Flexibility of industrial product service systems: An assessment based on concept modelling

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The Challenge of Community Work in a Global Economy

This article examines how and why five major stakeholders-international financial organizations; NGOs; governmental entities; multinational corporations; and community development projects- have failed to significantly and uniformly reduce aggregate global poverty. The article uses the results of a case study of HIV/ AIDS prevention in a low-income Nigerian city to argue that effective action must involve local and global stakeholders in collaborative partnerships. It concludes by discussing the critical role of facilitators in such partnerships

Simulation of hypoxia PET-tracer uptake in tumours:Dependence of clinical uptake-values on transport parameters and arterial input function

Poor radiotherapy outcome is in many cases related to hypoxia, due to the increased radioresistance of hypoxic tumour cells. Positron emission tomography may be used to non-invasively assess the oxygenation status of the tumour using hypoxia-specific radiotracers. Quantification and interpretation of these images remains challenging, since radiotracer binding and oxygen tension are not uniquely related. Computer simulation is a useful tool to improve the understanding of tracer dynamics and its relation to clinical uptake parameters currently used to quantify hypoxia. In this study, a model for simulating oxygen and radiotracer distribution in tumours was implemented to analyse the impact of physiological transport parameters and of the arterial input function (AIF) on: oxygenation histograms, time-activity curves, tracer binding and clinical uptake-values (tissue-to-blood ratio, TBR, and a composed hypoxia-perfusion metric, FHP). Results were obtained for parallel and orthogonal vessel architectures and for vascular fractions (VFs) of 1% and 3%. The most sensitive parameters were the AIF and the maximum binding rate (K-max). TBR allowed discriminating VF for different AIF, and FHP for different K-max, but neither TBR nor FHP were unbiased in all cases. Biases may especially occur in the comparison of TBR- or FHP-values between different tumours, where the relation between measured and actual AIF may vary. Thus, these parameters represent only surrogates rather than absolute measurements of hypoxia in tumours.Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile (UC) from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) grant CONICYT Doctorado Nacional 21151353 Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT) CONICYT FONDECYT 111505601 1117057

Fast kinetics of multivalent intercalation chemistry enabled by solvated magnesium-ions into self-established metallic layered materials

Rechargeable magnesium batteries are one of the most promising candidates for next-generation battery technologies. Despite recent significant progress in the development of efficient electrolytes, an on-going challenge for realization of rechargeable magnesium batteries remains to overcome the sluggish kinetics caused by the strong interaction between double charged magnesium-ions and the intercalation host. Herein, we report that a magnesium battery chemistry with fast intercalation kinetics in the layered molybdenum disulfide structures can be enabled by using solvated magnesium-ions ([Mg(DME)x]2+). Our study demonstrates that the high charge density of magnesium-ion may be mitigated through dimethoxyethane solvation, which avoids the sluggish desolvation process at the cathode-electrolyte interfaces and reduces the trapping force of the cathode lattice to the cations, facilitating magnesium-ion diffusion. The concept of using solvation effect could be a general and effective route to tackle the sluggish intercalation kinetics of magnesium-ions, which can potentially be extended to other host structures

Late normal tissue response in the rat spinal cord after carbon ion irradiation

Background: The present work summarizes the research activities on radiation-induced late effects in the rat spinal cord carried out within the “clinical research group ion beam therapy” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG, KFO 214). Methods and materials: Dose–response curves for the endpoint radiation-induced myelopathy were determined at 6 different positions (LET 16–99 keV/μm) within a 6 cm spread-out Bragg peak using either 1, 2 or 6 fractions of carbon ions. Based on the tolerance dose TD50 of carbon ions and photons, the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) was determined and compared with predictions of the local effect model (LEM I and IV). Within a longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based study the temporal development of radiation-induced changes in the spinal cord was characterized. To test the protective potential of the ACE (angiotensin converting enzyme)-inhibitor ramipril™, an additional dose–response experiment was performed. Results: The RBE-values increased with LET and the increase was found to be larger for smaller fractional doses. Benchmarking the RBE-values as predicted by LEM I and LEM IV with the measured data revealed that LEM IV is more accurate in the high-LET, while LEM I is more accurate in the low-LET region. Characterization of the temporal development of radiation-induced changes with MRI demonstrated a shorter latency time for carbon ions, reflected on the histological level by an increased vessel perforation after carbon ion as compared to photon irradiations. For the ACE-inhibitor ramipril™, a mitigative rather than protective effect was found. Conclusions: This comprehensive study established a large and consistent RBE data base for late effects in the rat spinal cord after carbon ion irradiation which will be further extended in ongoing studies. Using MRI, an extensive characterization of the temporal development of radiation-induced alterations was obtained. The reduced latency time for carbon ions is expected to originate from a dynamic interaction of various complex pathological processes. A dominant observation after carbon ion irradiation was an increase in vessel perforation preferentially in the white matter. To enable a targeted pharmacological intervention more details of the molecular pathways, responsible for the development of radiation-induced myelopathy are required

Polyoxometalate Modified Separator for Performance Enhancement of Magnesium–Sulfur Batteries

The magnesium–sulfur (Mg‐S) battery has attracted considerable attention as a candidate of post‐lithium battery systems owing to its high volumetric energy density, safety, and cost effectiveness. However, the known shuttle effect of the soluble polysulfides during charge and discharge leads to a rapid capacity fade and hinders the realization of sulfur‐based battery technology. Along with the approaches for cathode design and electrolyte formulation, functionalization of separators can be employed to suppress the polysulfide shuttle. In this study, a glass fiber separator coated with decavanadate‐based polyoxometalate (POM) clusters/carbon composite is fabricated by electrospinning technique and its impacts on battery performance and suppression of polysulfide shuttling are investigated. Mg–S batteries with such coated separators and non‐corrosive Mg[B(hfip)4]2 electrolyte show significantly enhanced reversible capacity and cycling stability. Functional modification of separator provides a promising approach for improving metal–sulfur batteries

AutonomROS: A ReconROS-based Autonomonous Driving Unit

Autonomous driving has become an important research area in recent years, and the corresponding system creates an enormous demand for computations. Heterogeneous computing platforms such as systems-on-chip that combine CPUs with reprogrammable hardware offer both computational performance and flexibility and are thus interesting targets for autonomous driving architectures. The de-facto software architecture standard in robotics, including autonomous driving systems, is ROS 2. ReconROS is a framework for creating robotics applications that extends ROS 2 with the possibility of mapping compute-intense functions to hardware. This paper presents AutonomROS, an autonomous driving unit based on the ReconROS framework. AutonomROS serves as a blueprint for a larger robotics application developed with ReconROS and demonstrates its suitability and extendability. The application integrates the ROS 2 package Navigation 2 with custom-developed software and hardware-accelerated functions for point cloud generation, obstacle detection, and lane detection. In addition, we detail a new communication middleware for shared memory communication between software and hardware functions. We evaluate AutonomROS and show the advantage of hardware acceleration and the new communication middleware for improving turnaround times, achievable frame rates, and, most importantly, reducing CPU load