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Institute
Adding evidence of the effects of treatments into relevant Wikipedia pages: a randomised trial
(2020)
Adoption of artificial intelligence technologies in German SMEs — Results from an empirical study
(2021)
Forming complex parts out of high and ultra-high strength aluminium alloys has proved to be more challenging in comparison to the currently used deep drawing steels. Nevertheless, aluminium alloys show a limited formability in contrast with, for example, deep drawing steels. Novel processes like Warm-forming, W-Temper or Hotforming, offer the potential to produce light and highly integrated one-piece components from such aluminium alloys at elevated temperatures. When considering aluminium alloys of the 7000 group, which can reach strength values (UTS) of about 600 MPa, crash components such as side impact bars would offer a suitable field of application.
Forming at elevated temperatures, in particular with the Hotforming process, offers high potential in the production of complex structural components on the one hand and in the use of existing press hardening equipment on the other. To date, the material behaviour of aluminium alloys in the 7000 group, applied in such processes and in the later final state after forming, is not sufficiently known.
Therefore, in this study, systematic investigations on the formability and the final strength during and after forming at elevated temperature of the EN AW-7075 aluminium wrought alloy from different suppliers are conducted. In general, material- and damage/ failure models were created and implemented into simulation in order to make predictions. Characterisation of the plastic material properties on the basis of various tensile specimens as shear-, notched-, tensile- and Erichsen tests are carried out to adapt the complex material- and failure models such as Barlat YLD2000 and GISSMO to the experimental values using a parameter optimisation. These were made for the material conditions during forming, i.e. after solution heat treatment, the final condition after artificial ageing at 180°C for 20 minutes, which corresponds to the cathodic dip coating, and the T6 condition, which is the highest strength condition.
To evaluate a suitable friction coefficient for high temperature forming processes, anti-friction agents are screened, and the potential applicability evaluated by strip-drawing tests. Thereby, using an analytical relationship, friction coefficients are determined at room temperature and 180°C, which are used as corresponding friction model for the finite element forming simulation.
Crash simulations using the nonlinear finite element method (FEM) of side impact protection beams are used to demonstrate the weight saving potential of high and ultra-high strength aluminium alloys compared to a beam made of press hardened steel. A weight saving of about 20 % could be achieved with the same crash performance. This can be significantly increased to around 30 % - 40 % by using local reinforcements such as CFRP or GFRP (carbon/ glass fibre reinforced plastic) patch. For this reason, a novel process was developed which is based on the conventional Hotforming process with an integrated thermal direct joining step called “Extended Hotforming”.
Subsequently, a heatable forming tool for the production of a serial like sheet metal side impact beam was developed to validate the finite element simulation and to demonstrate the potential of the forming processes at elevated temperatures for aluminium sheet metal components.
This paper aims to provide essential information about the formal aspects of the adjustment process companies in Southern Germany utilize to adjust their employees to new surroundings. In particular, it shall be investigated and defined what formal aspects are and when firms apply them. Literature shows that companies do implement language courses, intercultural trainings or provide further information about the host country before a stay abroad. Nevertheless, the phases during and after the assignment are not taken into account with the required importance. Additionally, since national culture can be broken down into different layers, the organizational culture as one layer was analyzed, too.By conducting a quantitative research among companies in Baden-Württemberg, this paper shows the different approaches for dealing with a stay abroad. Scientific literature about the topic of adjustment of globally assigned workers shall help emphasizing the need of a deeper cultural insight. Furthermore, by attempting to explain the organizations’ culture, a better understanding of the chosen training methods shall be created. Definitions in the beginning helped to understand the concept of culture, the notion and the phases of adjustment. Almost all collected data has been accessed either through JSTOR (a digital library founded to help academic libraries or publishers) or similar databases, through the companies’ websites or through the survey results it selves.The results of this research show that the phase before the stay abroad is organized well. Companies offer pre-departure training, but during and after the expatriate time a lack of support is being observed. The firms obviously underestimate the necessary help needed during the assignment and in the return phase, which is why the thesis attempts to fill this gap. Through the organizational culture, described on the companies’ webpages the author was able to draw a conclusion to the applied training methods, which results in a consistent overall picture of the described firms. Companies from the automotive sector had the highest return rate in the survey, which is why particular attention was paid to it.
This paper describes an application analysis of one important topic of diversity
marketing – gender marketing. With the help of two surveys and content analyses
in two different media sectors – television and print media – the general trend of
gender representation in advertising could be located. While most survey
respondents are still using characteristics for males and females which were
shaped by traditional gender roles, most of them believe that the roles from the
1950s are outdated and that the media should adapt to the changes in societies in
regard to gender roles. However, the content analyses have shown that the
marketers have already adapted and are primarily presenting the viewers
contemporary images of men and women instead of the stereotyped ones from the
1950s. The only issue that has not changed yet is the color coding which starts to
differentiate between males and females since childhood. The findings of this
paper suggest that the perception and the reality do not always correspond with
each other and that, although the adoption of the change of gender roles is
advancing, it is still not completed yet.
Application of a robotic THz imaging system for sub-surface analysis of ancient human remains
(2019)
We used a robotic-based THz imaging system to investigate the sub-surface structure of an artificially mummified ancient Egyptian human left hand. The results obtained are compared to the results of a conventional CT and a micro-CT scan. Using such a robotic THz system promises new insights into the sub-surface structure of human remains. The depth resolution of the THz images exceeds the resolution of a conventional CT scan and is comparable with a micro-CT scan. The advantage of THz measurements over micro-CT scans is the fact that even comparatively large samples, like complete bodies, can be scanned. These would not fit into a conventional micro-CT scanner.
Although production processes in Industry 4.0 set- tings are highly automated, many complicated tasks, such as machine maintenance, continue to be executed by human workers. While smart factories can provide these workers with some digitalization support via Augmented Reality (AR) devices, these AR tasks depend on many contextual factors, such as live data feeds from machines in view, or current work safety conditions. Although currently feasible, these localized contextual factors are mostly not well-integrated into the global production process, which can result in various problems such as suboptimal task assignment, over-exposure of workers to hazards such as noise or heat, or delays in the production process. Current Business Process Management (BPM) Systems (BPMS) were not particularly designed to consider and integrate context-aware factors during planning and execution. This paper describes the AR-Process Framework (ARPF) for extending a BPMS to support context-integrated modeling and execution of processes with AR tasks in industrial use cases. Our realization shows how the ARPF can be easily integrated with prevalent BPMS. Our evaluation findings from a simulation scenario indicate that ARPF can improve Industry 4.0 processes with regard to AR task execution quality and cost savings.
This research looks into the question of where and how Artificial Intelligence and Big Data can be usefully implemented into Affiliate Marketing. By consulting relevant literature and qualified experts, this work identifies 6 areas, where Artificial Intelligence can be beneficial. These areas were found to be Affiliate Recruitment, Affiliate Management, Product Data Feed Optimization, Tracking, Attribution and Forecasting.
The implementation of Artificial Intelligence in these areas revealed 3 advantages to the Affiliate Marketing channel: Saving of time, support of decision-making, and incentivizing of publishers. While a more detailed study of this research topic would be necessary for validating the results, the findings show that the implementation of Artificial Intelligence technology can help a business gain competitive advantage.
Purpose: Although the frequency in which practitioners are fitting scleral
contact lenses is increasing, the recommendation for proper tear layer depth
(thickness) varies amongst experts. The main goal of this paper is to clinically
verify the effect of varying tear layer depths on induced corneal edema during
lens wear.
Methods: Ten subjects with healthy eyes were fitted with scleral lenses on their
right eye. Each of them was fit with two different lenses: one with an apical
clearance of 200 μm and another with an apical clearance of 600 μm. They wore
the lenses for 8 hours on two different days, with at least a one week wash-out
period. Lenses were applied at 8 a.m. on each of the testing days. Pachymetry
measurements were taken one day prior to lens wear at 4 p.m., on the day of
wear prior to lens application, and after removal of the lenses at 4 p.m.
Measurements were collected using both the Pentacam® HR Corneal
Tomographer, as well as the Visante Anterior Segment Optical Coherence
Tomographer (OCT). The apical clearance was measured using the
Visante OCT at two intervals during the test day: immediately after application of
the lens and immediately prior to the removal of the lens.
Results: In this study, there was found to be no significant difference in corneal
edematous response during lens wear between the two test groups. The study
shows that the eyes with the lenses have a statistically significantly thicker
cornea compared to the non-lens-wearing eye after wearing either lens for 8
hours, lying within clinically and physiologically acceptable limits.
Conclusion: Our clinical results do not correlate with current theoretical
calculations, which predict a greater amount of corneal swelling with increasing
tear layer thickness. It has to be evaluated if the effect on corneal edema
changes with longer wearing periods, larger samples or other influences.
Key words: scleral (contact) lens, corneal edema, pachymetry, tear layer
thickness, vaulting, apical clearance
Pharmaceutical agents or drugs often have a pronounced impact on protein-protein interactions in cells, and in particular, cell membranes. Changes of molecular conformations as well as of intermolecular interactions may affect dipole-dipole interaction between chromophoric groups, which can be proven by measuring the Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET). If these chromophores are located within or in close proximity to the plasma membrane, they are excited preferentially by an evanescent electromagnetic wave upon total internal reflection (TIR) of an incident laser beam. For the TIR-FRET screening of larger cell collectives, we performed three separate steps: (1) setting up of a membrane associated test system for probing the interaction between the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and the growth factor receptor-bound protein 2; (2) use of the Epac-SH188 sensor for quantitative evaluation under the microscope; and (3) application of a TIR fluorescence reader to probe the interaction of GFP with Nile Red. In the first two steps, we measured FRET from cyan (CFP) to yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) by spectral analysis and fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) upon illumination of whole cells (epi-illumination) as well as selective illumination of their plasma membranes by TIR. In particular, TIR excitation permitted FRET measurements with high sensitivity and low background. The Epac sensor showed a more rapid response to pharmaceutical agents, e.g., Forskolin or the A2B adenosine receptor agonist NECA, in close proximity to the plasma membrane compared to the cytosol. Finally, FRET from a membrane associated GFP to Nile Red was used to test a multi-well TIR fluorescence reader with simultaneous detection of a larger number of samples.
The surface topography of biodegradable polymer foils is modified by mechanical imprinting on a submillimeter length scale. The created patterns strongly influence the wetting behavior and allow the preparation of hydrophobic surfaces with controlled solid-liquid interaction. A detailed analysis of anisotropic surface patterns reveals that the observed effect arises from a combination of topographical and compositional changes that are introduced to the surface. As a main result it is found that an individual combination of material and structure is required for the production of water-repellent biopolymer foils that are highly attractive for packaging applications.
Creation of Liquid‐Air Dispersions in Oil and Water: Comparison of Calculations and Measurements
(2021)
The present study deals with the topic how a town can use its cultural heritage or,
more precisely, its industrial culture as a means to market itself as an innovative
business location and to foster a more pronounced sense of civic cohesion among
residents. Economic theory suggests that, nowadays, traditional location factors
such as access to resources and a performant infrastructure are less important than
in the industrial age. Recently, factors like a city’s potential to generate and retain
human and creative capital have emerged. Accordingly, the economic and social
role of cities has shifted – from a place where workers lived and manufactured
goods towards a deeply interwoven ecosystem of knowledge-intense value creation.
The question at the root of the present study is how Heidenheim’s rich industrial
cultural heritage can be used as a future-pointing source of power for rebranding
the town. This rebranding concept has to be developed according to the town’s role
in past, present and future, thus creating actual economic and societal value.
Industrial culture bears branding potential and is closely related to various aspects
of modern life and work. The study examines possibilities to create awareness for
these relations connecting past, present and future. Their relevance shall be
emphasized in order to establish both points of orientation and authenticity of place
in times when macroeconomic and societal trends are difficult to predict. Ideally,
residents shall be given a sort of local identification to hold on to, and potential
investors and entrepreneurs shall be encouraged to sustainably experience the
innovation-based DNA of Heidenheim. Therefore, the study searches for a value
proposition that takes into account the points mentioned above on terms of an
innovative theoretic framework. As a result of this thesis, precise suggestions for
the implementation of a new branding strategy based on the conceptual guidelines
developed in this study will be proposed to the municipality of Heidenheim and, in
addition, an interface using principles of virtual and augmented reality will be
introduced.