Cost Decision Support in Product Design

The constraints addressed in decision making during product design, process planning and production planning determine the admissible solution space for the manufacture of products. The solution space determines largely the costs that are incurred in the production process. In order to be able to make economically sound decisions, costing data support must be integrated into the decision making processes. Regarding product design, the designer must be supplied with transparent costing data, that is ready for direct application. In this paper a functional architecture for costing data support during product design, as well as a corresponding data structure are presented

Analysis of the three lowest bending frequencies of a rotating propeller

The available literature on rotating propeller oscillations reveals a lack of uniformity in interpretation, particularly as concerns the data on the overtone frequency with respect to the centrifugal forces. The present report is a survey of the existing data for computing the bending frequency and a check on the dependability of the calculating methods

CohExplore : Visually Supporting Students in Exploring Text Cohesion

A cohesive text allows readers to follow the described ideas and events. Exploring cohesion in text might aid students enhancing their academic writing. We introduce CohExplore, which promotes exploring and reflecting on cohesion of a given text by visualizing computed cohesion-related metrics on an overview and detailed level. Detected topics are color-coded, semantic similarity is shown via lines, while connectives and co-references in a paragraph are encoded using text decoration. Demonstrating the system, we share insights about a student-authored text

The 1926 German seaplane contest

The report discusses the problem of rating the various seaplane designs from the 1926 seaplane contest. The whole process of rating consists in measuring the climbing speed, flying weight and carrying capacity of a seaplane and then using these data as the basis of a construction problem

Effectiveness of Light-Quality and Dark-White Growth Light Shifts in Short-Term Light Acclimation of Photosynthesis in Arabidopsis

Photosynthesis needs to run efficiently under permanently changing illumination. To achieve this, highly dynamic acclimation processes optimize photosynthetic performance under a variety of rapidly changing light conditions. Such acclimation responses are acting by a complex interplay of reversible molecular changes in the photosynthetic antenna or photosystem assemblies which dissipate excess energy and balance uneven excitation between the two photosystems. This includes a number of non-photochemical quenching processes including state transitions and photosystem II remodeling. In the laboratory such processes are typically studied by selective illumination set-ups. Two set-ups known to be effective in a highly similar manner are (i) light quality shifts (inducing a preferential excitation of one photosystem over the other) or (ii) dark-light shifts (inducing a general off-on switch of the light harvesting machinery). Both set-ups result in similar effects on the plastoquinone redox state, but their equivalence in induction of photosynthetic acclimation responses remained still open. Here, we present a comparative study in which dark-light and light-quality shifts were applied to samples of the same growth batches of plants. Both illumination set-ups caused comparable effects on the phosphorylation of LHCII complexes and, hence, on the performance of state transitions, but generated different effects on the degree of state transitions and the formation of PSII super-complexes. The two light set-ups, thus, are not fully equivalent in their physiological effectiveness potentially leading to different conclusions in mechanistic models of photosynthetic acclimation. Studies on the regulation of photosynthetic light acclimation, therefore, requires to regard the respective illumination test set-up as a critical parameter that needs to be considered in the discussion of mechanistic and regulatory aspects in this subject. Copyright © 2022 Hommel, Liebers, Offermann and Pfannschmidt

Spatio-temporal expression of nuclear-encoded proteins associated to the plastid-encoded RNA polymerase essential for chloroplast biogenesis in Arabidopsis thaliana L.

The development of functional chloroplasts originating from undifferentiated proplastids is a complex process that depends on the proper function of the plastid-encoded RNA polymerase (PEP). The PEP complex comprises the plastid-encoded bacteria-like core-proteins αββ ʹβʺ and 12 tightly associated, nuclear-encoded proteins (PAPs; Steiner et al., 2011; Pfalz and Pfannschmidt, 2013). Biochemical analyses suggest expression and assembly of these proteins appears in a development- and/or light-dependent manner, however, this process is far from understood. It, however, represents a bottleneck in chloroplast biogenesis since genetic inactivation of any PAP disturbs the plastid gene expression resulting in an ivory/albino mutant phenotype. This thesis provides a detailed catalogue of the temporal and spatial expression of PAP genes during seedling development and describes novel and unexpected features of PAP localization, particularly with regard to the dual distribution between nucleus and plastid. Future studies will target mechanisms that control this dual localization and will aim to identify a transcriptional master regulator of the PAPs. The reporter lines that were designed during this thesis will provide useful tools for the assessment of these open questions