Open Access

In this work a set of nonlinear coupled COM equations at interacting frequencies is derived on the basis of nonlinear electro-elasticity. The formalism is presented with the aim of describing intermodulation distortion of third-order (IMD3) and triple beat. The resulting COM equations are translated to the P-matrix formalism, where care is taken to obtain the correct frequency dependence. The scheme depends on two frequency-independent constants for an effective third-order nonlinearity. One of these two constants is negligibly small in the systems considered here. The P-matrix approach is applied to single filters and duplexers on LiTaO 3 (YXl)/42° operating in different frequency ranges. Both IMD3 and triple beat show good agreement with measurement.

Machine Learning (ML) als das aktuell wohl am meisten diskutierte Teilgebiet von Künstlicher Intelligenz (KI) verspricht und realisiert bereits sinnvolle Unterstützung u.a. beim autonomen Fahren, der Predictive Maintenance, der Verbrechensvorbeugung, dem Zusammenführen von Angebot und Nachfrage durch Empfehlungslisten oder im Kundenservice mit Softbots.1 All diesen Anwendung ist letztlich gemeinsam, dass Entscheidungen zu treffen sind, und zwar möglichst rational vor dem Hintergrund von subjektiven Präferenzsystemen und den in Betracht gezogenen Handlungsalternativen. Die Entscheidungsgegenstände betreffen Fragen, wann ein Fahrzeug leicht abgebremst werden soll, in welcher Gegend schwerpunktmäßig Polizeipräsenz gezeigt werden soll oder wann eine Maschine gewartet werden soll.

Mit der Digitalisierung haben sich für Marketing und Vertrieb vielzählige unterschiedliche neue Kanäle, Werbeformate und Zielgruppen eröffnet. Expertinnen und Experten schätzen, dass ca. 4.000 bis 10.000 Werbe- und Markenbotschaften täglich auf jede und jeden von uns einprasseln. Mögen diese Zahlen umstritten und eine Zahl zwischen 300 bis 500 Botschaften pro Tag realistischer sein, so ist dies noch immer eine Menge, die kaum noch verarbeitet und wahrgenommen werden kann. Als Reaktion auf diese Werbemasse und Reizüberflutung haben Konsumentinnen und Konsumenten zum Teil eine Art „Werbeblindheit“ entwickelt. Für Unternehmen wird daher zunehmend herausfordernder, ihre Zielgruppe aktiv zu erreichen. Was können Unternehmen nun tun, um dennoch nachhaltig Aufmerksamkeit zu gewinnen, und wie kann Künstliche-Intelligenz-gestütztes Kundendatenmanagement dabei helfen?

The use of architectural models is a long-proven method for the visualization of designs. More recently, powerful 3D printers have enabled the rapid and cost-effective additive manufacturing (AM) of textured architectural models. The use of AM technology to sample terraced houses in a specific use case (sampling center with more than 1200 customers per year) is examined within this contribution. The aim is to offer customers with limited spatial imagination assistance in the form of detailed architectural models of the whole house, which are divided into different modules. For this purpose, the structure of the terraced house is first analysed and examined for flexible design elements. The implementation of different variants of each floor should serve as a basis for the customer's decision on design and equipment. Thus, the architectural models are additively manufactured using Polyjet modeling. The necessary CAAD-data and interfaces, the technical possibilities and limits of this approach as well as the resulting costs are analyzed. The results of the AM process are evaluated to determine their applicability for the sampling of terraced houses. In addition, the evaluation will show that the additively manufactured architectural models will allow a more precise visualization of the building and thus a faster understanding of the design choices.

The aim of the essay is to identify current trends in infrastructure financing in times of net zero, crucial challenges, and solutions to overcome these issues. To gain information, a fundamental literal research, and interviews with infrastructure financing specialists of development banks were conducted. The growing importance of climate aspects for financing decisions, the changing sources of infrastructure funding and the increased role of Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) can be listed as the most important trends. The main challenges are the financing gap for infrastructure, the high investment risks and a lack of standards, and policies regarding climate neutrality. To overcome these challenges, innovative financing solutions and the merging of public and private funding have been identified as potential solutions.

The aim of this essay is to point out the challenges and opportunities of government export credits and insurance in Europe. The Covid-19 pandemic confronted the entire world with new challenges. This also applied to the export financing and insurance market. Furthermore, there are also challenges that play a major role for ECAs regardless of the pandemic. However, the risks are also offset by opportunities that may enable European export credit agencies to prevail against international competition. The focus of this essay is on the export credit agencies from Finland (Finnvera), Sweden (EKN) and Portugal (COSEC). As part of the European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) the three ECAs share many fundamental similarities but in some points they may also distinguish from each other.

The aim of this paper is to introduce innovation policy measures, government instruments and conceptual approaches to promote innovation growth. Since Israel is increasingly establishing itself as a pioneer for innovation, this paper mainly refers to their innovation policy. This paper will explain why Israel's innovation policy is successful and which actors play a particularly important role in it. Using semi-structured interviews, government experts like the Israel Innovation Authority as well as companies like Bosch were asked about Israel’s national innovation system and its success which allowed diverse perspectives on the topic.

Germany was considered the world's export champion for a long time, until it was overtaken by China in 2009. Both nations provide officially supported export credits to national exporting organizations, but the two systems operate differently. German export credit guarantees serve as a substitute when the private market is unable to assume the risks of exporting companies. The German Export Credit Agency Euler Hermes is responsible for processing applications on behalf of the Federal Government. China belongs to the largest providers of export finance with the institutions China EXIM and Sinosure. While Germany is bound by the OECD consensus, which defines the level playing field, Chinese export credit agencies have greater flexibility not being bound by international rules or agreements.

If the current situation could be described in one word, it would be ‘uncertainty’. In times of global crisis, it is important to support the economy to keep businesses alive. Therefore, this paper shows the Finnish government measures and how exporters can benefit from them. Looking in particular at the maritime sector, the research pointed out that there were not that many specific measures for exporters and shipbuilders. This essay detected that the provided measures are suitable for the needs of the affected companies and are an effective instrument by the government to stabilise the industry. This is proved by the number of companies taking advantage of these loans, grants and guarantees. Due to the already mentioned uncertainty, it remains unclear how measures have to be adjusted in the future.

Zentraler Baustein des Marketing ist die „facettenreiche“ Produktpolitik. Im nachstehenden Beitrag wird zunächst die Einordnung der Produktpolitik in den Zielkatalog des Marketing und des Unternehmens skizziert. Das Produkt-Controlling wird verstanden als zielgerichtete Unterstützung der Managementaufgaben im Kontext der Produktpolitik mittels passender Instrumente – Instrumente, die der Phase der Produktentstehung wie der Marktzyklusphase zuzuordnen sind. Erkennbar wird: es gibt ein umfangreiches Set an Methoden, die das Marketing-Management unterstützen und die Sicherstellung der Marketing-Effektivität und Marketing-Effizienz gewährleisten. Die Komplexität des Produkt-Controllings bedingt sich auch durch den ausreichenden Einbezug preis-, qualitäts- und markenpolitischer Informationen in die Zielkontrolle.

As the world economy rapidly decarbonises to meet global climate goals, the export credit sector must keep pace. Countries representing over two-thirds of global GDP have now set net zero targets, as have hundreds of private financial institutions. Public and private initiatives are now working to develop new standards and methodologies for shifting investment portfolios to decarbonisation pathways based on science. However, export credit agencies (ECAs) are only at the beginning stages of this seismic transformation. On the one hand, the net zero transition creates risks to existing business models and clients for the many ECAs, while on the other, it creates a significant opportunity for ECAs to refocus their support to help countries and trade partners meet their climate targets. ECAs can best take advantage of this transition, and minimise its risks, by setting net zero targets and adopting credible plans to decarbonise their portfolios. Collaboration across the sector can be a powerful tool for advancing this goal.

Surface acoustic waves are propagated toward the edge of an anisotropic elastic medium (a silicon crystal), which supports leaky waves with a high degree of localization at the tip of the edge. At an angle of incidence corresponding to phase matching with this leaky wedge wave, a sharp peak in the reflection coefficient of the surface wave was found. This anomalous reflection is associated with efficient excitation of the leaky wedge wave. In laser ultrasound experiments, surface acoustic wave pulses were excited and their reflection from the edge of the sample and their partial conversion into leaky wedge wave pulses was observed by optical probe-beam deflection. The reflection scenario and the pulse shapes of the surface and wedge-localized guided waves, including the evolution of the acoustic pulse traveling along the edge, have been confirmed in detail by numerical simulations.

L’Assurance suisse contre les risques à l’exportation est bien positionnée du point de vue économique, selon une étude comparative commandée par la Confédération. Mais la politique industrielle toujours plus offensive des autres pays la confronte à un dilemme.

The global pathway to net zero emissions by 2050 requires governments to implement and strengthen climate policies as global emissions are reaching record level. Climate finance plays a crucial role in the net zero transition. It refers to local, national or transnational financing seeking to support mitigation and adaptation actions that address climate change. Public export-import banks (EXIMs) and government export credit agencies (ECAs) are highly influential actors for climate action. Although there is no consensus among EXIMs and ECAs on how to define climate finance, 20 institutions assessed in this report give evidence that they significantly support climate action related transactions: EXIM and ECA financing and insurance amounted to EUR 6.7-8.4 billion in 2020, much more than estimated by the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI). However, the results also show that EXIM and ECA lending and insurance activities must rise substantially in order to contribute to the climate finance volumes required by 2030 as estimated by CPI. To retain their current proportion relative to other climate finance flows, assessed institutions would need to increase their climate financing 6.8 times to between EUR 45.3 billion and EUR 57.4 billion by 2030.

Lernziele: Die Leser • kennen die Bestandteile und Aufgaben der Produktion; • wissen, welche Ansätze die Vision einer 100 % nachhaltigen Produktion hinsichtlich Material- und Energieverwendung beinhalten; • verfügen über den Einblick, welche Stufen auf dem Weg zur nachhaltigen Produktion zu nehmen sind; • wissen auch anhand von Beispielen, welche Ansätze zur Umsetzung einer nachhaltigen Produktion bestehen; • kennen im Überblick die Ansätze zur Messung von Nachhaltigkeit in der Produktion.

Mit zunehmender Datenverfügbarkeit wird der Einsatz Maschinellen Lernens zur Steuerung und Optimierung von Supply Chains attraktiver, da die Qualität der Datenauswertung erhöht und gleichzeitig der Aufwand gesenkt werden kann. Anhand des SCOR-Modells werden exemplarische Ansätze als Orientierungshilfe eingeordnet und dazu passende Verfahren des Maschinellen Lernens vorgestellt.

This paper describes a taxonomy which allows to assess and compare different implementations of master data objects. A systematic breakdown of core entities provides a framework to tell apart four subdividing categories of master data objects: independent and dependent objects, relational objects, and reference objects that serve to attribute information. This supports the preparation of data migrations from one system to another.

Today, Additive Manufacturing (AM) is an important part of teaching for the education of future engineers. Therefore, a variety of approaches have been developed in recent years on how to bring the design for additive manufacturing (DfAM) into university teaching. In a detailed literature review, the advantages and disadvantages of the previous approaches are considered and analysed. Based on this, an extended approach is presented in which students analyse and optimize a given product with respect to additive manufacturing. In doing so, the students have to solve challenging tasks in optimization in product development with the help of methodical approaches and practically implement their developed solutions with state-of-the-art additive processes. To work on this task, the students have two different 3D printers at their disposal, which work with different processes and materials. Thus, the students learn to adapt the design to different manufacturing processes and to consider the restrictions of different materials. The assessment of the results from this course is done through feedback and a written survey.

As a reaction to the increasing market dynamics and complex requirements, today’s products need to be developed quickly and customized to the customer’s individual needs. In the past, CAD systems are mainly used to visualize the model that the product designer creates. Generative Design shifts the task of the CAD program by actively participating in the shaping process. This results in more design options and the complexity of the shapes and geometries increases significantly. This potential can be optimally exploited through the combination of Generative Design with Additive Manufacturing (AM). Artificial intelligence and the input of target parameters generate geometries, for example, by creating material for stressed areas, which in turn develops biomorphic shapes and thus significantly reduces the consumption of resources. This contribution aims at the evaluation of existing applications in CAD systems for generative design. Special attention is paid to the requirements in design education and easy access for students. For this purpose, three representative CAD systems are selected and analyzed with the help of a comprehensive example of mass reduction. The aim is to perform an individual result analysis in order to assess the application based on various criteria. By using different materials, the influence of the material for the generation is investigated by comparing the material distribution. By comparing the generated models, differences of the CAD systems can be identified and possible fields of application can be presented. By specifying the manufacturing parameters for the generation of the models, the feasibility of AM can be guaranteed without having to modify the results. The physical implementation of the example by means of Fused Deposition Modeling demonstrates this in an exemplary way and examines the interface of the Generative Design and AM. The results of this contribution will enable an evaluation of the different CAD systems for Generative Design according to technical, visual and economic aspects.

This paper presents the development of an energy harvesting solution for a driven tool holder. The tool holder environment was analysed, a test stand built and the designed electromagnetic rotation harvester was evaluated. The reported harvester is based on low cost off-the-shelf components and 3D printed parts. The utilisation of SMD coils allows easy adaptation to changing parameters of the integration area. Energy harvesting in tool holders enables predictive maintenance or condition monitoring in the industrial production. These capabilities are mandatory nowadays in regards of IIoT. A reliable energy source is key for continuous monitoring. Changing batteries becomes obsolete. The results provide useful insight for future harvesters.

The increasing amount of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and wearables require a reliable energy source. Energy harvesting can power these devices without changing batteries. Three-dimensional printing allows us to manufacture tailored harvesting devices in an easy and fast way. This paper presents the development of hybrid and non-hybrid 3D printed electromagnetic vibration energy harvesters. Various harvesting approaches, their utilised geometry, functional principle, power output and the applied printing processes are shown. The gathered harvesters are analysed, challenges examined and research gaps in the field identified. The advantages and challenges of 3D printing harvesters are discussed. Reported applications and strategies to improve the performance of printed harvesting devices are presented.

Bei der Konzeption von digitalen Lernmedien sind von Seiten der Entwickler viele Entscheidungen hinsichtlich der Präsentation von Lerninhalten zu treffen, was zum einen die mediale Darstellung und zum anderen die didaktische Aufbereitung der fachlichen Inhalte betrifft. Im vorliegenden Text werden zwei digitale Lernmedien auf der Basis von Einschätzungen von Studierenden wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher und technischer Studiengänge an den Hochschulstandorten Offenburg und Pforzheim analysiert. Die Konzepte der beiden Hochschulen unterscheiden sich deutlich voneinander. Während in Offenburg Lernvideos mit Audiokommentar Verwendung finden, wird in Pforzheim mit statischen instruktionalen Texten und obligatorischen Single-Choice-Übungsaufgaben in einer Moodle-Lernumgebung gearbeitet. Aus Sicht des Aufforderungscharakters, also der Motivation, sich mit den entsprechenden Materialien zu beschäftigen, werden sowohl die instruktionalen Texte als auch die Lernvideos von den Studierenden geschätzt. Es zeigt sich weiterhin, dass Studierende die Lernvideos mit einer gewissen Präferenz lieber allein als zu zweit bearbeiten, während die Bearbeitung der statischen Texte differenzierter betrachtet werden muss. Fokussierende Fragen bewerten nahezu alle Studierenden als lernförderlich für ihren Lernprozess. Allerdings finden sich Hinweise darauf, dass fokussierende Fragen von leistungsschwächeren im Vergleich zu leistungsstärkeren Studierenden als weniger hilfreich angesehen werden. Ebenso lässt sich die Hypothese aufstellen, dass manche Studierende sowohl auf die Unterstützung eines Lernpartners/einer Lernpartnerin als auch auf lernförderliche Fragen verzichten möchten, um ihren Lernprozess möglichst autonom organisieren zu können.

Emotionen sind Teil jedes menschlichen Wesens: Sie begleiten Konsumenten und Konsumentinnen durch alle Alltagssituationen – auch und insbesondere bei Kaufentscheidungen. Jedoch war es bisher nur bedingt möglich, diese Emotionen im Dialogmarketing genau zu erfassen und zu interpretieren. Die innovative Customer Experience Tracking Methode der Hochschule Offenburg ermöglicht eine verzerrungsreduzierte Messung und Auswertung von Kundenemotionen, die vor, während und nach der Benutzerinteraktion mit Dialogmarketingaktivitäten auftreten. Aus den im Labor oder im Feld gewonnenen Untersuchungsergebnissen lassen sich konkrete Handlungsempfehlungen ableiten, um Dialogmarketingangebote im Offline-, Online- oder crossmedialen Bereich optimal auf die Bedürfnisse und Erwartungen der Kunden und Kundinnen auszurichten.

Due to the pandemic of 2020, many teaching and research institutions are confronted with extraordinary working conditions. In order to enable empirical data collection under these special circumstances, teachers and scientists need to respond flexibly and new concepts need to be developed. This paper deals with the challenges that arise in day-to-day teaching and provides different approaches to meet these challenges. It covers quantitative surveys, remote UX-testing methods as an alternative to eye tracking studies in the lab, as well as face-to-face user experience testings under strict hygiene measures.

Führungskräfte, die regelmäßig und glaubwürdig loben, schaffen ein produktives Arbeitsklima, wie eine Studie zeigt. Für die praktische Umsetzung dieser Erkenntnis empfiehlt es sich, das Führungsinstrument "Lob" in einen transformationalen Führungsstil einzubetten.