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Although technologies spurred by the “Internet of things” are increasingly being introduced in homes, only a few studies have examined the adoption or diffusion of such household technologies. One particular area of interest in this context is electricity consumption, especially the introduction of smart metering technology (SMT) in households. Despite its growing prominence, SMT implementation has met with various challenges across the world, including limited adoption by consumers. Thus, this study empirically examines the antecedents of SMT adoption by potential consumers. Using a mixed-methods design, the study first unearths the SMT-specific antecedents, then develops a contextualized model by drawing on theories from motivational psychology and the antecedents identified earlier, and finally tests this model using a large-scale survey of German consumers. The results provide support for many of the hypotheses and highlight the importance of motivational factors and some household demographic, privacy, and innovation-related factors on consumers’ intention to adopt SMT.

Digital services need access to consumers' data to improve service quality and to generate revenues. However, it remains unclear how such services should be configured to facilitate consumers' willingness to share personal information. Prior studies discuss an influence of selected individual traits or service configurations, including transparency features and service personalization. This study aims at uncovering how interactions among individuals' privacy valuation, transparency features, and service personalization influence their willingness to disclose information. Building on information boundary theory, we conducted an experimental study with 286 participants on a data-intense digital service. In contrast to our expectation, we found no indication that providing transparency features facilitates individuals' information disclosure. Relative to the personalization-privacy paradox, individuals' privacy valuation is a strong inhibitor of information provision in general, not only for personalized services. Personalization benefits only convince consumers who exhibit little focus on privacy. Thus, service providers need to align their service designs with consumers' privacy preferences.

Light emitting diodes (LEDs) are an energy efficient alternative to high-pressure sodium (HPS) lighting in tomato cultivation. In the past years, we have learned a lot about the effect of red and blue LEDs on plant growth and yield of tomatoes. From previous studies, we know that plants absorb and utilize most of the visible spectrum for photosynthesis. This part of the spectrum is referred to as the photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). We designed a LED fixture with an emission spectrum that partially matches the range of 400 to 700 nm and thus partially covers the absorption spectrum of photosynthetic pigments in tomato leaves. Tomato plants grown under this fixture were significantly taller and produced a higher fruit yield (14%) than plants grown under HPS lighting. There was no difference in the number of leaves and trusses, leaf area, stem diameter, the electron transport rate, and the normalized difference vegetation index. Lycopene and lutein contents in tomatoes were 18% and 142% higher when they were exposed to the LED fixture. However, the ß-carotene content was not different between the light treatments. Transpiration rate under LED was significantly lower (40%), while the light use efficiency (LUE) was significantly higher (19%) compared to HPS lighting. These data show that an LED fixture with an emission spectrum covering the entire PAR range can improve LUE, yields, and content of secondary metabolites in tomatoes compared to HPS lighting.

Digitalization has permeated all aspects of human lives, economies, and societies. This transformation has been driven by the rapid growth in computing power, storage capabilities, and data transmission infrastructures. These changes have enabled innovations, such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, smartphones, digitalized homes, (semi) autonomous vehicles, quantum computing, and more. Digitalization has further resulted in faster, more effective service delivery by many organizations. The phenomenon of digitalization relies on an increasingly finite supply of resources, such as crude oil, silicon, and energy. Over the past 150 years, humans have consumed as many natural resources as they have consumed in the past 20,000 years. In part, this increasing clip of consumption has been driven by digitalization, as novel, technology-based solutions, such as blockchain, supplant older, slower low-tech solutions, such as books and ledgers, to process data and create value. Digitalization's demand for resources may be leading us to an environmental abyss. Consider cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, whose electricity consumption is approximately equal to the energy needs of small nations such as Malaysia or Sweden. Such consumption evokes the question, is, \"is more digitalization really better, or given the harm to the planet, is this one context where less is more?\". In this paper, we develop a research agenda for understanding the full cost of digitalization and its impact on sustainability. We do so in three parts; first, we offer a crisp definition of sustainability; second, we offer a concise review of the digitalization and sustainability literature; and third, we offer suggestions for research that advances our understanding of how digitalization impacts sustainability.

Animals employ different strategies to establish mating boundaries between closely related species, with sex pheromones often playing a crucial role in identifying conspecific mates. Many of these pheromones have carbon-carbon double bonds, making them vulnerable to oxidation by certain atmospheric oxidant pollutants, including ozone. Here, we investigate whether increased ozone compromises species boundaries in drosophilid flies. We show that short-term exposure to increased levels of ozone degrades pheromones of Drosophila melanogaster , D. simulans , D. mauritiana , as well as D. sechellia , and induces hybridization between some of these species. As many of the resulting hybrids are sterile, this could result in local population declines. However, hybridization between D. simulans and D. mauritiana as well as D. simulans and D. sechellia results in fertile hybrids, of which some female hybrids are even more attractive to the males of the parental species. Our experimental findings indicate that ozone pollution could potentially induce breakdown of species boundaries in insects. Some atmospheric pollutants may disrupt chemical communication in insects. Here, the authors show that exposure to elevated ozone disrupts pheromone-mediated mate recognition and increases hybridization in laboratory colonies of four Drosophila species.

The role and influence of information technology in firms’ business and value creation remains controversial. The question of how technology can drive service innovations is especially crucial in highly competitive and rapidly developing areas such as digital platforms but not well understood. This study investigates the role of information technology in service innovation in sharing economy organizations. These organizations are digital platforms that combine physical and digital service elements. Adopting a service-dominant logic perspective, we conduct an interpretive multiple-case study to gain a deeper understanding of the types of service innovation in this area and the different roles that IT can play in these initiatives. Our findings reveal different manifestations of service innovation and thereby help to identify previously unexplored interdependencies between the service ecosystem and value co-creation. We furthermore find that organizations’ choices regarding the role of IT are dependent on the level of heterogeneity and standardization of the mediated transactions. We derive four archetypes for the role of IT in service innovation that explain how and why sharing economy organizations exploit IT. We then translate our findings into practical guidelines for managers of digital platforms.

Insect sexual communication often relies upon sex pheromones. Most insect pheromones, however, contain carbon-carbon double bonds and potentially degrade by oxidation. Here, we show that frequently reported increased levels of Anthropocenic ozone can oxidize all described male-specific pheromones of Drosophila melanogaster , resulting in reduced amounts of pheromones such as cis-Vaccenyl Acetate and ( Z )−7-Tricosene. At the same time female acceptance of ozone-exposed males is significantly delayed. Interestingly, groups of ozone-exposed males also exhibit significantly increased levels of male-male courtship behaviour. When repeating similar experiments with nine other drosophilid species, we observe pheromone degradation and/or disrupted sex recognition in eight of them. Our data suggest that Anthropocenic levels of ozone can extensively oxidize double bonds in a variety of insect pheromones, thereby leading to deviations in sexual recognition. Insect pheromones can be degraded by the air pollutant ozone. Jiang et al. show that ozone-exposed male flies lose their pheromones and become less attractive to females. Additionally, ozone-exposed males exhibited increased male-male courtship behaviour as a result of reduced sex recognition.

Co-consumption sharing economy platforms digitally connect strangers for mutually beneficial co-consumption of services, such as ride sharing or home sharing. In addition to efficiency gains, this is particularly relevant for the sustainable use of resources. While digital platforms have become efficient at building trust in third-party providers, co-consumption service experiences require rapport between individuals—an intersubjective fit between a client and a provider that cannot be ensured in advance by guarantees or ratings. Little is known about the role of uncertainty concerning rapport when brokering co-consumption services and how platform design can cater to users’ need for rapport. This study therefore introduces rapport uncertainty as a two-dimensional construct consisting of interaction uncertainty and connection uncertainty and draws on the service literature to derive a research model that captures the role of design features in mitigating rapport uncertainty. Our experimental study reveals that rapport uncertainty is a key determinant of platform use beyond technical and environmental uncertainties and demonstrates how platform design can reduce rapport uncertainty and facilitate transactions in co-consumption environments.

Introduction This study aimed to correlate preoperative 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography (18F-FDG-PET/CT) tumor staging, and maximum standardized uptake values (SUV max ) with preoperative CT data, postoperative tumor classification, and histopathological parameters of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Material and methods Thirty-seven OSCC patients staged via full-body 18F-FDG-PET/CT, including contrast agent CT of the head and neck in 2020 and 2021, were enclosed. Patients received tumor resection and stage-dependent neck dissection. Preoperative clinical (c) 18F-FDG-PET/CT UICC tumor stages and TNM classifications were correlated to corresponding CT and to postoperative histopathological (p) UICC tumor stages and TNM classifications. SUV max of the primary tumor was associated with pUICC and pTNM, including extranodal extension (ENE), perineural invasion (Pn), lymphatic spread (L), vascular invasion (V), tumor grading (G), and -thickness. Results Comparing 18F-FDG-PET/CT and CT, cUICC, cT, and cN differed in 32.3%, 16.7%, and 37.8% of the cases, respectively. For 18F-FDG-PET/CT, a moderate correlation was found between c- and pUICC (0.494; p  = 0.0018) with a misestimation of c- compared to pUICC in 43.2% of the cases. Comparing c- and pTNM, misestimations concerning c- and pT were seen in 51.4% and concerning c- and pN in 37.8% of the cases. An increased SUV max significantly correlated with increased pT- and pUICC (adjusted Odds ratio 1.103; p  = 0.042 and 1.126; p  = 0.021, respectively). The predictive quality of an SUV max cutoff value for detecting cervical lymph node metastases and G was poor, as indicated by the low AUC values from the ROC analysis. No correlations were found between SUV max and ENE, Pn-, L-, and V-status. A strong correlation was found between SUV max and tumor thickness with an adjusted coefficient of 1.034 ( p  = 0.01). Conclusion The predictive value of 18F-FDG-PET/CT and SUV max on histopathological tumor classification and parameters appears limited. Clinical relevance 18F-FDG-PET/CT can not unreservedly be recommended for primary OSCC staging. There is an urgent need to specify its indications in detail further.

Many firms use social media (SM) to solicit online investments. In this study, we examine the interaction between SM attributes and online-investment attributes to determine how this interaction shapes users’ investment decisions. Specifically, we investigate initial coin offerings (ICOs) as an application domain of distributed ledger technology for peer-to-peer investment. We use signaling theory to develop a context-specific explanation for how the interplay of persuasion signals found in SM and technology-enforced lockups shapes individuals’ ICO investment decisions. To evaluate this interplay, we conducted a 2 × 2 factorial experiment with 473 participants. The results show that when an investment does not require a technology-enforced lockup, persuasion signals encourage investments in ICOs; however, when an investment requires a technology-enforced lockup, persuasion signals do not affect investments in ICOs. Furthermore, our analyses suggest that combining a technology-enforced lockup and persuasion signals reduces the ICO’s plausibility. This is the first study to investigate how the willingness to invest in ICOs is influenced by the relationship between technology-enforced lockups and persuasion signals. The findings have practical implications for individuals attempting to make sound decisions on ICO investments, policymakers regulating online investments, and firms seeking to attract investors.