Custom Manufacture

The life science industry, particularly pharmaceutical and agrochemical companies, is increasingly outsourcing the development and manufacture of active ingredients and intermediates for drugs and pesticides to specialised fine chemical companies. The global market for custom manufacture represents ca. USD 12 billion today and is growing. As the number of companies involved in custom manufacture is growing, too, there is also increasing competition. Entry hurdles are high and the key success factor is the ability to manage the 'value-speed-quality' triangle. Future challenges for the providers of custom manufacture are the high asset intensity of multipurpose plants, the increasing regulatory constraints and the purchasing power of the mega life science companies

100 Years LONZA – From a Product to a Market-Driven Enterprise

In recent decades, Lonza has transformed itself from a seller of 'what the plant made' to a producer of 'what the market wants', whatever the product, within the scope of our capabilities. This means that in addition to a constantly evolving list product gange Lonza now nurtures a corporate culture based on intimate relations with customer companies, which are often themselves industry leaders. This is particularly true in the life science industry where Lonza offers a combination of classical organic synthesis and biotechnology for the exclusive development and manufacture of advanced intermediates and active ingredients on a true partnership basis

Rate description of Fokker-Planck processes with time-periodic parameters

The large time dynamics of a periodically driven Fokker-Planck process possessing several metastable states is investigated. At weak noise transitions between the metastable states are rare. Their dynamics then represent a discrete Markovian process characterized by time dependent rates. Apart from the occupation probabilities, so-called specific probability densities and localizing functions can be associated to each metastable state. Together, these three sets of functions uniquely characterize the large time dynamics of the conditional probability density of the original process. Exact equations of motion are formulated for these three sets of functions and strategies are discussed how to solve them. These methods are illustrated and their usefulness is demonstrated by means of the example of a bistable Brownian oscillator within a large range of driving frequencies from the slow semiadiabatic to the fast driving regime

"Konstitutioneller Moment" und Verfassungsreform: eine Einschätzung des Österreich-Konvents

Trotz einer Vielzahl an Verfassungsänderungen, gibt es sowohl in der rechts- und politikwissenschaftlichen Literatur als auch in der Praxis einen Konsens, dass die österreichische Bundesverfassung einer grundlegenden Reform bedarf. Zu diesem Zweck wurde im Mai 2003 ein so genannter Österreich-Konvent eingerichtet. Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, unter welchen Bedingungen bedeutende Verfassungsreformen erfolgreich sind. Als konzeptuelle Grundlage fungiert dabei Bruce Ackermans Theorie des konstitutionellen Moments. Der Artikel kommt zu dem Schluss, dass der Österreich-Konvent ohne breite Anteilnahme der BürgerInnen installiert wurde und somit keinen konstitutionellen Moment im Sinne Ackermans ausgelöst hat.There is a wide-spread consensus among academics as well as practitioners that the Austrian constitution needs fundamental reform. In the wake of the European convention, Austria set up a similar convention which was entitled to draft a new constitution which should be better structured, more citizen-friendly and more efficient than the current one. Bruce Ackerman's theory of the constitutional moment is used as a yard-stick to assess the different phases of the establishment of the Austrian convention. However, this article concludes that the Austrian convention is an excellent example why the simple establishment of a convention without involving a significant number of citizens is not enough to create a constitutional moment

Fab Lab @ School: Digitale Fertigungstechnologien im Unterricht

Ein Fab Lab ist die moderne Form einer offenen Werkstatt. Interessierten stehen eine Reihe an Design- und Fertigungsmöglichkeiten mit den entsprechenden Geräten (3D-Drucker, Lasercutter, CNC-Fräse, etc.) zur Verfügung, um eigene kreative Ideen umsetzen zu können. Ziel des Projekts "Fab@School" ist es, die digitalen Design- und Fertigungstechnologien eines Fab Labs nachhaltig in die vorschulische und schulische Ausbildung zu integrieren. Gemeinsam mit den Projektpartnern werden Workshops für PädagogInnen und SchülerInnen ausgearbeitet und in einer Pilotphase in ausgewählten Bildungseinrichtungen durchgeführt

Key Performance Indicators in the Process of Performance Evaluation Selected Approaches

Performance management at individual level requires a systematic approach for evaluating the work and expectations, supporting such efforts of employees by providing evaluation and feedback in the form of the subsequent implementation of the appropriate corrections, while rewarding. One of the strategic assessment tools of performance management in organizations are key performance indicators (KPI) and the underlying assumption that the selected indicators can be measured or quantified. However, the fundamental problem of any performance measurement system is it´s correct assessment.  Based on this interpretation, the aim of the article is to analyze the statistically significant association between the application of performance evaluation methods in terms of the degree of KPIs implementation in organizations. For the purposes of assessing the afore mentioned relationship we have specified a set of fourteen most used evaluation methods which were then subjected to testing by Chi-square test of independence, which has been applied. To simplify and reduce the original amount of data, while maintaining a substantial part of the information, the analysis applied the multivariate statistical method of factor analysis. The research sample consists of small, medium and large organizations operating at the local, but also multinational level. The examined relationship was verified. Based on this, it can be stated that we need KPIs to make a complex picture of what organizations really need and how to achieve the set objectives

Non-Markovian Configurational Diffusion and Reaction Coordinates for Protein Folding

The non-Markovian nature of polymer motions is accounted for in folding kinetics, using frequency-dependent friction. Folding, like many other problems in the physics of disordered systems, involves barrier crossing on a correlated energy landscape. A variational transition state theory (VTST) that reduces to the usual Bryngelson-Wolynes Kramers approach when the non-Markovian aspects are neglected is used to obtain the rate, without making any assumptions regarding the size of the barrier, or the memory time of the friction. The transformation to collective variables dependent on the dynamics of the system allows the theory to address the controversial issue of what are ``good'' reaction coordinates for folding.Comment: 9 pages RevTeX, 3 eps-figures included, submitted to PR

Brownian motion from molecular dynamics

Brownian motion of single particles with various masses M and diameters D is studied by molecular dynamics simulations. Besides the momentum auto-correlation function of the Brownian particle the memory function and the fluctuating force which enter the generalized Langevin equation of the Brownian particle are determined and their dependence on mass and diameter are investigated for two different fluid densities. Deviations of the fluctuating force distribution from a Gaussian form are observed for small particle diameters. For heavy particles the deviations of the fluctuating force from the total force acting on the Brownian particle decrease linearly with the mass ratio m/M where m denotes the mass of a fluid particle