Requirements such as integrated view of the customer or global business process integration make enterprise wide management of master data a prerequisite for achieving business goals. The master data application architecture, as a part of enterprise master data management, plays a critical role in enterprises. Choosing the right master data application architecture is a controversial subject in many enterprises. Unfortunately, the current state of the art in research does not provide sufficient guidance for enterprises dealing with this subject. The paper aims at overcoming this gap in research by presenting a decision model for supporting enterprises in the decision-making process regarding the choice of the right master data application architecture. To design the model, Multiple-Criteria Decision Analysis and Design Science Research Methodology were applied.

Thermographic imaging is a known technology to detect temperature differences. For medical applications, the patterns of heat distribution are used for diagnosis. It is already tested to visualize blood supply, inflammatory processes, and superficial or more extensive tumors, e.g. in the breast tissue. This method was promoted for breast screening purposes and as a substitute for mammography for mid aged women, but the results were not convincing for younger women, where tissue density is higher, tumor growth is often connected to local temperature increase and radiation-based mammography is not an option. Infrared (IR) thermography can support tumor screening. The screening should allow the early detection of small lesions even in the depth. Therefor we evaluated the feasibility of dynamic cooling in combination with IR imaging in a phantom study. A temperature-controllable gel phantom including a heating plate, a depth-adjustable heat source mimicking a tumor, and three sensors for temperature monitoring was built up. A raspberry pi device serves as a control unit to create a stable temperature balance comparable to a human breast. For the experiments, the tumor was placed in various depth. After cooling, the thermal recovery phase of the phantom was imaged using an IR camera and a webcam. A pixel-wise analysis of the IR data detects a higher gradient of temperature change in the tumor region. The experiments demonstrated the feasibility of tumor detection based on dynamic cooling and IR imaging.

Business rules can be crucial to an organization's business operations. In view of a growing number of internal and external challenges (such as compliance with regulations, the need for organizational agility, or the need to retain organizational knowledge), organizations increasingly are forced to actively manage their business rules in order to stay successful. However, business rules management (BRM) is an organizational task that cannot be encountered simply by implementing a software system. The paper describes the design process toward a functional reference model for business rules management. The model provides three perspectives on tasks and functions to successfully manage business rules. Practitioners may use the model to establish BRM in their organizations, facilitate communication between business and IT, and evaluate software solutions for BRM. From a scientific perspective, the model is a design artifact, representing a theory for designing and developing information systems with the objective of managing business rules.

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Daten sind die Grundlage der digitalen Wirtschaft, jedoch führen „Datensilos“ zu Herausforderungen in Bezug auf Datenpflege und -qualität. Ein innovativer Ansatz zur Lösung dieses Problems besteht darin, Prinzipien der Sharing Economy auf Daten zu übertragen. Das Beispiel der CDQ Data Sharing Community in diesem Artikel zeigt, wie Unternehmen ihre Geschäftspartnerdaten gemeinsam bewirtschaften und welche Nutzeffekte daraus entstehen.