Influencing factors of the digital transformation on the supply chain complexity dimensions

Digital Disruption - 'the world in which we live in is changing'! Next-day delivery, Click & Collect, personalization, short delivery times and full order transparency have been incorporated in our daily life. In order to stay competitive, companies must react to the shifting customer demand towards on-demand, fitfor- purpose services and other market requirements. Due to these challenges and the increasing globalization, companies are confronted with ever more complex supply chain networks. The way to deal with the strongly increasing complexity of the company itself and its environment has become a key competitive factor. The complexity within a production company is characterized by the challenges encountered in daily business processes and can be described by the four dimensions of complexity: variety, heterogeneity, dynamics and non- transparency, as well as their interrelationships. Therefore, Supply Chain Management (SCM) is evolving from simply managing a chain of suppliers and manufactures towards a complex network including complicated backflows. New approaches in the context of digital transformation promise to support the management of such complex supply networks. Within this paper, influencing factors of the digital transformation and their effect on the four complexity dimensions are presented

Increased ERCC1 expression is linked to chromosomal aberrations and adverse tumor biology in prostate cancer

Abstract Background Animal model experiments have suggested a role of the DNA repair protein ERCC1 (Excision Repair Cross-Complementation Group 1) in prostate cancer progression. Methods To better understand the impact of ERCC1 protein expression in human prostate cancer, a preexisting tissue microarray (TMA) containing more than 12,000 prostate cancer specimens was analyzed by immunohistochemistry and data were compared with tumor phenotype, PSA recurrence and several of the most common genomic alterations (TMPRSS2:ERG fusions: deletions of PTEN, 6q, 5q, 3p). Results ERCC1 staining was seen in 64.7% of 10,436 interpretable tissues and was considered weak in 37.1%, moderate in 22.6% and strong in 5% of tumors. High-level ERCC1 staining was linked to advanced pT stage, high Gleason grade, positive lymph nodes, high pre-operative serum PSA, and positive surgical margin status (p < 0.0001 each). High ERCC1 expression was strongly associated with an elevated risk of PSA recurrence (p < 0.0001). This was independent of established prognostic features. A subgroup analysis of cancers defined by comparable quantitative Gleason grades revealed that the prognostic impact was mostly driven by low-grade tumors with a Gleason 3 + 3 or 3 + 4 (Gleason 4: ≤5%). High ERCC1 expression was strongly associated with the presence of genomic alterations and expression levels increased with the number of deletions present in the tumor. These latter data suggest a functional relationship of ERCC1 expression with genomic instability. Conclusion The results of our study demonstrate that expression of ERCC1 - a potential surrogate for genomic instability - is an independent prognostic marker in prostate cancer with particular importance in low-grade tumors

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements