The Volkswagen Scandal

Volkswagen is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world. For years the company has focused on producing attractive and environmentally friendly automobiles, and recent initiatives have included a project to reduce CO2 production, along with advertisements claiming lower emission of greenhouse gases. The world was shocked to hear that Volkswagen had been producing diesel engines for its cars that were able to trick emissions testing equipment. The engines were producing many times the EPA standards for emissions, yet they passed emission tests. This case provides detailed information about the scandal as well as information about the history, operations, and stated values of Volkswagen, as well as some of the early actions of the company to deal with the scandal

Materials Supply System Analysis Under Simulation Scenarios in a Lean Manufacturing Environment

AbstractIdentifying the most efficient supply system for a company working under Lean Manufacturing practices was possible with the support of this work. Promodel software was used to develop simulation model depicting a constant velocity joints (CVJ) production system, where two different supply methods were assessed. According to results herein obtained, better performance is achieved under random supply method in comparison with a clustering supply method. The company’s goal is to keep 1% losses due to lack of material. In the actual process, this essential parameter was reduced from 2.73% to 1.177%, if random supply method is properly implemented

Topical application of acyclovir-loaded microparticles: quantification of the drug in porcine skin layers.

The goal of this work was to increase the amount of acyclovir (ACV) in the basal epidermis, site of Herpes virus simplex infections, using microparticles as carriers. Poly(d,l-lactic–co-glycolic acid) microparticles loaded with ACV were prepared using a solvent evaporation technique. ACV distribution into porcine skin after topical application of microparticles for 6, 24 and 88 h, was determined by horizontal slicing of the skin. An ACV suspension served for comparison. The results showed that, at 6 and 24 h, the quantity of the drug in the basal epidermis with the microparticles, is similar to that obtained with the ACV suspension. However, after 88 h, the ACV reservoir in the basal epidermis was higher with the microparticles compared with the control suspension. This could be explained by the controlled drug release produced by the vector in the basal epidermis. Besides, at 88 h the amount of ACV detected in the receptor chamber of the diffusion cells was much lower with the microparticles than with the suspension. This type of carrier can improve acyclovir topical therapy since it increases drug retention in the basal epidermis and consequently increases the time intervals between doses

Dictionary Applied Geology English – French – German – Spanish

This dictionary was compiled by hydrogeologists from Germany, Mexico and Nicaragua. German and Spanish expressions were established by native speakers, all of them with a good knowledge of English and some French. However no native English or French speaker has reviewed the dictionary so far. Using the dictionary you will additionally recognize that some translations are still missing in one or more languages while they are already available in others. Further some special expressions you are looking for might be neglected at all. The dictionary is published by now in order to make it available to as many scientists in the field of applied geology as possible, however it is still under construction and probably will ever be. We do think about adding definitions for at least part of the words and a more convenient way to query. If you find any mistakes, missing words or if you have any additional suggestions or want to participate in our multilingual dictionary project (e.g. with a further language) please feel free to contact Prof. Dr. Broder Merkel ([email protected]. de). At the end of this four lingual introduction you will find the dictionary applied geology in four versions, all of them contain all four languages, sorted by the language listed in the file name (“English dictionary”: expressions sorted by the first column English; “Deutsches Wörterbuch”: expressions sorted by the first column German, etc.). You may download each dictionary and use the search function of the Acrobat Reader to look for the desired expression. Articles are indicated behind each word with (f) for feminine, (m) for masculine, (n) for neutral. For some words several translations exist in one language or the other. They are listed in different lines below each other. All copyrights belong to the authors. Neither the whole dictionary nor parts of it are to be published by any other user. We hope this dictionary helps you working in the multilingual field of applied geology and you will help us to further improve it. Enjoy!researc

Evolution of substrate specificity in a retained enzyme driven by gene loss.

The connection between gene loss and the functional adaptation of retained proteins is still poorly understood. We apply phylogenomics and metabolic modeling to detect bacterial species that are evolving by gene loss, with the finding that Actinomycetaceae genomes from human cavities are undergoing sizable reductions, including loss of L-histidine and L-tryptophan biosynthesis. We observe that the dual-substrate phosphoribosyl isomerase A or priA gene, at which these pathways converge, appears to coevolve with the occurrence of trp and his genes. Characterization of a dozen PriA homologs shows that these enzymes adapt from bifunctionality in the largest genomes, to a monofunctional, yet not necessarily specialized, inefficient form in genomes undergoing reduction. These functional changes are accomplished via mutations, which result from relaxation of purifying selection, in residues structurally mapped after sequence and X-ray structural analyses. Our results show how gene loss can drive the evolution of substrate specificity from retained enzymes

ENERGY EFFICIENT RADIO ACCESS TECHNOLOGIES AND NETWORKING WIRELESS ACCESS NETWORK

LEACH (Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy) is the first network protocol that uses hierarchical routing for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) to increase the life time of network. Research on WSN has recently received much attention as they offer an advantage of monitoring various kinds of environment by sensing physical phenomenon, such as in-hospitable terrain, it is expected that suddenly active to gather the required data for some times when something is detected, and then remaining largely inactive for long periods of time. So, efficient energy saving schemes and corresponding algorithms must be developed and designed in order to provide reasonable energy consumption and to improve the network lifetime for WSN. WSN are networks consist of large number of tiny battery powered sensor nodes having limited on-board storage, processing, and radio capabilities. Nodes sense and send their reports toward a processing center which is called sink node or Base Station (BS). Since the transmission and reception process consumes lots of energy for data dispensation, it is necessary to designing protocols and applications for such networks has to be energy aware in order to prolong the lifetime of the network. The proposed, LEACH-PR (Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy - Power Resourceful) protocol includes clustering, routing and radio propagation technique by balancing the energy consumption of sensor nodes to improve the efficiency of data transmission and prolonging the network lifetime. The goals of this scheme are, increase the stability period of network, and minimize the energy consumption. The performance analysis of proposed LEACH-PR is compared with ILEACH (Improved LEACH), EHE-LEACH (Enhanced Heterogeneous LEACH), and EEM-LEACH (Energy Efficient Multihop LEACH) protocols and concluded that, the LEACH-PR has significant improvement over in terms of lifetime of network, both in homogeneous and heterogeneous environments

Optimization of topical cidofovir penetration using microparticles.

Edelfosine is the prototype molecule of a family of anticancer drugs collectively known as synthetic alkyl-lysophospholipids. This drug holds promise as a selective antitumor agent, and a number of preclinical assays are in progress. In this study, we observe the accumulation of edelfosine in brain tissue after its oral administration in Compritol® and Precirol® lipid nanoparticles (LN). The high accumulation of edelfosine in brain was due to the inhibition of P-glycoprotein by Tween® 80, as verified using a P-glycoprotein drug interaction assay. Moreover, these LN were tested in vitro against the C6 glioma cell line, which was later employed to establish an in vivo xenograft mouse model of glioma. In vitro studies revealed that edelfosine-loaded LN induced an antiproliferative effect in C6 glioma cell line. In addition, in vivo oral administration of drug-loaded LN in NMRI nude mice bearing a C6 glioma xenograft tumor induced a highly significant reduction in tumor growth (p < 0.01) 14 days after the beginning of the treatment. Our results showed that Tween® 80 coated Compritol® and Precirol® LN can effectively inhibit the growth of C6 glioma cells in vitro and suggest that edelfosine-loaded LN represent an attractive option for the enhancement of antitumor activity on brain tumors in vivo

Prototyping of petalets for the Phase-II Upgrade of the silicon strip tracking detector of the ATLAS Experiment

In the high luminosity era of the Large Hadron Collider, the HL-LHC, the instantaneous luminosity is expected to reach unprecedented values, resulting in about 200 proton-proton interactions in a typical bunch crossing. To cope with the resultant increase in occupancy, bandwidth and radiation damage, the ATLAS Inner Detector will be replaced by an all-silicon system, the Inner Tracker (ITk). The ITk consists of a silicon pixel and a strip detector and exploits the concept of modularity. Prototyping and testing of various strip detector components has been carried out. This paper presents the developments and results obtained with reduced-size structures equivalent to those foreseen to be used in the forward region of the silicon strip detector. Referred to as petalets, these structures are built around a composite sandwich with embedded cooling pipes and electrical tapes for routing the signals and power. Detector modules built using electronic flex boards and silicon strip sensors are glued on both the front and back side surfaces of the carbon structure. Details are given on the assembly, testing and evaluation of several petalets. Measurement results of both mechanical and electrical quantities are shown. Moreover, an outlook is given for improved prototyping plans for large structures.Comment: 22 pages for submission for Journal of Instrumentatio

Increased paclitaxel recovery from Taxus baccata vascular stem cells using novel in situ product recovery approaches

In this study, several approaches were tested to optimise the production and recovery of the widely used anticancer drug Taxol® (paclitaxel) from culturable vascular stem cells (VSCs) of Taxus baccata, which is currently used as a successful cell line for paclitaxel production. An in situ product recovery (ISPR) technique was employed, which involved combining three commercial macro-porous resin beads (HP-20, XAD7HP and HP-2MG) with batch and semi-continuous cultivations of the T. baccata VSCs after adding methyl jasmonate (Me-JA) as an elicitor. The optimal resin combination resulted in 234 ± 23 mg of paclitaxel per kg of fresh-weight cells, indicating a 13-fold improved yield compared to the control (with no resins) in batch cultivation. This resin treatment was further studied to evaluate the resins’ removal capacity of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which can cause poor cell growth or reduce product synthesis. It was observed that the ISPR cultivations had fourfold less intracellular ROS concentration than that of the control; thus, a reduced ROS concentration established by the resin contributed to increased paclitaxel yield, contrary to previous studies. These paclitaxel yields are the highest reported to date using VSCs, and this scalable production method could be applied for a diverse range of similar compounds utilising plant cell culture. Graphical Abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]