The Boeing / McDonnell Douglas and EADS mergers: ethnocentric vs. regiocentric consolidation in the aerospace and defence industry and the implications for international relations

This thesis relies on realist and neo-mercantilist approaches to explain the consolidation of the US and European aerospace and defence industry during the second half of the 1990s. Based on two case studies, the Boeing / McDonnell Douglas (BMD) merger in 1997 and the EADS merger in 1999, the thesis analyses the different political and economic motivations that led these aerospace and defence companies as well as their respective home governments to pursue either ethnocentric consolidation (in the case of the US) or regiocentric consolidation (in the case of France, Germany, and Spain) strategies. The BMD merger is interpreted as an attempt by the American hegemon to ensure that the important military, economic, and technological benefits derived from this strategic sector continue to accrue, above all, to the United States and its aerospace and defence industrial base. The cross-border EADS merger, in contrast, is viewed as a Franco-German-led counterbalancing attempt to guarantee the survival and autonomy of the European aerospace and defence industry, including Airbus, in the face of growing competitive pressures from the rapidlyconsolidating US mega-primes like Boeing. The thesis contrasts several high-profile transatlantic M&A deals in a variety of business sectors with the marked absence of similar transactions between US and European aerospace and defence companies. It thus highlights the strategic nature of this particular sector as well as American concerns about the proliferation of advanced US technologies to third countries, including to European NATO allies. Ultimately, realist and neo-mercantilist arguments prevailed over liberal-institutionalist / globalisation arguments among policymakers and business leaders on both sides of the Atlantic (especially in Washington, DC and Paris) – thus paving the way for the BMD and EADS mergers

The Relationships Between Drought Severity, Precipitation and Aerosol in California During the 2012-2014 Drought.

M.S. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2018

Still Looking for Audience Costs

A pair of recent studies, motivated largely by limitations in the research designs of previous projects, offers evidence the authors interpret as contradicting audience cost theory. Although we share the authors’ ambivalence about audience costs, we are not convinced by their evidence. What one seeks in looking for audience costs is evidence of a causal mechanism, not just of a causal effect. Historical case studies can be better suited to detecting causal mechanisms than quantitative methods, and these two studies claim to be examining causal mechanisms. Yet process tracing is much less effective in assessing audience costs than Trachtenberg and others believe. After outlining relevant problems, we encourage scholars to theorize about and test more carefully key micro-foundations of audience cost theory

Process design of the patterning process of profile grinding wheels

In production environment, grinding is often the last step along the process chain. At this step, the main share of the value chain is already manufactured. Correspondingly, the process result of this step directly influences the product quality. Thus, the avoidance of process induced damages is a major challenge in grinding. The major limiting factor in grinding is the thermal load on the workpiece, which leads to grinding burn and tensile residual stresses. This thermal load can be reduced, as previous fundamental studies have shown, by means of using microstructured grinding wheels. In this paper, the patterning process of profile grinding wheels is investigated with regard to the resulting geometry and the resulting grinding wheel topography. In detail, an analytical model is established and evaluated that enables a design of the patterning process of profile grinding wheels. The presented formulas describe the local depth and width of a pattern over its length of engagement. The influence of the inclination angle of the patterning tool and the profile angle of the grinding wheel on the resulting width and length of one pattern is investigated. Further influencing parameters on the size of a pattern that are investigated are e.g. the radius of the grinding wheel, the radius of the patterning tool, the corner radius of the patterning edge and the speed ratio between the grinding wheel and the patterning tool. In addition, grinding experiments were conducted to validate the process design. The results show a high correlation between the calculated and the resulting patterns on the grinding wheel as well as that a decrease in cutting forces can be achieved by this approach. When maintaining the workpiece and grinding wheel load, the productivity of the profile grinding process can be increased in this way

Process design of a novel combination of peel grinding and deep rolling

Grinding is mostly considered as a finishing operation by which a high surface quality is achieved. An increase in productivity is therefore limited by maintained surface properties such as the roughness or tensile residual stresses. Thus, a roughing operation is inevitable followed by a finishing operation, while both operations are separated, leading to larger cycle times and process costs. In this paper, a novel process combination is investigated in which the roughing is done by grinding and the finishing operation by deep rolling within one tool setup. In this way, both processes are conducted parallel within the primary processing time. The objective of this study is the knowledge of the characteristics of this process combination with regard to the workpiece surface integrity. Therefore, shafts are ground in peel grinding with varying grinding wheel types and process parameters and subsequently machined with deep rolling. The process combination is evaluated with regard to the process forces and the resulting surface properties. In addition, experiments using the process combination were conducted in order to investigate the transferability of the results towards the process combination. By this approach, it was found that the surface roughness was reduced up to 80% by deep rolling showing the potential of the process combination. © 2021, The Author(s)

Optimierung verschiedener MDCK-Zellpopulationen zur sensitiven Analyse der Interaktion von Substanzen mit Efflux-Transportproteinen

Transportstudien für Efflux-Transporter sind in der pharmazeutischen Industrie weit verbreitet und dienen dazu potentielle Arzneimittel als Substrate von Efflux-Transportern zu identifizieren. Diese verhindern, dass u.a. therapeutisch wirksame Mengen von Arzneistoffen ihren Wirkort erreichen. Von besonderer Bedeutung sind dabei, auf Grund ihres breiten Substratspektrums, die beiden ABC-Transporter P-Glykoprotein (Pgp, MDR1) und Breast Cancer Resistance Protein (BCRP, ABCG2). Die Madin-Darby canine kidney Zelllinie (MDCK) und ihre, mit einem humanen Transportprotein stabil transfizierten Varianten (MDCK-MDR1, MDCK-BCRP), werden vielfach als in vitro Zellkulturmodelle für diese Transportstudien verwendet. Die Wildtyp MDCK-Zelllinie dient bei Experimenten als Kontrollpopulation, da es zwischen dem endogen exprimierten Transporter und der humanen, transfizierten Proteinvariante zu Substratinteraktionen kommt. Aus diesem Grund ist es wichtig, sich auf konstante und vergleichbare Expressionslevel der Zelllinien hinsichtlich der Transportproteine verlassen zu können, um falsch negative oder falsch positive Ergebnisse bei der Identifikation von Substraten zu vermeiden. Aus der MDCK-MDR1 und der MDCK-BCRP Zellpopulation wurden Einzelzellen präparativ sortiert, um eine neue homogene Population mit hoher und stabiler Expression des transfizierten, humanen Gens zu generieren. Gleichzeitig wurden Einzelzellen der Wildtyp-Populationen sortiert, um eine Kontrollzellinie mit verminderter Expression des endogenen Genproduktes zu erhalten, welche mit der Expression in den zuvor gewonnen Einzellzellpopulationen vergleichbar ist. Die generierten Zellpopulationen wurden molekularbiologisch mittels qRT-PCR und Western Blot analysiert und bestätigten den Erfolg des Versuchsziels. In Ergänzung dazu wurden durch funktionelle Transportversuche mit radioaktiv markierten Substraten von Pgp die gewonnenen Erkenntnisse verifiziert. Darüber hinaus wurden die Zelllinien hinsichtlich der Expression weiterer ABC-Transporter sowie Transporter aus der Gruppe der Organic Anion und Organic Cation Transportproteine näher charakterisiert, um ein tieferes Verständnis für die Transportvorgänge und mögliche Interaktionen in Transportstudien zu erhalten. Um vergleichbare Zelllinien mit möglichst geringer Expression des endogenen Pgp zu generieren, wurden Populationen der MDCK, MDCK-MDR1 und MDCK-BCRP Zellen mit Zinkfinger Nukleasen (ZFN) behandelt, um cPgp auf genomischer Ebene zu deletieren. Auch hier wurden Einzelzellen zur Etablierung einer homogenen knockout (KO) Population sortiert. Die generierten KO-Zelllinien wurden molekularbiologisch charakterisiert und auf ihre Transporteigenschaften bezüglich Pgp, insbesondere in der betriebsinternen Transportversuchsanordnung von AbbVie Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG, untersucht. Die KO-Zellen konnten verbesserte Werte für Pgp-Refernzsubstrate im Transportversuch aufweisen und auch für betriebsinterne Substanzen, im Vergleich zu den Ausgangkulturen, verlässliche Ergebnisse erziehlen

Approaches to tailor the cooling supply to the grinding process

This study presents original research of the investigation of the coolant supply to the contact area with two different approaches. The cooling and lubrication are key aspects of manufacturing processes such as grinding to achieve a high surface quality at high productivity. The coolant supply to the contact area has a high impact on the performance of the coolant. This paper presents the results from two approaches to tailoring the coolant supply for conventional and high-performance processes. An analytical approach is established to determine the coolant outlet velocity. Afterward, a sensor is developed to measure the coolant velocity at the nozzle. Conclusively, the influence of the coolant velocity on the volume flow through the contact zone is investigated. The results of this study highlight the importance of coolant outlet velocities of at least 60% of the cutting speed. The two approaches outline low impact possibilities to ensure optimal coolant outlet velocities and thus low thermal loads during the grinding process