Modularization as a system life cycle management strategy:Drivers, barriers, mechanisms and impacts

This literature-grounded research contributes to a deeper understanding of modularization as a system life cycle management strategy, by providing a comprehensive view of its key barriers, drivers, possible mechanisms of implementation and impact. This comprehensive view, arranged into a decision-making–driven ontology, enables a decision maker to systematically identify modularization implementation opportunities in different industrial and service domains. The proposed ontology transforms modularization into a fully operationalizable strategy and contributes to a paradigm shift in the understanding of modularization, from a pure design option (i.e. modularity) to a fully strategic choice that, by nature, impacts on many of the system’s life cycle phases and involves a number of stakeholders

A next generation, pilot-scale continuous sterilization system for fermentation media

A new continuous sterilization system was designed, constructed, started up, and qualified for media sterilization for secondary metabolite cultivations, bioconversions, and enzyme production. An existing Honeywell Total Distributed Control 3000-based control system was extended using redundant High performance Process Manager controllers for 98 I/O (input/output) points. This new equipment was retrofitted into an industrial research fermentation pilot plant, designed and constructed in the early 1980s. Design strategies of this new continuous sterilizer system and the expanded control system are described and compared with the literature (including dairy and bio-waste inactivation applications) and the weaknesses of the prior installation for expected effectiveness. In addition, the reasoning behind selection of some of these improved features has been incorporated. Examples of enhancements adopted include sanitary heat exchanger (HEX) design, incorporation of a “flash” cooling HEX, on-line calculation of F(o) and R(o), and use of field I/O modules located near the vessel to permit low-cost addition of new instrumentation. Sterilizer performance also was characterized over the expected range of operating conditions. Differences between design and observed temperature, pressure, and other profiles were quantified and investigated

DYNAMICS OF LASER ABLATED MGB2 PLASMA EXPANDING IN ARGON PROBED BY OPTICAL EMISSION SPECTROSCOPY

We have used time and space-resolved optical emission spectroscopy to study the expansion dynamics of the plasma generated by pulsed laser ablation of solid targets of the recently discovered superconducting MgB2 into a background Ar gas at different pressures. Our analysis clearly indicates that, above a fixed pressure, plasma propagation into Ar leads to both the formation of a shock wave, which causes a considerable increase of the fraction of excited Mg atoms, and the simultaneous reduction of the kinetic flux energy of the ablated atoms. These results have then been analyzed in the framework of a simplified gas dynamic approach for the description of free-plume self-similar expansion and of a point-blast-wave model to account for the interaction of the plume with the Ar ambient gas, thus obtaining full support and a sound physical interpretation of our experimental observations. Finally, we have related our conclusions to the general problem of the optimization of the thin-film deposition of laser-ablated materials, with particular emphasis given to the specific case of MgB2, which is of great, present interest

Biochemical properties of the PsbS subunit of Photosystem II either purified from chloroplast or recombinant

The biochemical properties of PsbS protein, a nuclear-encoded Photosystem II subunit involved in the high energy quenching of chlorophyll fluorescence, have been studied using preparations purified from chloroplasts or obtained by overexpression in bacteria. Despite the homology with chlorophyll a/b/xanthophyll-binding proteins of the Lhc family, native PsbS protein does not show any detectable ability to bind chlorophylls or carotenoids in conditions in which Lhc proteins maintain full pigment binding. The recombinant protein, when refolded in vitro in the presence of purified pigments, neither binds chlorophylls nor xanthophylls, differently from the homologous proteins LHCII, CP26, and CP29 that refold into stable pigment-binding complexes. Thus, it is concluded that if PsbS is a pigment-binding protein in vivo, the binding mechanism must be different from that present in other Lhc proteins. Primary sequence analysis provides evidence for homology of PsbS helices I and III with the central 2-fold symmetric core of chlorophyll a/b-binding proteins. Moreover, a structural homology owed to the presence of acidic residues in each of the two lumen-exposed loops is found with the dicyclohexylcarbodiimide/Ca2+-binding domain of CP29. Consistently, both native and recombinant PsbS proteins showed [14C]dicyclohexylcarbodiimide binding, thus supporting a functional basis for its homology with CP29 on the lumen-exposed loops. This domain is suggested to be involved in sensing low luminal pH