Influence of the suspension media on the thermal treatment of mesophilic lactococcal bacteriophages

The thermal resistances of the Lactococcus lactis phages P008 (a heat-sensitive wide-spread phage) and P680 (a heat-resistant phage) suspended in milk and in solutions supplemented with milk components were studied to elucidate the protective role of milk on phage inactivation. For both phages a decrease of inactivation was observed in casein solution. Furthermore, the inactivation kinetics of the phages in whey, in whey cream (3.5%, 20%, 30% fat) and in whey protein concentrate (0.7%, 5%, 10% protein) were tested. The inactivation experiments in whey cream and in whey protein concentrate having different concentrations of fat and protein revealed that fat had no influence on the inactivation, while, in contrast, the presence of protein had a protective effect.     

MELODY: A completely decentralized adaptive file system for handling real-time tasks in unpredictable environments

We describe the major features of the completely decentralized adaptive file system MELODY which was designed for realizing anintegrated system design for a distributed real-time system working in a hazardous and unpredictable environment. MELODY's adaptivity mechanisms are based on novel services rendered by the distributed operating system DRAGON SLAYER. The file system, in order to both meet real-time constraints and provide for high availability, allows for replicating, relocating, or deleting file copies. Such copies may also bepublic orprivate. At every site aLocal Task Scheduler tries to schedule the arriving critical tasks, based on the availability of resources at this site such that deadline failures are minimized. Depending on the deadline failure history, status changes as well as file replication, deletion, or relocation are analyzed and managed by the cooperatingLocal File Assigners. In order to analyze MELODY's real-time performance we report on simulation experiments in which its capability of minimizing deadline failures of time-critical tasks was compared to other file system models: an idealbest-case model, abaseline model with no file replication, a file system allowingonly for replication ofprivate copies, and a model which allows forreplication and relocation of public copies only. While the best-case is unrealistic for a distributed implementation, the other models embody only part of MELODY's mechanisms yet have the benefit of a considerably smaller communication overhead. We report on the distributed simulation results which unambiguously show MELODY's superior performance, in addition to the built-in sensitivity to changes in the environment. A DRAGON SLAYER/MELODY prototype has been completed in our labs in order to serve as a distributed real-time testbed in our future work with MELODY.This work was partially supported by IBM Endicott (research Agreement No. 6073-86) by the State of Michigan (IMR-87-146751), and by General Dynamics Land Systems (#DEY-605089).     

Performance evaluation of unbalanced flow lines with general distributed processing times, failures and imperfect production

In this paper an analytical approximation for the performance of non-homogenous asynchronous Flow Production Systems (FPSs) with finite buffers is presented. Generally distributed stochastic processing times as well as breakdowns and imperfect production are considered. The procedure explicitly accounts for simultaneous blocking and starving. The approximation is based on the decomposition of an M-station-line into M — 1 two-station-lines which are analyzed with the help of a GI/G/I/N_max queueing model. Numerical comparisons with exact and simulation results for hypothetical as well as for real-life flow-lines indicate that the procedure provides accurate results.     

Hybrid semiconductor electrodes for light-driven photoelectrochemical switches

Hybrid (n-/p-type) semiconductor electrodes represent a viable strategy for fabrication of wavelength-controlled optoelectronic switches. Four hybrid electrodes (BiVO₄/Co₃O₄, BiVO₄/CuO, TiO₂/Co₃O₄, TiO₂/CuO) were prepared in the form of random assemblies of nanocrystalline powders on ITO-glass and the wavelength dependence of their photocurrent response was investigated. The former three electrodes exhibited wavelength-controlled switching of photocurrent direction, whereas the latter one showed exclusively cathodic photocurrents. The prerequisite for the switching effect is that the potentials of the valence and conduction band edges of an n-type component are more positive than those of a p-type one. Further key parameters influencing the photocurrent response are the applied potential and the presence of electron and hole scavengers.     

A modified size effect model for brittle nonmetallic materials

Formulae of both existing size effect models for brittle materials, `effective volume' and `effective surface' were theoretically derived for bar specimens with rectangular and circular cross-sections, for three- and four-point bending load configuration, respectively. Additionally, a modified model called `effective shell model' is introduced. Exemplarily three- and four-point bending tests were performed on bar specimens of different sizes of a leucite reinforced glass ceramic material. The results were analyzed based on the three size effect models. It was found that the defect population of the specimens could be characterized better with the effective surface than with the effective volume model. The new effective shell model improves the statistical reliability even more.     

Über Zeitkonstanten von Kondensatoren

Zusammenfassung Bei hinreichend langer Trocknung und Bernsteinisolation lassen sich mit Luftkondensatoren Zeitkonstanten erreichen, die in der Größenordnung 10⁷ s bzw. 10³ s/pF liegen. Die physikalischen Ursachen der Entladung werden näher untersucht. Praktisch erfolgt die Entladung nur über die Bernsteinisolation; die Leitfähigkeit der Luft ist zu vernachlässigen. Maßgebend für die Entladung ist das Verhältnis Volumen zur Kapazität. Hohe Zeitkonstanten lassen sich erreichen, wenn das Verhältnis Volumen zur Kapazität klein ist. Kondensatoren mit sehr hohen Zeitkonstanten finden ihre Anwendung, z. B. wenn ein aufgeladener Kondensator als Vergleichsspannungsquelle dienen soll, bei der elektrischen Kurzzeitmèssung als Zeittransformator oder zur Messung sehr hoher Widerstände von der Größenordnung 10¹⁰ bis 10¹⁵ nach dem Kondensatorentladungsverfahren. Über eine weitere Anwendung wird demnächst berichtet werden.Die vorliegende Untersuchung wurde von Herrn Prof. Dr.-Ing. E. h. Dr.-Ing. W. Rogowski angeregt, dem ich für seine vielseitige Unterstützung zu großem Dank verpflichtet bin. Der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft danke ich für die Mittel zur Durchführung der Arbeit.     

Optimisation models to enhance resilience in evacuation planning

We argue that the concepts of resilience in engineering science and robustness in mathematical optimisation are strongly related. Using evacuation planning as an example application, we demonstrate optimisation techniques to improve solution resilience. These include a direct modelling of the uncertainty for stochastic or robust optimisation as well as taking multiple objective functions into account.