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While there has been increased digitization of private homes, only little has been done to understand these specific home technologies, how they serve consumers, among other issues. “Smart home technology” (SHT) refer to a wide range of artifacts from cleaning aids to energy advisors. Given this breadth, clarity surrounding the key characteristics and the multi-faceted impact of SHT is needed to conduct more directed research on SHT. We propose a taxonomy to help outline the salient intended outcomes of SHT. Through a process involving five iterations, we analyzed and classified 79 technologies (gathered from literature and industry reports). This uncovered seven dimensions encompassing 20 salient characteristics. We believe these dimensions/characteristics will help researchers and organizations better design and study the impacts of these technologies. Our long-term agenda is to use the proposed taxonomy for an exploratory inquiry to understand tensions occurring when personal and sustainability-related outcomes compete.
In this paper, we propose a radical new approach for scale-out distributed DBMSs. Instead of hard-baking an architectural model, such as a shared-nothing architecture, into the distributed DBMS design, we aim for a new class of so-called architecture-less DBMSs. The main idea is that an architecture-less DBMS can mimic any architecture on a per-query basis on-the-fly without any additional overhead for reconfiguration. Our initial results show that our architecture-less DBMS AnyDB can provide significant speedup across varying workloads compared to a traditional DBMS implementing a static architecture.
Forecasting demand is challenging. Various products exhibit different demand patterns. While demand may be constant and regular for one product, it may be sporadic for another, as well as when demand occurs, it may fluctuate significantly. Forecasting errors are costly and result in obsolete inventory or unsatisfied demand. Methods from statistics, machine learning, and deep learning have been used to predict such demand patterns. Nevertheless, it is not clear for what demand pattern, which algorithm would achieve the best forecast. Therefore, even today a large number of models are used to forecast on a test period. The model with the best result on the test period is used for the actual forecast. This approach is computationally and time intensive and, in most cases, uneconomical. In our paper we show the possibility to use a machine learning classification algorithm, which predicts the best possible model based on the characteristics of a time series. The approach was developed and evaluated on a dataset from a B2B-technical-retailer. The machine learning classification algorithm achieves a mean ROC-AUC of 89%, which emphasizes the skill of the model.
Learning factories on demand
(2021)
Learning Factories are research and learning environments that demonstrate new concepts and technologies for the industry in a practical environment. The interaction between physical and virtual components is a central aspect. The mediation and presentation usually occur directly in the learning factory and are thus limited in time and concerning the user group. A learning factory- on-demand- can be provided by dividing and virtualizing the individual components via containers and microservices. This enables both local operation and operation hybrid cloud or cloud systems. Physical components can be mapped either through standardized interfaces or suitable emulators. Using the example of the Learning Factory at Reutlingen University (Werk150), it will be shown how different use cases can be made available utilizing software-based orchestration, thus promoting broader and more independent teaching.
Prior to the introduction of AI-based forecast models in the procurement department of an industrial retail company, we assessed the digital skills of the procurement employees and surveyed their attitudes toward a new digital technology. The aim of the survey was to ascertain important contextual factors which are likely to influence the acceptance and the successful use of the new forecast tool. What we find is that the digital skills of the employees show an intermediate level and that their attitudes toward key aspects of new digital technologies are largely positive. Thus, the conditions for high acceptance and the successful use of the models are good, as evidenced by the high intention of the procurement staff to use the models. In line with previous research, we find that the perceived usefulness of a new technology and the perceived ease of use are significant drivers of the willingness to use the new forecast tool.
The increasing urban population growth leads to challenges in cities in many aspects: Urbanisation problems such as excessive environmental pollution or increasing urban traffic demand new and innovative solutions. In this context, the concept of smart cities is discussed. An enabling element of the smart city concept is applying information technology (IT) to improve administrative efficiency and quality of life while reducing costs and resource consumption and ensuring greater citizen participation in administrative and urban development issues. While these smart city services are technologically studied and implemented, government officials, citizens or businesses are often unaware of the large variety of smart city service solutions. Therefore, this work deals with developing a smart city services catalogue that documents best practice services to create a platform that brings citizens, city government, and businesses together. Although the concept of IT service catalogues is not new and guidelines and recommendations for the design and development of service catalogues already exist in the corporate context, there is little work on smart city service catalogues. Therefore, approaches from agile software development and pattern research were adapted to develop the smart city service catalogue platform in this work.
Die Bereitstellung klinischer Informationen im Operationssaal ist ein wichtiger Aspekt zur Unterstützung des chirurgischen Teams. Die roboter-assistierte Ösophagusresektion ist ein besonders komplexer Eingriff, der Potenzial zur workflowbasierten Unterstützung bietet. Wir präsentieren erste Ergebnisse der Entwicklung eines Checklisten-Tools mit der zugrundeliegenden Modellierung des chirurgischen Workflows und Informationsbedarf der Chirurgen. Das Checklisten-Tool zeigt hierfür die durchzuführenden Schritte chronologisch an und stellt zusätzliche Informationen kontextadaptiert bereit. Eine automatische Dokumentation von Start- und Endzeiten einzelner OP-Phasen und Schritte soll zukünftige Prozessanalysen der Operation ermöglichen.
Imagine a world in which the search for tomorrow's trends of (software) products is not subject to a long and laborious data search but is possible with a single mouse click. Through the use of artificial intelligence (AI), this reality is made possible and is to be further advanced through research. The study therefore aims to provide an initial overview of the young research field. Based on research, expert interviews, company and student surveys, current application possibilities of AI in the innovation process (defined as Smart Innovation), existing challenges that slow down the further development are discussed in more detail and future application possibilities are presented. Finally, a recommendation for action is made for business, politics and science to help overcome the current obstacles together and thus drive the future of Smart Innovation.
Teaching at assembly workstations in production in SMEs (small and medium sized companies) often does not take place at all or only insufficiently. In addition to the lack of technical content, there are also aggravatingly incorrect movement sequences from an ergonomic point of view, which "untrained" people usually automatically acquire. An AI based approach is used to analyze a definite workflow for a specific assembly scope regarding the behavior of several employees. Based on these different behaviors, the AI gives feedback at which points in time, work steps and movement’s particularly dangerous incorrect postures occur. Motion capturing and digital human model simulation in combination with the results of the AI define the optimized workflow. Individual employees can be trained directly due to the fact that AI identifies their most serious incorrect postures and provide them with a direct analogy of their “wrong” posture and “easy on the joints posture”. With the assistance of various test persons, the AI can conduct a study in which the most frequently occurring incorrect postures can be identified. This could be realized in general or tailored to specific groups of people (e.g. "People over 1.90m tall must be particularly careful not to make the following mistake...). The approach will be tested and validated at the Werk150, the factory of the ESB Business School, on the campus of the Reutlingen University. The new gained knowledge will be used subsequently for training in SMEs.
The digitization of factories will be a significant issue for the 2020s. New scenarios are emerging to increase the efficiency of production lines inside the factory, based on a new generation of robots’ collaborative functions. Manufacturers are moving towards data-driven ecosystems by leveraging product lifecycle data from connected goods. Energy-efficient communication schemes, as well as scalable data analytics, will support these various data collection scenarios. With augmented reality, new remote services are emerging that facilitate the efficient sharing of knowledge in the factory. Future communication solutions should generally ensure connectivity between the various production sites spread worldwide and new players in the value chain (e.g., suppliers, logistics) transparent, real-time, and secure. Industry 4.0 brings more intelligence and flexibility to production. Resulting in more lightweight equipment and, thus, offering better ergonomics. 5G will guarantee real-time transmissions with latencies of less than 1 ms. This will provide manufacturers with new possibilities to collect data and trigger actions automatically.
Um den Übergang von der Schule zur Hochschule zu erleichtern, brauchen Studierende technischer Fächer häufig eine Auffrischung ihrer Kenntnisse in Mathematik und Physik. Ein Online-Lernsystem für Physik kann Studierende bei der Beschäftigung mit physikalischen Inhalten unterstützen. Zudem kann ein Physik-Wissenstest Lücken im individuellen Wissensstand aufzeigen und zum Lernen der fehlenden Themen motivieren. Die Arbeitsgruppe "eLearning in der Physik" der Hochschulföderation Süd-West (HfSW) bestehend aus den baden-württembergischen Hochschulen Aalen, Esslingen, Heilbronn, Mannheim und Reutlingen hat einen Aufgabenpool von über 200 Physikaufgaben für Erstsemester erarbeitet. Sie stehen den Studierenden mit Lösungen in Lernmanagementsystemen zum Selbststudium und jetzt auch im "Zentralen Open Educational Resources Repositorium der Hochschulen in Baden-Württemberg" (ZOERR) zur Verfügung. In diesem Beitrag wird über den Einsatz der Online-Übungsaufgaben in 2020/2021 berichtet, über die Ergebnisse der Wissenstests und über die in der Corona-Zeit neu eingerichteten eTutorien.
Facial beauty prediction (FBP) aims to develop a machine that automatically makes facial attractiveness assessment. In the past those results were highly correlated with human ratings, therefore also with their bias in annotating. As artificial intelligence can have racist and discriminatory tendencies, the cause of skews in the data must be identified. Development of training data and AI algorithms that are robust against biased information is a new challenge for scientists. As aesthetic judgement usually is biased, we want to take it one step further and propose an Unbiased Convolutional Neural Network for FBP. While it is possible to create network models that can rate attractiveness of faces on a high level, from an ethical point of view, it is equally important to make sure the model is unbiased. In this work, we introduce AestheticNet, a state-of-the-art attractiveness prediction network, which significantly outperforms competitors with a Pearson Correlation of 0.9601. Additionally, we propose a new approach for generating a bias-free CNN to improve fairness in machine learning.
Die zunehmende Technologie- und Produktkomplexität führen dazu, dass sich immer mehr Unternehmen für ihre F&E mit externen Organisationen vernetzen. So entstehen interorganisationale F&E-Projekte, welche temporäre Organisationen darstellen. Forschungsfragen zu diesen Projekten sind u.a. hinsichtlich der Praktiken und Verhaltensregeln offen. Über ein kulturbewusstes Projektmanagement können kooperations- und innovationsförderliche Praktiken und Verhaltensregeln aufgebaut werden, die für diese F&E-Projekte essenziell sind. So ist die Forschungsfrage dieses Beitrags, wie ein projektkulturbewusstes Management interorganisationaler F&E-Projekte erfolgen kann. Dafür wird auf Basis der theoretischen Grundlagen zum F&E-Projektmanagement, zu menschlichen Handlungssystemen und Ebenen der Zusammenarbeit, zu Kultur und Verhalten ein projektkulturbewusstes Management-Modell entwickelt. Das Modell umfasst zwei Teile. Im ersten Teil wird der Bereich aufgezeigt, in welchem sich die Projektkultur entwickelt. Im zweiten Teil wird aufgezeigt, wie die Faktoren für ein wahrscheinlich kooperatives und innovatives Verhalten innerhalb dieses Bereiches gestaltet werden sollten.
This paper takes a holistic view on an IP-traceability process in interorganizational R&D projects, as a particular Open innovation mode, aiming at showing different technologies which can be used in the front and backend of a traceability process and discussing these technologies in terms of their suitability for data from creativity processes in these projects. To achieve this goal a two-stage literature review on different technologies in the context of traceability was conducted. Then, criteria were derived from the characteristics of data from creativity processes and of interorganizational R&D projects, with which the resulting technologies were discussed. At the end, recommendations regarding suitable technologies for tracing individual creativity artifacts in interorganizational R&D projects were given.
Classification model of supply chain events regarding their transferability to blockchain technology
(2021)
The blockchain technology represents a decentralized database that stores information securely in immutable data blocks. Regarding supply chain management, these characteristics offer potentials in increasing supply chain transparency, visibility, automation, and efficiency. In this context, first token-based mapping approaches exist to transfer certain supply chain events to the blockchain, such as the creation or assembly of parts as well as their transfer of ownership. However, the decentralized and immutable structure of blockchain technology also creates challenges. In particular, the scalability, storage capacity, and the special requirements for storage formats make it currently impossible to map all supply chain events unrestrictedly on the blockchain. As a first step, this paper identifies important supply chain events for different use cases combining blockchain technology and supply chain management. Secondly, the supply chain events are classified in terms of their expected technical properties and their relevance for the respective use case. Finally, the identified supply chain events are evaluated regarding their transferability to blockchain technology and a classification model is introduced.
Distributed ledger technologies such as the blockchain technology offer an innovative solution to increase visibility and security to reduce supply chain risks. This paper proposes a solution to increase the transparency and auditability of manufactured products in collaborative networks by adopting smart contract-based virtual identities. Compared with existing approaches, this extended smart contract-based solution offers manufacturing networks the possibility of involving privacy, content updating, and portability approaches to smart contracts. As a result, the solution is suitable for the dynamic administration of complex supply chains.
In this paper we describe an interactive web-based tool for visual analysis of Formula 1 data. A calendar-like representation provides an overview of all races on a yearly basis, either in absolute or normalized time. After selecting a dedicated race more details about this race can be explored. Furthermore it is possible to compare up to three different races. Beside visualizing details on dedicated races it is also possible to analyse driver and team performance over time. A user study was applied to get feedback about the usage of the application and decide between different visualization options.
The production environment experiences copious challenges, but likewise discovers many new potential opportunities. To meet the new requirements, caused by the developments towards mass-customization, human-robot-cooperation (HRC) was identified as a key piece of technology and is becoming more and more important. HRC combines the strengths of robots, such as reliability, endurance and repeatability, with the strengths of humans, for instance flexibility and decision-making skills. Notwithstanding the high potential of HRC applications, the technology has not achieved a breakthrough in production so far. Studies have shown that one of the biggest obstacles for implementing HRC is the allocation of tasks. Another key technology that offers various opportunities to improve the production environment is Artificial Intelligence (AI). Therefore, this paper describes an AI supported method to improve the work organization in HRC in regards to the task-allocation. The aim of this method is to build a dynamic, semi-autonomous group work environment which keeps not just employee motivation at a high level, but also the product quality due to a decreased failure rate. The AI helps to detect the perfect condition in which the employee delivers the best performance and also supports at identifying the time when the worker leaves this optimal state. As soon as the employee reaches this trigger event, the allocation of the tasks adapts based on the identified stress. This adaptation aims to return the employee to the state of the optimal performance. In order to realize such a dynamic allocation, this method describes the creation of a pool with various interaction scenarios, as well as the AI supported recognition of the defined trigger event.
The main aim of presented in this manuscript research is to compare the results of objective and subjective measurement of sleep quality for older adults (65+) in the home environment. A total amount of 73 nights was evaluated in this study. Placing under the mattress device was used to obtain objective measurement data, and a common question on perceived sleep quality was asked to collect the subjective sleep quality level. The achieved results confirm the correlation between objective and subjective measurement of sleep quality with the average standard deviation equal to 2 of 10 possible quality points.
Identifikation von Schlaf- und Wachzuständen durch die Auswertung von Atem- und Bewegungssignalen
(2021)
In various German cities free-floating e-scooter sharing is an upcoming trend in e-mobility. Trends such as climate change, urbanization, demographic change, amongst others are arising and forces the society to develop new mobility solutions. Contrasting the more scientifically explored car sharing, the usage patterns and behaviors of e-scooter sharing customers still need to be analyzed. This presumably enables a better addressing of customers as well as adaptions of the business model to increase scooter utilization and therefore the profit of the e-scooter providers. The customer journey is digitally traceable from registration to scooter reservation and the ride itself. These data enable to identifies customer needs and motivations. We analyzed a dataset from 2017 to 2019 of an e-scooter sharing provider operating in a big German city. Based on the datasets we propose a customer clustering that identifies three different customer segments, enabling to draw multiple conclusions for the business development and improving the problem-solution fit of the e-scooter sharing model.
Coopetitive endeavors offer valuable strategic options for firms. Yet, many of them are failure-prone as partners must balance collective and private interest. While interpartner trust is considered central for alliance success, paradoxically, the role and dynamics of trust is still not understood. We synthesize a computational model, capturing relational dynamics of an alliance, encompassing coevolution of trust, partner contributions, and (relative) alliance interactions. Analyzing alliance dynamics using simulation we find and explore a tipping boundary, separating a regime of alliance failure and success. We identify implications for collaborative (aspirations) and private strategies (openness). Our analyses reveal that strategies informed by a static mental model of partner trust, contributions, and openness tend to yield subpar alliance results and hidden failure-risk. We discuss implications for management theory.
Forecasting demand is challenging. Various products exhibit different demand patterns. While demand may be constant and regular for one product, it may be sporadic for another, as well as when demand occurs, it may fluctuate significantly. Forecasting errors are costly and result in obsolete inventory or unsatisfied demand. Methods from statistics, machine learning, and deep learning have been used to predict such demand patterns. Nevertheless, it is not clear for what demand pattern, which algorithm would achieve the best forecast. Therefore, even today a large number of models are used to forecast on a test period. The model with the best result on the test period is used for the actual forecast. This approach is computationally and time intensive and, in most cases, uneconomical. In our paper we show the possibility to use a machine learning classification algorithm, which predicts the best possible model based on the characteristics of a time series. The approach was developed and evaluated on a dataset from a B2B-technical-retailer. The machine learning classification algorithm achieves a mean ROC-AUC of 89%, which emphasizes the skill of the model.
Forecasting intermittent and lumpy demand is challenging. Demand occurs only sporadically and, when it does, it can vary considerably. Forecast errors are costly, resulting in obsolescent stock or unmet demand. Methods from statistics, machine learning and deep learning have been used to predict such demand patterns. Traditional accuracy metrics are often employed to evaluate the forecasts, however these come with major drawbacks such as not taking horizontal and vertical shifts over the forecasting horizon into account, or indeed stock-keeping or opportunity costs. This results in a disadvantageous selection of methods in the context of intermittent and lumpy demand forecasts. In our study, we compare methods from statistics, machine learning and deep learning by applying a novel metric called Stock-keeping-oriented Prediction Error Costs (SPEC), which overcomes the drawbacks associated with traditional metrics. Taking the SPEC metric into account, the Croston algorithm achieves the best result, just ahead of a Long Short-Term Memory Neural Network.
Digitalization increases the pressure for companies to innovate. While current research on digital transformation mostly focuses on technological and management aspects, less attention has been paid to organizational culture and its influence on digital innovations. The purpose of this paper is to identify the characteristics of organizational culture that foster digital innovations. Based on a systematic literature review on three scholarly databases, we initially found 778 articles that were then narrowed down to a total number of 23 relevant articles through a methodical approach. After analyzing these articles, we determine nine characteristics of organizational culture that foster digital innovations: corporate entrepreneurship, digital awareness and necessity of innovations, digital skills and resources, ecosystem orientation, employee participation, agility and organizational structures, error culture and risk-taking, internal knowledge sharing and collaboration, customer and market orientation as well as open-mindedness and willingness to learn.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is coined by many different standards, protocols, and data formats that are often not compatible to each other. Thus, the integration of different heterogeneous (IoT) components into a uniform IoT setup can be a time-consuming manual task. This lacking interoperability between IoT components has been addressed with different approaches in the past. However, only very few of these approaches rely on Machine Learning techniques. In this work, we present a new way towards IoT interoperability based on Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL). In detail, we demonstrate that DRL algorithms, which use network architectures inspired by Natural Language Processing (NLP), can be applied to learn to control an environment by merely taking raw JSON or XML structures, which reflect the current state of the environment, as input. Applied to IoT setups, where the current state of a component is often reflected by features embedded into JSON or XML structures and exchanged via messages, our NLP DRL approach eliminates the need for feature engineering and manually written code for pre-processing of data, feature extraction, and decision making.
Many modern DBMS architectures require transferring data from storage to process it afterwards. Given the continuously increasing amounts of data, data transfers quickly become a scalability limiting factor. Near-Data Processing and smart/computational storage emerge as promising trends allowing for decoupled in-situ operation execution, data transfer reduction and better bandwidth utilization. However, not every operation is suitable for an in-situ execution and a careful placement and optimization is needed.
In this paper we present an NDP-aware cost model. It has been implemented in MySQL and evaluated with nKV. We make several observations underscoring the need for optimization.
Several studies analyzed existing Web APIs against the constraints of REST to estimate the degree of REST compliance among state-of-the-art APIs. These studies revealed that only a small number of Web APIs are truly RESTful. Moreover, identified mismatches between theoretical REST concepts and practical implementations lead us to believe that practitioners perceive many rules and best practices aligned with these REST concepts differently in terms of their importance and impact on software quality. We therefore conducted a Delphi study in which we confronted eight Web API experts from industry with a catalog of 82 REST API design rules. For each rule, we let them rate its importance and software quality impact. As consensus, our experts rated 28 rules with high, 17 with medium, and 37 with low importance. Moreover, they perceived usability, maintainability, and compatibility as the most impacted quality attributes. The detailed analysis revealed that the experts saw rules for reaching Richardson maturity level 2 as critical, while reaching level 3 was less important. As the acquired consensus data may serve as valuable input for designing a tool-supported approach for the automatic quality evaluation of RESTful APIs, we briefly discuss requirements for such an approach and comment on the applicability of the most important rules.
The disruptive potential of digital transformation (DT) has been widely discussed in scholarly literature and practitioner-oriented discourses. The management control (MC) function is an important corporate function, as it provides transparency on the economic situation of a firm. DT challenges MC in a two-fold and reciprocal nature as it (i) changes the MC function itself as well as (ii) the entire firm and its business models, which needs to be accompanied by the MC function. Given the complexity and variety of phenomena within the developments in the context of DT, a comprehensive management approach is essential. Surprisingly, there exist few convincing approaches, which support a comprehensive management of the DT. The objectives of this paper are therefore to discuss the impact of DT on MC, as well as, to develop a framework to control DT of an organization from a MC perspective. Based on a literature review and conceptual research, our study contributes to knowledge by proposing an initial, preliminary conceptual framework to manage DT, from a MC perspective. The framework highlights important dimensions that should be considered in the management of DT, for example related to processes and MC instruments.
Already more than 75 countries pledged to become climate neutral by 2050 and the share of global emissions falling into an emission pricing scheme has steeply increased over the past two years. Even where there are no direct implications for industry (yet), there is a series of subtle pressure points driving an increasing number of companies across the globe to work towards climate neutrality and pledging ambitious carbon reduction goals.
This article sheds light on what the pressure points are, what the subtle triggers and what the underlying considerations, as well as hoped-for benefits of industrial companies to achieve decarbonisation. The observations and ideas presented in this paper are derived from quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data was collected within the framework of Energy Efficiency Index of German Industry (EEI). The qualitative data has been collected from interviews in industrial organisations and media documents as well as from professional practice.
Not only societal, work force, supply chain and investor expectations play a large role, but also many strategic considerations which have the potential to make the business more resilient and profitable. Those companies that do not move towards decarbonisation on the other hand may face a costly late mover disadvantage.
This piece uncovers subtle interconnections helping stakeholders from industry and beyond to grasp opportunities and challenges ahead. Taking account of these calls for rethinking economic viability calculations and investment decision making. Doing so may subsequently lead to on-site carbon reduction measures being prioritised to decarbonise effectively.
Context: Agile practices as well as UX methods are nowadays well-known and often adopted to develop complex software and products more efficiently and effectively. However, in the so called VUCA environment, which many companies are confronted with, the sole use of UX research is not sufficient to find the best solutions for customers. The implementation of Design Thinking can support this process. But many companies and their product owners don’t know how much resources they should spend for conducting Design Thinking.
Objective: This paper aims at suggesting a supportive tool, the “Discovery Effort Worthiness (DEW) Index”, for product owners and agile teams to determine a suitable amount of effort that should be spent for Design Thinking activities.
Method: A case study was conducted for the development of the DEW index. Design Thinking was introduced into the regular development cycle of an industry Scrum team. With the support of UX and Design Thinking experts, a formula was developed to determine the appropriate effort for Design Thinking.
Results: The developed “Discovery Effort Worthiness Index” provides an easy-to-use tool for companies and their product owners to determine how much effort they should spend on Design Thinking methods to discover and validate requirements. A company can map the corresponding Design Thinking methods to the results of the DEW Index calculation, and product owners can select the appropriate measures from this mapping. Therefore, they can optimize the effort spent for discovery and validation.
Schema and data integration have been a challenge for more than 40 years. While data warehouse technologies are quite a success story, there is still a lack of information integration methods, especially if the data sources are based on different data models or do not have a schema. Enterprise Information Integration has to deal with heterogeneous data sources and requires up-to-date high-quality information to provide a reliable basis for analysis and decision-making. The paper proposes virtual integration using the Typed Graph Model to support schema mediation. The integration process first converts the structure of each source into a typed graph schema, which is then matched to the mediated schema. Mapping rules define transformations between the schemata to reconcile semantics. The mapping can be visually validated by experts. It provides indicators and rules to achieve a consistent schema mapping, which leads to high data integrity and quality.
Electronic design automation approaches can roughly be divided into optimizers and procedures. While the former have enabled highly automated synthesis flows for digital integrated circuits, the latter play a vital (but mostly underestimated role) in the analog domain. This paper describes both automation strategies in comparison, identifying two fundamentally different automation paradigms that reflect the two basic design practices known as “top-down” and “bottom-up”. Then, with a focus on the latter, the history of procedural approaches is traced from their
early beginnings until today’s evolvements and future prospects to underline their practical importance and to accentuate their scientific value, both in itself and in the overall context of EDA.
Enterprises and information societies confront crucial challenges currently, while Industry 4.0 becomes important in the global manufacturing industry and Society 5.0 should contribute to a supersmart society, especially for healthcare. Physical activity monitoring digital platforms are architected to improve the healthcare status of patients with diabetes and other lifestyle-related diseases. Furthermore, digital platforms are expected to generate profits for health technology companies and help control costs in the healthcare ecosystem. However, current digital enterprise architecture approaches are not well-established, and the potentials have not yet been realized. Design thinking approach and agile software development methodologies can overcome these limitations, beginning with proof of concept and pilot projects and then scaling to the production environment. In this paper, we describe how that the adaptive integrated digital architecture framework (AIDAF) for Design Thinking approach is proposed and verified in a case of a university hospital in the Americas. In addition, challenges and future activities for this area are discussed that cover the directions for Society 5.0.
This paper describes the analysis of day-ahead power market data from the European Power Exchange (EPEX) SPOT over a period of 17 months till October 2020 and the forecasting model for electricity prices. High volatility of the DE-LU (Germany and Luxembourg) power market in order to improve the planning of the bidding strategy and maximize benefits was reflected. Forecasting models based on the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) approach and artificial neural networks are developed to predict Day-Ahead prices up to a week ahead. Models are built for a virtual power plant Neckar-Alb and will be used as a part of an optimization tool for the operationtimetable of connected distributed energy devices
The energy sector in Germany, as in many other countries, is undergoing a major transformation. To achieve the climate targets, numerous measures to implement smart energy and resource efficiency are necessary. Therefore, energy companies are experiencing increasing pressure from politics and society to transform their business areas in a sustainable manner and implement smart and sustainable business models. Consequently, numerous resources are expected to flow into the development and implementation of new business models. But often these efforts remain unsuccessful in practice. There is a large amount of literature on barriers and drivers of smart and sustainable business models in the energy sector. But what are the factors that companies struggle with most when developing and implementing new business models in practice? To answer this question, the results of a systematic literature review were evaluated by conducting semi-structured interviews with experts of the German energy sector. Six categories of transformation barriers were identified: Organizational, Financial, Legal, Partner-Network, Societal and Technological barriers. To overcome these barriers, recommendations for action and key success factors are outlined by the experts interviewed. The interview study validates key barriers and drivers in terms of their significance in practice in the German energy sector and makes recommendations to advance the smart and sustainable transformation of the energy sector.
Imagine a world in which the search for tomorrow's trends is not subject to a long and laborious data search but is possible with a single mouse click. Through the use of artificial intelligence (AI), this reality is made possible and is to be further advanced through research. The study therefore aims to provide an initial overview of the young research field. Based on research, expert interviews, company and student surveys, current application possibilities of AI in the innovation process (defined as Smart Innovation), existing challenges that slow down the further development are discussed in more detail and future application possibilities are presented. Finally, a recommendation for action is made for business, politics and science to help overcome the current obstacles together and thus drive the future of Smart Innovation.
Avatars are in use when interacting in virtual environments in different contexts, in collaborative work, as well as in gaming and also in virtual meetings with friends. Therefore it is important to understand how the relationship between user and avatar works. In this study, an online survey is used to determine how the perception of an avatar changes in different contexts by relating it to existing avatar relationship typologies. Additionally, it is determined whether in each context a realistic, abstract or comic-like representation is preferred by the participants. One result was a preference of low poly representations in the work context, which are associated with the perception of the avatar as a tool. In the context of meeting friends, a realistic representation is perceived as more appropriate, which is perceived as an accurate self-representation. In the gaming context, the results are less clear, which can be attributed to different gaming preferences. Here, unlike in the other contexts, a comic-like representation is also perceived as appropriate, which is associated with the perception of the avatar as a friend. A symbiotic user-avatar relationship is not directly related to any form of representation, but always lies in the midfield, which is attributed to the fact that it represents a whole spectrum between other categories.
In this work, a comparison between different brushless harmonic-excited wound-rotor synchronous machines is performed. The general idea of all topologies is the elimination of the slip rings and auxiliary windings by using the already existing stator and rotor winding for field excitation. This is achieved by injecting a harmonic airgap field with the help of power electronics. This harmonic field does not interact with the fundamental field, it just transfers the excitation power across the airgap. Alternative methods with varying number of phases, different pole-pair combinations, and winding layouts are covered and compared with a detailed Finite-Element-parameterized model. Parasitic effects due to saturation and coupling between the harmonic and main windings are considered.
Today's logistics systems are characterized by uncertainty and constantly changing requirements. Rising demand for customized products, short product life cycles and a large number of variants increases the complexity of these systems enormously. In particular, intralogistics material flow systems must be able to adapt to changing conditions at short notice, with little effort and at low cost. To fulfil these requirements, the material flow system needs to be flexible in three important parameters, namely layout, throughput and product. While the scope of the flexibility parameters is described in literature, the respective effects on an intralogistics material flow system and the influencing factors are mostly unknown. This paper describes how flexibility parameters of an intralogistics system can be determined using a multi-method simulation. The study was conducted in the learning factory “Werk150” on the campus of Reutlingen University with its different means of transport and processes and validated in terms of practical experiments.
Deep learning-based EEG detection of mental alertness states from drivers under ethical aspects
(2021)
One of the most critical factors for a successful road trip is a high degree of alertness while driving. Even a split second of inattention or sleepiness in a crucial moment, will make the difference between life and death. Several prestigious car manufacturers are currently pursuing the aim of automated drowsiness identification to resolve this problem. The path between neuro-scientific research in connection with artificial intelligence and the preservation of the dignity of human individual’s and its inviolability, is very narrow. The key contribution of this work is a system of data analysis for EEGs during a driving session, which draws on previous studies analyzing heart rate (ECG), brain waves (EEG), and eye function (EOG). The gathered data is hereby treated as sensitive as possible, taking ethical regulations into consideration. Obtaining evaluable signs of evolving exhaustion includes techniques that obtain sleeping stage frequencies, problematic are hereby the correlated interference’s in the signal. This research focuses on a processing chain for EEG band splitting that involves band-pass filtering, principal component analysis (PCA), independent component analysis (ICA) with automatic artefact severance, and fast fourier transformation (FFT). The classification is based on a step-by-step adaptive deep learning analysis that detects theta rhythms as a drowsiness predictor in the pre-processed data. It was possible to obtain an offline detection rate of 89% and an online detection rate of 73%. The method is linked to the simulated driving scenario for which it was developed. This leaves space for more optimization on laboratory methods and data collection during wakefulness-dependent operations.
In the upcoming years, huge benefits are expected from Artificial Intelligence (AI). However, there are also risks involved in the technology, such as accidents of autonomous vehicles or discrimination by AI-based recruitment systems. This study aims to investigate public perception of these risks, focusing on realistic risks of Narrow AI, i.e., the type of AI that is already productive today. Based on perceived risk theory, several risk scenarios are examined using data from an exploratory survey. This research shows that AI is perceived positively overall. The participants, however, do evaluate AI critically when being confronted with specific risk scenarios. Furthermore, a strong positive relationship between knowledge about AI and perceived risk could be shown. This study contributes to knowledge by advancing our understanding of the awareness and evaluation of the risks by consumers and has important implications for product development, marketing and society.
Assistant platforms are becoming a key element for the business model of many companies. They have evolved from assistance systems that provide support when using information (or other) systems to platforms in their own. Alexa, Cortana or Siri may be used with literally thousands of services. From this background, this paper develops the notion of assistant platforms and elaborates a conceptual model that supports businesses in developing appropriate strategies. The model consists of three main building blocks, an architecture that depicts the components as well as the possible layers of an assistant platform, the mechanism that determines the value creation on assistant platforms, and the ecosystem with its network effects, which emerge from the multi-sided nature of assistant platforms. The model has been derived from a literature review and is illustrated with examples of existing assistant platforms. Its main purpose is to advance the understanding of assistant platforms and to trigger future research.
Manufacturing companies are confronted with external (e.g. short-term change of product configuration by the customer) and internal (e.g. production process deviations) turbulences which are affecting the performance of production. Predefined, centrally controlled logistics processes are limiting the possibilities of production to initiate countermeasures to react in an optimized way to these turbulences. The autonomous control of intralogistics offers a great potential to cope with these turbulences by using the respective flexibility corridors of production systems and applying intelligent logistic objects with decentralized decision and process execution capabilities to maintain a target-optimized production. A method for AI-based storage-location- and material-handling-optimization to achieve performance-optimized intralogistics system through continuous monitoring of performance-relevant parameters and influencing factors by using AI (e.g. for pattern recognition) has been developed. To provide the basis to investigate and demonstrate the potentials of autonomously controlled intralogistics in connection with turbulences of production and in combination with AI, an intelligent warehouse involving an indoor localization system, smart bins, manual, semi-automated/collaborative and autonomous transport systems has been developed and implemented at Werk150, the factory on campus of ESB Business School (Reutlingen University). This scenario, which has been integrated into graduate training modules, allows the analysis and demonstration of different measures of intralogistics to cope with turbulences in production involving amongst others storage and material provision processes. The target fulfilment of the applied intralogistics measures to master arising turbulences is assessed based on the overall performance of production considering lead times and adherence to delivery dates. By applying artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms the intelligent logistical objects (smart bin, transport systems, etc.) as well as the entire logistics system should be enabled to improve their decision and process execution capabilities to master short-term turbulences in the production system autonomously.
In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has increasingly become a relevant technology for many companies. While there are a number of studies that highlight challenges and success factors in the adoption of AI, there is a lack of guidance for firms on how to approach the topic in a holistic and strategic way. The aim of this study is therefore to develop a conceptual framework for corporate AI strategy. To address this aim, a systematic literature review of a wide spectrum of AI-related research is conducted, and the results are analyzed based on an inductive coding approach. An important conclusion is that companies should consider diverse aspects when formulating an AI strategy, ranging from technological questions to corporate culture and human resources. This study contributes to knowledge by proposing a novel, comprehensive framework to foster the understanding of crucial aspects that need to be considered when using the emerging technology of AI in a corporate context.
This paper presents an improvement in usability and integrity of simulation-based analog circuit sizing. Instead of using geometrical sizing parameters (width, length), a transformed design-space, consisting exclusively of electrical parameters (branch currents, efficiencies and speed) is utilized. This design-space is explored more efficiently by optimizers. Moreover, this design-space can be reduced without affecting the quality of the result. The method is illustrated on two application examples, a symmetrical and a miller operational amplifier. Sizing the circuits using the transformed design-space showed significant reduction in required circuit simulations (up to 11x faster), better convergence, without loss in quality.
Durch das Verbot der ozonschädigenden Fluor-Chlorkohlenwasserstoffen als Kältemittel und der heute überwiegend eingesetzten Fluor-Kohlenwasserstoffe, welche sich negativ auf den Treibhauseffekt auswirken, gewinnt das umweltfreundlichere CO2 (Kohlendioxid) in der Verwendung als Kältemittel an Bedeutung. Ausgangspunkt dieser Arbeit sind ein Prototyp einer reversiblen CO2 Wärmepumpe und ein Simulationsmodell derselbigen. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es das Simulationsmodell, anhand von realen Messergebnissen des Prototyps, zu verifizieren. Durch die Berechnung von Vergleichsparametern, das Festlegen von Randbedingungen und geeigneten Messpunkten am Prototyp wird die Simulation optimiert. Abschließend folgt die Bewertung der Ergebnisse im Hinblick auf die Funktionalität der Wärmepumpe und deren Abbild in der Simulation.
Continuous monitoring of individual vital parameters can provide information for the assessment of one’s health and indications of medical problems in the context of personalized medicine. Correlations between parameters and health issues are to be evaluated. As one project in this topic area, a telemedicine platform is implemented to gather data of outpatients via wearables and accumulate them for physicians and researchers to review. This work extracts requirements, draws use case scenarios, and shows the current system architecture consisting of a patient application, a physician application with a web server, and a backend server application. In further work, the prototype will assist to develop a vendor-free and open monitoring solution. A conclusion on functionality and usability will be evaluated in an imminent first study.