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Due to the consequential impact of technological breakdowns, companies have to be prepared to deal with breakdowns or even better prevent them. In today's information technology, several methods and tools exist to downscale this concern. Therefore, this paper deals with the initial determination of a resilient enterprise architecture supporting predictive maintenance in the information technology domain and furthermore, concerns several mechanisms on how to reactively and proactively secure the state of resiliency on several abstraction levels. The objective of this paper is to give an overview on existing mechanisms for resiliency and to describe the foundation of an optimized approach, combining infrastructure and process mining techniques.
Automatisierte Analyse von Review-Daten beschäftigt sich mit den Möglichkeiten, freien Text zu analysieren und relevante Informationen daraus zu extrahieren. Die Arbeit setzt sich dabei mit Methoden des unüberwachten Lernens auseinander. Hierbei steht die Methode der Topic Modellierung im Mittelpunkt. Es werden Verfahren betrachtet, die im Bereich der textbasierten Informationsgewinnung bekannt sind. Latent Semantic Indexing LSI, (probabilistic) pLSI und Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) werden erläutert und verglichen. Die Arbeit zeigt, wie LDA genutzt wurde, um einen nhaltlichen Überblick über einen Datenkorpus von 1 Mio. Reviews zu bekommen und diesen auf einen feineren Detailgrad zu betrachten. Die Topic-basierte Analyse wird genutzt, um Erkentnisse für ein Opinion Mining System zu generieren, welches eine tiefergehende Analyse vornehmen wird. Der gesamte Prozess ist als vollständig automatisiert und maschinell unüberwacht konzeptioniert.
Mature economies which are driven mainly by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly becoming dependent on material imports. Global material consumption is ever increasing, mainly driven by population increases. Decoupling of material consumption from economic growth is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. Within this paper available methods for the assessment of material efficiency on different economic scales are investigated and those detected that are particulary suitable for the use in SMEs. Recommendations for further improvements of the selected tools and an outlook concerning planned research activities in the field of material efficiency in enterprises, supply chains and circular economy aspects are given.
Instead of waiting for and constantly adapting to details of political interventions, utilities need to focus on their environment from a holistic perspective. The unique position of the company - be it a local utility, a bigger player, or an international utility specializing in specitic segments - has to be the basis of goals and strategies. But without consistent translation of these goals and strategies into processes, structures, and company culture, a strategy remains pure theory. Companies need to engage in a continuing learning process. This means being willing to pass on strategies, to slow down or speed up, to work from a different angle etc.
Theoretical foundation, effectiveness, and design artefact for machine learning service repositories
(2022)
Machine learning (ML) has played an important role in research in recent years. For companies that want to use ML, finding the algorithms and models that fit for their business is tedious. A review of the available literature on this problem indicates only a few research papers. Given this gap, the aim of this paper is to design an effective and easy-to-use ML service repository. The corresponding research is based on a multi-vocal literature analysis combined with design science research, addressing three research questions: (1) How is current white and gray literature on ML services structured with respect to repositories? (2) Which features are relevant for an effective ML service repository? (3) How is a prototype for an effective ML service repository conceptualized? Findings are relevant for the explanation of user acceptance of ML repositories. This is essential for corporate practice in order to create and use ML repositories effectively.
The use of gamification in workplace learning to encourage employee motivation and engagement
(2019)
When we think about playing a game, be it a card game, board game, sport, or video game, we generally associate the act of playing with a positive experience like having fun, enjoying the interaction with others, or feeling a greater motivation to reach a certain goal. By contrast, workplace learning is often perceived as being dull. Employees are likely at some point in their career to find themselves stuck in a rigidly defined seminar for a long period of time or in front of their computer navigating through a mandatory e-learning course on a dry topic such as standards of business conduct of safety policies.
In recent years, organizations have tried to leverage the motivating quality of games for more serious learning contexts. Gamification entails transferring those elements and principles from games to nongaming context that improve user experience and engagement. In this chapter, we will specifically focus on the context of workplace learning.
We investigated the state of artificial intelligence (AI) in pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) and outline here a risk and reward perspective regarding digital R&D. Given the novelty of the research area, a combined qualitative and quantitative research method was chosen, including the analysis of annual company reports, investor relations information, patent applications, and scientific publications of 21 pharmaceutical companies for the years 2014 to 2019. As a result, we can confirm that the industry is in an ‘early mature’ phase of using AI in R&D. Furthermore, we can demonstrate that, despite the efforts that need to be managed, recent developments in the industry indicate that it is worthwhile to invest to become a ‘digital pharma player’.
Induced by a societal decision to phase out conventional energy production - the so-called Energiewende (energy transition) - the rise of distributed generation acts as a game changer within the German energy market. The share of electricity produced from renewable resources increased to 31,6% in 2015 (UBA, 2016) with a targeted share of renewable resources in the electricity mix of 55%-60% in 2035 (RAP, 2015), opening perspectives for new products and services. Moreover, the rapidly increasing degree of digitization enables innovative and disruptive business models in niches at the grid's edge that might be the winners of the future. It also stimulates the market entry of newcomers and competitors from other sectors, such as IT or telecommunication, challenging the incumbent utilities. For example, virtual and decentral market places for energy are emerging; a trend that is likely to speed up considerably by blockchain technology, if the regulatory environment is adjusted accordingly. Consequently, the energy business is turned upside down, with customers now being at the wheel. For instance, more than one-third of the renewable production capacities are owned by private persons (Trendsearch, 2013). Therefore, the objective of this chapter is to examine private energy consumer and prosumer segments and their needs to derive business models for the various decentralized energy technologies and services. Subsequently, success factors for dealing with the changing market environment and consequences of the potentially disruptive developments for the market structure are evaluated.
Purpose: This paper is to show what sustainable fashion is and how it has developed in recent years. Also the paper discusses which factors are important in order to be sustainable. Above all, it's about customers who show a lot interest in sustainable fashion. Child labor, working conditions, poor quality and poisonous substances are stricty rejected by these consumers. Amazingly, fashion companies that repeatedly hit the headlines with bad properties are very successful. It's about the sustainable oxymoron, the act and want of the consumer.
Findings: It is difficult to be sustainable. The reasons for that are the consumption, not much transparency in textile chains, fast fashion and much more. It's almost impossible for a product to achieve the 100 percent sustainability. On one hand the consumers want to have sustainable products, on the other hand they purchase for newness and cheap clothes. It has become clear that they buy in a conflict.
The sound of brands
(2019)
The aim of this research paper is to both examine and conceptualise the concept of audio branding. Audio branding is an important part of the overall brand management concept and corporate identity. Strong brands ease the choice for customers and convey values and a certain quality promise. Branding is of vital importance. It needs to be acknowledged that only 0.004% of all outer stimuli reach the human consciousness. Therefore, audio branding is a way to further strengthen the overall brand awareness. This leads to an emotional connection with a brand.
This study strives to determine the characteristics of audio branding and to analyse the corporate audio branding of Audi. The result of this research study is the suggestion of the use of audio branding in a way that fits the overall brand picture. Otherwise, the brand communication is inconsistent, and this could lead to a misunderstanding of the brand values for customers. The analysis of the Audi corporate sound design might be beneficial for practitioners. The overall evaluation of the concept of audio branding contributes to the existing body of literature in branding.
This article explores current debate on the use of soft power in international higher education, highlighting existing tensions between competing political and academic discourses. It draws on examples from practice and relevant insights in soft power scholarship to capture varying paradoxes and dilemmas that emerge as nations try to leverage the power of international tertiary education to enhance their brand and attract foreign audiences in the name of public diplomacy. Whilst exposing cases of hubris and hidden agendas, this study also addresses issues of inequality and responds to a growing call for knowledge diplomacy aimed at tackling common global problems.
CODE RED FOR HUMANITY. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil-fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk. Global heating is affecting every region on Earth, with many of the changes becoming irreversible. (Guterres 2021)
The digitalisation ongoing in households and sustainability-related challenges are multifaceted and complex. The introducing quote of the United Nations Secretary-General refers to the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), emphasising the urgency to act – now. As of today, becoming a sustainable population is still a distant destination. As outlined in the previous chapters, the challenges associated with that transformation remain huge, complex, and largely unsolved. Recent dramas such as the power incident in Texas (2021), the floods in Germany (2021), or the drought in sub-Saharan Africa (2020s) – are just a few of the uncountable issues stirring up the debate about fossil-fuel abandonment and the timing of climate neutrality. Business research can actually be accused of referring to the persistent focus on gains and growth, despite early warnings for society at large (e.g., Meadows et al., 1972; Kölsch & Veit, 1981; Veit & Thatcher, 2023). However, academic researchers, corporations, and society are now waking up, as shown by the climate change conference. In fact, it appears that the information systems (IS) discipline just began tackling mammoth challenges around climate change within the last decade (Melville, 2010; Watson et al., 2010). The central discussion in emerging work revolves around the role and use of digital technologies on the path to a healthy planet. But while early studies have focused on organisational settings (e.g., Gholami et al., 2016; Seidel et al., 2013), increasingly research addresses private settings (e.g., Wunderlich et al., 2019).
The digital twin concept has been widely known for asset monitoring in the industry for a long time. A clear example is the automotive industry. Recently, there has also been significant interest in the application of digital twins in healthcare, especially in genomics in what is known as precision medicine. This work focuses on another medical speciality where digital twins can be applied, sleep medicine. However, there is still great controversy about the fundamentals that constitute digital twins, such as what this concept is based on and how it can be included in healthcare effectively and sustainably. This article reviews digital twins and their role so far in what is known as personalized medicine. In addition, a series of steps will be exposed for a possible implementation of a digital twin for a patient suffering from sleep disorders. For this, artificial intelligence techniques, clinical data management, and possible solutions for explaining the results derived from artificial intelligence models will be addressed.
Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, such as machine learning or deep learning, have been predicted to highly impact future organizations and radically change the way how projects are managed. The Project Management Institute (PMI), the network of around 1.1 million certified project managers, ranked AI as one of the top three disruptors of their profession. In an own study on the effect of AI, 37% of the project management processes can be executed by machine learning and other AI technologies. In addition, Gartner recently postulated that 80% of the work of today's project managers may be eliminated by AI in 2030.
This editorial aims to outline today's project and portfolio management in context of pharmaceutical research and development (R&D), followed by an AI-vision and a more tangible mission, and illustrate what the consequences of an AI-enabled project and portfolio management could be for pharmaceutical R&D.
This book examines the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in East Africa. The BRI is considered China's central geopolitical and geo-economic project in the era of President Xi Jinping. Through this work, the author aims to contribute to filling some research gaps, such as the lack of depth in studies of individual BRI projects and the underconsideration of processing narratives in participating countries. The guiding question is the extent to which the BRI is a political or hegemonic project of the CCP-directed state-civil society complex in East Africa. To answer these questions, databases of international organizations and policy documents are analyzed. In addition, the author conducts a qualitative content analysis of newspaper articles from local media houses in the countries of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania to examine three infrastructure projects. The work illustrates that the BRI contributes to increasing connectivity in East Africa. At the same time, the compression of economic relations and the implementation of infrastructure projects in East Africa lead to numerous consequences and contour a hegemonic project.
The management of football brands : brand identity management illustrated by Borussia Dortmund
(2017)
Despite a growing awareness of the importance of the management of trademarks at the club level, there is a significant delay regarding the professional management of the brand within the Bundesliga clubs. So far, the principles of brand identity management were rarely applied, and most clubs have given up, despite a high economic potential, the ability to create competitive advances in economic terms, but also in sports terms. In this chapter, we will study the success factors of the management of brand identity of professional football clubs from the actual case of Borussia Dortmund.
The fashion industry is well documented for causing significant environmental impact. Product-service systems (PSS) present a promising way to solve this challenge. PSS shift the focus toward complementary service offers, which decouples customer satisfaction from material consumption and entails dematerialization. However, PSS are not ecoefficient by nature but need to be accompanied by corporate environmental management (CEM) practices. The objective of this article is to examine the potential of PSS to contribute to the environmental sustainability of today's fashion industry by investigating if fashion firms with a positive attitude toward PSS implementation also pursue goals related to the ecological environment. For this purpose, analysis of variance (ANOVA) is conducted to analyze data of 102 fashion firms. Results reveal that the diffusion of PSS in today's fashion industry is low and few firms consider implementing PSS. Results, furthermore, demonstrate that PSS implementation is positively related to CEM. This indicates that existing structures of CEM favor PSS implementation and unlock the eco-efficient potential of implemented PSS in the fashion industry.
In order to be innovative, an organisation has to utilise the skills of all its employees. Implementing the potential of women, older staff members as well as people with different backgrounds leads to more creative ideas, new approaches and results in more innovative products. But how can a company use the innovative potential of its diverse workforce? And how can customer diversity be used to create innovations?
This book answers these questions as well as many more related to the topic of diversity management and innovation. Special emphasis is put on the role of women in the innovation system. Therefore, the language and effects of pictures used in job advertisements are addressed. Moreover, measures to advocate highly innovative women are identified including their demands regarding workplace requirements.
In addition, the book deals with diversity management in both publicly traded companies and public institutions. The involvement of children as Lead Users along the product development process is addressed as well. Given the fact that innovation does not only comprise products, but also services, a separate chapter focusing on the effect of Diversity on service innovations is included.
Relationship Marketing (RM) presumes trust as an important antecedent for the performance of interfirm relationships. Current research is dominated by an interpersonal perspective. In this research tack, trust chiefly emerges as a result of interpersonal relationships. But multiple risks arise if customer trust rests solely on elements inextricably linked to single representatives. Hence, this paper evaluates the impact of organizational capabilities and the moderating role of customer preferences on the trust creation process. The framework presented here is tested cross-industry on 220 customers for IT solutions. The results offer significant insight into the effectiveness of individual and organizational RM strategies.
Pharmaceutical companies are among the top investors into research and development (R&D) globally, as product innovation is still the main growth driver for the industry and because the related complexities necessitate enormous R&D investments. The market demand for new medicines to be more efficacious or to provide better safety than existing drugs and the regulatory need to prove superiority in clinical trials are reasons why drug R&D is increasingly expensive and pharmaceutical companies need to manage extraordinarily high costs per approved new compound.
This study analyses the impact of Basel III on the fair pricing of bank guarantee facilities.Guarantees are an important risk mitigation instrument between exporters and importers in international trade and regularly a prerequisite for cross border sales contracts to be closed. Basel III – which shall be introduced from 2013 onwards - is a new regulation stipulating higher capital requirements for banks compared to the predecessor Basel II. It will therefore have an impact on the pricing of guarantee facilities which banks provide to exporting companies, making it also a crucial regulation for the cost of exportation overall. The study compares those contents of Basel III and Basel II which are particularly relevant for guarantees in order to identify and crystallize pricing-relevant changes in the regulations and their respective impact potential. The Basel frameworks are analyzed part by part and reviewed in terms of relevance for guarantees. In case of ambiguity the analysis is verified by complementary expert interviews. References and examples are mainly focusing on the German banking system but the basic conclusions can be generalized for those countries adopting Basel III.1 As the result, a case study expresses the quantitative outcomes of different scenarios and the impact of the different price determining factors on the overall fair pricing of bank guarantee facilities.
The Football World Cup 2014
(2017)
International sporting events such as the Football World Cup constitute the ideal platform for companies to implement their target-group-specific marketing communications. Therefore, sporting event organisers sell exclusive marketing rights for their events to official sponsors. In return, these sponsors acquire exclusive opportunities to utilise the event for their own marketing purposes.
Ambush marketing is the method used by companies that do not actually hold marketing rights to an event, but still use marketing activities in diverse ways to establish a connection to it. The philosophy of ambush marketing consists of achieving conventional marketing objectives using unconventional methods. However, it creates the risk of fines or punishment, since companies that use these strategies even though they do not have sponsorship rights are violating legal requirements.
This case study introduces and analyses the marketing communications tools of sports sponsorship and ambush marketing.
In a recent publication Novy-Marx (2013) finds evidence that the variable gross profitability has a strong statistical influence on the common variation of stock returns. He also points out that there is common variation in stock returns related to firm profitability that is not captured by the three-factor model of Fama and French (1993). Thus, this thesis augments the three-factor model by the factor gross profitability and examines whether a profitability-based four-factor model is able to better explain monthly portfolio excess returns on the German stock market compared to the three-factor model of Fama and French (1993) and the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). Based on monthly stock returns of the CDAX over the period July 2008 to June 2014 this thesis documents four main findings. First, a significant positive market risk premium and a significant positive value premium can be identified. No evidence is found for a size or a profitability effect. Second, all included factors have a strong significant effect on monthly portfolio excess returns. Third, the four-factor model clearly outperforms both the three-factor model of Fama and French (1993) and the CAPM in capturing the common variation in monthly portfolio excess returns. The CAPM performs worst. Finally, the results indicate that the three-factor model of Fama and French (1993) is somewhat better in explaining the cross-section of portfolio excess returns than the four-factor model. Again, the CAPM performs worst. Nevertheless, the four-factor model is considered to be an improvement over the three-factor model of Fama and French (1993) and the CAPM in determining stock returns on the German stock market.
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze if the practice of emotional fashion advertising has ethical dimensions, which must be considered by the companies using those advertising approaches in order to adhere to their general ethical and social responsibility.
Findings: First it was shown that companies have a social and hence ethical responsibility toward the society they operate in and that this responsibility includes their marketing and advertising activities. Furthermore it was examined how emotional advertising works in order to analyze this practice from an ethical point of view. It was shown that an emotional advertising approach can have negative effects on consumers and therefore could jeopardize a company's ethical responsibility.
Entrepreneurship education is becoming increasingly important in higher education and also drives the development of innovative teaching formats, which can increase student engagement. It does, however, need greater international focus to become more attractive for both domestic and international students. This paper presents the examination and course design of two case studies, which promote entrepreneurship education for domestic and international students. These examples show that entrepreneurship courses are attractive due to their focus on interdisciplinarity, experience-based learning, and project-based work. Following a design-based research approach, this paper provides a practical contribution by offering a detailed overview of course design principles, classroom practice and presents reflections and learnings from an iterative development process.
The economic thought of Friedrich List. - (Routledge studies in the history of economics ; 16)
(2019)
Friedrich List is, besides Karl Marx, one of the most important economists of the 19th century in Germany. Probably most modern economists know List for his idea of educational tariffs that protect infant industries from international competition an help them to become competitive before their country opens the domestic market for foreign rivals. Furthermore, List is still popular because of his contribution to establishing a railway system in the USA and Germany. However, a closer look at his work reveals that his ideas about the economic system could enrich the current theoretical and political debate on international trade and integration as well as economic growth.
Context
In a world of high dynamics and uncertainties, it is almost impossible to have a long-term prediction of which products, services, or features will satisfy the needs of the customer. To counter this situation, the conduction of Continuous Improvement or Design Thinking for product discovery are common approaches. A major constraint in conducting product discovery activities is the high effort to discover and validate features and requirements. In addition, companies struggle to integrate product discovery activities into their agile processes and iterations.
Objective
This paper aims at suggests 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 on Design Thinking activities. To operationalize DEW, proposals for practitioners are presented that can be used to integrate product discovery into product development and delivery.
Method
A case study was conducted for the development of the DEW index. In addition, we conducted an expert workshop to develop proposals for the integration of product discovery activities into the product development and delivery process.
Results
First, we present the "Discovery Effort Worthiness Index" in form of a formula. Second, we identified requirements that must be fulfilled for systematic integration of product discovery activities into product development and delivery. Third, we derived from the requirements proposals for the integration of product discovery activities with a company's product development and delivery.
Conclusion
The developed "Discovery Effort Worthiness Index" provides a tool for companies and their product owners to determine how much effort they should spend on Design Thinking methods to discover and validate requirements. Integrating product discovery with product development and delivery should ensure that the results of product discovery are incorporated into product development. This aims to systematically analyze product risks to increase the chance of product success.
Study programs in higher education have to reflect important societal and industrial challenges to prepare the next generations of professionals for future tasks. The focus of this paper is the challenge of digitalization and digital transformation. The paper proposes the IS education profile of a Digital Business Architect (DBA). The study program emphasizes design thinking, model centricity, and capability thinking as a response to domain requirements from digital transformation and educational system and structure requirements. Experiences in implementing the DBA include the need for integrating deductive and inductive teaching, a strong basis in real-world cases, and collaborative learning approaches to develop adequate competences in business model management, enterprise modeling, enterprise architecture management, and capability management.
Customer foresight is a relatively new research field. We introduce the customer foresight territory by discussing it localization between customer research and foresight research. For this purposse, we look at a variety of methods that help to understand customers and future realities. On this basis we provide an overwiew of customer foresight methods and outline an ideal-typical research journey.
With significant advancements in digital technologies, firms find themselves competing in an increasingly dynamic business environment. Therefore, the logic of business decisions is based on the agility to respond to emerging trends in a proactive way. By contrast, traditional IT governance (ITG) frameworks rely on hierarchy and standardized mechanisms to ensure better business/IT alignment. This conflict leads to a call for an ambidextrous governance, in which firms alternate between stability and agility in their ITG mechanisms. Accordingly, this research aims to explore how agility might be integrated in ITG. A quantitative research strategy is implemented to explore the impact of agility on the causal relationship among ITG, business/IT alignment, and firm performance. The results show that the integration of agile ITG mechanisms contributes significantly to the explanation of business/IT alignment. As such, firms need to develop a dual governance model powered by traditional and agile ITG mechanisms.
The Commitment of Traders report (CoT) has been around for over 30 years, consistently revealing the futures positions of key market players. This study's primary aim is to use the comprehensive data from the Commitment of Traders reports to develop a short-term reversal trading strategy. Against the benchmark, a S&P 500 buy-and-hold approach with a Sharpe ratio of 1.07, the CoT long only strategy generated significant results in six individual markets. Extending the strategy to long-and-short, two markets outperformed the benchmark significantly. However, a scenario analysis indicated underperformance of the CoT strategy when traded in a portfolio, confirming that the chosen strategy parameters could not generate excess Sharpe ratios. Our results indicate that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, more specifically the CoT report, contributed to efficient derivatives market.
Computers are increasingly used in teams in various contexts, for example in negotiations. Especially when using computer-support for decision making processes, it is an important question whether active collaboration within the team - for example via audio-conference - has additional benefits beyond the supply of full task-relevant information via computer. In team negotiations, team representatives are only able to represent the whole team, if diverse preferences of the team members are aligned prior to the negotiation. In an experimental study with 150 participants, we provided team members with the complete information about each other's preferences during an either collaboratively (computer-mediated) or seperately conducted computer-supported negotiation preparation and subsequently asked them for their priorities as representatives of the team. Our results showed that providing complete task-relevant information via computer is insufficient to compensate for the absence of active collaboration within the team.
Polycaprolactone (PCL) was electrospun with the addition of arginine (Arg), an α-amino acid that accelerates the haeling process. The efficient needleless electrospinning technique was used for the fabrication of the nanofibrous layers. The materials produced consisted mainly of fibers with diameters of between 200 and 400 nm. Moreover, both microfibers and beads were present within the layers. Higher bead sized were observed with the increased addition of arginine.
Today, virtualizing pharma R&D is increasingly related with data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI), technologies that have been developed by software companies outside the healthcare sector. The process of virtualizing pharma R&D is closely related to the technological advancements that result in the generation of large data sets ranging from genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, medical imaging, IoT wearables and large clinical trials, making it necessary for pharma companies to find new ways to store and ultimately analyze information. As a consequence, pharma companies are experimenting with AI in R&D ranging from in-silico drug design to clinical trail participants identification or dosage error reduction.
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.
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) affect a large number of children both in the Russian Federation and in Germany. Early diagnosis is key for these children, because the sooner parents notice such disorders in a child and the rehabilitation and treatment program starts, the higher the likelihood of his social adaptation. The difficulties in raising such a child lie in the complexity of his learning outside of children's groups and the complexity of his medical care. In this regard, the development of digital applications that facilitate medical care and education of such children at home is important and relevant. The purpose of the project is to improve the availability and quality of healthcare and social adaptation at home of children with ASD through the use of digital technologies.
Das vorliegende Taschenbuch fasst die bekannten Berechnungsformeln und Erkenntnisse aus der betrieblichen Praxis und aus wissenschaftlichen Untersuchungen im Bereich des Weberei-Vorwerks und der Weberei zusammen. Die bei der Gewebeherstellung notwendigen Entscheidungsprozesse sollen damit erleichtert werden.
Mit dieser Formelsammlung lassen sich jedoch nicht nur die optimalen Fertigungsvorschriften für Gewebe praxisgerecht erstellen, sondern auch die wichtigsten technischen und physikalischen Grundlagen des Fabrikbetriebs werden in der gebotenen Kürze dargestellt.
Das vorliegende Taschenbuch fasst die bekannten Berechnungsformeln und Erkenntnisse aus der betrieblichen Praxis und aus wissenschaftlichen Untersuchungen im Bereich des Weberei-Vorwerks und der Weberei zusammen. Die bei der Gewebeherstellung notwendigen Entscheidungsprozesse sollen damit erleichtert werden.
Mit dieser Formelsammlung lassen sich jedoch nicht nur die optimalen Fertigungsvorschriften für Gewebe praxisgerecht erstellen, sondern auch die wichtigsten technischen und physikalischen Grundlagen des Fabrikbetriebs werden in der gebotenen Kürze dargestellt.
Der pH-Wert der menschlichen Haut liegt nicht im neutralen Bereich, sondern ist mit Werten von 3,5-6 – je nach Körperstelle – leicht Sauer. Das bietet der Kommensalen Hautflora einen geeigneten Lebensraum, wirkt jedoch abtötend auf einige pathogene Mikroorganismen und inaktivierend auf einige Viren. Dieser Säureschutzmantel der Haut stellt somit eine erste äußere Schutzschicht vor dem Befall von Krankheitserregern dar. Ein entsprechender Oberflächen-pH-Wert auf Textilien kann dazu beitragen, die Übertragung von Krankheitserregern durch die Kleidung von Mitarbeitern im Gesundheitswesen zu minimieren und gleichzeitig keinen negativen Einfluss auf die hauteigene Flora auszuüben. Zudem kann die Besiedlung von z.B. Bettwäsche durch pathogene Mikroorganismen vermindert werden. Einen positiven Einfluss kann dies zudem auf die bakterienassoziierte Geruchsbildung auf Funktionskleidung haben.
Der pH-Wert der menschlichen Haut liegt nicht im neutralen Bereich, sondern ist mit Werten von 3,5-6 – je nach Körperstelle – leicht Sauer. Das bietet der Kommensalen Hautflora einen geeigneten Lebensraum, wirkt jedoch abtötend auf einige pathogene Mikroorganismen und inaktivierend auf einige Viren. Dieser Säureschutzmantel der Haut stellt somit eine erste äußere Schutzschicht vor dem Befall von Krankheitserregern dar. Ein entsprechender Oberflächen-pH-Wert auf Textilien kann dazu beitragen, die Übertragung von Krankheitserregern durch die Kleidung von Mitarbeitern im Gesundheitswesen zu minimieren und gleichzeitig keinen negativen Einfluss auf die hauteigene Flora auszuüben. Zudem kann die Besiedlung von z.B. Bettwäsche durch pathogene Mikroorganismen vermindert werden. Einen positiven Einfluss kann dies zudem auf die bakterienassoziierte Geruchsbildung auf Funktionskleidung haben.
Ziel der Arbeit von Julian Ilg ist die Entwicklung einer systematischen Eignungsanalyse zum Einsatz additiver Fertigungsverfahren im unternehmensspezifischen Kontext. Der Autor fasst die gängigsten additiven Fertigungsverfahren zusammen und liefert einen Überblick über die derzeitige Anwendung dieser Verfahren sowie über die Herausforderungen bei deren Einsatz am Beispiel von Unternehmen aus der Medizintechnik. Basierend auf diesen Erkenntnissen gelingt es dem Autor, interessierten Unternehmen eine quantifizierende Entscheidungshilfe zu liefern, die gleichermaßen sowohl die ingenieurswissenschaftlichen Punkte als auch die wirtschaftlichen Aspekte beim Umstieg vom herkömmlichen Herstellungsverfahren auf additive Fertigungsverfahren berücksichtigt.
Gegenstand dieser Arbeit ist die Darstellung und Charakterisierung einheitlicher, mesoporöser Silica-Partikel (MPSM) im Mikrometerbereich mit maßgeschneiderten Partikel- und Porendesign für die Hochleistungsflüssigkeitschromatographie. Die Synthese umfasst die Einlagerung von Silica-Nanopartikeln (SNP) in poröse organische Template, welche anschließend bei 600°C zersetzt werden. Die Impfsuspensionspolymerisation von Polystyrol-Partikeln, unter Verwendung von Glycidylmethacrylat, Ethylenglycoldimethacrylat und Porogenen, ermöglicht die Herstellung hochgradig einheitlicher, poröser p(GMA-co-EDMA)-Template. Der Einfluss wesentlicher Faktoren, einschließlich des Monomer-Porogen-Verhältnisses, des Monomerverhältnisses und der Porogenzusammensetzung, werden systematisch untersucht sowie ihre Auswirkungen auf die Porengröße, das Porenvolumen und die spezifische Oberfläche erläutert. Die Anbindung aminofunktionalisierter Substanzen erfolgt durch die Ringöffnung der Epoxidgruppe. Im anschließenden basischen Sol-Gel-Prozess werden die Silica-Nanopartikel aufgrund der Ladungsunterschiede in die funktionalisierten p(GMA-co-EDMA)-Template eingebaut. Die Partikelgröße der SNP beeinflusst wesentlich die Poreneigenschaften der MPSM und hängt von drei Faktoren ab: (i) der Wachstumsgeschwindigkeit in der kontinuierlichen Phase, die durch die Einstellungen des Sol-Gel-Prozesses gesteuert wird, (ii) der Diffusionsrate, die durch elektrostatische Anziehung reguliert wird und vom Grad der Funktionalisierung abhängt und (iii) der Porosität des Polymer-Templats. Die gezielte Anpassung der Poreneigenschaften durch die Prozesseinstellungen erlaubt die präzise Herstellung von MPSM, die auf spezifische Trennherausforderungen zugeschnitten werden und somit die Qualität der HPLC verbessern. Die vorgestellte Synthesestrategie ermöglicht, aufgrund des stufenweisen molekularen Aufbaus, eine bessere Adaption der stationären Phase an spezifische Trennherausforderungen.
After more than three decades of electronic design automation, most layouts for analog integrated circuits are still handcrafted in a laborious manual fashion today. This book presents Self-organized Wiring and Arrangement of Responsive Modules (SWARM), a novel interdisciplinary methodology addressing the design problem with a decentralized multi-agent system. Its basic approach, similar to the roundup of a sheep herd, is to let autonomous layout modules interact with each other inside a successively tightened layout zone. Considering various principles of self-organization, remarkable overall solutions can result from the individual, local, selfish actions of the modules. Displaying this fascinating phenomenon of emergence, examples demonstrate SWARM’s suitability for floorplanning purposes and its application to practical place-and-route problems. From an academic point of view, SWARM combines the strengths of procedural generators with the assets of optimization algorithms, thus paving the way for a new automation paradigm called bottom-up meets top-down.
The development and preservation of children’s innate creativity as they enter their professional career has grown in importance due to fundamental changes in today’s economy and society. It is therefore key to understand how teaching strategies can contribute to educational change in the early stages of schooling. Design teaching encompasses a variety of skills that can help schools shift their focus to foster children’s natural ability to “ask why” in their search for learning how to think and create. This article presents the results of an interdisciplinary workshop involving university students aiming to develop new educational approaches to foster children’s creativity through design to be implemented in the elementary school curriculum of the German federal state Baden-Württemberg. To support the workshop participants in providing a holistic concept within a compressed time period, a sustainability framework was included to further articulate their brief. The teams who were composed of chemists, computer scientists, designers, and engineers, followed the Design Thinking process to develop their proposals. A kick-off meeting presenting results of an international qualitative survey with elementary school teachers, as well as expert input during the workshop addressing the relevant topics, provided teams with key information to define their design directions. Concepts designed by each team exhibited a comprehensive solution resulting in both the abstract “education idea” and physical embodiments of the tools. Their outputs included products, interior concepts to be implemented in classrooms, exercises as well as games to support the newly developed educational models. The benefits and limitations of these concepts along with key observations of participants’ interdisciplinary collaboration are presented and discussed herein. Future work will investigate the Design knowledge of German elementary school teachers more in depth and will involve testing the new concepts in German elementary school environments.
The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of sustainability communication in the fashion industry on the customers’ behavior with a focus on consumers’ perception regarding websites with sustainability-specific content. Based on a profound literature review, a projective method in form of two dummy websites is developed. Both websites illustrate sustainability communication with comprehensive and transparent information demonstrating a credible, trustful and serious commitment. Additionally, both sites have the same structure and an appealing, visualized website design as well as a customer oriented communication. While each website consists of almost the same aspects such as Vision & Mission, Value chain, Corporate Commitment, Working Conditions, Environment, Social Commitment and documents such as a Sustainability Report and Code of Conduct, they differ enormously in the sustainability-specific content. For instance, website 1 represents a sustainable and responsible company communicating sustainable issues about eco-friendly materials, fair working conditions, ecological production and their social commitment. It further includes eco-friendly wash and care advices as seen by reformation to remember consumers to take care of the environment, e.g. to wash cold or by using ecological detergents. In contrast, website 2 does not represent a sustainable and responsible fashion brand. It also does not communicate sustainable efforts or a sustainable engagement. Rather it is about offering trendy, low-priced fast- fashion products, produced under unfair working conditions with wages and working hours as usual terms in production countries with a focus on style and design. Regarding website 2, all raw materials have been produced conventionally in developing countries and are therefore not eco-friendly, resulting in a pollution of the environment due to long transport routes. Additionally, the website voices the wish to improve the chances for developing animal protection only minimally, showing that the company is not socially committed. Although website 2 focuses on transparency and a customer-oriented communication, it is not sustainable. Both websites are tested via an online survey. A total of 90 fashion students participated in the sample.
In order to decouple economic growth from global material consumption it is necessary to implement material efficiency strategies at the level of single enterprises and their supply chains, and to implement circular economy aspects. Manufacturing firms face multiple implementation challenges like cost limitations, competition, innovation and stakeholder pressure, and supplier and customer relationships, among others
. An extended evaluation of triggers and barriers to improve material efficiency in manufacturing companies, along the supply chain and concerning circular economy considerations is provided. This paper delivers an extended literature review, a critical discussion of the current situation and resulting challenges concerning material efficiency approaches in manufacturing supply chains. Finally, a conclusion and outlook on further research direction is given.
The surface properties of human meibomian lipids (MGS), the major constituent of the tear film (TF) lipid layer, are of key importance for TF stability. The dynamic interfacial properties of films by MGS from normal eyes (nMGS) and eyes with meibomian gland dysfunction (dMGS) were studied using a Langmuir surface balance. The behavior of the samples during dynamic area changes was evaluated by surface pressure–area isotherms and isocycles. The surface dilatational rheology of the films was examined in the frequency range 10−5 to 1 Hz by the stress-relaxation method. A significant difference was found, with dMGS showing slow viscosity-dominated relaxation at 10−4 to 10−3 Hz, whereas nMGS remained predominantly elastic over the whole range. A Cole–Cole plot revealed two characteristic processes contributing to the relaxation, fast (on the scale of characteristic time τ < 5 s) and slow (τ > 100 s), the latter prevailing in dMGS films. Brewster angle microscopy revealed better spreading of nMGS at the air–water interface, whereas dMGS layers were non-uniform and patchy. The distinctions in the interfacial properties of the films in vitro correlated with the accelerated degradation of meibum layer pattern at the air–tear interface and with the decreased stability of TF in vivo. These results, and also recent findings on the modest capability of meibum to suppress the evaporation of the aqueous subphase, suggest the need for a re-evaluation of the role of MGS. The probable key function of meibomian lipids might be to form viscoelastic films capable of opposing dilation of the air–tear interface. The impact of temperature on the meibum surface properties is discussed in terms of its possible effect on the normal structure of the film.
Unternehmen arbeiten in Netzwerken mit vielfältigen Lieferanten- und Kundenbeziehungen und an unterschiedlichen Stellen der Wertschöpfungsketten. Dem Supply-Chain-Controlling kommt daher eine sehr hohe Bedeutung im Unternehmen zu. Es unterstützt das Management bei der Gestaltung und Steuerung unternehmensübergreifender Material-, Informations- und Geldflüsse. Dabei soll es die Effizienz und die Effektivität des unternehmerischen Handelns bzw. Entscheidens gewährleisten.