Scaling AI Ventures: How to Navigate Tensions between Automation and Augmentation

AI ventures promise to automate and augment ever more human tasks. This provides rich opportunities for growth. Yet, digital and human resources that involve AI are oftentimes task-specific and hard to scale. Furthermore, clients remain skeptical to be fully automated by external services. Thus, it remains unclear how AI ventures achieve growth. We adopt a grounded theory approach on an interview study with founders, product managers and investors to inquire how resources afford or constrain scaling in AI ventures. For this, we blend the notion of (non-)scale free resources with the layered architecture of digital technologies. Our study suggests that AI ventures scale by organizing digital and human resources for replicability in that they keep AI-specific resources distant from clients while simultaneously externalizing human-intensive tasks to their clients. As we inquire the roles of human and digital resources, our study suggests that ventures seek to quickly find an optimal degree on the continuum between augmentation and automation when bundling resources

Charakterisierung eines Mausmodells für die Evaluierung neuer Mitglieder der CEA-Familie als mögliche Zielstrukturen für die Tumortherapie

Durch vergleichende Analysen von Genom-, cDNA- und EST-Datenbanken konnten neue Mitglieder der murinen CEA-Familie gefunden werden, die im Rahmen dieser Arbeit genauer charakterisiert werden sollten. So wurde das Expressionsverhalten dieser neuen Mitglieder der CEA-Familie auf mRNA-Ebene in einer Vielzahl von embryonalen und adulten Normalgeweben, sowie in einigen ausgewählten Tumoren und Tumorzelllinien mit Hilfe der RT-PCR unter Verwendung von genspezifischen Primern untersucht. Die Auswertung der Versuchsergebnisse hat gezeigt, dass es erhebliche Unterschiede in der Gewebeverteilung der einzelnen Mitglieder der murinen CEA-Familie gibt. Von besonderem Interesse in diesem Zusammenhang ist Ceacam20, das vorwiegend in den untersuchten Adenokarzinomen des Magens zu finden war. Es wird vermutet, dass CEACAM20 über ein funktionelles ITAM-Motiv direkt an der Entstehung epithelialer Neoplasien beteiligt ist. Die im Rahmen dieser Arbeit gewonnenen Erkenntnisse können als Grundlage für nachfolgende strukturelle und funktionelle Untersuchungen der neuen Mitglieder der murinen und humanen CEA-Familie gesehen werden

Entrepreneurial Framing and Negotiations of Product Boundaries: A Qualitative Study on the Social Construction of Product Innovation in AI Ventures

The diffusion of AI-technology disrupts labor and industries and gives rise to a diverse range of new ventures and product innovations. Such product innovations involve the negotiation of product boundaries among actors in innovation networks, including ventures, investors, and customers. These negotiations consist of social and cognitive translations. For digital products, actors share a common understanding of resource configuration, mainly based on cognitive resonance. However, AI-driven products introduce the “black-box” problem that hinders cognitive translation-based negotiations within innovation networks, as they are not fully cognitively traceable, but emotionally resonant. Using a qualitative research approach and the notion of entrepreneurial framing, we investigate the impact of AI on the negotiation of product boundaries and digital innovation. We reveal that AI-ventures, to maintain ”cognitive” superiority, focus on cutting-edge technology while limiting negotiation to non-technology aspects, such as revenue streams and business models, creating ”cognitive moats” for non-expert actors

Charakterisierung eines Mausmodells für die Evaluierung neuer Mitglieder der CEA-Familie als mögliche Zielstrukturen für die Tumortherapie

Durch vergleichende Analysen von Genom-, cDNA- und EST-Datenbanken konnten neue Mitglieder der murinen CEA-Familie gefunden werden, die im Rahmen dieser Arbeit genauer charakterisiert werden sollten. So wurde das Expressionsverhalten dieser neuen Mitglieder der CEA-Familie auf mRNA-Ebene in einer Vielzahl von embryonalen und adulten Normalgeweben, sowie in einigen ausgewählten Tumoren und Tumorzelllinien mit Hilfe der RT-PCR unter Verwendung von genspezifischen Primern untersucht. Die Auswertung der Versuchsergebnisse hat gezeigt, dass es erhebliche Unterschiede in der Gewebeverteilung der einzelnen Mitglieder der murinen CEA-Familie gibt. Von besonderem Interesse in diesem Zusammenhang ist Ceacam20, das vorwiegend in den untersuchten Adenokarzinomen des Magens zu finden war. Es wird vermutet, dass CEACAM20 über ein funktionelles ITAM-Motiv direkt an der Entstehung epithelialer Neoplasien beteiligt ist. Die im Rahmen dieser Arbeit gewonnenen Erkenntnisse können als Grundlage für nachfolgende strukturelle und funktionelle Untersuchungen der neuen Mitglieder der murinen und humanen CEA-Familie gesehen werden

Autistic Adults Avoid Unpredictability in Decision-Making.

Decision-making under unpredictable conditions can cause discomfort in autistic persons due to their preference for predictability. Decision-making impairments might furthermore be associated with a dysregulation of sex and stress hormones. This prospective, cross-sectional study investigated decision-making in 32 autistic participants (AP, 14 female) and 31 non-autistic participants (NAP, 20 female) aged 18-64 years. The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and the Cambridge Risk Task (CRT) were used to assess decision-making under ambiguity and under risk with known outcome probabilities, respectively. Cortisol, estradiol, and testosterone serum levels were related to decision-making performance. Groups did not differ in overall IGT and CRT performance, but compared with NAP, AP preferred less profitable card decks with predictable outcomes while avoiding those with unpredictable outcomes. AP required more time to reach decisions compared to NAP. Additionally, AP without comorbid depression performed significantly worse than NAP in the IGT. Estradiol and cortisol concentrations were significant predictors of CRT scores in NAP, but not in AP. The study results imply that AP are 'risk-averse' in decision-making under ambiguity as they avoided choice options with unpredictable losses in comparison to NAP. Our findings highlight the intolerance for uncertainty, particularly in ambiguous situations. Thus, we recommend being as transparent and precise as possible when interacting with autistic individuals. Future research should explore decision-making in social situations among individuals with ASD, factoring in person-dependent variables such as depression

Intranasal Oxytocin Modulates Decision-Making Depending on Outcome Predictability-A Randomized Within-Subject Controlled Trial in Healthy Males.

Oxytocin (OT) has been extensively studied with regard to its socio-cognitive and -behavioral effects. Its potential as a therapeutic agent is being discussed for a range of neuropsychiatric conditions. However, there is limited evidence of its effects on non-social cognition in general and decision-making in particular, despite the importance of these functions in neuropsychiatry. Using a crossover/within-subject, blinded, randomized design, we investigated for the first time if intranasal OT (24 IU) affects decision-making differently depending on outcome predictability/ambiguity in healthy males. The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and the Cambridge Risk Task (CRT) were used to assess decision-making under low outcome predictability/high ambiguity and under high outcome probability/low ambiguity, respectively. After administration of OT, subjects performed worse and exhibited riskier performance in the IGT (low outcome predictability/high ambiguity), whereas they made borderline-significant less risky decisions in the CRT (high outcome probability/low ambiguity) as compared to the control condition. Decision-making in healthy males may therefore be influenced by OT and adjusted as a function of contextual information, with implications for clinical trials investigating OT in neuropsychiatric conditions

Divergent effects of oxytocin on "mind-reading" in healthy males

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13415-021-00936-3

Characterization of gastric adenocarcinoma cell lines established from CEA424/SV40 T antigen-transgenic mice with or without a human CEA transgene

BACKGROUND: Gastric carcinoma is one of the most frequent cancers worldwide. Patients with gastric cancer at an advanced disease stage have a poor prognosis, due to the limited efficacy of available therapies. Therefore, the development of new therapies, like immunotherapy for the treatment of gastric cancer is of utmost importance. Since the usability of existing preclinical models for the evaluation of immunotherapies for gastric adenocarcinomas is limited, the goal of the present study was to establish murine in vivo models which allow the stepwise improvement of immunotherapies for gastric cancer. METHODS: Since no murine gastric adenocarcinoma cell lines are available we established four cell lines (424GC, mGC3, mGC5, mGC8) from spontaneously developing tumors of CEA424/SV40 T antigen (CEA424/Tag) mice and three cell lines derived from double-transgenic offsprings of CEA424/Tag mice mated with human carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA)-transgenic (CEA424/Tag-CEA) mice (mGC2(CEA), mGC4(CEA), mGC11(CEA)). CEA424/Tag is a transgenic C57BL/6 mouse strain harboring the Tag under the control of a -424/-8 bp CEA gene promoter which leads to the development of invasive adenocarcinoma in the glandular stomach. Tumor cell lines established from CEA424/Tag-CEA mice express the well defined tumor antigen CEA under the control of its natural regulatory elements. RESULTS: The epithelial origin of the tumor cells was proven by morphological criteria including the presence of mucin within the cells and the expression of the cell adhesion molecules EpCAM and CEACAM1. All cell lines consistently express the transgenes CEA and/or Tag and MHC class I molecules leading to their susceptibility to lysis by Tag-specific CTL in vitro. Despite the presentation of CTL-epitopes derived from the transgene products the tumor cell lines were tumorigenic when grafted into C57BL/6, CEA424/Tag or CEA424/Tag-CEA-transgenic hosts and no significant differences in tumor take and tumor growth were observed in the different hosts. Although no spontaneous tumor rejection was observed, vaccination of C57BL/6 mice with lysates from gastric carcinoma cell lines protected C57BL/6 mice from tumor challenge, demonstrating the tumorigenicity of the tumor cell lines in nontransgenic mice of the H-2(b )haplotype. CONCLUSION: These tumor cell lines grafted in different syngeneic hosts should prove to be very useful to optimize immunotherapy regimens to be finally tested in transgenic animals developing primary gastric carcinomas

Coevolution of activating and inhibitory receptors within mammalian carcinoembryonic antigen families

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Most rapidly evolving gene families are involved in immune responses and reproduction, two biological functions which have been assigned to the carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) gene family. To gain insights into evolutionary forces shaping the CEA gene family we have analysed this gene family in 27 mammalian species including monotreme and marsupial lineages.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Phylogenetic analysis provided convincing evidence that the primordial CEA gene family in mammals consisted of five genes, including the immune inhibitory receptor-encoding <it>CEACAM1 </it>(CEA-related cell adhesion molecule) ancestor. Our analysis of the substitution rates within the nucleotide sequence which codes for the ligand binding domain of CEACAM1 indicates that the selection for diversification is, perhaps, a consequence of the exploitation of CEACAM1 by a variety of viral and bacterial pathogens as their cellular receptor. Depending on the extent of the amplification of an ancestral <it>CEACAM1</it>, the number of <it>CEACAM1</it>-related genes varies considerably between mammalian species from less than five in lagomorphs to more than 100 in bats. In most analysed species, ITAM (immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motifs) or ITAM-like motif-containing proteins exist which contain Ig-V-like, ligand binding domains closely related to that of CEACAM1. Human CEACAM3 is one such protein which can function as a CEACAM1 decoy receptor in granulocytes by mediating the uptake and destruction of specific bacterial pathogens via its ITAM-like motif. The close relationship between <it>CEACAM1 </it>and its ITAM-encoding relatives appears to be maintained by gene conversion and reciprocal recombination. Surprisingly, secreted CEACAMs resembling immunomodulatory CEACAM1-related trophoblast-specific pregnancy-specific glycoproteins (PSGs) found in humans and rodents evolved only in a limited set of mammals. The appearance of <it>PSG</it>-like genes correlates with invasive trophoblast growth in these species.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These phylogenetic studies provide evidence that pathogen/host coevolution and a possible participation in fetal-maternal conflict processes led to a highly species-specific diversity of mammalian CEA gene families.</p