Systematic packaging design tools integrating functional and environmental consequences on product life cycle: Case studies on laundry detergent and milk

This study presents systematic packaging design tools integrating functional and environmental consequences on product life cycle. To design packaging for sustainability, the trade-offs between functional and environmental aspects of packaging throughout the product life cycle should be considered. However, it is difficult for packaging designers to understand the overall trade-offs because the extent of the design consequences on the entire life cycle of packaging and its contents is unclear. We developed two tools for packaging design: the Life Cycle Association Matrix (LCAM) and the Function Network Diagram (FND). The following three steps, based on literature reviews and interviews with industrial experts, were applied. Firstly, we listed the product functions and design variables related to the functions as the attributes allocated to the product life cycle. Secondly, the attributes were connected appropriately based on causal relationships. Lastly, we identified the factors to support decision making in the packaging design procedure. As a result, the LCAM depicts the design consequences on the life cycle, and the FND determines the stakeholders affected by the design consequences. Two case studies were demonstrated to analyze the trade-offs by using our tools. In the case studies, a liquid laundry detergent bottle and a milk carton were redesigned. The tools identified the design consequences and stakeholders affected by the redesign of the usability and protective function for the detergent and milk cases, respectively. The results showed the significance of understanding the design consequences on the product life cycle by integrating the functional and environmental aspects.     

Hardware system of the Earth Simulator

The Earth Simulator (ES), developed under the Japanese government’s initiative “Earth Simulator project”, is a highly parallel vector supercomputer system. In this paper, an overview of ES, its architectural features, hardware technology and the result of performance evaluation are described.

In May 2002, the ES was acknowledged to be the most powerful computer in the world: 35.86 teraflop/s for the LINPACK HPC benchmark and 26.58 teraflop/s for an atmospheric general circulation code (AFES). Such a remarkable performance may be attributed to the following three architectural features; vector processor, shared-memory and high-bandwidth non-blocking interconnection crossbar network.

The ES consists of 640 processor nodes (PN) and an interconnection network (IN), which are housed in 320 PN cabinets and 65 IN cabinets. The ES is installed in a specially designed building, 65 m long, 50 m wide and 17 m high. In order to accomplish this advanced system, many kinds of hardware technologies have been developed, such as a high-density and high-frequency LSI, a high-frequency signal transmission, a high-density packaging, and a high-efficiency cooling and power supply system with low noise so as to reduce whole volume of the ES and total power consumption.

For highly parallel processing, a special synchronization means connecting all nodes, Global Barrier Counter (GBC), has been introduced.     

Thermodynamic Regularities in Perovskite and K2NiF4 Compounds

It has been found that the enthalpy of formation of perovskite compounds, Δ_fH° (ABO₃, B = transition metais), from binary oxides can be well characterized in terms the tolerance factor, t≡(r_A+ r_o)√2 (r_B+ r_o), where r_A and r_B are the radii of A-site ions with 12-coordination and B-site ions with 6-coordination, respectively, and Δ_fH°=−168 + 270(1 − t) kJ·mol⁻¹ for A^IB^VO₃, Δ_fH°=−125 + 1000(1 − t) kJ·mol⁻¹ for A^IIB^IVO₃, and Δ_fH°=− 90 + 720(1 − t) kJ·mol⁻¹ for A^IIIB^IIIO₃. Although the thermodynamic data of K₂NiF₄ compounds are not extensive, a similar regularity can be found when use is made of the radii of A-site ions with 9-coordination for the K₂NiF₄ compounds. These correlations will be quite useful in predicting.     

Scalability of hybrid programming for a CFD code on the Earth Simulator

The Earth Simulator (ES) is an SMP cluster system. There are two types of parallel programming models available on the ES. One is a flat programming model, in which a parallel program is implemented by MPI interfaces only, both within an SMP node and among nodes. The other is a hybrid programming model, in which a parallel program is written by using thread programming within an SMP node and MPI programming among nodes simultaneously. It is generally known that it is difficult to obtain the same high level of performance using the hybrid programming model as can be achieved with the flat programming model.

In this paper, we have evaluated scalability of the code for direct numerical simulation of the Navier–Stokes equations on the ES. The hybrid programming model achieves the sustained performance of 346.9 Gflop/s, while the flat programming model achieves 296.4 Gflop/s with 16 PNs of the ES for a DNS problem size of 256³. For small scale problems, however, the hybrid programming model is not as efficient because of microtasking overhead. It is shown that there is an advantage for the hybrid programming model on the ES for the larger size problems.     

Effect of Platelet-Rich Plasma on M1/M2 Macrophage Polarization

Osteoarthritis of the knee (OAK) is a chronic degenerative disease and progresses with an imbalance of cytokines and macrophages in the joint. Studies regarding the use of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) as a point-of-care treatment for OAK have reported on its effect on tissue repair and suppression of inflammation but few have reported on its effect on macrophages and macrophage polarization. Based on our clinical experience with two types of PRP kits Cellaid Serum Collection Set P type kit (leukocyte-poor-PRP) and an Autologous Protein Solution kit (APS leukocyte-rich-PRP), we investigated the concentrations of humoral factors in PRPs prepared from the two kits and the effect of humoral factors on macrophage phenotypes. We found that the concentrations of cell components and humoral factors differed between PRPs purified using the two kits; APS had a higher concentration of M1 and M2 macrophage related factors. The addition of PRP supernatants to the culture media of monocyte-derived macrophages and M1 polarized macrophages revealed that PRPs suppressed M1 macrophage polarization and promoted M2 macrophage polarization. This research is the first to report the effect of PRPs purified using commercial kits on macrophage polarization.     

Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Based Biomarkers for Neurodegenerative Diseases

There has been an increasing prevalence of neurodegenerative diseases with the rapid increase in aging societies worldwide. Biomarkers that can be used to detect pathological changes before the development of severe neuronal loss and consequently facilitate early intervention with disease-modifying therapeutic modalities are therefore urgently needed. Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a promising tool that can be used to infer microstructural characteristics of the brain, such as microstructural integrity and complexity, as well as axonal density, order, and myelination, through the utilization of water molecules that are diffused within the tissue, with displacement at the micron scale. Diffusion tensor imaging is the most commonly used diffusion MRI technique to assess the pathophysiology of neurodegenerative diseases. However, diffusion tensor imaging has several limitations, and new technologies, including neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging, diffusion kurtosis imaging, and free-water imaging, have been recently developed as approaches to overcome these constraints. This review provides an overview of these technologies and their potential as biomarkers for the early diagnosis and disease progression of major neurodegenerative diseases.     

Nonsalt 1‐(arylmethyloxy)pyrene photoinitiators capable of initiating cationic polymerization

Analysis of photoproducts derived from 1‐(methoxynaphthalen‐1‐ylmethyloxy)pyrene initiators and polymer end groups demonstrated that methoxynaphthalen‐1‐ylmethyl carbocation is involved in the initiation steps for both styrene (St) and cyclohexene oxide (CHO) polymerization. Charge transfer from the pyrenyloxy oxygen atom to the methoxynaphthalen‐1‐ylmethyl chromophore in the singlet excited state is assumed to be responsible for the efficient generation of the carbocation species, which also initiates the copolymerization of St and CHO. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014 , 131, 40510.     

Molecular Design and Synthesis of a Novel Substrate for Assaying Lysozyme Activity

A novel substrate {Galβ1,4GlcNAcβ1,4GlcNAc-β-pNP [Gal(GlcNAc)₂-β-pNP]} for assaying lysozyme activity has been designed using docking simulations and enzymatic synthesis via β-1,4-galactosyltransferase-mediated transglycosylation from UDP-Gal as the donor to (GlcNAc)₂-β-pNP as the acceptor. Hydrolysis of the synthesized Gal(GlcNAc)₂-β-pNP and related compounds using hen egg-white lysozyme (HEWL) demonstrated that the substrate was specifically cleaved to Gal(GlcNAc)₂ and p-nitrophenol (pNP). A combination of kinetic studies and docking simulation was further conducted to elucidate the mode of substrate binding. The results demonstrate that Gal(GlcNAc)₂-β-pNP selectively binds to a subsite of lysozyme to liberate the Gal(GlcNAc)₂ and pNP products. The work therefore describes a new colorimetric method for quantifying lysozyme on the basis of the determination of pNP liberated from the substrate.