A characteristics framework for Semantic Information Systems Standards

Semantic Information Systems (IS) Standards play a critical role in the development of the networked economy. While their importance is undoubted by all stakeholders—such as businesses, policy makers, researchers, developers—the current state of research leaves a number of questions unaddressed. Terminological confusion exists around the notions of “business semantics”, “business-to-business interoperability”, and “interoperability standards” amongst others. And, moreover, a comprehensive understanding about the characteristics of Semantic IS Standards is missing. The paper addresses this gap in literature by developing a characteristics framework for Semantic IS Standards. Two case studies are used to check the applicability of the framework in a “real-life” context. The framework lays the foundation for future research in an important field of the IS discipline and supports practitioners in their efforts to analyze, compare, and evaluate Semantic IS Standard

Modelling flood damages under climate change conditions-a case study for Germany

The aim of the study is to analyze and discuss possible climate change impacts on flood damages in Germany. The study was initiated and supported by the German insurance sector whereby the main goal was to identify general climate-related trends in flood hazard and damages and to explore sensitivity of results to climate scenario uncertainty. The study makes use of climate scenarios regionalized for the main river basins in Germany. A hydrological model (SWIM) that had been calibrated and validated for the main river gauges, was applied to transform these scenarios into discharge for more than 5000 river reaches. Extreme value distribution has been fitted to the time series of river discharge to derive the flood frequency statistics. The hydrological results for each river reach have been linked using the flood statistics to related damage functions provided by the German Insurance Association, considering damages on buildings and small enterprises. The result is that, under the specific scenario conditions, a considerable increase in flood related losses can be expected in Germany in future, warmer, climate

Evolution of opto electronic properties during film formation of complex semiconductors

Optical and electrical properties of complex semiconducting alloys like Cu In,Ga Se2 CIGS are strongly influenced by the reaction pathways occurring during their deposition process. This makes it desirable to observe and control these properties in real time during the deposition. Here we show for the first time the evolution of the band gap and the sub band gap defect absorption of CIGS thin film as well as surface roughness during a three stage co evaporation process by means of an optical analysis technique, based on white light reflectometry WLR . By simultaneously recording structural information with in situ energy dispersive X ray diffraction and X ray fluorescence we can directly correlate the evolution of opto electronic material parameters with the structural properties of the film during growth. We find that the surface roughness and the sub gap light absorption can be correlated with the phase evolution during the transformation from In,Ga 2Se3 to Cu In,Ga Se2 by the incorporation of Cu into the film. Sub bandgap light absorption is found to be influenced by the Cusaturated growth phase and is lowered close to the points of stoichiometry, allowing for an advanced process desig