Dietary composition in Greenland 2000, plasma fatty acids and persistent organic pollutants

Human exposure to pollution in the Arctic presents a potential future health risk for the local populations. Epidemiological studies in Greenland have shown that human blood levels of several organic contaminants are very high, especially in the North where people depend on local food. In East Greenland (Ittoqqortoormiit (Scoresbysund)) the population shows the highest blood levels of several persistent organic pollutants found in Arctic countries, especially PCB, the levels of which exceed Canadian guideline levels. As in other Arctic countries, the direct source of these contaminants is the diet, and it is, therefore important to monitor the composition of the diet along with other factors which may influence the metabolism and thereby the accumulation of toxic substances. This project is part of the human health program of the ongoing circumpolar 'Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme'. Dietary survey results (Semiquantitative Food Frequency questionnaire from 192 men and women from East Greenland and 48 men from Uummannaq West Greenland) were analysed along with other factors (lifestyle and anthropometric factors), blood lipids, fatty acid profiles, and concentrations of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). The dietary survey showed that the contributions of traditional food provided 25-30% of the total energy intake. However, the relative monthly meal intake of seal, whale, polar bear, fish and game, and the composition of imported food, varied between districts. The blood fatty acids (FA), e.g. the n-3/n-6 ratio (Uummannaq 0.70, Ittoqqortoormiit 0.37 Tassiilaq 0.45) showed moderate associations with the overall reported food composition. The n-3 fatty acids were associated with the well-known lowering effect on serum-triglyceride levels. The strongest associations between diet and plasma fatty acids were found for docosapentaenoic acid, C: 22.5.3 which strongly correlated with reported seal, and polar bear intake (P=0.01** and 0.04*, respectively), consistent with the fact that seal and polar bear blubber contain much higher concentrations of C: 22.5.3 than other sea mammals and fish. Seal and polar bear intake, and in particular all the plasma n-3 fatty acids, were significantly correlated with organic contaminant concentrations, (betaHCH, chlordanes, DDTs, Hexachlorobenzene, Mirex, PCBs, and toxaphenes) P<0.01**. CONCLUSIONS: The strongest correlations between POPs and fatty acids were found with C: 22.5.3, strongly indicating seal and polar bear blubber as the main contributors of POPs to the local population.     

Open production: scientific foundation for co-creative product realization

Globalization and the use of technology call for an adaptation of value creation strategies. As the potential for rationalization and achieving flexibility within companies is to the greatest possible extent exhausted, approaches to the corporate reorganization of value creation are becoming increasingly important. In this process, the spread and further development of information and communication technology often provide the basis for a reorganization of cross-company value nets and lead to a redistribution of roles and tasks between the actors involved in value creation. While cooperative, decentralized and self-organizing value creation processes are in fact being promoted, the associated potential for development and production engineering is being underestimated and hence not implemented sufficiently. This contribution will introduce a value creation taxonomy and then, using its notion and structure, describe the emerging transformations in value creation on the basis of case studies. Finally an adequate framework for analysing and configuring value creation will be presented.     

Flexible forming with hexapods

The work presented in this paper provides the basis for an extension of conventional orbital forming to a new, flexible forming process. A hydraulically actuated hexapod is used to move a swage in order to extrude a work piece towards a desired shape. This paper presents an analytical model of the actuators and the dynamics of the hexapod. This model is used for developing a cascaded position control law, and for developing a simulation environment representing the machine and the work piece in an entire forming process loop. The design of the machine is briefly introduced and results of position control are presented. This work was part of the Priority Program (SPP) 1099, supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG).     

Surface Cleaning or Activation？Control of Surface Condition Prior to Thermo-Chemical Heat Treatment

Actual heat treatment processes must face increasing specifications with reference to process quality, safety and results in terms of reproducibility and repeatability. They can be met only if the parts‘ surface condition is controlled during manufacturing and, especially, prior to the treatment. An electrochemical method for the detection of a steel part‘s surface condition is presented, together with results, consequences, and mechanisms concerning surface pre-treatment before the thermochemical process. A steel surface‘s activity or passivity can be detected electrochemically, independently from the chemical background. The selected method was the recording of potential vs. time curves at small constant currents, using a miniaturized electrochemical cell, a (nearly) non-destructive electrolyte and a potentio-galvanostatic setup. The method enables to distinguish types of surface contamination which do not interfere with the thermochemical process, from passive layers which do and must be removed. Whereas some types of passive layers can be removed using conventional cleaning processes and agents, others are so stable that their effects can only be overcome by applying an additional activation pre-treatment, e.g. oxynitriding.     

Effects of process parameters on force reduction and temperature variation during ultrasonic assisted incremental sheet forming process

The incremental sheet forming (ISF) is an innovative dieless forming process featured with high formability and short lead time which is suitable for rapid prototyping and small volume production. The integration of ultrasonic (US) vibration into the ISF process can significantly reduce the forming force and bring other benefits. In this work, the impacts of process parameters including the sheet material, US power, feeding speed, and tool diameter, on force reduction and temperature increment were studied. The force reduction contains two components—the stress superposition-induced force reduction and acoustic softening-induced force reduction. The stress superposition-induced force reduction was analyzed by finite element simulation while the total force reduction was detected by experiments since currently, the unknown mechanism of the acoustic softening cannot be modeled. The temperature increment was measured by a high-speed infrared camera. The results show that the force reduction can go up to 56.58% and the temperature increment can be as high as 24.55 °C. In general, the material with a higher yield stress results in a higher force reduction and a higher temperature increment. A higher US power or a lower feeding speed can significantly enhance the force reduction and the interface temperature increment. The tool with a smaller diameter has a comparable effect as a larger tool, but a larger vibration amplitude is required.     

A broadband laser plasma x-ray source for application in ultrafast chemical structure dynamics

A plasma source free from characteristic emission lines is described, based on laser irradiation of a water jet in a helium atmosphere. Various key aspects of the laser interaction are presented along with practical characterization of the observed isotropic approximately 4-10 keV x-ray emissions, measurements of which indicate subpicosecond duration. Observations are consistent with a vacuum heating plasma mechanism at the helium-water interface and indicate strong potential for in-house ultrafast chemical structure dynamics application when coupled to contemporary detector developments.     

Zur Tragfähigkeit von druck‐ und biegebeanspruchten C‐Profilen aus Stahl

Die Regelungen und Nachweiskonzepte in den Stahlbaunormen DIN 18800 und Eurocode 3 zur Stab‐ und Gesamtstabilität von Bauteilen unter Normalspannungen sind weitestgehend durch Untersuchungen an I‐ und Kastenprofilen hergeleitet und verifiziert worden. Eine Übertragung und Überprüfung für davon abweichende Profilformen, im Speziellen für die hier behandelten C‐Profile, existiert nicht. Es wird ein geschlossenes, durchgängiges Bemessungskonzept vorgestellt, das es erlaubt, das Tragverhalten von Bauteilen mit C‐förmigem Querschnitt ohne längsaussteifende Querschnittselemente unter Druck‐ und/oder Biegebeanspruchung wirklichkeitsnah zu beschreiben und rechnerisch zu erfassen. Dabei wird den möglichen Stabilitätsproblemen – das heißt lokalem Plattenbeulen, globaler Stabstabilität und dem Zusammenspiel beider einzelnen Stabilitätsprobleme – besondere Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt. Ultimate loads of steel channel sections in compression and bending. Especially for members susceptible to global buckling or coupled instabilities the design rules in the relevant codes DIN 18800 and Eurocode 3 have been developed for and verified by research on I‐shaped or hollow sections. For deviant shapes, particularly the regarded channel sections, a transfer or verification of these design concepts does not exist. A comprehensive design method is presented, allowing to describe the load‐carrying behavior of channel‐shaped members without longitudinal stiffeners in compression and/or bending realistically. Special attention has been paid to the regards of stability problems, i.e. local and global buckling as well as a combination of both, the so‐called coupled instability.