Data Sovereign Humans and the Information Economy: Towards Design Principles for Human Centric B2C Data Ecosystems

The ever-growing amounts of data offer companies many opportunities for data-driven-value generation which, in turn, can be multiplied by leveraging data across company boundaries in evolving data ecosystems. However, while such systems increasingly emerge in B2B environments enabling systematic sharing and utilization of “industrial data”, comparable concepts in B2C ambits have not yet prevailed. Despite the rising importance of personal data in the information economy, B2C data ecosystems represent a widely unexplored research area. To remedy this gap, the study generates design principles for human centric B2C data ecosystems to aid in their development. For this purpose, a qualitative interview study with experts of interdisciplinary domains and a structured literature review are conducted both embedded into a methodology for generating design principles. On this basis, derived design principles help to understand peculiarities of data ecosystems in B2C ambits and provide solutions to overcome their obstacles identified in the empirical investigation

A Reference System Architecture with Data Sovereignty for Human-Centric Data Ecosystems

Since the European information economy faces insufficient access to and joint utilization of data, data ecosystems increasingly emerge as economical solutions in B2B environments. Contrarily, in B2C ambits, concepts for sharing and monetizing personal data have not yet prevailed, impeding growth and innovation. Their major pitfall is European data protection law that merely ascribes human data subjects a need for data privacy while widely neglecting their economic participatory claims to data. The study reports on a design science research (DSR) approach addressing this gap and proposes an abstract reference system architecture for an ecosystem centered on humans with personal data. In this DSR approach, multiple methods are embedded to iteratively build and evaluate the artifact, i.e., structured literature reviews, design recovery, prototyping, and expert interviews. Managerial contributions embody novel design knowledge about the conceptual development of human-centric B2C data ecosystems, considering their legal, ethical, economic, and technical constraints

Let the Computer Say NO! The Neglected Potential of Policy Definition Languages for Data Sovereignty

During interaction with today’s internet services and platform ecosystems, consumer data is often harvested and shared without their consent; that is, consumers seized to be the sovereigns of their own data with the proliferation of the internet. Due to the rapid and abundant nature of interactions in today’s platform ecosystems, manual consent management is impractical. To support development of semi-automated solutions for reestablishing data sovereignty, we investigate the use of policy definition languages as machine-readable and enforceable mechanisms for fostering data sovereignty. We conducted a realist literature review of the capabilities of policy definition languages developed for pertinent application scenarios (e.g., for access control in cloud computing). We consolidate extant literature into a framework of the chances and challenges of leveraging policy definition languages as central building blocks for data sovereignty in platform ecosystems

Exploring Design Characteristics of Data Trustees in Healthcare - Taxonomy and Archetypes

The use of health data can provide valuable insights for both research and industry comprising the potential to improve healthcare services and facilitate the development of innovative solutions for the healthcare sector. However, due to data protection requirements and technical challenges, access to health data is still severely inhibited. To enhance access to and utilization of health data, science and politics increasingly consider data trustee models as a conceivable solution. Yet, such concepts are still in their infancies and hardly known. At the same time, they exhibit strong differences in their design. Thus, to foster awareness about and the development of data trustee models, this study investigates their design characteristics and integrates them into a holistic taxonomy. Additionally, design patterns are explored and archetypes derived. The findings reveal that data trustee models in healthcare follow some overarching design patterns and can be assigned to four dominant archetypes

Linking Data Sovereignty and Data Economy: Arising Areas of Tension

In the emerging information economy, data evolves as an essential asset and personal data in particular is used for data-driven business models. However, companies frequently leverage personal data without considering individuals’ data sovereignty. Therefore, we strive to strengthen individuals’ position in data ecosystems by combining concepts of data sovereignty and data economy. Our research design comprises an approach to design thinking iteratively generating, validating, and refining such concepts. As a result, we identified ten areas of tension that arise when linking data sovereignty and data economy. Subsequently, we propose initial solutions to resolve these tensions and thus contribute to knowledge about the development of fair data ecosystems benefiting both individuals’ sovereignty and companies’ access to data

First results from electrical qualification measurements on DEPFET pixel detector

We report on the first results from a new setup for electrical qualification measurements of DEPFET pixel detector matrices. In order to measure the transistor properties of all pixels, the DEPFET device is placed into a benchtest setup and electrically contacted via a probecard. Using a switch matrix, each pixel of the detector array can be addressed individually for characterization. These measurements facilitate to pre-select the best DEPFET matrices as detector device prior to the mounting of the matrix and allow to investigate topics like the homogeneity of transistor parameters on device, wafer and batch level in order to learn about the stability and reproducibility of the production process. Especially with regard to the detector development for the IXO Wide Field Imager (WFI), this yield learning will be an important tool. The first electrical qualification measurements with this setup were done on DEPFET macropixel detector flight hardware, which will form the FPAs of the Mercury Imaging X-ray Spectrometer (MIXS) on board of the 5th ESA cornerstone mission BepiColombo. The DEPFET array consists of 64×64 macropixel for which the transfer, output and clear characteristics were measured

The IXO Wide-Field Imager

The Wide Field Imager (WFI) of the International X-ray Observatory (IXO) is an X-ray imaging spectrometer based on a large monolithic DePFET (Depleted P-channel Field Effect Transistor) Active Pixel Sensor. Filling an area of 10 × 10 cm with a format of 1024 × 1024 pixels it will cover a field of view of 18 arcmin. The pixel size of 100 × 100 mu m corresponds to a fivefold oversampling of the telescope's expected 5 arcsec point spread function. The WFI's basic DePFET structure combines the functionalities of sensor and integrated amplifier with nearly Fano-limited energy resolution and high efficiency from 100 eV to 15 keV. The development of dedicated control and amplifier ASICs allows for high frame rates up to 1 kHz and flexible readout modes. Results obtained with representative prototypes with a format of 256 × 256 pixels are presented

The Wide-Field Imager for IXO: Status and future activities

The Wide Field Imager (WFI) of the International X-ray Observatory (IXO) is an X-ray imaging spectrometer based on a large monolithic DePFET (Depleted P-channel Field Effect Transistor) Active Pixel Sensor. Filling an area of 10 x 10 cm2 with a format of 1024 x 1024 pixels it will cover a field of view of 18 arcmin. The pixel size of 100 x 100 μm2 corresponds to a fivefold oversampling of the telescope's expected 5 arcsec point spread function. The WFI's basic DePFET structure combines the functionalities of sensor and integrated amplifier with nearly Fano-limited energy resolution and high efficiency from 100 eV to 15 keV. The development of dedicated control and amplifier ASICs allows for high frame rates up to 1 kHz and flexible readout modes. Results obtained with representative prototypes with a format of 256 x 256 pixels are presented

Photoconvertible fluorescent protein EosFP: biophysical properties and cell biology applications

EosFP is a fluorescent protein from the coral Lobophyllia hemprichii that changes its fluorescence emission from green to red upon irradiation with near-UV light. Here we present the spectroscopic properties of wild-type EosFP and a variety of monomeric and dimeric mutants and provide a structural interpretation of its oligomerization and photoconversion, which is based on X-ray structure analysis of the green and red species that we reported recently. Because functional expression of the monomeric EosFP variant is limited to temperatures of 30°C, we have developed a tandem dimer. This construct, in which two EosFP subunits are connected by a flexible 12 amino acid linker, expresses well after fusion with the androgen and endothelin A receptors at 37°C. A variety of applications in cellular imaging, developmental biology and automated high-content screening applications are presented, which demonstrate that EosFP is a powerful tool for in vivo monitoring of cellular processes.<br/