A Flexible Approach Towards Self-Adapting Process Recommendations

A company's ability to flexibly adapt to changing business requirements is one key factor to remain competitive. The required flexibility in people driven processes is usually achieved through ad-hoc workflows which are naturally highly unstructured. Effective guidance in ad-hoc workflows therefore requires a simultaneous consideration of multiple goals: support of individual work habits, classification of unstructured messages, exploration of crowd process knowledge, and automatic adaptation to changes. This paper presents a flexible approach towards the mapping of unstructured messages onto processes as well as patterns for self-adjusting and context-sensitive process recommendations based on the analysis of user behavior, crowd processes, and continuous application of process detection. Specifically, we classify users as eagles (i.e., specialists) or flock. The approach is evaluated in the context of the European research project Commius

Towards a Component-based Description of Business Models: A State-of-the-Art Analysis

Since the mid-1990s, in the course of the raising commercial use of modern ICT and the transformation of traditional to digital business, the business model concept has emerged as a promising unit of analysis in business practice that has attracted increasing interest in research. To describe business models, they are usually broken down to single business model components. Unfortunately, no uniform framework of business model components has been established so far. Thus, this paper presents a comprehensive analysis of business model components proposed in literature as well as harmonizes and categorizes them by constructing an overall framework

Analyzing the Business Model Concept — A Comprehensive Classification of Literature

The business model concept is characterized by numerous fields of application which are promising in business practice. Consequently, research on business models has attracted increasing attention in the scientific world. However, for a successful utilization, the widely-criticized lack of theoretical consensus in this field of research has to be overcome. Thus, this paper conducted a comprehensive and up-to-date literature analysis examining 30 relevant literature sources focusing mainly on business model research. To achieve this, the analysis was based on a classification framework containing 17 evaluation criteria. Hereby, a systematic and objective penetration of the research area could be achieved. Moreover, existing research gaps as well as the most important fields to be addressed in future research could be revealed

Towards a Framework for Transforming Business Models into Business Processes

This paper aims at providing a methodological framework for mapping strategic business model updates onto the business processes within a company. An analysis of the interdependencies between business models and business processes to estimate the effects of a strategic decision constitutes an essential pillar of the proposed framework. In order to facilitate the underlying transformation of business models into business processes, the development of executable process modules will serve to transform partial aspects of a complex novel business model separately. Companies can utilize the benefits of the proposed framework to implement their business models in a more efficient and optimized way

Clonidine effects on pain evoked SII activity in humans

We investigated pain evoked activity in the human secondary sensory cortex (SII) following clonidine administration in six healthy volunteers using multi‐channel magnetoencephalography (MEG). Pain was elicited by electrical shocks applied intracutaneously to the fingertip. Subjects rated pain intensity and perceptions of tiredness and passiveness by numerical ranking scales. Each subject underwent two investigations, one week apart from each other, with clonidine doses of 1.5 or 3.0 μg/kg, administered intravenously in a random order and double‐blinded. We applied a total number of seven blocks, each consisting of 60 painful stimuli, with one adaptation block, one pre‐medication block, four post‐medication blocks and one recovery block at the end of the session. MEG data were analysed by dipole reconstruction using CURRY R (Neuroscan, Hamburg) software package. Cortical activity in the contralateral SII cortex appeared with peak latencies of 118.5 ± 10 ms. This activity was significantly reduced by clonidine, in parallel with a reduction of pain intensity and enhancement of subjective tiredness and passiveness. There was, however, no significant correlation between MEG and subjective effects. Although both clonidine doses had similar effects, the higher dose induced longer changes. Results indicate that intravenous clonidine is able to relieve pain, but the exact mechanism of clonidine at the level of the SII cortex remains unclear. It is possible that clonidine interacts with the brainstem ascending system regulating vigilance and arousal which would explain the observed decrement of pain induced activity in SII. An additional more specific analgesic action at spinal level cannot be excluded.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90357/1/j.ejpain.2005.12.003.pd

Targeting transferrin receptors at the blood-brain barrier improves the uptake of immunoliposomes and subsequent cargo transport into the brain parenchyma

Abstract Drug delivery to the brain is hampered by the presence of the blood-brain barrier, which excludes most molecules from freely diffusing into the brain, and tightly regulates the active transport mechanisms that ensure sufficient delivery of nutrients to the brain parenchyma. Harnessing the possibility of delivering neuroactive drugs by way of receptors already present on the brain endothelium has been of interest for many years. The transferrin receptor is of special interest since its expression is limited to the endothelium of the brain as opposed to peripheral endothelium. Here, we investigate the possibility of delivering immunoliposomes and their encapsulated cargo to the brain via targeting of the transferrin receptor. We find that transferrin receptor-targeting increases the association between the immunoliposomes and primary endothelial cells in vitro, but that this does not correlate with increased cargo transcytosis. Furthermore, we show that the transferrin receptor-targeted immunoliposomes accumulate along the microvessels of the brains of rats, but find no evidence for transcytosis of the immunoliposome. Conversely, the increased accumulation correlated both with increased cargo uptake in the brain endothelium and subsequent cargo transport into the brain. These findings suggest that transferrin receptor-targeting is a relevant strategy of increasing drug exposure to the brain

The Relevance of Digital Sharing Business Models for Sustainability

There is a growing discussion about the "Digital Sharing Economy" (DSE). The pervasiveness of digital platforms and the growing interest in a sharing (rather than ownership) style of consumption have allowed for sharing practices to scale up and become a widespread phenomenon. Digital sharing platforms offer a wide variety of services which appear to be more affordable, efficient, and accessible than their conventional counterparts, making them more attractive in the eyes of consumers. The DSE has manifested itself most remarkably in consumer-to-consumer (C2C) and business-to-consumer (B2C) sharing models. New business models have been created to capture and offer the values driving the emerging sharing trend. The innovative, digitally enabled mode of providing access to resources as a service in the DSE has changed consumption patterns both at micro level, as a change in individual lifestyles, and at macro level, manifested in a transformation of socio-economic structures. These ongoing changes may have both positive and negative implications for society from a sustainability perspective. Recognising that the (potential and actual) impacts of sharing platforms on sustainability have not been studied in a systematic way yet, the present paper aims to develop a systematic insight into this interaction by focusing on the business models emerging around sharing platforms as a central starting point. To achieve this, we use a typology of business models that recognizes the affordances and key attributes of sharing in the DSE. The typology covers both C2C and B2C models of sharing. Based on this typology, we discuss the implications of each type of sharing model for sustainability by asking two central questions: How may the given type of sharing affect resource consumption? And what will be the potential impacts on social practices and structures? We hope that the present study can serve as a guideline for assessing the sustainability impacts of sharing platforms -- either already operating in the market or envisaged. By highlighting the aspects most relevant from a sustainability point of view, we expect to contribute to an evolution of the DSE business models towards sustainable development