Integration of environmental assessment in a PLM context: a case study in luxury industry

Nowadays, the environment becomes a major issue in our society. It gives rise to regu-lations, market demand and stakeholder's pressure which are concerning companies. These latter have to reduce the negative impact of their new product by eco-design and adopting a continuous improvement for their existing product portfolio. To do so, environmental assessment system is needed. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the most known and recognized. However, this method is complex, requires significant resources and a large amount of accurate data. We propose a methodology to connect a simplified LCA tool with PLM system and ERP to evaluate an entire product portfolio at any time. This will allow design teams to consider the environmental issues in early design phase and gives the companies a global vision of their product portfolio. This methodology is experimented with packaging products of luxury brand, using the Teamcenter PLM system and a Simplified LCA Too

Neutron measurements in the vandellòs II nuclear power plant with a bonner sphere system

In some Spanish nuclear power plants of pressurised water reactor (PWR) type, albedo thermoluminescence dosemeters are used for personal dosimetry while survey meters, based on a thermal-neutron detector inside a cylindrical or spherical moderator, are used for dose rate assessment in routine monitoring. The response of both systems is highly dependent on the energy of the existing neutron fields. They are usually calibrated by means of ISO neutron sources with energy distributions quite different from those encountered at these installations. Spectrometric measurements with a Bonner sphere system (BSS) allow us to determine the reference dosimetric values. The UAB group, under request from the National Coordinated Research Action, was in charge of characterising the neutron fields and evaluating the response of personal dosemeters at several measurement points inside the containment building of the Catalan Nuclear Power Plant Vandellòs II. The neutron fields were characterised at five places using the UAB-BSS and a home made unfolding code called MITOM. The results obtained confirm the presence of low-energy components in the neutron field in most of the selected points. Moreover, we have found no influence of the nuclear fuel burning on the shape of the spectrum. © Oxford University Press 2004; all rights reserved

Influence of ionic organization on current blockade induced by translocation of small macromolecule through a single nanopore

International audienceSingle macromolecule detection through a single nanopore is based on resistive pulse technique. Typically, the ionic current is recorded. However at the nanometer scale it cannot be considered bulk like. Our main goal will be to emphasis the importance of the ion structuration (i) around the macromolecule and (ii) inside the nanopore on the signal induced by macromolecule translocation. Here, we will report the fabrication of a single nanopore with high aspect ratio, tailored by the track etching and atomic layer deposition techniques. The Polyethylene glycol-carboxylate (PEG- carboxylate) molecules (low molar mass 200 and 600 g.mol-1) translocation through this nanopore has been studied. The current trace show that PEG-carboxylate molecules permeate through the nanopore, promote an unusual and unexpected blockade of ionic current. The latter is characterized by the presence of current spikes at the beginning and at the end of the blockade. This parameter was shown to be the most discriminative regarding to the PEG-carboxylate molar mass. The question of unusual and unexpected blockade of ionic current has been investigated by Molecular Dynamics Simulation. The results show that the cation shell surrounding the PEG-carboxylate should induce the ionic current blockade which is at the origin of the experimental signal