Lead complementor involvement in the design of platform boundary resources: A case study of BMW's onboard apps

An increasing number of companies have implemented digital platforms to attract complementors who create innovations on the platform. Establishing such digital platforms is a challenge for incumbent companies because they lack related experience and capabilities. In particular, boundary resources that are the interface between the platform and complementors need to be well-designed to attract complementors and keep them engaged. We propose that lead complementor involvement helps incumbent companies to improve the design of the platform boundary resources. In a multi-year action research study, we established lead complementor involvement in the boundary resource design of a digital platform for automotive onboard apps at the BMW Group and evaluated how boundary resources improved. Along three episodes, we illustrate that lead complementor involvement was effective and we summarise our findings in four propositions: (1) lead complementor involvement facilitates platform emergence for incumbent companies by enhancing boundary resource design, (2) lead complementor involvement is more efficient in higher platform layers, (3) lead complementor involvement is facilitated by an increase of intensity and frequency of interactions between complementors and platform owner and (4) establishing a complementor community helps to continuously identify opportunities for lead complementor involvement. We contribute to the information systems literature on platform emergence and design by focusing on the process of designing boundary resources and by considering the heterogeneity of complementors. Furthermore, we contextualise the concept of lead user involvement in the domain of digital platforms and compare and contrast lead complementors and lead users.     

Beurteilung des Tragverhaltens von Spannbetonbrücken mit spannungsrisskorrosionsgefährdetem Spannstahl

Die Beurteilung des Tragverhaltens von Spannbetonbrücken, die in den 1960er und 1970er Jahren in Deutschland und Österreich gebaut wurden und für deren Herstellung vergütete Spannstähle Verwendung fanden, ist seit vielen Jahren Gegenstand der Forschung mit starkem Praxisbezug. Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden nach einer theoretischen Erläuterung des Tragverhaltens die praxisrelevanten Fragestellungen wie das Vorgehen bei der Beurteilung sowie weiterführende Untersuchungen erörtert. Zudem werden aktuelle Entwicklungen in der Forschung zur Beurteilung von gefährdeten Spannbetonbrücken aufgezeigt und diskutiert. Assessment of Load Bearing Behaviour of Post‐Tensioned Concrete Bridges Equipped with Prestressing Steel Susceptible to Stress Corrosion Cracking Basics, Practical Application and Current Developments Due to extending lifetime of infrastructure in general and posttensioned concrete bridges in particular the importance of durability aspects increases. Especially older prestressed bridges built in the 1960s and 1970s in Germany and Austria are subject of these investigations. Some of these post‐tensioned concrete bridges consist of quenched and tempered prestressing wires with high susceptibility to stress corrosion cracking as we know nowadays. This article deals with recalculation, assessment and evaluating methods for post‐tensioned concrete bridges including further analytic for endangered bridges. The procedure is shown by an example of an existing multi girder bridge and furthermore, future prospects are given.     

Bifacial Dye Membranes: Ultrathin and Free-Standing although not Being Covalently Bound

Layers of aligned dyes are key to photo-driven charge separation in dye sensitized solar cells, but cannot be exploited as rectifying membranes in photocatalysis to separate half-cells because they are not sufficiently stable. While impressive work on the fabrication of stable noncovalent membranes has been recently demonstrated, these membranes are inherently suffering from non-uniform orientation of the constituting dyes. To stabilize layers made from uniformly assembled and aligned dyes, they can be covalently cross-linked via functional groups or via chromophores at the expense of their optical properties. Here stable membranes from established dyes are reported that do not need to be elaborately functionalized nor do their chromophores need to be destroyed. These membranes are free-standing, although being only non-covalently linked. To enable uniform dye-alignment, Langmuir layers made from linear, water-insoluble dyes are used. That water-soluble charge transfer dyes adsorb onto and intercalate into the Langmuir layer from the aqueous subphase, thus yielding free-standing, molecularly thin membranes are demonstrated. The developed bifacial layers consist almost entirely of π-conjugated units and thus can conduct charges and can be further engineered for optoelectronic and photocatalytic applications.     

RF-induced heating of interventional devices at 23.66 MHz

Objective

Low-field MRI systems are expected to cause less RF heating in conventional interventional devices due to lower Larmor frequency. We systematically evaluate RF-induced heating of commonly used intravascular devices at the Larmor frequency of a 0.55 T system (23.66 MHz) with a focus on the effect of patient size, target organ, and device position on maximum temperature rise.

Materials and methods

To assess RF-induced heating, high-resolution measurements of the electric field, temperature, and transfer function were combined. Realistic device trajectories were derived from vascular models to evaluate the variation of the temperature increase as a function of the device trajectory. At a low-field RF test bench, the effects of patient size and positioning, target organ (liver and heart) and body coil type were measured for six commonly used interventional devices (two guidewires, two catheters, an applicator and a biopsy needle).

Results

Electric field mapping shows that the hotspots are not necessarily localized at the device tip. Of all procedures, the liver catheterizations showed the lowest heating, and a modification of the transmit body coil could further reduce the temperature increase. For common commercial needles no significant heating was measured at the needle tip. Comparable local SAR values were found in the temperature measurements and the TF-based calculations.

Conclusion

At low fields, interventions with shorter insertion lengths such as hepatic catheterizations result in less RF-induced heating than coronary interventions. The maximum temperature increase depends on body coil design.

     

Chemoenzymatic Synthesis of Glycopeptides to Explore the Role of Mucin 1 Glycosylation in Cell Adhesion

Post-translational modifications affect protein biology under physiological and pathological conditions. Efficient methods for the preparation of peptides and proteins carrying defined, homogeneous modifications are fundamental tools for investigating these functions. In the case of mucin 1 (MUC1), an altered glycosylation pattern is observed in carcinogenesis. To better understand the role of MUC1 glycosylation in the interactions and adhesion of cancer cells, we prepared a panel of homogeneously O-glycosylated MUC1 peptides by using a quantitative chemoenzymatic approach. Cell-adhesion experiments with MCF-7 cancer cells on surfaces carrying up to six differently glycosylated MUC1 peptides demonstrated that different glycans have a significant impact on adhesion. This finding suggests a distinct role for MUC1 glycosylation patterns in cancer cell migration and/or invasion. To decipher the molecular mechanism for the observed adhesion, we investigated the conformation of the glycosylated MUC1 peptides by NMR spectroscopy. These experiments revealed only minor differences in peptide structure, therefore clearly relating the adhesion behaviour to the type and number of glycans linked to MUC1.     

Osmotically Delaminated Silicate Nanosheet-Coated NCM for Ultra-Stable Li+ Storage and Chemical Stability Toward Long-Term Air Exposure

To ensure the safety and performance of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), a rational design and optimization of suitable cathode materials are crucial. Lithium nickel cobalt manganese oxides (NCM) represent one of the most popular cathode materials for commercial LIBs. However, they are limited by several critical issues, such as transition metal dissolution, formation of an unstable cathode-electrolyte interphase (CEI) layer, chemical instability upon air exposure, and mechanical instability. In this work, coating fabricated by self-assembly of osmotically delaminated sodium fluorohectorite (Hec) nanosheets onto NCM (Hec-NCM) in a simple and technically benign aqueous wet-coating process is reported first. Complete wrapping of NCM by high aspect ratio (>10 000) nanosheets is enabled through an electrostatic attraction between Hec nanosheets and NCM as well as by the superior mechanical flexibility of Hec nanosheets. The coating significantly suppresses mechanical degradation while forming a multi-functional CEI layer. Consequently, Hec-NCM delivers outstanding capacity retention for 300 cycles. Furthermore, due to the exceptional gas barrier properties of the few-layer Hec-coating, the electrochemical performance of Hec-NCM is maintained even after 6 months of exposure to the ambient atmosphere. These findings suggest a new direction of significantly improving the long-term stability and activity of cathode materials by creating an artificial CEI layer.