Metal Laminated Tooling - A Quick and Flexible Tooling Concept

For the fast manufacturing of complex formed tools Fraunhofer IWS works together with partners from the industry on a constant automation solution for cutting, packaging and adding steel sheet cutouts. With the selection of the most suitable connecting technology, also requirements must be considered to quality, surface quality and the production costs. Deep drawing or stamping tools do not require a complete connection of the single metal sheets. Here, a fast and economical connection is the main objective. Due to simple automation, laser beam welding offers itself as joining process. On the other hand, a temperature-steady connection of the sheet metal lamellas is necessary for injection molds, which can resist the injection pressures.Mechanical Engineerin

Protective activity of aromatic amines and imines against oxidative nerve cell death

Oxidative stress is a widespread phenomenon in the pathology of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Neuronal cell death due to oxidative stress may causally contribute to the pathogeneses of these diseases. Therefore, neuroprotective antioxidants are considered to be a promising approach to slow down disease progression. We have investigated different aromatic amine and imine compounds for neuroprotective antioxidant functions in cell culture, and found that these compounds possess excellent cytoprotective potential in diverse paradigms of oxidative neuronal cell death, including clonal cell lines, primary cerebellar neurons, and organotypic hippocampal slice cultures. Aromatic amines and imines are effective against oxidative glutamate toxicity, glutathione depletion, and hydrogen peroxide toxicity. Their mode of action as direct antioxidants; was experimentally confirmed by electron spin resonance spectroscopy, cell-free brain lipid peroxidation assays, and intracellular peroxide measurements. With half-maximal effective concentrations of 20-75 nm in different neuroprotection experiments, the aromatic imines phenothiazine, phenoxazine, and iminostilbene proved to be about two orders of magnitude more effective than common phenolic antioxidants. This remarkable efficacy could be directly correlated to calculated properties of the compounds by means of a novel, quantitative structure-activity relationship model. We conclude that bridged bisarylimines with a single free NH-bond, such as iminostilbene, are superior neuroprotective antioxidants, and may be promising lead structures for rational drug development

Hurdles for the Voluntary Disclosure of Information on Intangibles - Empirical Results for 'New Economy' Industries

The importance of intangible assets like brands, customer relationships, knowledge or organisational capabilities is increasing in most western economies. Recent concepts like knowledge management or intellectual capital underline the growing importance of these "soft" production factors. The financial as well as the managerial accounting are still focusing on "hard" production factors, especially the production area with their typically physical and tangible assets and the finance and investment area with financial assets. This paper is focusing on possibilities and limits of reporting on intangible resources seen from the companies point of view. We examined 343 German listed corporations of the German C-DAX indices for industries where intangible resources play a significant role for the business models of the companies (Pharmaceuticals & Health, Software, Technology, Media and Telecommunications).Using a pre-tested questionnaire the sample finally consits of 54 companies (response rate = 16 %),that could be used for the analysis

Lazy Shape Analysis

Many software model checkers are based on predicate abstraction. If the verification goal depends on pointer structures, the approach does not work well, because it is difficult to find adequate predicate abstractions for the heap. In contrast, shape analysis, which uses graph-based heap abstractions, can provide a compact representation of recursive data structures. We integrate shape analysis into the software model checker BLAST. Because shape analysis is expensive, we do not apply it globally. Instead, we ensure that, like predicates, shape graphs are computed and stored locally, only where necessary for proving the verification goal. To achieve this, we extend lazy abstraction refinement, which so far has been used only for predicate abstractions, to three-valued logical structures. This approach does not only increase the precision of model checking, but it also increases the efficiency of shape analysis. We implemented the technique by extending BLAST with calls to TVLA

A confined-unconfined aquifer model for subglacial hydrology

Modeling the evolution of subglacial channels underneath ice sheets is an urgent need for ice sheet modellers, as channels affect sliding velocities and hence ice discharge. Owing to very limited observations of the subglacial hydraulic system, the development of physical models is quite restricted. Subglacial hydrology models are currently taking two different approaches: either modeling the development of a network of individual channels or modeling an equivalent porous layer where the channels are not resolved individually but modeled as a diffusive process, adjusted to reproduce the characteristic of an efficient system. Here, we use the latter approach, improving it by using a confined-unconfined aquifer model (CUAS), that allows the system to run dry in absence of sufficient water input. This ensures physical values for the water pressure. Channels are represented by adjusting the permeability and storage of the system according to projected locations of channels. The evolution of channel positions is governed by a reduced complexity model that computes channel growths according to simple rules (weighted random walks descending the hydraulic potential). As a proof of concept we present the results of the evolution of the hydrological system over time for a simple artificial glacier geometr

Trainerqualifikation – ein konzeptioneller Ansatz

Der Einsatz innerbetrieblicher Trainer bietet Unternehmen viele Vorteile im Rahmen ihrer Personalentwicklung und Bildungsarbeit. Dabei ist eine an den Aufgaben orientierte Ausbildung und Weiterbildung ihrer Trainer gut investiertes Geld für eine erfolgreiche Umsetzung von Unternehmenszielen und die Gestaltung von Veränderungsprozessen. In einer intensiven handlungsorientierten Ausbildung erarbeitet sich der Trainer das notwendige „Handwerkszeug“ für die Erfüllung seiner Aufgaben im Rahmen der betrieblichen Bildungsarbeit und der Gestaltung von Lernsituationen und kann so die von ihm erwartete und geforderte Rolle erfüllen, nämlich die Rolle einer qualifizierten Fachkraft, auch in Weiterbildungsfragen, eines methodisch-didaktisch geschickten Gestalters effektiver und interessanter Lernsituationen für den Einsatz in spezifischen innerbetrieblichen, fallbezogenen Situationen und Handlungsmustern und eines kooperativen Lernpartners und Lernbegleiters. (DIPF/Orig.