A Percolation-Based Model Explaining Delayed Take-Off in New-Product Diffusion

A model of new-product diffusion is proposed in which a site-percolation dynamics represents socially-driven diffusion of knowledge about the product's characteristics in a population of potential buyers. A consumer buys the new product if her valuation of it is not below the price of the product announced by the firm in a given period. Our model attributes the empirical finding of a delayed ``take-off'' of a new product to a drift of the percolation dynamics from a non-percolating regime to a percolating regime. This drift is caused by learning-effects lowering the price of the product, or by network-effects increasing its valuation by consumers, with an increasing number of buyers.new-product diffusion, innovation adoption, spatial stochastic processes, percolation

Computational Simulation as an Innovative Approach in Personalized Medicine

Background: Statistical analyses show that both the spine curvature and the morphological properties of the vertebral bodies can differ considerably. Therefore, the best outcome of a surgery for the individual patient could be achieved by developing patient specific implants to prevent inadequate anchorage of implants that don?t optimally fit to the anatomy and can cause damages of spinal structures

Influence of building use on comfort and energy performance in offices

This paper investigates the influence of different building use by companies and individual occupants on thermal and visual comfort, energy consumption and CO2 emissions in mixed mode offices. Adaptive thermal comfort evaluation according to EN 15251 has been used during natural ventilation and cooling

Context dependency of comfort and energy performance in mixed mode offices

This article investigates the context dependency of comfort and energy performance in mixed-mode offices in the climate of Athens, Greece. It is based on a parametric study using the simulation software EnergyPlus. Context refers to different building design priorities on the real estate market (prestige, low cost and green), occupant behaviour scenarios (ideal and worst case) and cooling strategies (fixed and adaptive set points). Results are evaluated according to energy consumption and related greenhouse gas emissions, daylight autonomy, view and percentage of working time when heating and cooling are operating. The results indicate that a holistic approach to comfort and energy performance evaluation focused on the specific context of a building and its occupants is necessary to develop appropriate optimization strategies. In early design stages, such specific information is not yet available and ideal/worst-case scenarios can indicate the magnitude of influence of occupants compared to building design.<br /

Balancing buildings and occupants - a holistic approach to thermal comfort and greenhouse gas emissions in mixed mode offices

This paper describes a holistic approach to comfort and greenhouse gas emissions in mixed mode offices. It is based on parametric studies for a typical cellular office in the Mediterranean climate of Athens, Greece, using building simulation.Considered parameters are the influence of different building design, varying occupant behaviour and internal heat loads, as well as of an exceptionally hot summer. Additionally, the performance of a cooling strategy following the comfort limits according to the EN 15251 adaptive model is compared with the common fixed cooling set point 22&deg;C.The performance of mixed mode offices is evaluated regarding thermal comfort, daylight autonomy and related greenhouse gas emissions. Results indicate strategies to improve sustainability in mixed mode offices in Athens, by balancing the influencing parameters.<br /

Status of the undulator-based ILC positron source

The design of the positron source for the International Linear Collider (ILC) is still under consideration. The baseline design plans to use the electron beam for the positron production before it goes to the IP. The high-energy electrons pass a long helical undulator and generate an intense circularly polarized photon beam which hits a thin conversion target to produce $e^+e^-$ pairs. The resulting positron beam is longitudinally polarized which provides an important benefit for precision physics analyses. In this paper the status of the design studies is presented with focus on ILC250. In particular, the target design and cooling as well as issues of the optical matching device are important for the positron yield. Some possibilities to optimize the system are discussed.Comment: Talk presented at the International Workshop on Future Linear Colliders (LCWS2018), Arlington, Texas, 22-26 October 2018. C18-10-2