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We can't build ourselves out of the current crisis with buildings that reproduce racism, economic and environmental injustice

What would be a humane response to the needs of the most vulnerable in society during a humanitarian crisis? Lock them up — that’s what the new Emergency Coronavirus Bill proposes. The Government introduced it on Thursday (March 19) to Parliament.

Requirements upon modern production systems have changed considerably. One of the main results of these changes is that organizational improvements have become more and more important. In contradiction to this, the available approaches to support adjusted design of production systems in an early planning stage — especially regarding manual assembly systems — are deficit. Particularly, the consideration of process organizational effects by determination of the job division fails because the planning knowledge is limited to rather vague hints than based on precise planning rules. An analytical approach for the determination of job division in assembly systems under different goals has been developed to overcome this weakness. Basis is a parametric description of the important factors of the planning problem. Set up on this, a simulation-based investigation has been carried out to detect dependencies between the goal system and the assembly tasks. The result is an analytical approach based on regression models to determine a suitable form of job division for a clear-cut assembly task.

Changing conditions in the automotive industry mean that assembly lines have to be built faster and at an increasingly early stage of the product development process. Since the required efficiency improvements could not be achieved with conventional planning processes, organisational structures and software systems, DaimlerChrysler AG introduced the Digital Factory strategic project in mid-2000. At the centre of this project is the complete and integrated digitisation of all areas of production planning. The following article describes the digitisation process — from the selection and introduction of suitable software and IT infrastructure, through the development of methods for efficient planning, to the changing and restructuring of the production planning process and the organisation.

The transcription factor NF kappa B (NF-kappaB) mediates the expression of numerous genes involved in diverse functions such as inflammation, immune response, apoptosis, and cell proliferation. We recently identified constitutive activation of NF-kappaB (p50/p65) as a common feature of Hodgkin/Reed-Sternberg (HRS) cells preventing these cells from undergoing apoptosis and triggering proliferation. To examine possible alterations in the NF-kappaB/IkappaB system, which might be responsible for constitutive NF-kappaB activity, we have analyzed the inhibitor I kappa B alpha (IkappaBalpha) in primary and cultured HRS cells on protein, mRNA, and genomic levels. In lymph node biopsy samples from Hodgkin's disease patients, IkappaBalpha mRNA proved to be strongly overexpressed in the HRS cells. In 2 cell lines (L428 and KM-H2), we detected mutations in the IkappaBalpha gene, resulting in C-terminally truncated proteins, which are presumably not able to inhibit NF-kappaB-DNA binding activity. Furthermore, an analysis of the IkappaBalpha gene in single HRS cells micromanipulated from frozen tissue sections showed a monoallelic mutation in 1 of 10 patients coding for a comparable C-terminally truncated IkappaBalpha protein. We suggest that the observed IkappaBalpha mutations contribute to constitutive NF-kappaB activity in cultured and primary HRS cells and are therefore involved in the pathogenesis of these Hodgkin's disease (HD) patients. The demonstrated constitutive overexpression of IkappaBalpha in HRS cells evidences a deregulation of the NF-kappaB/IkappaB system also in the remaining cases, probably due to defects in other members of the IkappaB family.

Hodgkin’s disease is histopathologically characterized by the relative scarcity of neoplastic Hodgkin and Reed-Sternberg cells and for yet unknown reasons by an abundant reactive background of T lymphocytes and often eosinophils. Eotaxin is a CC-chemokine attracting eosinophils and T helper 2 (Th2) cells in allergic inflammation. We now report that eotaxin is strongly expressed in fibroblasts of Hodgkin’s disease tissues, whereas Hodgkin/Reed-Sternberg cells do not express this chemokine. In tissue culture, Hodgkin’s disease tumor cells induce eotaxin expression in cocultured dermal fibroblasts in a concentration leading to a specific chemotactic response of a Th2 cell clone. Production of tumor necrosis factor- (TNF-) by Hodgkin/Reed-Sternberg cells appears to be responsible for this induction, because blocking of TNF- by neutralizing antibodies prevented fibroblast eotaxin expression. Our data suggest that eotaxin is involved in the pathobiology of Hodgkin’s disease by contributing to eosinophil and T-lymphocyte recruitment.

Life Cycle Engineering of complex products traditionally does not aim at complete product reuse or reutilization but on that of parts and components. Therefore, disassembly is inevitably necessary, which underlines the central position of disassembly in Sustainable Life Cycle Engineering. It is uncontested that disassembly is, in comparison to assembly, charged with uncertainty. In order to consider this uncertainty, various approaches have been developed. One of these are adaptive dynamic process plans, which allow to derive optimal disassembly sequences depending on the actual disassembly state. Following this idea, two problems have to be solved. The first one is to develop a modelization of this uncertainty and of possible disassembly sequences following a certain disassembly state. On the other hand, it is necessary to collect knowledge about the actual state of the disassembly process and all relevant decision parameters. Especially Stochastic Disassembly Networks seem to be an appropriate approach to cover the first problem. Solving the second problem requires continuous interaction and communication between the disassembly worker and the dynamically developing process plan. This interaction is the basis for a suitable decision making, e.g. changing the disassembly strategy or breaking off disassembly with final removal of harmful substances.