Conceptualizing Task-Technology Fit for Technology-Pervaded Value Co-Creation

The Service-Dominant Logic of Marketing (S-D logic) provides a theoretical lens that enables service scholars to understand emerging phenomena related to servitization. The current service literature lacks contributions that holistically capture and explain technology-pervaded value co-creation processes. While studies in Information Systems research often focus on peculiarities of digital technology, the Service Marketing literature concentrates on the value co-creation process. Service researchers, however, call for integrative contributions that illuminate both technology and co-creation processes to enhance our understanding of technology-pervaded value co-creation. In response to this call, we conceptualize the Task-Technology Fit model according to the notion of S-D logic. Our conceptual model allows to integrate both digital technology’s specific characteristics and depicts their impact on cocreation performance and the perceived value-in-use. According to our model, resource integration involves conducting individual tasks that result in a task-technology fit, which in turn impacts co-creation performance and individual performances. All subsequent performances either co-create or codestruct the perceived value-in-use. We contribute to service research by deconstructing the relationship between pervasive digital technology and value co-creation processes. The proposed conceptual model provides a first step towards closing the gap between the siloed research streams in the IS and Service Marketing literature

A Heterogeneous and Multi-Range Soft-Tissue Deformation Model for Applications in Adaptive Radiotherapy

During fractionated radiotherapy, anatomical changes result in uncertainties in the applied dose distribution. With increasing steepness of applied dose gradients, the relevance of patient deformations increases. Especially in proton therapy, small anatomical changes in the order of millimeters can result in large range uncertainties and therefore in substantial deviations from the planned dose. To quantify the anatomical changes, deformation models are required. With upcoming MR-guidance, the soft-tissue deformations gain visibility, but so far only few soft-tissue models meeting the requirements of high-precision radiotherapy exist. Most state-of-the-art models either lack anatomical detail or exhibit long computation times. In this work, a fast soft-tissue deformation model is developed which is capable of considering tissue properties of heterogeneous tissue. The model is based on the chainmail (CM)-concept, which is improved by three basic features. For the first time, rotational degrees of freedom are introduced into the CM-concept to improve the characteristic deformation behavior. A novel concept for handling multiple deformation initiators is developed to cope with global deformation input. And finally, a concept for handling various shapes of deformation input is proposed to provide a high flexibility concerning the design of deformation input. To demonstrate the model flexibility, it was coupled to a kinematic skeleton model for the head and neck region, which provides anatomically correct deformation input for the bones. For exemplary patient CTs, the combined model was shown to be capable of generating artificially deformed CT images with realistic appearance. This was achieved for small-range deformations in the order of interfractional deformations, as well as for large-range deformations like an arms-up to arms-down deformation, as can occur between images of different modalities. The deformation results showed a strong improvement in biofidelity, compared to the original chainmail-concept, as well as compared to clinically used image-based deformation methods. The computation times for the model are in the order of 30 min for single-threaded calculations, by simple code parallelization times in the order of 1 min can be achieved. Applications that require realistic forward deformations of CT images will benefit from the improved biofidelity of the developed model. Envisioned applications are the generation of plan libraries and virtual phantoms, as well as data augmentation for deep learning approaches. Due to the low computation times, the model is also well suited for image registration applications. In this context, it will contribute to an improved calculation of accumulated dose, as is required in high-precision adaptive radiotherapy

Community dynamics mining

In this paper we propose a model to analyze community dynamics. Recently, several methods and tools have been proposed to extract communities from static graphs. However, since communities are not static, but change over time, it is necessary to provide methods to determine and observe the community transitions and to extract the factors that cause the development. We regard a community as an object that exists over time and propose to observe community transitions along the time axis. For this we partition the time axis under observation by time windows. In each time window, a set of interactions between community participants is aggregated. These static networks are analyzed for subcommunities by applying community detection mechanisms. Through this we detect communities in each interval and can observe if communities persist over time or undergo a transition. We present community transitions and the observable indicators for the respective development. We furthermore present a software environment that incorporates several community detection and analysis methods to analyze community transitions. It supports a dynamic temporal community analysis and provides several forms of visualizations and analysis settings thus providing an interactive tool to observe community dynamics

Does functional soil microbial diversity contribute to explain within-site plant beta-diversity in an alpine grassland and a <i>dehesa</i> meadow in Spain?

Questions: Once that the effects of hydrological and chemical soil properties have been accounted for, does soil microbial diversity contribute to explain change in plant community structure (i.e. within-site beta-diversity)? If so, at which spatial scale does microbial diversity operate? Location: La Mina in Moscosa Farm, Salamanca, western Spain (dehesa community) and Laguna Larga in the Urbión Peaks, Soria, central-northern Spain (alpine grassland). Methods: The abundance of vascular plant species, soil gram-negative microbial functional types and soil chemical properties (pH, available phosphorus, and extractable cations) were sampled at both sites, for which hydrological models were available. Redundancy analysis (RDA) was used to partition variation in plant community structure into hydrological, chemical and microbial components. Spatial filters, arranged in scalograms, were used to test for the spatial scales at which plant community structure change. Results: In the case of the dehesa the diversity of soil gram-negative microbes, weakly driven by soil pH, contributed to a small extent (adj-R2 = 2%) and at a relative medium spatial scale to explain change in plant community structure. The abundance of a few dehesa species, both annual (Trifolium dubium, Vulpia bromoides) and perennial (Poa bulbosa, Festuca ampla), was associated with either increasing or decreasing soil microbial diversity. In the alpine meadow the contribution was negligible. Conclusions: Microbial diversity can drive community structure, though in the hierarchy of environmental factors structuring communities it appears to rank lower than other soil factors. Still, microbial diversity appears to promote or restrain individual plant species. This paper aims to encourage future studies to use more comprehensive and insightful techniques to assess microbial diversity and to combine this with statistical approaches such as the one used here

Do L2 French or L2 English learners write better L3 German texts? The in-fluence of prior foreign language study on L3 German writing skills: the GaE/F Project

Many learners of German as a foreign language (L3) are learning English or French as L2 before commencing their study of German, especially students from countries where English or French is, among other languages, the second official language or a common language in the educational system. For example: Among the approximately 219.000 non-German students who, in 2014, studied at German universities 38.000 were from China or India (L2 English) and 11.000 were from Cameroon or Morocco (L2 French) (DAAD 2015: 14-15). University-level German instructors at the Technische Universität Darmstadt have reported a higher level of competence in producing German texts by students who have learned French as L2 before German than those who have learned English as L2.Multilingualism researchers have investigated the impact of prior foreign language study on the learning of other languages. These influences include the learner’s personal experiences while learning a foreign language, the development of individual learning strategies and the ability to self-motivate. Just as important, however, are the structural and cultural aspects that affect the learning of additional foreign languages, namely the structural differences between the languages to be studied compared to already mastered languages, the teaching and learning culture and, last but not least, the intercultural differences in the norms governing the production of text types (cf. e.g. Herdina & Jessner 2002; Hufeisen 2002, 2010; Jessner 2006; Mißler 2000).On this basis, the project “German as a foreign language after English or French” (GaE/F) [Deutsch als Fremdsprache nach Englisch oder Französisch (DaFnE/F)] was initiated to investigate how the learning of L2 English or L2 French may affect the learning of L3 German, and, in particular, how it influences the production of appropriate German language texts as assessed by native speakers. It will investigate which linguistic features can be found in such written language and how their occurrence can be explained. Finally the aim is to examine the issue whether the prior learning of French or English, respectively, is more useful for developing German writing skills.For several years the Division of Linguistics and Multilingualism at the Technische Universität Darmstadt and preparatory course instructors have been collecting a corpus of authentic university-level written texts that, at present, consists of approximately 160 samples. Because the project is currently at its very beginning, a pilot study has to be carried out to identify possibly significant features for the comparison of written texts (i.e. connectors, parataxis/hypotaxis, word formation, sentence structure etc.) and to develop research tools for future investigations. Viele Menschen, die Deutsch als Zweit- oder Fremdsprache lernen, haben bereits Englisch oder Französisch als Vorfremdsprache erlernt. Dies gilt insbesondere für Studierende aus Ländern, in denen neben anderen Sprachen Englisch oder Französisch Amtssprachen bzw. Unterrichtssprachen sind. So kamen z.B. 2014 von den rund 219.000 nichtdeutschen Studierenden an deutschen Hochschulen rund 38.000 aus China oder Indien (L2 Englisch) und 11.000 aus Kamerun oder Marokko (L2 Französisch) (vgl. DAAD 2015: 14-15). DaF/DaZ-Lehrkräfte der Technischen Universität Darmstadt berichten von ihrer Erfahrung, dass Studierende mit Französisch als Vorfremdsprache vor Deutsch bessere deutschsprachige Texte schreiben als ihre Kommiliton/innen mit Englisch vor Deutsch.Die Mehrsprachigkeitsforschung hat den Einfluss vorher erlernter Fremdsprachen auf das Erlernen weiterer Sprachen in vielerlei Hinsicht erforscht. Hier spielen einerseits Aspekte auf individueller Ebene eine Rolle: das Sammeln von Erfahrungen, die Entwicklung individueller Lernstrategien und die Entstehung persönlicher Motivation. Andererseits beeinflussen Aspekte auf sprachlich-struktureller bzw. sprachlich-kultureller Ebene das Lernen weiterer Sprachen: die strukturelle Nähe der zu lernenden Sprache mit bereits bekannten Sprachen, die Sprachvermittlungskultur und auch die unterschiedlichen Text(sorten)normen in verschiedenen Sprachen.Die eingangs beschriebenen Beobachtungen der Lehrkräfte näher zu untersuchen, ist das Ziel des Projektes DaFnE/F (Deutsch als Fremdsprache nach Englisch oder Französisch). Es soll ermitteln, wie sich das vorherige Erlernen konkret der englischen bzw. französischen Sprache auf das Erlernen der Fremdsprache Deutsch auswirkt – und hier insbesondere auf die Produktion von nach Maßstäben deutscher Rezipient/innen als gut erscheinenden Texten. Neben der Frage, in welchen sprachlich-schriftlichen Bereichen hier Phänomene feststellbar sind, ist die Frage von Bedeutung, womit sie zusammenhängen (z.B. Struktur der Sprachen Englisch oder Französisch, unterschiedliche Lernpraktiken bzw. Lern-Traditionen im Unterricht Französisch als Fremdsprache bzw. Englisch als Fremdsprache usw.).Seit einigen Jahren wird am Fachgebiet Mehrsprachigkeit der TU Darmstadt und am Studienkolleg ein Textkorpus aus momentan rund 160 authentischen universitären Texten zusammengestellt, anhand dessen eine Pilotierungsuntersuchung für mögliche weitere Untersuchungen durchgeführt werden soll

Designing Predictive Maintenance for Agricultural Machines

The Digital Transformation alters business models in all fields of application, but not all industries transform at the same speed. While recent innovations in smart products, big data, and machine learning have profoundly transformed business models in the high-tech sector, less digitalized industries—like agriculture—have only begun to capitalize on these technologies. Inspired by predictive maintenance strategies for industrial equipment, the purpose of this paper is to design, implement, and evaluate a predictive maintenance method for agricultural machines that predicts future defects of a machine’s components, based on a data-driven analysis of service records. An evaluation with 3,407 real-world service records proves that the method predicts damaged parts with a mean accuracy of 86.34%. The artifact is an exaptation of previous design knowledge from high-tech industries to agriculture—a sector in which machines move through rough territory and adverse weather conditions, are utilized extensively for short periods, and do not provide sensor data to service providers. Deployed on a platform, the prediction method enables co-creating a predictive maintenance service that helps farmers to avoid resources shortages during harvest seasons, while service providers can plan and conduct maintenance service preemptively and with increased efficiency

Digitalization of Work Systems—An Organizational Routines’ Perspective

Digitalization is a hypernym that denotes the ground-shifting impact IT artifacts have on organizations. The term implicitly refers to core topics in Information Systems research, which now enfolds at increasing magnitude, speed, and reach. However, digitalization often lacks explicit references to domestic theories, concepts, and constructs in the Information Systems literature. Fundamental mechanisms that constitute digitalization as an interplay of organizations and information systems remain unexplored. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, based on extending extant theory on organizational routines, we propose four patterns that conceptualize digitalization mechanisms as an interplay of organizational routines and IT artifacts. Second, we demonstrate how more complex transformation trajectories of routines unfold, by concatenating our patterns to form transformation stories. On either level of abstraction, further research can build on the proposed patterns to theorize on how the interplay of IT artifacts and organizational routines constitutes the digitalization of work systems

Sozialpolitik für Transformation und Krise: Konzeptionelle Bezugspunkte und Handlungsfelder

Sozialpolitik ist in der sozialökologischen Transformation doppelt gefordert. Zum einen hängt es von sozialen Garantien ab, ob Beschäftigte und Konsumentinnen und Konsumenten geplante Transformationsschritte zur Klimaneutralität („transformation by design“) akzeptieren und unterstützen. Zugleich aber wird die Transformation, soweit sie überhaupt geplant wird, keineswegs nach Plan verlaufen. Die Transformationsperiode ist vielmehr bereits durch eine Abfolge von Krisen gekennzeichnet. Diese Krisen haben transformative Effekte („transformation by disaster“) und produzieren akute Risiken, die ihrerseits sozialpolitisch zu bearbeiten sind. Sozialpolitik muss gegenüber diesen Risiken für mehr Gleichheit sorgen. Sie muss dabei aber auf Instrumente setzen, die auch unter Krisenbedingungen über Ad-hoc-Maßnahmen hinaus strategisch mit Transformationszielen konsistent sind. Dieser Beitrag skizziert hierfür konzeptionelle Bezugspunkte und Handlungsfelder