Opportunities for- and configuration of foreign innovation:a case study of multinational companies in China

China has made significant progress in terms of economic development and market based reforms within the last twenty years. The country is no longer limited to a cheap production location for the rest of the world. It became a promising market with expanding capabilities for foreign direct investments (FDI) and new product development (NPD). Though Chinas NPD potential is being recognized, our knowledge about NPD-processes of foreign companies in China remain scarce. This paper contributes to research limitations about foreign innovation management in China. After a short literature review about international innovation management with a special focus on China, we present a secondary data analysis about innovation activities in China from a macro-economical perspective. We use actual data from the OECD and others to develop this macroeconomic framework about China as a (possible) place for innovation. Secondly, we augment this macro-economical perspective by a functional management perspective. We tackle the how- rather than the if-questions of foreign innovation management in China. These questions have been neglected in current research. Based on existing evidence about innovation activities of foreign companies in China we develope a case study about two German companies in China. The first company has just begun with it’s innovation management in China. The second company has more than ten years experience with innovation management in China. Both companies are highly successful with their activities in China as indicated by growth rates and annual R&D budget. By comparing these two companies, we gain insights about the focus of foreign innovation management in China. We develope managerial implications for foreign companies operating in China according to maturity of their innovation management.<br

The treatment of chondral and osteochondral defects of the knee with autologous matrix-induced chondrogenesis (AMIC): method description and recent developments

Purpose: Articular resurfacing by treatment of chondral defects may include chondral abrasion, autologous chondrocyte Implantation (ACI), matrix-induced chondrocyte transplantation (MACT) or osteochondral autologous transplantation (OATS). This technical note describes the method of autologous matrix-induced chondrogenesis (AMIC), a one-step procedure combining subchondral microfracture with the fixation of a collagen I/III membrane with fibrin glue or sutures. Methods: This is a technical note on the AMIC procedure and its further development. Results and conclusion: This method is applied primarily in chondral or osteochondral lesions of the knee. Indications and contraindications are provided; the technique is described. The further development of AMIC is described with an increased focus on the subchondral zone and the complex of cartilage and bone, the osteochondral unit, which receives increased attention in cartilage research. Level of evidence: I

We do not have evidence based methods for the treatment of cartilage defects in the knee

Purpose: The aim of this study was to perform a systematic review of studies concerning current treatment of chondral defects of the knee. Methods: The relevance for evidence based data and for successful surgical treatment of cartilage defects was evaluated. From 56,098 evaluated studies, 133 studies could be further pursued. These supplied data concerning microfracturing, the osteochondral autograft transplantation system (OATS), the autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) and the matrix induced chondrocyte implantation (MACI). The modified Coleman Methodical Score (CMS) and the Level of Evidence (LOE) were applied to evaluate the quality. Results: In these studies, a total of 6,920 patients were reviewed with a median of 32 patients per study and a mean follow-up of 24months. The mean CMS was 58 of 100 points. No study reached 100 points in the CMS. Three studies reached a level above 90. Ten studies were Level I, five studies reached Level II. Seven studies reached Level III, 111 studies Level IV. MRI scans to verify the clinical data were used by only 72 studies. The means in the modified CMS were for the different procedures as follows: ACI 58 points, MACI 57 points, microfracturing 68 points and OATS 50 points. 24 studies applied the Lysholm Score (LS) for clinical evaluation of cartilage surgery. All operative procedures yielded comparable improvements of the LS (n.s.) meaning that no operative procedure proved superior. Conclusion: As the majority of studies evaluated by this review is insufficient for EBM purposes more coherent studies with LOE of I or II are needed. Co-relating the systems of CMS and LOE and validating the applied scores seems desirabl

An overview of the Remote Associates Test in different languages

The Remote Associates Test (RAT, CRA) is a classical creativity test used to measure creativity as a function of associative ability. The RAT has been administered in different languages. Nonetheless, because of how embedded in the language the test is, only a few items are directly translatable, and most of the time the RAT is created anew in each language. This process of manual (and in two cases computational) creation of RAT items is guided by the researchers’ understanding of the task. However, are the RAT items in different languages comparable? In this paper, different RAT stimuli datasets are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Significant differences are observed between certain datasets in terms of solver performance. The potential sources of these differences are discussed, together with what this means for creativity psychometrics and computational vs. manual creation of stimuli

Testing and Validation of TEKNOsim: A Building Energy Simulation Program.

TEKNOsim is a well-established software tool for simulation of thermal indoor climate. It is used for modelling and simulation of thermal loads, indoor temperatures and thermal comfort. TEKNOsim 5, a new version of the simulation tool has been launched with several new features and enhanced functionalities. This paper presents results of testing and validation of TEKNOsim 5 against two state-of-the-art building energy simulation tools, IDA-ICE and DesignBuilder. Comparisons with the reference tools have been made for a number of test cases. Simulation results indicate that, for realistic scenarios, there exists a very close agreement between TEKNOsim and the reference tools. The largest discrepancies between the simulation tools are observed for unrealistic scenarios. Besides this, the observed trends in discrepancies between the tools also suggest that the algorithms used in TEKNOsim 5 are correct

A Constraint Programming Approach to Simultaneous Task Allocation and Motion Scheduling for Industrial Dual-Arm Manipulation Tasks

Modern lightweight dual-arm robots bring the physical capabilities to quickly take over tasks at typical industrial workplaces designed for workers. In times of mass-customization, low setup times including the instructing/specifying of new tasks are crucial to stay competitive. We propose a constraint programming approach to simultaneous task allocation and motion scheduling for such industrial manipulation and assembly tasks. The proposed approach covers dual-arm and even multi-arm robots as well as connected machines. The key concept are Ordered Visiting Constraints, a descriptive and extensible model to specify such tasks with their spatiotemporal requirements and task-specific combinatorial or ordering constraints. Our solver integrates such task models and robot motion models into constraint optimization problems and solves them efficiently using various heuristics to produce makespan-optimized robot programs. The proposed task model is robot independent and thus can easily be deployed to other robotic platforms. Flexibility and portability of our proposed model is validated through several experiments on different simulated robot platforms. We benchmarked our search strategy against a general-purpose heuristic. For large manipulation tasks with 200 objects, our solver implemented using Google's Operations Research tools and ROS requires less than a minute to compute usable plans.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, submitted to ICRA'1

Kirchenbauten als touristische Attraktionen: Werte und Zahlungsbereitschaften im Kirchentourismus

Viele Kirchenbauten erweisen sich als beliebte touristische Stätten. Dazu gehören Wallfahrtskirchen ebenso wie Kirchen, die als kulturtouristische Attraktionen bestechen und/oder an gut frequentierten touristischen Wegen liegen. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum kirchentouristischen Angebot fokussieren auf bestimmte touristische bzw. tourismusrelevante Angebotsleistungen (z.B. Kirchenführungen), lassen jedoch umfassende angebotstheoretische Ansätze vermissen. Auf der touristischen Nachfrageseite liegt eine Vielzahl von Publikationen zu Besuchsmotiven und Erlebnissen von Kirchentouristen vor. Hingegen ist nur wenig über Werteinstellungen touristischer Kirchenbesucher gegenüber den von ihnen besuchten Stätten bekannt. Die vorliegende Dissertation kategorisiert aus tourismusökonomischer Perspektive heraus die typischen Leistungsbestandteile einer Kirche in ihrer Funktion als touristische Attraktion, identifiziert die von touristischen Kirchenbesuchern zugeschriebenen Werteattribute und entwickelt ein Modell von Kirchenbauten als touristischen Leistungs- und Wertebündeln (bzw. wertebasierten Tourismusprodukten). Auch beleuchtet die Arbeit individuelle Zahlungsbereitschaften im Kirchentourismus, die sowohl als monetäre Bewertungsinstrumente für Werteattribute von Kirchenbauten fungieren als auch die Akzeptanz besucherbezogener Finanzierungsinstrumente (z.B. Eintrittsgelder, Besucherspenden) zum (Unt)Erhalt von Kirchenbauten widerspiegeln. Im Rahmen einer empirischen Fallstudie zu drei ausgewählten Kirchenbauten in Sachsen erfolgt eine Analyse monetärer wie nicht-monetärer Wertekategorien hinsichtlich ihrer Ausprägungen bei touristischen Besuchern. Im Zuge einer Clusterzentrenanalyse ergeben sich mehrere Besuchertypen mit charakteristischen Wertemustern. Die Fallstudie zeigt auf, dass für die überwiegende Anzahl der Kirchentouristen nicht nur unmittelbare nutzungsbezogene Nutzenwerte von Kirchenbauten von Belang sind, sondern auch Werteattribute, die über die punktuelle touristische Nutzung hinausgehen und auf den Erhalt der betreffenden Kirchenbauten abzielen („Erhaltungswerte“). Die vorliegende Arbeit plädiert für den Einbezug von Nutzungs- als auch Erhaltungswerten in die touristische Angebots- und Kommunikationspolitik. Damit liefert sie einen Ansatz für ein wertebasiertes Attraktionsmanagement von Kirchenbauten und anderen (religiös-)kulturellen Tourismusattraktionen