Spannungsamplitude im primären Schaltkreis (10) zu ändern, um somit Information vom sekundären Schaltkreis (20) zum primären Schaltkreis (10) zu übertragen. Die vorliegende Erfindung betrifft ferner einen Gate-Treiber zum Schalten eines Leistungsschalters (500) und ein Verfahren zur induktiven Übertragung von Energie und zur kombinierten Informationsübertragung.
Today the optimization of metal forming processes is done using advanced simulation tools in a virtual process, e.g. FEM-studies. The modification of the free parameters represents the different variants to be analysed. So experienced engineers may derive useful proposals in an acceptable time if good initial proposals are available. As soon as the number of free parameters growths or the total process takes long times and uses different succeeding forming steps it might be quite difficult to find promising initial ideas. In metal forming another problem has to be considered. The optimization using a series of local improvements, often called a gradient approach may find a local optimum, but this could be far away from a satisfactory solution. Therefore non-deterministic approaches, e.g. Bionic Optimization have to be used. These approaches like Evolutionary Optimization or Particle Swarm Optimization are capable to cover a large range of high dimensional optimization spaces and discover many local optima. So the chance to include the global optimum increases when using such non-deterministic methods. Unfortunately these bionic methods require large numbers of studies of different variants of the process to be optimized. The number of studies tends to increase exponentially with the number of free parameters of the forming process. As the time for one single study might be not too small as well, the total time demand will be inacceptable, taking weeks to months even if high performance computing will be used. Therefore the optimization process needs to be accelerated. Among the many ideas to reduce the time and computer power requirement Meta- and Hybrid Optimization seem to produce the most efficient results. Hybrid Optimization often consists of global searches of promising regions within the parameter space. As soon as the studies indicate that there could be a local optimum, a deterministic study tries to identify this local region. If it shows better performance than other optima found until now, it is preserved for a more detailed analysis. If it performs worse than other optima the region is excluded from further search. Meta-Optimization is often understood as the derivation of Response Surfaces of the functions of free parameters. Once there are enough studies performed, the optimization is done using the Response Surfaces as representatives e.g. for the goal and the restrictions of the optimization problem. Having found regions where interesting solutions are to be expected, the studies available up to now are used to define the Response Surfaces. In many cases low degree polynomials are used, defining their coefficients by least square methods. Both proposals Hybrid Optimization and Meta-Optimization, sometimes used in combination often help to reduce the total optimization processes by large numbers of variants to be studied. In consequence they are highly recommended when dealing with time consuming optimization studies.
In this article an energy harvesting system for measuring the wind speed starting from 2 m/s (about 2 Bft) is presented, which uses the same source for measuring and supplying power (energy autarkic). The use of the same source for measurement and power supply increases the number of potential applications since needed power is present with the measuring signal. For the case of measuring the wind velocity, one might consider applications in tunnels, tubes, pipelines, air conditioning or for controlling clogging of filters. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is chosen as radio technology, since it provides the possibility to realize a unidirectional communication; requiring only a single telegram (advertising telegram) for sending the measured value. A more complex establishment of communication required by WLAN or 6LoWPAN could therefore be avoided to significantly reduce the overall energy consumption. Since the advertisement telegram does not make any provision for security or against hacking in general, a security concept is presented which includes encryption and resilience against replay attacks in a unidirectional communication system.
To facilitate the presented concepts beyond wind sensors, the system is divided into three major modules namely the generator-sensor module, the radio module and the energy management module. Whereas the first two might be changed in different applications the energy management module could be reused in many different applications. It supplies and stores the needed energy and switches power on and off in a deterministic way to ensure the radio module can operate correctly.
Sesam öffne Dich
(2017)
Aus ähnlichen Beweggründen, die Ferdinand von Steinbeis im Großen verfolgte, ist es den Bemühungen des Textilfachlehrers Reichelt und dem damaligen Prof. Stängle zu verdanken, dass gegen Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts an der in der Zwischenzeit zum Technikum für Textilindustrie avancierten Reutlinger Textilanstalt eine reichhaltige Sammlung von Modellen und Gewebemustern eingerichtet und aufgebaut wurde. Den Schwerpunkt der aus über 500000 Mustern und Gewebefragmenten bestehenden Kollektion bilden europäische Jacquard-Gewebe und engliche Anzugsstoffe aus dem 19. Jahrhundert. Das Glanzstück der Reutlinger Gewebesammlung bilden ... etwa 900 altjapanische Gewebefragmente aus der Zeit von 1530 bis 1880 ...
We report the temperature dependence of metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF) of individual photosystem I (PSI) complexes from Thermosynechococcus elongatus (T. elongatus) coupled to gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). A strong temperature dependence of shape and intensity of the emission spectra is observed when PSI is coupled to AuNPs. For each temperature, the enhancement factor (EF) is calculated by comparing the intensity of individual AuNP-coupled PSI to the mean intensity of ‘uncoupled’ PSI. At cryogenic temperature (1.6 K) the average EF was 4.3-fold. Upon increasing the temperature to 250 K the EF increases to 84-fold. Single complexes show even higher EFs up to 441.0-fold. At increasing temperatures the different spectral pools of PSI from T. elongatus become distinguishable. These pools are affected differently by the plasmonic interactions and show different enhancements. The remarkable increase of the EFs is explained by a rate model including the temperature dependence of the fluorescence yield of PSI and the spectral overlap between absorption and emission spectra of AuNPs and PSI, respectively.
We present a fully automatic approach to real-time 3D face reconstruction from monocular in-the-wild videos. We use a 3D morphable face model to obtain a semi-dense shape and combine it with a fast median-based super-resolution technique to obtain a high-fidelity textured 3D face model. Our system does not need prior training and is designed to work in uncontrolled scenarios.
Mit dem Betrieb von KWK-Anlagen lässt sich nennenswert Primärenergie einsparen. KWK-Anlagen werden aus diesem Grund aufgrund verschiedener Gesetze und Richtlinien gefördert. Zum wirtschaftlichen Betrieb einer KWK-Anlage ist es erforderlich, den größtmöglichen Teil des erzeugten elektrischen Stroms entweder selbst zu verbrauchen oder an Dritte (Mieter, Wohnungseigentümer…) zu verkaufen. Mit dem KWKG 2016 werden größere KWK-Anlagen interessant, und Anlagen mit geringerer jährlicher Laufzeit können sich sogar wirtschaftlicher darstellen als reine Grundlastanlagen.
It is assumed that more education leads to better understanding of complex systems. Some researchers, however, find indications that simple mechanisms like stocks and flows are not well understood even by people who have passed higher education. In this paper, we test people’s understanding of complex systems with the widely studied stock-and-flow (SF) tasks. SF tasks assess people’s understanding of the interplay between stocks and flows. We investigate SF failure of domain experts and novices in different knowledge domains. In particular, we compare performance on the original study’s bathtub task with the square wave pattern with two alternative cover stories from the engineering and business domains on different groups of business and engineering students from different semesters. Further, we show that, while engineering students perform better than business students, with progressing in higher education, students may lose the capability of dealing with simple SF tasks. We thus find hints on déformation professionelle in higher education.
Propofol is an intravenous anesthetic. Currently, it is not possible to routinely measure blood concentration of the drug in real time. However, multi-capillary column ion-mobility spectrometry of exhaled gas can estimate blood propofol concentration.Unfortunately, adhesion of volatile propofol on plastic materials complicates measurements. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the extent to which volatile propofol adheres to various plastics used in sampling tubing. Perfluoralkoxy (PFA), polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE), polyurethane (PUR), silicone, and Tygon tubing were investigated in an experimental setting using a calibration gas generator (HovaCAL). Propofol gas was measured for one hour at 26 °C, 50 °C, and 90 °C tubing temperature. Test tubing segments were then flushed with N2 to quantify desorption. PUR and Tygon sample tubing absorbed all volatile propofol. The silicone tubing reached the maximum propofol concentration after 119 min which was 29 min after propofol gas exposure stopped. The use of PFAor PTFE tubing produced comparable and reasonably accurate propofol measurements. The desaturation time for the PFA was 10 min shorter at 26 °C than for PTFE. PFA tubing thus seems most suitable for measurement of volatile propofol,with PTFE as an alternative.
Due to the complexity of assembly processes, a high ratio of tasks is still performed by human workers. Short-cyclically changing work contents due to smaller lot sizes, especially the varied series assesmbly, increases both the need for information support as well as the risk of rising physical and psychological stress. The use of technical and digital assistance systems can counter these challenges. Through the integration of information and communication technology as well as collaborative assembly technologies, hybrid cyber-physical assembly systems will emerge. Widely established assembly planning approaches for digital and technical support systems in cyber physical assembly systems will be outlined and discussed with regard to synergies and delimitations of planning perspectives.
This paper investigates the electrothermal stability and the predominant defect mechanism of a Schottky gate AlGaN/GaN HEMT. Calibrated 3-D electrothermal simulations are performed using a simple semiempirical dc model, which is verified against high-temperature measurements up to 440°C. To determine the thermal limits of the safe operating area, measurements up to destruction are conducted at different operating points. The predominant failure mechanism is identified to be hot-spot formation and subsequent thermal runaway, induced by large drain–gate leakage currents that occur at high temperatures. The simulation results and the high temperature measurements confirm the observed failure patterns.
Purpose: Human breath analysis is proposed with increasing frequency as a useful tool in clinical application. We performed this study to find the characteristic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the exhaled breath of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) for discrimination from healthy subjects. Methods: VOCs in the exhaled breath of 40 IPF patients and 55 healthy controls were measured using a multi-capillary column and ion mobility spectrometer. The patients were examined by pulmonary function tests, blood gas analysis, and serum biomarkers of interstitial pneumonia. Results: We detected 85 VOC peaks in the exhaled breath of IPF patients and controls. IPF patients showed 5 significant VOC peaks; p-cymene, acetoin, isoprene, ethylbenzene, and an unknown compound. The VOC peak of p-cymene was significantly lower (p < 0.001), while the VOC peaks of acetoin, isoprene, ethylbenzene, and the unknown compound were significantly higher (p < 0.001 for all) compared with the peaks of controls. Comparing VOC peaks with clinical parameters, negative correlations with VC (r =−0.393, p = 0.013), %VC (r =−0.569, p < 0.001), FVC (r = −0.440, p = 0.004), %FVC (r =−0.539, p < 0.001), DLco (r =−0.394, p = 0.018), and %DLco (r =−0.413, p = 0.008) and a positive correlation with KL-6 (r = 0.432, p = 0.005) were found for p-cymene. Conclusion: We found characteristic 5 VOCs in the exhaled breath of IPF patients. Among them, the VOC peaks of p-cymene were related to the clinical parameters of IPF. These VOCs may be useful biomarkers of IPF.
Data collected from internet applications are mainly stored in the form of transactions. All transactions of one user form a sequence, which shows the user´s behaviour on the site. Nowadays, it is important to be able to classify the behaviour in real time for various reasons: e.g. to increase conversion rate of customers while they are in the store or to prevent fraudulent transactions before they are placed. However, this is difficult due to the complex structure of the data sequences (i.e. a mix of categorical and continuous data types, constant data updates) and the large amounts of data that are stored. Therefore, this thesis studies the classification of complex data sequences. It surveys the fields of time series analysis (temporal data mining), sequence data mining or standard classification algorithms. It turns out that these algorithms are either difficult to be applied on data sequences or do not deliver a classification: Time series need a predefined model and are not able to handle complex data types; sequence classification algorithms such as the apriori algorithm family are not able to utilize the time aspect of the data. The strengths and weaknesses of the candidate algorithms are identified and used to build a new approach to solve the problem of classification of complex data sequences. The problem is thereby solved by a two-step process. First, feature construction is used to create and discover suitable features in a training phase. Then, the blueprints of the discovered features are used in a formula during the classification phase to perform the real time classification. The features are constructed by combining and aggregating the original data over the span of the sequence including the elapsed time by using a calculated time axis. Additionally, a combination of features and feature selection are used to simplify complex data types. This allows catching behavioural patterns that occur in the course of time. This new proposed approach combines techniques from several research fields. Part of the algorithm originates from the field of feature construction and is used to reveal behaviour over time and express this behaviour in the form of features. A combination of the features is used to highlight relations between them. The blueprints of these features can then be used to achieve classification in real time on an incoming data stream. An automated framework is presented that allows the features to adapt iteratively to a change in underlying patterns in the data stream. This core feature of the presented work is achieved by separating the feature application step from the computational costly feature construction step and by iteratively restarting the feature construction step on the new incoming data. The algorithm and the corresponding models are described in detail as well as applied to three case studies (customer churn prediction, bot detection in computer games, credit card fraud detection). The case studies show that the proposed algorithm is able to find distinctive information in data sequences and use it effectively for classification tasks. The promising results indicate that the suggested approach can be applied to a wide range of other application areas that incorporate data sequences.
Social sustainable supply chain management in the textile and apparel industry : a literature review
(2017)
So far, a vast amount of studies on sustainability in supply chain management have been conducted by academics over the last decade. Nevertheless, socially related aspects are still neglected in the related discussion. The primary motivation of the present literature review has arisen from this shortcoming, thus the key purpose of this study is to enrich the discussion by providing a state of-the-art, focusing exclusively on social issues in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) by considering the textile/apparel sector as the field of application. The authors conduct a literature review, including content analysis which covers 45 articles published in English peer-reviewed journals, and proposes a comprehensive map which integrates the latest findings on socially related practices in the textile/apparel industry with the dominant conceptualization in order to reveal potential research areas in the field. The results show an ongoing lack of investigation regarding the social dimension of the triple bottom line in SSCM. Findings indicate that a company’s internal orientation is the main assisting factor in sustainable supply chain management practices. Further, supplier collaboration and assessment can be interpreted as an offer for suppliers deriving from stakeholders and a focal company’s management of social risk. Nevertheless, suppliers do also face or even create huge barriers in improving their social performance. This calls for more empirical research and qualitative or quantitative survey methods, especially at the supplier level located in developing countries.
Foam has been employed as an improved or enhanced oil recovery method to overcome gravity override and the channeling and fingering of the injected gas, which arises because of the low density and viscosity of the injected fluid combined with the rock heterogeneity. A major challenge, however, is the stability of the generated foam when it contacts the oil. In this study we investigate the feasibility of using inexpensive nanoparticles made of coal fly ash, an abundantly available waste product of coal power plants, as a foam booster. We investigate the viability of reducing the size of fly ash particles to 100−200 nm using high-frequency ultrasonic grinding. We also study the foaminess (foamability), strength, and stability of the foams made with minor concentrations of fly ash nanoparticles and surfactant, both in bulk and porous media. The effect of monovalent and divalent ion concentration on the foaminess of the nanoash suspension combined with very low concentrations of a commercial alpha olefin sulfonate (AOS) surfactant, in the presence and absence of oil, is studied. We observe that bulk foam that contains very small amounts of nanoash particles shows a higher stability in the presence of model oils. Furthermore, experiments in porous media exhibit remarkably stronger foam with mixtures of nanoash and surfactant, such that the amount of produced liquids from the cores significantly increases. For the first time we show that nanoash can be used to stabilize nitrogen foam in the presence of crude oil at high temperature and pressure. In the presence of oil, the nanoash−AOS foam shows a higher stability, although crude oil tends to form stable emulsions in water in the presence of nanoash.
Social networks, smart portable devices, Internet of Things (IoT) on base of technologies like analytics for big data and cloud services are emerging to support flexible connected products and agile services as the new wave of digital transformation. Biological metaphors of living and adaptable ecosystems with service-oriented enterprise architectures provide the foundation for self-optimizing and resilient run-time environments for intelligent business services and related distributed information systems. We are extending Enterprise Architecture (EA) with mechanisms for flexible adaptation and evolution of information systems having distributed IoT and other micro-granular digital architecture to support next digitization products, services, and processes. Our aim is to support flexibility and agile transformation for both IT and business capabilities through adaptive digital enterprise architectures. The present research paper investigates additionally decision mechanisms in the context of multi-perspective explorations of enterprise services and Internet of Things architectures by extending original enterprise architecture reference models with state of art elements for architectural engineering and digitization.
In times of dynamic markets, enterprises have to be agile to be able to quickly react to market influences. Due to the increasing digitization of products, the enterprise IT often is affected when business models change. Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) targets a holistic view of the enterprise’ IT and their relations to the business. However, Enterprise Architectures (EA) are complex structures consisting of many layers, artifacts and relationships between them. Thus, analyzing EA is a very complex task for stakeholders. Visualizations are common vehicles to support analysis. However, in practice visualization capabilities lack flexibility and interactivity. A solution to improve the support of stakeholders in analyzing EAs might be the application of visual analytics. Starting from a systematic literature review, this article investigates the features of visual analytics relevant for the context of EAM.
The Eighth International Conference on Advances in Databases, Knowledge, and Data Applications (DBKDA 2016), held between June 26 - 30, 2016 - Lisbon, Portugal, continued a series of international events covering a large spectrum of topics related to advances in fundamentals on databases, evolution of relation between databases and other domains, data base technologies and content processing, as well as specifics in applications domains databases. Advances in different technologies and domains related to databases triggered substantial improvements for content processing, information indexing, and data, process and knowledge mining. The push came from Web services, artificial intelligence, and agent technologies, as well as from the generalization of the XML adoption. High-speed communications and computations, large storage capacities, and load-balancing for distributed databases access allow new approaches for content processing with incomplete patterns, advanced ranking algorithms and advanced indexing methods. Evolution on e-business, ehealth and telemedicine, bioinformatics, finance and marketing, geographical positioning systems put pressure on database communities to push the ‘de facto’ methods to support new requirements in terms of scalability, privacy, performance, indexing, and heterogeneity of both content and technology.
Die Kombination von Softwareproduktlinien und agiler Softwareentwicklung in der Automobilbranche ist vielversprechend. Das Ziel ist hierbei, sowohl die Vorteile agiler Methoden wie kurze Entwicklungszyklen als auch die Vorteile systematischer Wiederverwendung wie beispielsweise das effektive Management von Varianten zu erzielen. Allerdings ist die Kombination auch mit Herausforderungen verbunden und erfordert eine geeignete Einführungs- oder Transformationsstrategie. Basierend auf Erkenntnissen einer Interviewstudie und existierenden Produktlinienentwicklungen werden Herausforderungen und Lösungsideen aufgezeigt.
This article studies the development of e-governance over time and across countries. We use a large data sample consisting of 99 developing and 34 OECD countries to study this notion. Firstly, we study the development of e-governance. Secondly, we estimate models to check the determining factors of e-governance over time and across countries. The study reveals that the level of e-governance is determined by the degree of e-participation, online access as well as GDP per capita.
Dieser Beitrag leistet einen Beitrag zur Marketingforschung, da er den jungen aber von zunehmender Relevanz geprägten Forschungsstrang zum Themenkomplex CEM grundlegend entwickelt. Zum einen zeigt das identifizierte Rahmenkonzept auf, dass CEM über einzelne unternehmerische Fähigkeiten wie dem Design von Serviceerlebnissen, das die bisherige CEM-Forschung bestimmt hat, hinausgeht. Zum anderen leistet das Konzept einen Beitrag zur Synthese fragmentierter, aber miteinander zusammenhängender Literaturströmungen in der Marketingforschung ...
Nenne sie niemals Senioren!
(2017)
The book provides suggestions on how to start using bionic optimization methods, including pseudo-code examples of each of the important approaches and outlines of how to improve them. The most efficient methods for accelerating the studies are discussed. These include the selection of size and generations of a study’s parameters, modification of these driving parameters, switching to gradient methods when approaching local maxima, and the use of parallel working hardware.
Bionic optimization means finding the best solution to a problem using methods found in nature. As evolutionary strategies and particle swarm optimization seem to be the most important methods for structural optimization, we primarily focus on them. Other methods such as neural nets or ant colonies are more suited to control or process studies, so their basic ideas are outlined in order to motivate readers to start using them.
A set of sample applications shows how bionic optimization works in practice. From academic studies on simple frames made of rods to earthquake-resistant buildings, readers follow the lessons learned, difficulties encountered and effective strategies for overcoming them. For the problem of tuned mass dampers, which play an important role in dynamic control, changing the goal and restrictions paves the way for multi-objective-optimization. As most structural designers today use commercial software such as FE-Codes or CAE systems with integrated simulation modules, ways of integrating bionic optimization into these software packages are outlined and examples of typical systems and typical optimization approaches are presented.
The closing section focuses on an overview and outlook on reliable and robust as well as on multi-objective optimization, including discussions of current and upcoming research topics in the field concerning a unified theory for handling stochastic design processes.
The most important objective of event marketing is to improve the image of a brand or a company. The paper presents an image transfer model for event marketing. Based on current research, an image transfer model for event marketing is developed and the conditions required for an image transfer to take place from an event to a brand or a company are explained. Depending on which conditions are met, there are different consequences with regard to the image transfer from the event to the brand or company that are structured and characterized in detail. The image transfer model is developed against the backdrop of selected event types often used in actual practice. The focus of its application lies mainly in brand-oriented leisure and infotainment events directed towards external target groups. The model provides a discussion and analysis of the impact category of the image transfer in event marketing. The paper explains that the possibility of an attitude change is given within the context of event marketing. The presented model serves to structure the image transfer in event marketing. It is intended to illustrate the steps that are involved in the emergence of an image transfer as well as the resulting alternative consequences.
Sport marketing is the specific application of marketing principles and processes to sports products and services. In 2014 the biggest sports event in the world, the FIFA World Cup, took place in Brazil. Billions of spectators around the world saw Germany win the trophy in Rio de Janeiro for the fourth time in history. Yet unlike in previous World Cups, conversation was not only taking place at the numerous public viewings which were held in open spaces like bars and restaurants. For the entire tournament social media like Facebook or Twitter were playing a dominant role in all aspects. With 672 million tweets on Twitter and three billion conversations on Facebook, this was the most social World Cup as well as the most social mega sports event so far. It did not matter whether it were users, athletes or companies, everyone was trying to catch up on the conversation to be informed or inform others about their opinion or latest news. This paper analyzes the implementation of social media marketing during mega sports events with a focus on Adidas’ and Nike’s social media campaigns in the frame of the FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil. The analysis shows that social media marketing in the frame of mega sports events gains importance. Those companies finding topics that affect people personally with a relationship to their products achieve success through social media marketing.
Analysis of multicellular patterns is required to understand tissue organizational processes. By using a multi-scale object oriented image processing method, the spatial information of cells can be extracted automatically. Instead of manual segmentation or indirect measurements, such as general distribution of contrast or flow, the orientation and distribution of individual cells is extracted for quantitative analysis. Relevant objects are identified by feature queries and no low-level knowledge of image processing is required.
While the topic of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has generated an increasing amount of research attention in recent years, still lacking is a comprehensive overview that helps to explain how companies can implement CRM successfully. To address these issues, this article identifies and discusses factors that are associated with a greater degree of CRM success. More specifically, we identify and discuss determinants on strategy, human resources, information management, structure and processes as well as specific factors within the implementation phase which help to improve CRM success. First, our results indicate that the implementation of CRM processes is associated with better company performance, especially at the relationship initiation and maintenance stage. Second, the findings emphasis a predominant influence of firm-based factors vis-à-vis structural industry, and customer-based factors. Furthermore, cross-functional CRM teams and a top management feeling responsible for CRM projects help to improve CRM success. In addition, internal processes which are related to customer contact points have to be redesigned to enhance the interaction between employees and customers. The current article sheds more light on what really drives CRM success.
Customer prioritization is a common marketing activity in business practice. It aims at an increase in average customer profitability and return on sales by treating important customers more intensively. After a short introduction highlighting the importance of customer prioritzation, the present article provides an overview of key aspects of customer prioritization. First, companies need to select a prioritization criterion, determine the method to identify important customers, and decide on how to treat these customers in a particular way. Second, companies face challenges and need to address key requirements for implementing customer prioritization within a company. Finally, the article emphasizes positive and negative consequences of customer prioritization.
It is assumed that more education leads to better understanding of complex systems. Some researchers claim, however, find indications that simple mechanisms like stocks and flows are not well understood even by people who have passed higher education. In this paper, we test people’s understanding of complex systems with the widely studied stock-and-flow (SF) tasks (Booth Sweeney and Sterman 2000). SF tasks assess people’s understanding of the interplay between stocks and flows. We investigate SF failure of domain experts and novices in different knowledge domains. In particular, we compare performance on the original study’s Bathtub task with the square wave pattern (Booth Sweeney and Sterman 2000) with two alternative cover stories from the engineering and business domains on different groups of business and engineering students from different semesters. Further, we show that, while engineering students perform better than business students, with progressing in higher education, students seem to lose the capability of dealing with simple SF tasks from domains other than their field. We thus find hints on déformation professionelle in higher education.
The financial crisis of 2007-2010 was probably one of the greatest, most lustrous black-swan events that people of our generation(s) will experience – and at its heart, it was a dynamic phenomenon. It is stated in the vision of the System Dynamics Society that we aspire to transform society by influencing decision-making. Yet, it seems as if system dynamics did not play any significant role in this crisis: we did not examine the markets, we did not provide insights to banks, and we did not warn governments or the people. In our presentation we describe the dynamics involved in a housing bubble, and describe what made the last one different. With the insights gained from this exercise we conclude that, from a system dynamics perspective, the dimension of the financial crisis of 2007-2009 was eminently foreseeable, which will lead us to pose the following question: where were we as a field while this crisis was unfolding, why were we not active players? We present a range of potential answers to this question, hoping to provoke some reflection… and maybe some (re)action.
Wasted paradise – imagining the Maldives without the garbage island of Thilafushi : Version 1.2
(2016)
To address the high level of waste production in the Maldives, the local government decided to transform the coral island of Thilafushi into an immense waste dumb in 1992. Meanwhile, each day, 330 tons of waste is ferried to Thilafushi. The policy had the positive consequence of relieving the garbage burden in Malé, the main island, and surrounding tourist atolls. However, it can also lead to serious environmental and economic damage in the long range. First, the garbage is in visual range of one of the most prominent tourist destinations. Second, if the wind blows a certain way, unfiltered fumes from burning waste travels to tourist atolls. Third, water quality can erode as hazardous waste from batteries and other toxic waste is floating in the ocean. Over time, these effects can accumulate to significantly hamper the number of tourists that travel to the Maldives – one of the state’s main sources of financial income. In our paper, we lay out the situation in more detail and translate it into a simulation model. We test different policies to propose the Maldives government how to better solve the waste problem.
Sleep is an important aspect in life of every human being. The average sleep duration for an adult is approximately 7 h per day. Sleep is necessary to regenerate physical and psychological state of a human. A bad sleep quality has a major impact on the health status and can lead to different diseases. In this paper an approach will be presented, which uses a long-term monitoring of vital data gathered by a body sensor during the day and the night supported by mobile application connected to an analyzing system, to estimate sleep quality of its user as well as give recommendations to improve it in real-time. Actimetry and historical data will be used to improve the individual recommendations, based on common techniques used in the area of machine learning and big data analysis.
Saving energy and protecting the environment became fundamental for society and politics, why several laws were enacted to increase the energy-efficiency. Furthermore, the growing number of vehicles and drivers leaded to more accidents and fatalities on the roads, why road safety became an important factor as well. Due to the increasing importance of energy-efficiency and safety, car manufacturers started to optimise the vehicle in terms of energy-effciency and safety. However, energy-efficiency and road safety can be also increased by adapting the driving behaviour to the given driving situation. This thesis presents a concept of an adaptive and rule based driving system that tries to educate the driver in energy-efficient and safe driving by showing recommendations on time. Unlike existing driving-systems, the presented driving system considers energy-efficiency and safety relevant driving rules, the individual driving behaviour and the driver condition. This allows to avoid the distraction of the driver and to increase the acceptance of the driving system, while improving the driving behaviour in terms of energy-efficiency and safety. A prototype of the driving system was developed and evaluated. The evaluation was done on a driving simulator using 42 test drivers, who tested the effect of the driving system on the driving behaviour and the effect of the adaptiveness of the driving system on the user acceptance. It has been proven during the evaluation that the energy-efficiency and safety can be increased, when the driving system was used. Furthermore, it has been proven that the user acceptance of the driving system increases when the adaptive feature was turned on. A high user acceptance of the driving system allows a steady usage of the driving system and, thus, a steady improvement of the driving behaviour in terms of energy-efficiency and safety.
This article highlights three major outcomes from global employability surveys about the topic of gender diversity. Students and graduates of two master programs at ESB Business School of Reutlingen University in Germany were asked about their study programs, their expected and their realized career paths, and their individual well-being. This article highlights selected gender differences that were discovered in the analysis and underlines results on specific gender issues. The three major outcomes are: firstly, men and women work in different industries, functions, and leadership positions; secondly, there is a potential for unfulfilled expectations of young managers regarding their achievement of certain positions and the realization of their private goals; thirdly, by looking at the graduates’ career paths in combination with their well-being, a low level of satisfaction with work-life balance and high levels of stress could be identified. The results give valuable insights into the conceptual world of students at the beginning of their career and as future managers. Looking at gender differences and gender issues leads to interesting findings which can be used for further research and discussions at ESB Business School. By contrasting the outcomes of the alumni survey with outcomes of the student survey, significant differences between the awareness of students and the reality of the graduates concerning gender diversity issues were discovered. The disclosed gap between students’ expectations and the real-life situations of the alumni indicates further areas for discussion. One major question is how students can cope with these challenges and issues of gender diversity management in future management positions as (female) managers while taking corporate social responsibility into consideration.
Die zunehmende Durchdringung von cyber-physischen Systemen und deren Vernetzung zu cyberphysischen Produktionssystemen (CPPS) führt zu fundamentalen Veränderungen von zukünftigen Montage-, Fertigungs- und Logistiksystemen, welche innovative Methoden zur Planung, Steuerung und Kontrolle von wandlungsfähigen Produktionssystemen erfordern. Zukünftige logistische Systeme werden dabei den Anforderungen einer hochfrequenten Veränderung und Re-Konfiguration ausgelöst durch wandlungsfähige Produktionssysteme für individualisierte Produkte und kleinen Losgrößen unterliegen. Der Einsatz dezentraler Steuerungssysteme, bei denen die komplexen Planungs-, Steuerungs- und Kontrollprozesse auf zahlreiche Knoten und Entitäten des entstehenden Steuerungssystems verteilt werden, bietet ein großes Potential, den Anforderungen in cyber-physischen Logistiksystemen gerecht zu werden. Eine zentrale Herausforderung ist dabei die echtzeitfähige Steuerung und Re-Konfiguration von sogenannten hybriden Logistiksystemen, welche u.a. durch die Kollaboration von Mensch und Maschine, der Kombination verschiedenartiger Fördermittel sowie verschiedenartiger Steuerungsarchitekturen geprägt sind und darüber hinaus auf hybriden Entscheidungsfindungsprozessen beruhen, welche die Fähigkeiten von Menschen und (cyber-physischen) Systemen synergetisch nutzen.
Lernfabriken, wie die ESB Logistik-Lernfabrik an der ESB Business School (Hochschule Reutlingen), bieten dabei weitreichende Möglichkeiten, diese innovativen Methoden, Systeme und technischen Lösungen in einer industrienahen und risikofreien Fabrikumgebung zu entwickeln sowie in die Ausbildung von Studierenden und Weiterbildung von Teilnehmern aus der Industrie zu transferieren. Um die Forschung, Lehre sowie Aus- und Weiterbildung im Bereich zukünftiger Montage-, Fertigungs- und Logistiksysteme auszuweiten, wird das bestehende Produktionssystem der ESB Logistik-Lernfabrik im Rahmen verschiedenster Forschungs- und Studentenprojekte schrittweise in ein dezentral gesteuertes cyber-physisches Produktionssystem, basierend auf einer ereignisorientierten, cloud-basierten und dezentralen Steuerungsarchitektur, überführt.
In this study, a novel strategy has been developed for the assembly of polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) on CaCO3 templates in acidic pH solutions, where consecutive polyelectrolyte layers (heparin/poly(allylamine hydrochloride) or heparin/chitosan) were deposited on PEM hollow microcapsules established previously on CaCO3 templates. The PEM build-up, hollow capsule characterization and successful encapsulation of fluorescein 5(6)-isothiocyanate (FITC)-Dextran by coprecipitation with CaCO3 are demonstrated. Improvement by the removal of CaCO3 core was achieved while the depositions. In the course of the release profile, high retardation for encapsulated FITC-Dextran was observed. The combined shell capsules system is a significant trait that has potential use in tailoring functional layer-by-layer capsules as intelligent drug delivery vehicles where the preliminary in vitro tests showed the responsiveness on the enzymes.
An integrated synchronous buck converter with a high resolution dead time control for input voltages up to 48V and 10MHz switching frequency is presented. The benefit of an enhanced dead time control at light loads to enable zero voltage switching at both the high-side and low-side switch at low output load is studied. This way, compact multi-MHz DCDC converters can be implemented at high efficiency over a wide load current range. The concept also eliminates body diode forward conduction losses and minimizes reverse recovery losses. A dead time resolution of 125 ps is realized by an 8-bit differential delay chain. A further efficiency enhancement by soft switching at the high-side switch at light load is achieved with a voltage boost of the switching node by dead time control in forced continuous conduction mode. The monolithic converter is implemented in an 180nm high-voltage BiCMOS technology. At V IN = 48V, V OUT = 5V, 50mA load, 10MHz switching frequency and 500 nH output inductance, the efficiency is measured to be increased by 14.4% compared to a conventional predictive dead time control. A peak efficiency of 80.9% is achieved at 12V input.