Traditional 'air-dried' fermented sausages from Central Germany

Traditional varieties of fermented pork sausages from Central Germany are different from related meat products in various aspects. First, they are prepared from “warm” pork immediately after slaughter. The meat is then minced, mixed with spices and minimal amounts of sugars, salt and nitrate, and the stuffed sausages ripen for a minimum of 6-8 weeks at temperatures below 15 °C. Second, surface mould growth during ripening is regularly removed or suppressed. The manufacturing methods require a minimum of investments and labour and reflect the socio-economic situation in the manufacturing area. The sausages have a good record of safety, and a preliminary risk assessment indicates that pathogens are kept under sufficient control by the extended ripening at low temperatures. Small-scale (artisanal) manufacture of these products is only possible with a flexible interpretation of the hygienic principles set up in current legislation.     

Chemical investigations on boiling process waters in face veneer production

Boiling processes in veneer industry generate large amounts of process water replete with dissolved wood extractives. In the present study the chemical composition of boiling waters from 18 industrially treated wood species were investigated. Contamination levels of the boiling waters varied within a wide range depending on the different extractive contents of the processed wood species and operational conditions. Boiling wood species with high extractives content, heated over several days at temperatures above 80 °C, generate highly loaded waste waters with chemical oxygen demands (CODs) of up to 7000  mg l^-1. The determination of the elemental composition, using optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES), showed iron contents of up to 10 mg l^-1. Phenolic compounds were in a range of 40 to 900 mg l^-1. Flavonoid compounds and phenolic acids were identified in the boiling waters by liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC-UV). The results confirm the need for water treatment facilities to establish a recycling process and to avoid discolourations of the wood by accumulated wood extractives.     

Analysis of hollow fibre membrane systems for multicomponent gas separation

This paper analysed the performance of a membrane system over key design/operation parameters. A computation methodology is developed to solve the model of hollow fibre membrane systems for multicomponent gas feeds. The model represented by a nonlinear differential algebraic equation system is solved via a combination of backward differentiation and Gauss–Seidel methods. Natural gas sweetening problem is investigated as a case study. Model parametric analyses of variables, namely feed gas quality, pressure, area, selectivity and permeance, resulted in better understanding of operating and design optima. Particularly, high selectivities and/or permeabilities are shown not to be necessary targets for optimal operation. Rather, a medium selectivity (<60 in the given example) combined with medium permeance (∼300–500 × 10⁻¹⁰ mol/s m² Pa in the given case study) is more advantageous. This model-based membrane systems engineering approach is proposed for the synthesis of efficient and cost-effective multi-stage membrane networks.     

Influence of shear deformation on the electrical and rheological properties of combined filler networks in polymer melts: Carbon nanotubes and carbon black in polycarbonate

The influence of shear on combined filler systems containing multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT) and carbon black (CB) in polycarbonate (PC) melts was investigated by time-resolved combined rheological and electrical measurements. Samples with different MWNT/CB ratios and total carbon filler contents (0.25–10 wt%) were studied. The morphology of the filler network was analyzed by TEM and SEM in charge contrast mode whereby a combined MWNT/CB filler network is indicated.     

Butyltin(IV) Benzoates: Inhibition of Thioredoxin Reductase,Tumor Cell Growth Inhibition,and Interactions with Proteins

Thioredoxin reductase (TrxR) is overexpressed in cancer cells and is therefore a putative cancer target. Inhibition of this enzyme is considered an important strategy for the development of new chemotherapeutic agents with a specific mechanism of action. Organotin compounds have been described as experimental antitumor agents, yet their mechanism of action remains largely unknown. Based on the outcome of a virtual screening study, various di‐ and tri‐n‐butyltin(IV) carboxylates were synthesized, and their biological properties were evaluated. All synthesized compounds were able to inhibit TrxR selectively within the micromolar range and showed potent antitumor activity against HT‐29 and MCF‐7 cancer cell lines. Moreover, tin(IV) organometallics were found to strongly induce apoptosis in the BJAB lymphoma cell line. Mass spectrometry and atomic absorption spectroscopy experiments revealed metal binding to proteins, and efficient cellular uptake was observed using a di‐n‐butyltin(IV) complex as an example.     

Universal design (UD) principles for flexible packaging and corresponding minimal customer requirement set

Other research has established seven UD principles and performance measures for the design and assessment of generic products. The objective of this research is to improve the suitability of UD for flexible packaging. The methodology used here begins by creating customer requirements from UD performance measures and packaging functions from JIS S 0022‐4. The authors propose a correlation matrix to discard uncorrelated, duplicated and irrelevant requirements from the list of requirements. The remaining customer requirements are screened by using the Index of Consistency. Then, experts check and add essential customer requirements. A factor analysis is conducted on the survey data to find the important requirements and eliminate uncorrelated requirements. The number of customer requirements is reduced from 261 to 39 with five principles corresponding to UD. The five principles relevant to UD are (a) convenient, intuitive and simple use; (b) perceptible information; (c) structure and graphic design; (d) easy opening; and (e) equitable use. The benefit of the new five principles is not only the reduction from seven principles to five principles, but also the grouped customer requirements that are easy to use for packaging manufacturers and packaging designers. Customer requirements can be used as performance measures to evaluate the compliance of flexible packaging to UD. Finally, the application of the five principles and 39 customer requirements are demonstrated with case studies. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Determination of crash‐relevant material parameters by dynamic tensile tests

The mechanical properties of eight different steels, representing the wide range of steels for automotive application, are determined by accomplishing high speed tensile tests using flat sheet specimens. The steels chosen for investigations are deep drawing grade DC04, high strength steel ZStE340, three dual phase steels with strengths of 600, 800 and 1000 MPa, a TRIP steel and two austenitic stainless steels 1.4301 and 1.4318. Tests are carried out at five different strain rates within the range of 5‐10^?3 and 200 s^?1, all at room temperature. The results show different strain rate sensitivities according to the different grades of steel. The TRIP steel and both stainless steels show a great potential for energy consumption, when tested at high strain rates.     

Optimal DLC protocol configuration for realistic broadband fixed wireless access networks based on ATM

DLC protocols, scheduling, and multiplexing issues for broadband fixed wireless access networks based on ATM are discussed. The established DSA++ mac protocol has been developed at ComNets and has been widely applied within the German project ATMmobil. It has been a fundamental contribution to the etsi bran standardisation of HIPERLAN /2. The DSA++ is here modified to perform optimal within the fixed wireless access network environment. Therefore, realistic traffic as well as radio channel models for the respective scenarios are introduced. Simulation results are presented, showing the feasibility of the respective protocol stack for offering broadband multimedia services with reasonable quality of service. In addition to this advanced protocol approach, two systems are discussed which are currently under standardisation process. The IEEE 802.16 as well as the European hiperaccess systems are both proposed for fixed wireless access networks. Expected scenarios and applications are presented and basic requirements the standards have to fulfil are derived. As another aspect of access networks, their impact on the global information society is discussed.     

Derivation of separation laws for cohesive models in the course of ductile fracture

The paper addresses the determination of the traction-separation law of the cohesive model on a micromechanical basis. For this task, a specific failure mechanism, i.e. ductile damage consisting of void nucleation, growth and coalescence, is investigated. An approach already described in the literature is to transfer the deformation behaviour of the simplest representative volume element, i.e. a single voided unit cell, to the cohesive interface. After reviewing the existing approach, its main drawback, namely that the unit cell contains both, deformation and damage of a material point whereas the cohesive model should contain the material separation only, is addressed. A new approach is presented, in which the behaviour of a unit cell is partitioned in its elasto-plastic deformation and damage, and only the damage contribution is applied as the traction-separation law for the cohesive model. Instead of modelling the voided unit cell, a single element with Gurson type plastic potential for the damage has been employed as a reference for the behaviour at the microscale. A study with fracture specimens, C(T) and M(T), made of an engineering Aluminium alloy shows that the new approach exhibits a better transferability than the existing one.     

Stählerne Kamine mit abgestufter Wanddicke – Tragverhalten und Bemessung

Steel chimneys with stepwise changing wall thickness – structural behaviour and design. Firstly, the results of analyses of the load bearing behaviour of slender wind loaded cylindrical shells with stepwise changing wall thickness are presented. Special attention is turned on the differences of the stress resultants from the beam theory at the one hand and from the one segment shell with constant wall thickness on the other hand. From it, conclusions for design are drawn. The several possibilities of numerical buckling strength verification given in the Eurocode still contain partly substantial problems, which limit their application. Therefore, proposals on the approximation of the internal forces of two segment shells are presented, which make possible the buckling strength verification by stress design in a safe manner.