Evaluating IT Fashion Investments regarding Risk and Return

IT fashions are IT innovations within a hyped phase. They are on the rise and claimed to be “the next big thing”. Investing in IT fashions bears potential for high returns in case the technology becomes institutionalized and first mover advantages can be realized. Contrary, it bears the risk of investing in a losing technology. By waiting for others to make the first move organizations bypass this risk but accept the chance of being out-innovated. Depending on an emerging technology’s evolution and its characteristics, the extent of risk and return differ for each strategy. Literature regarding risk and return of IT investments does not address these idiosyncrasies adequately. Our aim is to outline risk/return for each strategy and characteristics of emerging technologies that determine its extent. Hence, this conceptual paper brings together IT fashion and IT investment literature to provide a basis for further research on the evaluation of fashionable IT innovations

The Error Of Fixed Strategies In IT Innovation Investment Decisions

Allocating an IT Innovation budget to technologies in different maturity stages (mature vs. fashionable IT innovations) is a demanding task for companies. Due to the dynamic innovation cycles with new emerging technologies, many IT innovation investment decisions follow a bandwagon behavior or fixed investment strategies. Instead of optimizing the IT innovation budget’s allocation to mature or fashionable IT innovations and following a mindful investment strategy, fixed strategies with naïve diversification are the rule in practice. To contribute to the decision making process regarding the IT innovation budget’s allocation, we aim on the optimized allocation to mature and fashionable IT innovations via a dynamic optimization model incorporating the idiosyncrasies of IT innovations and a company’s innovator profile. Though determining the optimum in practice seems to be virtually impossible, we argue that deviating above or below the theoretical optimum leads to a substantial difference regarding the IT innovation budget’s value contribution. For that we examine the valuation error resulting from under- or overinvesting in mature and fashionable IT innovations due to deviating from the theoretical optimum. By providing our ex ante dynamic optimization model and analysis we contribute to the decision making process regarding the engagement in new emerging IT innovations

A Quantitative Model for Using Open Innovation in Mobile Service Development

The potential of mobile service innovations to create valuable economic impact makes their development desirable for companies. To develop and launch successful mobile services, the integration of customers in the idea generation process bears high potential. However, such Open Innovation activities usually demand for investments, whereas the precise relation between the money invested and the generated economic effect is still indistinct. The objective of this paper is to replace the black box between investments in Open Innovation and the thereby generated profits through formal-deductive analysis. For this purpose, we analyze the effect chain between Open Innovation and economic profit by adapting the model of Kano and putting special emphasis on the specifics of mobile services. Building on that, we develop a quantitative formal model to determine the optimal investment amount in Open Innovation activities for mobile services. The model’s utility is illustrated with an example based on real-world data

Archetypische Vaterfiguren bei Ingeborg Bachmann unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Rezeption von C. G. Jung

Die Arbeit analysiert in ausgewählten Texten aus dem „Todesarten“-Zyklus von Ingeborg Bachmann das Verhältnis der weiblichen Hauptpersonen zu den Vaterfiguren. Dabei spielt Carl Gustav Jungs Archetypen-Theorie eine entscheidende Rolle: Nach Jung ist ein Archetypus ein Urbild, das in der menschlichen Psyche, genauer im kollektiven Unbewussten, angesiedelt ist. Primär besitzen die Archetypen keinen Inhalt. Erst im Laufe der Lebenszeit werden diese „Schubladen“ je nach Erfahrungs- und Erlebenswelt jedes einzelnen Individuums mit Bedeutungen und Assoziationen gefüllt. Jung geht weiter davon aus, dass, je nachdem, welcher Qualität die einem Archetyp zugeordneten Erfahrungen nun sein mögen, sich im Menschen eine gewisse Vorstellung heraus bildet, wie ein dem Archetyp entsprechendes Wesen zu „sein“ hat. Damit ist die Brücke zu Ingeborg Bachmann geschlagen, deren „Todesarten“-Texte sich meist durch gewalttätige, unterdrückende und herrschsüchtige Männer- bzw. Vaterfiguren auszeichnet. Erkennbar ist dies besonders im Roman Malina und im Romanfragment Das Buch Franza. Während in ersterem eine imaginäre, weil nur im Traum vorkommende unpersönliche Vaterfigur mit faschistischen Methoden seine Tochter zu ermorden und auszulöschen sucht, stellt in letzterem der Arzt Dr. Jordan, Ehemann der Protagonistin, die Ursache für den letztendlich unvermeidbaren Tod der Franza dar. Die übrigen drei untersuchten Werke, Requiem für Fanny Goldmann, Alles und Drei Wege zum See, erzählen von konkreten Vätern, die unfähig sind, einem positiven Vater-Archetypus zu entsprechen. Die Jungsche Theorie zeigt, wie gefestigte Vorstellungen einerseits bestätigt (das Anprangern einer Vätergeneration, die faschistisch und patriarchalisch über die gesamte Natur zu herrschen sucht) und andererseits auch enttäuscht werden, indem die Väter als Beschützer und Ernährer versagen

Constraints to speciation despite divergence in an old haplochromine cichlid lineage.

Most of the 500+ cichlid species of Lake Victoria evolved very rapidly in the wake of an adaptive radiation within the last 15'000 years. All 500 species have evolved from just one out of five old cichlid lineages that colonized the lake. Endemic to the Lake Victoria region, Astatoreochromis alluaudi is a member of an old haplochromine lineage that never speciated in the region. Even though the species occurs in a wide range of habitats, there were no indications of evolutionary diversification. Here, we tested predictions of several hypothetical mechanisms that might constrain speciation, including high dispersal rates, a generalist life style and the lack of behavioral assortative mating. Genomic analyses of individuals from thirteen populations revealed several genomically distinct groups, associated with major habitat classes, indicating the existence of two distinct ecotypes. We found significant phenotypic differences between these ecotypes in the wild, which were retained under common-garden conditions, potentially indicating heritable phenotypic adaptations. Female mate choice experiments revealed the absence of behavioural assortative mating despite genetic and phenotypic differentiation between ecotypes. We suggest that the lack of coupling between behavioral mating preferences and phenotypic and genetic divergence constrains speciation in this cichlid

Type-Based Analysis of Logarithmic Amortised Complexity

We introduce a novel amortised resource analysis couched in a type-and-effect system. Our analysis is formulated in terms of the physicist's method of amortised analysis, and is potential-based. The type system makes use of logarithmic potential functions and is the first such system to exhibit *logarithmic amortised complexity*. With our approach we target the automated analysis of self-adjusting data structures, like splay trees, which so far have only manually been analysed in the literature. In particular, we have implemented a semi-automated prototype, which successfully analyses the zig-zig case of *splaying*, once the type annotations are fixed.Comment: 35 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1807.0824

Overcoming dispersive spreading of quantum wave packets via periodic nonlinear kicking

We propose the suppression of dispersive spreading of wave packets governed by the free-space Schrodinger equation with a periodically pulsed nonlinear term. Using asymptotic analysis, we construct stroboscopically-dispersionless quantum states that are physically reminiscent of, but mathematically different from, the well-known one-soliton solutions of the nonlinear Schrodinger equation with a constant (time-independent) nonlinearity. Our analytics are strongly supported by full numerical simulations. The predicted dispersionless wave packets can move with arbitrary velocity and can be realized in experiments involving ultracold atomic gases with temporally controlled interactions