Incentivising innovation in the construction sector: the role of consulting contracts

The issue of whether contracts promote innovation and sustainability is an important but overlooked aspect for achieving energy and environmental targets, as well as for creating smart and sustainable cities. In this article, based on the principle/agent problem and Holmström and Milgrom’s work on optimal contracts it is argued that the current general conditions of architectural and engineering consulting agreements in Sweden (ABK 09)—a standard type of contract often used in developer/consultant relations—may not incentivize choices that support the long-term goals of society. Furthermore, although this exploratory study specifically analyses a Swedish standard contract, the question of how contractual incentive structures can optimize real-world performance is a general one, and thus the article’s findings have general applicability. This exploratory study also points to further research into how contractual structures impact climate-neutral buildings. In this way, Swedish consultants who use ABK 09 are incentivized to include low-risk, well-proven, and widely used technologies in order to minimize risks for themselves. This study contributes to resolving this dilemma by suggesting how ABK 09 could be restructured to change the balance between incentives and risk and incentivize innovation and sustainability. As mentioned above, the current study operates at a theoretical level. It discusses six possible changes that would better align the contract with the societal goals of innovation and sustainability

How Do We Support Technical Tasks in the Age of Augmented Reality? Some Evidence from Prototyping in Mechanical Engineering

Industrial sectors like mechanical engineering currently define themselves primarily through their product business. However, a change can currently be observed. Instead of continuing to engineer products for maximum reliability, solution systems are developed that leverage their performance from services such as maintenance. For these, information supply is an essential factor, since the underlying products are becoming more complex. Additionally, these products are integrating information and communication technology, which can supply technicians, e.g. with actual condition data. To be able to use this information, technicians need service support systems (SSS) that yet exist on mobile and simple wearable devices. This article reports from the development of an SSS-based on augmented reality glasses. The developed system was used to support a LEGO assembly task and evaluated with the Task-Technology Fit model. The result shows that AR glasses can be used for the information supply of technicians but still need further development to allow for adequate service support

Local asymptotic normality for qubit states

We consider n identically prepared qubits and study the asymptotic properties of the joint state \rho^{\otimes n}. We show that for all individual states \rho situated in a local neighborhood of size 1/\sqrt{n} of a fixed state \rho^0, the joint state converges to a displaced thermal equilibrium state of a quantum harmonic oscillator. The precise meaning of the convergence is that there exist physical transformations T_{n} (trace preserving quantum channels) which map the qubits states asymptotically close to their corresponding oscillator state, uniformly over all states in the local neighborhood. A few consequences of the main result are derived. We show that the optimal joint measurement in the Bayesian set-up is also optimal within the pointwise approach. Moreover, this measurement converges to the heterodyne measurement which is the optimal joint measurement of position and momentum for the quantum oscillator. A problem of local state discrimination is solved using local asymptotic normality.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, published versio

Prof. Dr. med. Bernhard Riedel (1846-1916) und seine Leistungen auf dem Gebiet der Abdominalchirurgie: eine Analyse seiner Jenaer Operationstagebücher im Zeitraum von 1888 bis 1910

Mit der Entdeckung der Narkose im Jahre 1846 begann in der Medizin eine neue Ära, der ein enormer Aufschwung, insbesondere in der Chirurgie, in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts folgte. Im gleichen Jahr dieses Wendepunktes wurde auch Bernhard Carl Ludwig Moritz Riedel am 18. September in Laage in Mecklenburg geboren. In der vorliegenden Dissertation steht als Beitrag zur Geschichte der Medizinischen Fakultät Jenas Bernhard Riedels Leben und Wirken im Mittelpunkt. Dabei wird insbesondere die Zeit seines Chirurgischen Ordinariats an der Universität Jena von 1888 bis 1910 einschließlich seiner Lehrtätigkeit und Schüler wie Heinrich Haeckel (geb. 1859) oder Wilhelm Röpke (1873-1945) thematisiert. Als Zeugnisse seines Schaffens in Jena sind zwölf Bände seiner Operationstagebücher erhalten geblieben, die der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena durch Riedels Nachkommen im April 1998 zur wissenschaftlichen Auswertung übergeben wurden. Die Analyse dieser Tagebücher bildet neben der Biografie Riedels einen weiteren Schwerpunkt der Arbeit. Abschließend wurden daraus Fallbeispiele ausgewählt, zu denen Bezüge aus Riedels wissenschaftlichen Schriften hergestellt werden. Bei der Auseinandersetzung mit dem Leben und Schaffen von Bernhard Riedel lernt man ihn als vielseitigen und ehrgeizigen Chirurgen kennen, durch dessen Ordinariat die Alma mater Jenensis über die thüringischen Grenzen hinaus Anerkennung erlangen konnte

Shuttling of Rydberg ions for fast entangling operations

We introduce a scheme to entangle Rydberg ions in a linear ion crystal, using the high electric polarizability of the Rydberg electronic states in combination with mutual Coulomb coupling of ions that establishes common modes of motion. After laser initialization of ions to a superposition of ground and Rydberg states, the entanglement operation is driven purely by applying a voltage pulse that shuttles the ion crystal back and forth. This operation can achieve entanglement on a sub-μs timescale, more than 2 orders of magnitude faster than typical gate operations driven by continuous-wave lasers. Our analysis shows that the fidelity achieved with this protocol can exceed 99.9% with experimentally achievable parameters

ANÁLISE DA ARBORIZAÇÃO URBANA EM CINCO PRAÇAS DO MUNICÍPIO DE CACHOEIRA DO SUL, RS.

Através do presente estudo objetivou-se realizar uma avaliação da arborização existente em cinco praças de Cachoeira do Sul, onde foram observadas variáveis relativas às espécies arbóreas, tais como: diagnóstico da fitossanidade, riqueza de espécies, análise do CAP (circunferência à altura do peito) e altura, e quanto a presença ou ausência de áreas livres adequadas. Os dados foram coletados em planilha específica, transferidos e analisados no software Excel. O total de indivíduos encontrados foi de 832, distribuídos em 36 famílias botânicas. As cinco espécies de maior ocorrência foram Jacaranda mimosifolia, Ligustrum lucidum, Tipuana tipu, Lagerstroemia indica e Parapiptadenia rigida, representando 35,94% do total. A análise da fitossanidade mostrou que 62,59% das árvores encontram-se saudáveis, 26% estão sendo atacadas por pragas e 11% sofreram injúria mecânica. Na avaliação da altura dos indivíduos, 53% apresentaram alturas maiores que 9 m, observou-se também que 65,75% dessas árvores apresentaram CAP maiores que 55 cm. É possível observar, nas cinco praças, a existência de um mesmo número de espécies exóticas e nativas. Os resultados encontrados para a análise de área livre mostram que 451 indivíduos não possuem espaço adequado para seu bom desenvolvimento, enquanto que 381 possuem esses espaços