What's to Automate? A Task Analysis of AI-enabled Start-ups

Automation of tasks as a result of advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) is currently one of the major economical drivers. However, the varying effectiveness of AI usage across occupations and industries suggests that the impact of AI diffusion is uneven. Thus, it is imperative to understand which types of tasks are more or less prevalent in AI-enabled businesses. Using a cross-sectional dataset of 27,700 start-ups and occupation data, we utilize word embedding to link start-ups to their respective underlying tasks. We compare the task types of AI-enabled with non-AI start-ups in the services and platforms domain using a suitability for machine learning metric. The results show that analytical, logistical, and statistical tasks predominate among AI-enabled start-ups while services with customer proximity have a smaller share and the overall task diversity is lower. The implications of our findings are discussed in the light of labor theory and the economies of scale of AI start-ups

A Scaling Perspective on AI Startups

Digital startups’ use of AI technologies has significantly increased in recent years, bringing to the fore specific barriers to deployment, use, and extraction of business value from AI. Utilizing a quantitative framework regarding the themes of startup growth and scaling, we examine the scaling behavior of AI, platform, and service startups. We find evidence of a sublinear scaling ratio of revenue to age-discounted employment count. The results suggest that revenue-employee growth pattern of AI startups is close to that of service startups, and less so to that of platform startups. Furthermore, we find a superlinear growth pattern of acquired funding in relation to the employment size that is largest for AI startups, possibly suggesting hype tendencies around AI startups. We discuss implications in the light of new economies of scale and scope of AI startups related to decision-making and prediction

On the Heterogeneity of Digital Infrastructure in Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

Digital infrastructure represents for startups in entrepreneurial ecosystems an important asset but also a major risk. Drawing on studies about digital entrepreneurship and ecosystems, we examine the determinants of the heterogeneity of startups’ tech stacks in ecosystems. Using publicly available data from the data aggregators Stackshare and Crunchbase, we identify popular endogenous categories in startups’ tech stacks. Then we conduct a visual network analysis and a multivariate regression analysis, utilizing the identified technology categories to measure the heterogeneity of the startups’ tech stacks. The analysis supports the propositions that firm age and increased funding are positively associated with tech stack heterogeneity, whereas funding rounds are negatively associated with tech stack heterogeneity. Implications of our findings on digital entrepreneurship and ecosystems are discussed

The Digital Platform Otto.de: A Case Study of Growth, Complexity, and Generativity

We analyze the growth, complexity, and generativity of the digital platform Otto.de, a revelatory case of a large German company that has opened up its internal IT platform to outside developers. We find indication for a superlinear growth pattern fueled by external developers and the introduction of microservices as well as the emergence of a structural separation within the platform. Furthermore, our research shows ways to explain the generativity of a digital platform based on the attention and activity received

A Social Citizen Dashboard for Participatory Urban Planning in Berlin: Prototype and Evaluation

Participatory urban planning enables citizens to make their voices heard in the urban planning process. The resulting measures are more likely to be accepted by the community. However, the parti-cipation process becomes more effortful and time-consuming. New approaches have been developed using digital technologies to facilitate citizen participation, such as topic modeling based on social media. Using Twitter data for the city of Berlin, we explore how social media and topic modeling can be used to classify and analyze citizen opinions. We develop a Social Citizen Dashboard allowing for a better understanding of changes in citizens’ priorities and incorporating constant cycles of feedback throughout planning phases. Evaluation interviews indicate the dashboard’s potential usefulness and implications as well as point to limitation in data quality and spur further research potentials

DATA GOVERNANCE STRATEGIES FOR DATA PLATFORMS – A MULTIPLE CASE STUDY IN NURSING CARE

It is long established that data from platforms can be useful for deriving patterned insights into people’s behavior and conduct. Data platforms are important in fields with limited data availability and strict regulatory and hierarchical structures, such as healthcare and nursing analytics. Hence, we carefully examine three forerunner initiatives in establishing data platforms in the context of nursing care along normative, organizational, and technical dimensions of governance. The cases were selected due to their high level of comparability and to demonstrate three different types of data governance strategies understood as actions to reconcile conflicting interests regarding data and dealing with prevalent data protection law – ranging from strictly processual approaches to the creation of synthetic data. These findings highlight the importance of considering data governance strategies concisely when building data platforms and suggest considerable variety in the configuration of data governance arrangements

F-actin rearrangements and analysis of physical environment of invasive hyphal growth.

Invasive growth through a substrate requires a massive amount of penetrative force, and this is generated in the space of a few microns in a growing tip. This process is known to be critical in the root hair, pollen tube, rhizoids, and the topic of this thesis, hyphal growth. However defining the mechanisms underlying the tip growth remains a contentious issue. Shortcomings in control of direction and regulation of growth began to undermine early turgor-based theories, and the cytoskeletal protein actin, ubiquitous in nature and with crucial roles in structure and motility became a target for investigation. A major breakthrough came with the discovery that a characteristic actin depleted zone (ADZ) occurs at the growing tip of hyphae during invasive but not non-invasive hyphal growth. The ADZ is likely to have an important role in generating the greater protrusive force required for invasive growth. However, since its discovery, little has been determined about the characteristics of the ADZ. Uncertainty in the description of the physical environment the hyphae face adds a layer of complexity to interpretation of results. This thesis aims to address this issue, studying the impact of increasing agarose substrate concentration on the presence and dimensions of the ADZ in the oomycete A. bisexualis. Furthermore, agarose is examined by compression and imaging to compare the physical characteristics of the agar samples over the range of concentrations, and determine whether increasing agarose concentration influences agarose gel structure. Results suggest a difference in the number of ADZ observed in non-invasive compared with invasive samples, however no significant differences in the number or dimensions of ADZ were found amongst the 1-4% w/v agarose concentrations. The 0% sample showed 20.7 percent of hyphae exhibited depleted zones, while 1, 2, 3 and 4% samples showed 56.9%, 48.8%, 40.9% and 54.2% respectively. ADZ dimensions did not correlate with agarose concentration. The average ADZ area:hyphal diameter ratio was 0.634, 0.526, 0.430, 1.09, and 0.65 for 0-4% agarose concentrations respectively. Additionally, investigation of gel compression forces revealed gel strength increases with agarose concentration. The force required to compress the agarose increased from 1.85 Psi in 1% agarose to 4.85, 7.09 and 12.22 Psi in 2, 3 and 4% agarose concentrations respectively. SEM imaging, however, suggests heterogeneity of the fibrous interconnected network of agarose gels at a microscopic scale with variable porous structure at all agarose concentrations. This scale is relevant to hyphal tip growth. In combination, these results suggest F-actin depletion may be a response mechanism to provide greater force for invasive growth. Additionally, this response is not dependent on the concentration of the agarose media, possibly due to the variability encountered within the media. These results contribute another important step forward in unraveling the elusive mechanism of tip growth

Targeting tachykinin receptors in neuroblastoma

Neuroblastoma is the most common extracranial tumor in children. Despite aggressive multimodal treatment, high-risk neuroblastoma remains a clinical challenge with survival rates below 50%. Adding targeted drugs to first-line therapy regimens is a promising approach to improve survival in these patients. TACR1 activation by substance P has been reported to be mitogenic in cancer cell lines. Tachykinin receptor (TACR1) antagonists are approved for clinical use as an antiemetic remedy since 2003. Tachykinin receptor inhibition has recently been shown to effectively reduce growth of several tumor types. Here, we report that neuroblastoma cell lines express TACR1, and that targeting TACR1 activity significantly reduced cell viability and induced apoptosis in neuroblastoma cell lines. Gene expression profiling revealed that TACR1 inhibition repressed E2F2 and induced TP53 signaling. Treating mice harboring established neuroblastoma xenograft tumors with Aprepitant also significantly reduced tumor burden. Thus, we provide evidence that the targeted inhibition of tachykinin receptor signaling shows therapeutic efficacy in preclinical models for high-risk neuroblastoma