arXiv subjects

Tobias Wenzel

Publications and source records attributed to Tobias Wenzel.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Bridging Stakeholder and Product Requirements: An Empirical Study of Requirement Engineering in the Automotive Industry

The automotive industry's shift toward software-driven systems has increased system complexity and raised the importance of effective requirement intake and refinement for correctness, compliance, development speed, and systematic reuse. Although prior research has proposed techniques for improving requirement quality, limited empirical evidence exists on how stakeholder-level requirements are evaluated, refined, and transformed into product-level requirements in industrial automotive practice. This paper presents a large-scale empirical study based on an industrial dataset from Infineon, comprising 8,082 stakeholder requirements and 5,870 product requirements enriched with traceability links, decision outcomes, deviation rationales, and domain references. Using a mixed-methods approach, we combine quantitative analyses of requirement structures, decision distributions, and mapping patterns with qualitative analyses of rationales, referenced specifications, and software- and hardware-related artifacts. We investigate structural and contextual differences between stakeholder and product requirements, factors influencing acceptance, rejection, and approval with deviation, and the nature of stakeholder-to-product refinement. The results reveal systematic differences across abstraction levels and show that refinement complexity is driven primarily by architectural scope and missing contextual information rather than linguistic verbosity. We further derive a taxonomy of stakeholder-product mapping patterns and relate these patterns to differing refinement effort. The findings provide concrete insight into industrial requirements intake and refinement practices and identify actionable opportunities for improving intake validation, deviation management, and tool-supported contextual enrichment to support faster and more reusable automotive product development.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2026

Advancing optical imaging systems with digital fabrication

Optical imaging technologies are central to discovery in the life and physical sciences, yet their impact depends on how readily they can be built, adapted, and sustained across laboratories. Digital fabrication, including desktop 3D printing, offers new ways to engineer imaging instruments by simplifying assembly, lowering replication barriers, and enabling modular integration and local refinement. Here we examine, using open microscopy as a transparent case, how digitally fabricated components support adaptable, research-grade optical systems while enabling faster innovation cycles and distributed refinement. We outline practical design guidelines and discuss emerging developments that may further advance accessible, high-performance imaging.

physics.bio-ph↗

arXiv2023

Leveraging Interactions in Microfluidic Droplets for Enhanced Biotechnology Screens

Microfluidic droplet screens serve as an innovative platform for high-throughput biotechnology, enabling significant advancements in discovery, product optimization, and analysis. This review sheds light on the emerging trend of interaction assays in microfluidic droplets, underscoring the unique suitability of droplets for these applications. Encompassing a diverse range of biological entities such as antibodies, enzymes, DNA, RNA, various microbial and mammalian cell types, drugs, and other molecules, these assays demonstrate their versatility and scope. Recent methodological breakthroughs have escalated these screens to novel scales of bioanalysis and biotechnological product design. Moreover, we highlight pioneering advancements that extend droplet-based screens into new domains: cargo delivery within human bodies, application of synthetic gene circuits in natural environments, 3D-printing, and the development of droplet structures responsive to environmental signals. The potential of this field is profound and only set to increase.

q-bio.QM↗

arXiv2022

Global technology access in biolabs -- from DIY trend to an open source transformation

This article illustrates how open hardware solutions are implemented by researchers as a strategy to access technology for cutting-edge research. Specifically, it is discussed what kind of open technologies are most enabling in scientific environments characterized by economic and infrastructural constraints. It is demonstrated that do-it-yourself (DIY) technologies are already wide spread, in particular in countries with lower science funding, which in turn is the basis for the development of open technologies. Beyond financial accessibility, open hardware can be transformational to the technology access of laboratories through advantages in local production and direct knowledge transfer. Central drivers of the adoption of appropriate technologies in biolabs globally are open sharing, digital fabrication, local production, standard parts use, and detailed documentation.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2021

Harnessing the Benefits of Open Electronics in Science

Freely and openly shared low-cost electronic applications, known as open electronics, have sparked a new open-source movement, with much un-tapped potential to advance scientific research. Initially designed to appeal to electronic hobbyists, open electronics have formed a global community of "makers" and inventors and are increasingly used in science and industry. Here, we review the current benefits of open electronics for scientific research and guide academics to enter this emerging field. We discuss how electronic applications, from the experimental to the theoretical sciences, can help (I) individual researchers by increasing the customization, efficiency, and scalability of experiments, while improving data quantity and quality; (II) scientific institutions by improving access and maintenance of high-end technologies, visibility and interdisciplinary collaboration potential; and (III) the scientific community by improving transparency and reproducibility, helping decouple research capacity from funding, increasing innovation, and improving collaboration potential among researchers and the public. Open electronics are powerful tools to increase creativity, democratization, and reproducibility of research and thus offer practical solutions to overcome significant barriers in science.

q-bio.QM↗

arXiv2021

Enrichment of gut microbiome strains for cultivation-free genome sequencing using droplet microfluidics

We report a droplet microfluidic method to target and sort individual cells directly from complex microbiome samples, and to prepare these cells for bulk whole genome sequencing without cultivation. We characterize this approach by recovering bacteria spiked into human stool samples at a ratio as low as 1:250 and by successfully enriching endogenous Bacteroides vulgatus to the level required for de-novo assembly of high-quality genomes. While microbiome strains are increasingly demanded for biomedical applications, the vast majority of species and strains are uncultivated and without reference genomes. We address this shortcoming by encapsulating complex microbiome samples directly into microfluidic droplets and amplify a target-specific genomic fragment using a custom molecular TaqMan probe. We separate those positive droplets by droplet sorting, selectively enriching single target strain cells. Finally, we present a protocol to purify the genomic DNA while specifically removing amplicons and cell debris for high-quality genome sequencing.

q-bio.GN↗

arXiv2020

Standardisation of practices in Open Source Hardware

Standardisation is an important component in the maturation of any field of technology. It contributes to the formation of a recognisable identity and enables interactions with a wider community. This article reviews past and current standardisation initiatives in the field of Open Source Hardware (OSH). While early initiatives focused on aspects such as licencing, intellectual property and documentation formats, recent efforts extend to ways for users to exercise their rights under open licences and to keep OSH projects discoverable and accessible online. We specifically introduce two standards that are currently being released and call for early users and contributors, the DIN SPEC 3105 and the Open Know How Manifest Specification. Finally, we reflect on challenges around standardisation in the community and relevant areas for future development such as an open tool chain, modularity and hardware specific interface standards.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2017

Porous translucent electrodes enhance current generation from photosynthetic biofilms

We tested the enhancement of electrical current generated from photosynthetically active bacteria by use of electrodes with porosity on the nano- and micrometer length-scale. For two cyanobacteria on structured indium-tin-oxide electrodes, current generation was increased by two orders of magnitude and the photo-response was substantially faster compared to non-porous anodes. These properties highlight porosity as an important design strategy for electrochemical bio-interfaces. The role of porosity on different length scales was studied systematically which revealed that the main performance enhancement was caused by the increased surface area of the electrodes. More complex microstructured architectures which spanned biofilms as translucent 3D scaffolds provided additional advantage in the presence of microbial direct electron transfer (DET). The absence of a clear DET contribution in both studied cyanobacteria, Synechocystis and Nostoc, raises questions about the role of conductive cellular components previously found in both organisms.

q-bio.OT↗

arXiv2017

Microrheology of DNA Hydrogels

A key objective in DNA-based material science is understanding and precisely controlling the mechanical properties of DNA hydrogels. We perform microrheology measurements using diffusing-wave spectroscopy (DWS) to investigate the viscoelastic behavior of a hydrogel made of Y-shaped DNA nano-stars over a wide range of frequencies and temperatures. Results show a clear liquid-to-equilibrium-gel transition as the temperature cycles up and down across the melting-temperature region for which the Y-DNA bind to each other. These first measurements reveal the crossover of the elastic G'(ω) and loss modulus G'(ω) when the DNA-hydrogel formed at low temperatures is heated to a fluid phase of DNA nano-stars well above the melt temperature Tm. We show that the crossover relates to the life-time of the DNA-bond and also that percolation coincides with the systems' Tm. The approach demonstrated here can be easily extended to more complicated DNA hydrogel systems and provides guidance for the future design of such transient, semi-flexible networks that can be adapted to the application of molecular sensing and controlled release.

cond-mat.soft↗