A Requirement-Oriented Site Role Concept For Factory Planning – A Systematic Review

In today's globalized world, companies with an international manufacturing network (IMN) rely on the effective distribution of their production activities – as part of their network configuration. In addition, increasing trends towards de-globalization in IMNs confront companies with new challenges in their network design. Therefore, numerous methods for defining network and production strategies, creating network configurations, or coordinating these networks have been developed in recent years. Many of these management approaches use so-called site roles, providing the production sites in the network with a more or less clear allocation of tasks and competencies. This can reduce the complexity within an IMN and help transfer the network strategy into a suitable configuration. However, one shortcoming of existing site role concepts is that they do not consider the specific design of individual plants that is appropriate for the respective role and, therefore, the definite effects on the factory planning method. Thus, site role-related design rules for generating factory layouts can contribute to the mandatory standardization of factory structures in the network. This increases the agility of the production network and enables the management to adapt the network rather quickly in response to a changing strategy or disruptive global conditions. In this article, the specific requirements that a site role concept must fulfill to offer benefits for factory planning in IMN are deduced. As part of a systematic literature review, existing site role concepts are collected and, finally, evaluated against the identified requirements. The paper serves as a basis for further research and the derivation of a corresponding site role concept that meets the defined requirements

Développement de plaintes somatiques chez les adolescents et jeunes adultes en Suisse

In this study we explored the development of somatic complaints among adolescents and young adults aged 16 to 30 years in Switzerland. Using data from the Transitions from Education to Employment (TREE) study, we applied a hidden Markovian model with covariates to cluster trajectories representing the sum of eight somatic complaints. The resulting groups differed mainly in terms of gender, reading literacy, and substance use. The trajectories of somatic complaints were also related to the number of critical events experienced by the respondents.Der Beitrag untersucht, wie sich in der Schweiz somatische Beschwerden bei Jugendlichen bzw. jungen Erwachsenen im Alter zwischen 16 und 30 Jahren entwickeln. Mit den Daten der TREE-Studie wurde ein verstecktes Markov-Modell mit Kovariaten gerechnet, um Verläufe von acht somatischen Beschwerden zu clustern. Die so gebildeten Gruppen unterscheiden sich signifikant bezüglich Geschlecht, kognitiven Fertigkeiten und Substanzkonsum. In den untersuchten Verläufen zeigen sich auch Zusammenhänge mit kritischen Lebensereignissen der Befragten.Nous avons exploré le développement de plaintes somatiques chez les adolescents et jeunes adultes âgés de 16 à 30 ans vivant en Suisse. Sur la base de données de l’enquête TREE (Transitions from Education to Employment), nous avons appliqué un modèle markovien caché avec covariables afin de classifier des trajectoires représentant la somme de huit plaintes somatiques. Les groupes obtenus diffèrent en termes de genre, de niveau de lecture et de consommation de substances. Les trajectoires de plaintes somatiques sont aussi liées au nombre d’événements de vie critiques dont les personnes interrogées ont fait l’expérience

To network or not to network - is that really the question? : the impact of networking intensity and strategic orientations on innovation success

Innovation success typically leads to company success. That is, firms that successfully create and launch innovations often grow in terms of revenues, profits, and head count. Societies benefit not only from new products and services, but also from new jobs, as created through innovating firms. Thus, innovation success potentially leads to increased societal wealth. However, the question arises: What factors help companies to become successful innovators? Research shows that networking activities between firms and their stakeholders have an important impact on innovation success. This is particularly true for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that often lack crucial resources that enable them to innovate. However, a few existing studies do not support the finding that networking leads to increased innovation outputs. So, we must ask: Under which circumstances do networking activities enable SMEs to become successful innovators? In this study, we analyze a sample of 451 SMEs and, using fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), find that the question is not whether to network or not. Rather, both high- and low-intensity networking firms can use different combinations of underlying strategic orientations and resource-leveraging capabilities to enable innovation success

Stem cell secretome treatment improves whole-body metabolism, reduces adiposity, and promotes skeletal muscle function in aged mice.

Aging coincides with the progressive loss of muscle mass and strength, increased adiposity, and diminished physical function. Accordingly, interventions aimed at improving muscle, metabolic, and/or physical health are of interest to mitigate the adverse effects of aging. In this study, we tested a stem cell secretome product, which contains extracellular vesicles and growth, cytoskeletal remodeling, and immunomodulatory factors. We examined the effects of 4 weeks of 2×/week unilateral intramuscular secretome injections (quadriceps) in ambulatory aged male C57BL/6 mice (22-24 months) compared to saline-injected aged-matched controls. Secretome delivery substantially increased whole-body lean mass and decreased fat mass, corresponding to higher myofiber cross-sectional area and smaller adipocyte size, respectively. Secretome-treated mice also had greater whole-body physical function (grip strength and rotarod performance) and had higher energy expenditure and physical activity levels compared to control mice. Furthermore, secretome-treated mice had greater skeletal muscle Pax7+ cell abundance, capillary density, collagen IV turnover, reduced intramuscular lipids, and greater Akt and hormone sensitive lipase phosphorylation in adipose tissue. Finally, secretome treatment in vitro directly enhanced muscle cell growth and IL-6 production, and in adipocytes, it reduced lipid content and improved insulin sensitivity. Moreover, indirect treatment with secretome-treated myotube culture media also enhanced muscle cell growth and adipocyte size reduction. Together, these data suggest that intramuscular treatment with a stem cell secretome improves whole-body metabolism, physical function, and remodels skeletal muscle and adipose tissue in aged mice

S-Gene Target Failure as an Effective Tool for Tracking the Emergence of Dominant SARS-CoV-2 Variants in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, Including Alpha, Delta, and Omicron BA.1, BA.2, and BA.4/BA.5

During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the Dr. Risch medical group employed the multiplex TaqPath$^{TM}$ COVID-19 CE-IVD RT-PCR Kit for large-scale routine diagnostic testing in Switzerland and the principality of Liechtenstein. The TaqPath Kit is a widely used multiplex assay targeting three genes (i.e., ORF1AB, N, S). With emergence of the B.1.1.7 (Alpha) variant, a diagnostic flaw became apparent as the amplification of the S-gene target was absent in these samples due to a deletion (ΔH69/V70) in the Alpha variant genome. This S-gene target failure (SGTF) was the earliest indication of a new variant emerging and was also observed in subsequent variants such as Omicron BA.1 and BA4/BA.5. The Delta variant and Omicron BA.2 did not present with SGTF. From September 2020 to November 2022, we investigated the applicability of the SGTF as a surrogate marker for emerging variants such as B.1.1.7, B.1.617.2 (Delta), and Omicron BA.1, BA.2, and BA.4/BA.5 in samples with cycle threshold (Ct) values < 30. Next to true SGTF-positive and SGTF-negative samples, there were also samples presenting with delayed-type S-gene amplification (higher Ct value for S-gene than ORF1ab gene). Among these, a difference of 3.8 Ct values between the S- and ORF1ab genes was found to best distinguish between "true" SGTF and the cycle threshold variability of the assay. Samples above the cutoff were subsequently termed partial SGTF (pSGTF). Variant confirmation was performed by whole-genome sequencing (Oxford Nanopore Technology, Oxford, UK) or mutation-specific PCR (TIB MOLBIOL). In total, 17,724 (7.4%) samples among 240,896 positives were variant-confirmed, resulting in an overall sensitivity and specificity of 93.2% [92.7%, 93.7%] and 99.3% [99.2%, 99.5%], respectively. Sensitivity was increased to 98.2% [97.9% to 98.4%] and specificity lowered to 98.9% [98.6% to 99.1%] when samples with pSGTF were included. Furthermore, weekly logistic growth rates (α) and sigmoid's midpoint (t$_{0}$) were calculated based on SGTF data and did not significantly differ from calculations based on comprehensive data from GISAID. The SGTF therefore allowed for a valid real-time estimate for the introduction of all dominant variants in Switzerland and Liechtenstein

Team functioning across different tumour types: Insights from a Swiss cancer center using qualitative and quantitative methods.

BACKGROUND: Multidisciplinary care is pivotal in cancer centres and the interaction of all cancer disease specialists in decision making processes is state-of-the-art. AIM: To describe differences of MDTMs by tumour type. METHODS: Twelve multidisciplinary team meetings (MDTMs) with participation of different cancer disease specialists at a tertiary hospital were assessed by an exploratory sequential mixed method approach with interviews, observations and a survey to address the following five topics: organisational structure and supporting technology; leadership; teamwork; decision-making, perceived value and motivation. Thirteen persons with different tumour specialities and levels of seniority were interviewed. The 12 MDTMs were observed twice by uninvolved persons and evaluated by the participating physicians with a survey. RESULTS: There were no systematic differences between MDTMs for different tumour types with the exception of the non-disease specific type MDTM, which was the only one for which the organisational structure was not driven by an electronic tool. However, several factors could be identified that generally influenced the functioning of the MDTMs. In particular, the quality of decision-making was highly dependent on the availability of case-based information and the presence of relevant cancer disease specialists. Leadership and teamwork were rated as important and were comparable across the MDTM. Team participants' motivation and perceived value of MDTMs was high across all meetings. CONCLUSION: MDTM at a single institution did not demonstrate disease specific characteristics. An effective MDTM, irrespective of the tumour type, can be successfully structured by technical means and a chairperson coordinating the interaction of cancer disease specialists to improve the decision-making process