Touching Space: Distributed Ledger Technology for Tracking and Tracing Certificates

Components built into space vehicles and equipment (space products) must meet different regulatory requirements; in detail, each component must be certified and sustainably traceable at all times. Space engineers have expressed the need for an interoperable system to collect, manage and route certifications for components, parts and materials that go into space products. The lack of a unified approach in the European space industry is a challenge for companies involved in product development. This research proposes an open-source, secure, fast and distributed ledger technology (DLT) based solution that fits into any IT environment and is well adapted to the needs of manufacturing companies in the space sector. The results show that a blockchain-based solution based on 'Hyperledger Fabric' combined with the InterPlanetary File System is viable. The results can guide other researchers and practitioners to consider DLTs when changing their certification management paradigm with suppliers, customers and auditors

Building Digital Trust to Protect Whistleblowers - A blockchain-based Reporting Channel

Organizations today need internal reporting channels to report illegal/unethical misconduct. For this purpose, organizations set up one or more - often digital - internal reporting channels. Persons/Employees who want to report misconduct, so-called whistleblowers, expose themselves to reprisals and therefore need trustworthy reporting channels which ensure ´Digital Trust´. Blockchain, a technology that overcomes the need for trust due to its properties of immutability and integrity of data, could be promising as underlying technology for a digital reporting channel which is recognized as trustworthy. In our research, we explored multiple perspectives relevant to a trustworthy digital reporting system. Applying design science research, we evaluated the current state of the art of (digital) reporting channels and developed a prototypical blockchain-based reporting solution called “Integrity@Inside”. The prototype is being iteratively demonstrated and pre-evaluated

Towards a Distributed Ledger System for Supply Chains

Interoperability and traceability of digital supply chains are becoming a major competitive factor. Businesses operating in supply chains need to share interoperable information and systematically track product and service deliveries. This research investigates a novel approach to model digital supply chains and operationalizes this through a Distributed Ledger System in combination with Smart Contracts . Based on design science, relevance and rigor for a novel approach are derived. As resulting ‘artifacts’, exemplary supply chains using colored Petri-nets are modeled as a structured and automatable instance for the sketched ‘Token-flow Supply Chains’. For the operation of our visionary scenario, a baseline concept with an associated architecture is drafted. We argue that the outlined approach and related artifacts are predestined to achieve a new quality of performance and innovation including bridging the current challenges for digital supply chains

Thyroid and androgen receptor signaling are antagonized by μ-Crystallin in prostate cancer.

Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) remains a key approach in the treatment of prostate cancer (PCa). However, PCa inevitably relapses and becomes ADT resistant. Besides androgens, there is evidence that thyroid hormone thyroxine (T4) and its active form 3,5,3'-triiodo-L-thyronine (T3) are involved in the progression of PCa. Epidemiologic evidences show a higher incidence of PCa in men with elevated thyroid hormone levels. The thyroid hormone binding protein μ-Crystallin (CRYM) mediates intracellular thyroid hormone action by sequestering T3 and blocks its binding to cognate receptors (TRα/TRβ) in target tissues. We show in our study that low CRYM expression levels in PCa patients are associated with early biochemical recurrence and poor prognosis. Moreover, we found a disease stage-specific expression of CRYM in PCa. CRYM counteracted thyroid and androgen signaling and blocked intracellular choline uptake. CRYM inversely correlated with [18F]fluoromethylcholine (FMC) levels in positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance imaging of PCa patients. Our data suggest CRYM as a novel antagonist of T3- and androgen-mediated signaling in PCa. The role of CRYM could therefore be an essential control mechanism for the prevention of aggressive PCa growth