The long road to closed cycle management: so far, environmental protection in the capital equipment producing industry has aimed primarily to reduce the production-related emissions

In the 1990s, recession and high unemployment meant that environmental protection was no longer a domain of action in the foreground of discussion, although the urgency of making industrial activities sustainable remains as great as ever. For this very reason, the Fraunhofer ISI has been analysing the environmental protection activities of the capital equipment producing industry. Results of the analysis indicate that the managers questioned in the survey attribute great importance to closed cycle management approaches. This positive attitude is not yet reflected, however, in terms of concrete management. Thus only about one firm in seven offers its customers the facility of taking back used products. Management concepts that support closed cycle management, such as Life Cycle Costing or ecological audits, are even less widespread. Nevertheless, an examination of firms’ aims indicates that these concepts will become increasingly important within the next few years. Traditional investments in equipment for reducing environmental pollution of clean air, clean water an clean earth continue to be the most frequently named measures. The average performance indicators of firms actively engaged in environmental protection are well up to, and in some cases better than, the average for firms as a whole. --

Is high automation a dead end? Cutbacks in production overengineering

For quite some time it seemed the trend towards high automation in the wage-intensive German economy showed no signs of slowing down. However, in practice it turns out that more than a third of companies which have chosen automated solutions have not had their expectations fulfilled. Many of these companies have already made reductions in automation levels for particular subsystems. The most important reason for dissatisfaction is the lack of flexibility in highly automated systems. Flexibility requirements resulting from turnover fluctuations and production changes for new products can only be realized at considerable expense in highly automated systems. This is particularly the case in the area of assembly. Almost 50 percent of companies with strong turnover growth have already reduced their automation levels for material flow in assembly or plan to do so. These results hold true regardless of the size of the company. Companies which have already reduced overengineering in production do not however simply return to pre-automation production concepts. Many companies succeed in putting experience gained into practical use and thus achieve improvements in rejection rates and on-schedule performance with a reduced and adjusted automation level. --

Testate amoebae (Protozoa: Testacea) as bioindicators in the Late Quaternary deposits of the Bykovsky Peninsula, Laptev Sea, Russia

Testate amoebae (Protozoa: Testacea) were studied in the Late Quaternary permafrost depositsin the Siberian Arctic (Bykovsky Peninsula of the Laptev Sea coast, 71º40'-71º80'N and 129º-129º30'E). The studied Testacea associations reflect specific environmental conditions in paleocryosols,which were controlled by the local micro-relief as well as regional climate conditions. Totally, 86species, varieties, and forms of testate amoebae were found in 38 Pleistocene and Holocenesamples. The rhizopods indicate that soil conditions at ca 53,000 14C yr BP were probably rathersimilar to the modern cold and wet arctic tundra environment. More moisture and warmer soilconditions were relatively favourable for rhizopods ca 45,300-43,000 14C yr BP, but significantlydrier at about 42,000 14C yr BP. Drier and colder environmental conditions were also presentabout 39,300-35,000 14C yr BP. The Late Pleistocene samples, radiocarbon dated to 33,000-12,000 yr BP, are characterized by a low species diversity and density. This period may have beenextremely cold and dry, which is also supported by the polymorphism of some species.Hydrophilic Difflugia species (mostly obligate hydrobiotes) are broadly represented in theHolocene samples. The species composition and density of rhizopods in the majority of Holocenesamples suggest wet and relatively warm conditions. Changes in rhizopod assemblages during thelast 53,000 years were not very dramatic, mostly consisting of rare species and changes in thedominant species complexes during the Pleistocene and Holocene. However, these changes weremore drastic during the Pleistocene. They, probably, were at least partly responsible for thedisappearance of some rare testacean species such as Argynnia sp

Microfabrics, grain-size-distributions and grain surface textures in Late Pleistocene basin sediments of Brandenburg (Northern Barnim)

The Biesenthal Basin formed by thawing of dead ice, is located at the northern rim of the Bamim Plateau north of Berlin; in it sedimentary processes varied considerably during the Late Weichsel Glacial Period. Their variations are reflected in sedimentary fabrics, grain size distributions and repeated overprinting of surface textures on quartz grains. The glacifluviolimnic, Iimnic and aeolian sediments were deposited on the shore of a periglacial water within the area shaped by the last glacial advance; presently it is located at the border between lowlands and plateau. The sedimentary sequence is characterized by variations and deformations at the scale of micrometers, hence the present study focussed on microfabric analysis

Ecological training set of freshwater ostracods in Canadian and Siberian periglacial regions

Quantified palaeoenvironmental reconstructions are essential to estimate the impact of future climate changes on ecosystems. Based on faunistic data from regional multireference sites and limnological surveys, ecological training sets can be used to build transfer functions to infer major environmental variables (e.g., temperature, conductivity, DOC, and pH value) in a greater study area. The remote Polar regions are affected by bigger amplitude of climate change than elsewhere on this planet and make ecological training sets in this region so important.Freshwater ostracods from Arctic nvironments have the potential to hindcast glacial/interglacial and stadial/interstadial alaeoclimate variations. Various methods can be applied to fossil assemblages such as indicator species approach, modern analoguetechniques and transfer functions based on ecological training sets.The present training set combines data from the Canadian (Southampton Island at 63-65°N; Bylot Island at 72-73°N) and the Siberian (Central Yakutia at 61°N; Northeast Yakutia at 66°N; Lena Delta at 72°N) high latitudes with reference areas in Central Canada (Whapmagoostui-Kuujjuarapik at 50-55°N; Churchill at 58°N). A total of 75 localities were sampled during field work in 2005-2007. In general, life conditions for aquatic organisms such as freshwater ostracods in the high latitude regions are extremeand limited by short open water periods during the summer and strong variations of water temperatures in the shallow waters. The host waters in periglacial regions are affected by permafrost and thermokarst processes and mostly represented as polygonal ponds or thermokarst lakes in different stages of their development. Generally, the waters in our study area have a mean pH-value of 7.6, ranging from pH 6.0 to pH 9.2. They are characterised by low ionic contents (Condmean = 231μS*cm−1), but the training set includes sites between 4.4 μS*cm−1 (e.g., on Bylot Island) and 1433 μS*cm−1 (e.g., in Central Yakutia). A principal component analysis reveals that 88.5 % of the variability of the environmental data is explained by the first ordination axis corresponding to pH, conductivity and major cations (i.e., Ca, Na). The studied ostracod assemblages are characterised by dominance of single species indifferent regions, e.g., Cyclocypris ovum on Bylot Island, Fabaeformiscandona pedata in the Lena Delta. In general, the species diversity in northern latitudes is relatively low due to the harsh environmental conditions affecting ostracods ontogeny. In total, 16 species were used in the presented data set.Further implementation of the ecological training set into transfer functions for one or more variables are prosperous

Weibliches Leben und Leiden : über Frauen in Frankfurt im 18. Jahrhundert

Rezension zu: Gisela Engel, Ursula Kern, Heide Wunder (Hrsg.) : Frauen in der Stadt – Frankfurt im 18. Jahrhundert, Ulrike Helmer Verlag , Königstein 2002, ISBN 3-89741-110-5, 240 Seiten, 19,90 Euro