The participation of block copolymers in the increase in the number of tie molecules

Three-block copolymers polyamide-block-polyX-block-polyamide (where X is styrene, ethylene-co-1-butene, and others) are able to improve substantially the toughness of poly(ϵ-caprolactam). Outer blocks of these copolymers are able to take part in folding lamellae of semi-crystalline polyamide, inner blocks are not. They operate as a spacer, meaning that the end blocks of copolymers capable of folding become parts of different lamellae, or that the unfoldable part of a block copolymer is pushed out of a folding lamella with a certain probability of the remaining outer block taking part in folding another lamella. This increases the number of tie-molecules.     

The optimal level of CRM IT investments

In light of the growing relevance of customer-oriented business strategies IT investments in the field of Customer Relationship Management have increased considerably. However, firms often could not realize sufficient returns on these IT investments. One major reason for this failure seems to be the lack of appropriate approaches to determine the economic impact of such investments ex ante. Therefore, we develop an economic model to determine the optimal level of Customer Relationship Management IT investments. Using this approach, firms can evaluate, to what extent investments in Customer Relationship Management IT are reasonable. One major result is that in most cases the “all or nothing strategy” pursued by many firms does not lead to the optimal level of investments. To illustrate the practical utility and applicability of the approach, we provide a real world example of a German financial services provider.     

Social commerce research: An integrated view

Social commerce has quickly emerged as a new area of inquiry for both practitioners and researchers, suggesting the potential impacts of social media and social networking technologies and services in shaping commercial channels on and off the Internet. This essay starts by providing a brief overview of social commerce research and practice in light of the wide attention it has drawn in the industry. Then, we propose a research framework with an integrated view of social commerce that consists of four key components: business, technology, people, and information. The framework helps us understand the development of social commerce research and practice to date. Subsequently, we report some preliminary findings from a bibliometric study of academic and industry publications in social commerce to reveal recent trends and research topics, as well as some verification of the research framework. Finally, we discuss five articles in this special issue and categorize them in terms of the proposed social commerce research framework.     

Imperfect premise matching based fuzzy control with passive constraints for discrete time-delay multiplicative noised stochastic nonlinear systems

This paper investigates a fuzzy controller design method for discrete-time nonlinear stochastic time-delay systems which are presented by the Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model with multiplicative noises. Utilizing the proposed design method, the fuzzy controller can be carried out via not only state feedback scheme but also output feedback scheme. Both of them are accomplished by the concept of imperfect premise matching (IPM). For discussing the stabilization problem, the Lyapunov-Krasovskii function and passivity theory are applied to derive the sufficient conditions. Moreover, the discrete Jensen inequality is employed to decrease the conservatism of the proposed method. Finally, a numerical example for the control of a nonlinear time-delay pendulum system is provided to show the effectiveness and usefulness of the proposed design method.     

Universal Remote Console-based next-generation accessible television

This paper presents a new approach to make current and future television universally accessible. The proposed approach provides a means of universal accessibility both for remotely operating the TV set and for interacting with online services delivered through the TV. This proposal is based on the ISO/IEC 24752 “Universal Remote Console” (URC) standard. This standard defines an abstract user interface layer called the “user interface socket” and allows the development of pluggable (plug-in) user interfaces for any type of user and any control device. The proposed approach lays the foundation for the development of advanced user interfaces that can be interacted within various modalities. Different prototypes have been developed based on this approach and tested with end users. The user tests have shown this approach to be a viable option for the proposed scenarios. Based on the experience gathered with the prototypes, recommendations and implementation options are suggested for commercial adoption.     

State of the Art of Molecular Visualization in Immersive Virtual Environments

Visualization plays a crucial role in molecular and structural biology. It has been successfully applied to a variety of tasks, including structural analysis and interactive drug design. While some of the challenges in this area can be overcome with more advanced visualization and interaction techniques, others are challenging primarily due to the limitations of the hardware devices used to interact with the visualized content. Consequently, visualization researchers are increasingly trying to take advantage of new technologies to facilitate the work of domain scientists. Some typical problems associated with classic 2D interfaces, such as regular desktop computers, are a lack of natural spatial understanding and interaction, and a limited field of view. These problems could be solved by immersive virtual environments and corresponding hardware, such as virtual reality head-mounted displays. Thus, researchers are investigating the potential of immersive virtual environments in the field of molecular visualization. There is already a body of work ranging from educational approaches to protein visualization to applications for collaborative drug design. This review focuses on molecular visualization in immersive virtual environments as a whole, aiming to cover this area comprehensively. We divide the existing papers into different groups based on their application areas, and types of tasks performed. Furthermore, we also include a list of available software tools. We conclude the report with a discussion of potential future research on molecular visualization in immersive environments.     

The Formation of Calcified Nanospherites during Micropetrosis Represents a Unique Mineralization Mechanism in Aged Human Bone

Osteocytes—the central regulators of bone remodeling—are enclosed in a network of microcavities (lacunae) and nanocanals (canaliculi) pervading the mineralized bone. In a hitherto obscure process related to aging and disease, local plugs in the lacuno‐canalicular network disrupt cellular communication and impede bone homeostasis. By utilizing a suite of high‐resolution imaging and physics‐based techniques, it is shown here that the local plugs develop by accumulation and fusion of calcified nanospherites in lacunae and canaliculi (micropetrosis). Two distinctive nanospherites phenotypes are found to originate from different osteocytic elements. A substantial deviation in the spherites' composition in comparison to mineralized bone further suggests a mineralization process unlike regular bone mineralization. Clearly, mineralization of osteocyte lacunae qualifies as a strong marker for degrading bone material quality in skeletal aging. The understanding of micropetrosis may guide future therapeutics toward preserving osteocyte viability to maintain mechanical competence and fracture resistance of bone in elderly individuals.     

Optimization and experimental investigations of stiffened, axially compressed CFRP-panels

Thin-walled, unstiffened and stiffened shell structures made of fibre composite materials are frequently applied due to their high stiffness/strength to weight ratios in all fields of lightweight constructions. One major design criterion of these structures is their sensitivity with respect to buckling failure when subjected to inplane compression and shear loads. This paper describes how the structural analysis program BEOS (Buckling of Eccentrically Orthotropic Sandwich shells) is combined with the optimization procedure SAPOP (Structural Analysis Program and Optimization Procedure) to produce a tool for designing optimum CFRP-panels against buckling. Experimental investigations are used to justify the described procedures.Nomenclature C, C _b material stiffness matrices (shell, beam stiffener) - f objective function - F _cr buckling load - g vector of inequality constraints - K,K _g , stiffness matrix, geometrical stiffness matrix, condensed stiffness matrix - n _s ,n _b vector of stress resultants (shell, beam stiffener) - N _x ,N _y ,N _xy membrane forces of the shell - P _x ,P _y ,P _xy membrane forces of the stiffener - r _x ,r _y ,r _xy radii of curvature - ⁿ n-dimensional Euclidean space - W strain energy - u, v, w deformations inx, y, z direction - x, y, z global coordinate system - x vector of design variables - y, z right-hand side, left-hand side eigenvector - variational symbol - _i ^k Kronecker's delta - e _s ,e _b strain vectors (shell, beam stiffener) - , _cr load factor, buckling load factor - , e total energy, external potential energy A (^) sign above a variable points out that this variable belongs to the prebuckling state.