Full, hybrid and platform complementarity: Exploring the industry 4.0 technology-performance link

Literature has increasingly recognized that manufacturing companies should implement a synergic bundle of solutions to fully exploit the potential of Industry 4.0 (I4.0), rather than opting for a scattered technological adoption. Enabling I4.0 technologies, such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and additive manufacturing, can be implemented through various combinations to achieve different impacts on a company's performance. But what are the possible ways of combining I4.0 technologies into bundles, and do these ways actually help to achieve a performance that outperforms the adoption of single technologies? This study aims to identify the potential patterns of the technological complementary of I4.0 by considering enabled applications and performance outcomes. We interviewed 13 Italian experts in the I4.0 field, and then combined the obtained information with secondary data collected from more than 150 I4.0 use cases, as well as from websites, reports and press releases. By adopting a systems theory lens, the results of the analysis have allowed us to identify the specific performance effects of both scattered and joint technological adoptions in different application areas. Interestingly, specific examples of I4.0 complementarities emerged, namely full, hybrid and platform complementarity. This study contributes to the growing research on I4.0 outcomes by extending the concept of technological complementary within the I4.0 context. Results show that bundles of technologies have a broader effect on performance than when the same technologies are adopted in isolation, but also that single technologies can impact specific applications and the overall performance of a firm via a systematic I4.0 transformation path

How social start-ups avoid being falling stars when developing social innovation

The aim of this study is to provide new insights into the social innovation (SI) development process in the context of social start-ups. A multiple case study identifies the issues and mechanisms for social start-ups to develop a social need into a potentially scalable innovation and to validate and scale it up, while avoiding a possible failure. Results show that key challenges faced by social start-ups can be characterized according to the stage of the SI development path. Firstly, social start-ups' failure can be caused by the lack of expertise in social problems and of flexible processes for social ventures creation; secondly, by the lack of awareness of SI benefits and proper resources allocation; and, finally, by a weak understanding of the impact and intangible outcomes of the developed SI in society, while ensuring its economic sustainability. Successfully overcoming these challenges requires social start-ups to put in place the following mechanisms: (1) leveraging a vision and motivations that balance tensions in terms of the radical, economic and cultural aspects of SI; (2) engaging the SI stakeholders in different (and sequential) phases of SI development process; and (3) identifying and adopting the most suitable technological, financial and communication tools in an integrated way

Reaching the nonlinear regime of Raman amplification of ultrashort laser pulses

The intensity of a subpicosecond laser pulse was amplified by a factor of up to 1000 using the Raman backscatter interaction in a 2 mm long gas jet plasma. The process of Raman amplification reached the nonlinear regime, with the intensity of the amplified pulse exceeding that of the pump pulse by more than an order of magnitude. Features unique to the nonlinear regime such as gain saturation, bandwidth broadening, and pulse shortening were observed. Simulation and theory are in qualitative agreement with the measurements.open695

Developing win-win solutions for virtual placements in informatics: The VALS case

The placements and internships are one of the main paths to get professional background and some skills for students, especially in areas like informatics and computer sciences. The European-funded VALS project tries to promote the virtual placements and establish a new initiative in virtual placements called Semester of Code. This initiative binds higher education institutions, students, companies, foundations and Open Source projects in order to create virtual placements and solve needs that they have in relation with those placements. This paper introduces some projects about virtual placements that other institutions and companies perform, also the paper describes the needs, opinions and considerations about the virtual placements for each stakeholder involved in the placements, to finally explain the design decisions and actions behind the Semester of Code, and how they are intended to get better virtual placements and successful results