Pharmaceutical quality of ceftriaxone generic drug products compared with Rocephin (R)

The pharmaceutical qualities of 34 ceftriaxone generic products were compared with Rocephin as the reference standard. Quality standards specified in the European and US Pharmacopoeias were violated on 18 occasions, including those for sterility (4 products) and impurities (5 products). All 34 generics tested failed to meet Roche specifications for Rocephin, with 100 contraventions of the Roche Pharmaceutical standards. The most common failures amongst generic drug products were clarity of solution (30 products) and presence of thiotriazinone (33 products).

Generic experiments at the sump model "Zittauer Strömungswanne" (ZSW) for the behaviour of mineral wool in the sump and the reactor core

The investigation of insulation debris transport, sedimentation, penetration into the reactor core and head loss build up becomes important to reactor safety research for PWR and BWR, when considering the long-term behaviour of emergency core cooling systems during loss of coolant accidents. Research projects are being performed in cooperation between the University of Applied Sciences Zittau/Görlitz and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf. The projects include experimental investigations of different processes and phenomena of insulation debris in coolant flow and the development of CFD models. Generic complex experiments serve for building up a data base for the validation of models for single effects and their coupling in CFD codes. This paper includes the description of the experimental facility for complex generic experiments (ZSW), an overview about experimental boundary conditions and results for upstream and down-stream phenomena as well as for the long-time behaviour due to corrosive processes. © Carl Hanser Verlag, München.

Implementation of a generic autonomic framework

Based on insights from the implementation of commercial products for data-centre resource management, we identified key challenges in the development of cost-effective autonomic solutions, and best practices for overcoming these challenges. In a related paper, we proposed a generic autonomic framework that complies with these best practices, and suggested ways in which existing technologies could be used to realise this framework. In this paper, we describe the actual implementation of our autonomic framework as a service-oriented architecture, and we show how the universal policy engine at its core can be configured to manage the allocation of server capacity to services of different priorities. This case study demonstrates the effectiveness of our generic approach to autonomic solution development in an area of great interest for commercial data centres, research laboratories and application service providers.

Towards a generic autonomic architecture for legacy resource management

Half a decade has passed since the objectives and benefits of autonomic computing were stated, yet even the latest system designs and deployments exhibit only limited and isolated elements of autonomic functionality. From an autonomic computing standpoint, all computing systems – old, new or under development – are legacy systems, and will continue to be so for some time to come. In this paper, we propose a generic architecture for developing fully-fledged autonomic systems out of legacy, non-autonomic components, and we investigate how existing technologies can be used to implement this architecture.

A Generic model for the design and analysis of production systems

This dissertation studies the process of operations systems design within the context of the manufacturing organization. Using the DRAMA (Design Routine for Adopting Modular Assembly) model as developed by a team from the IDOM Research Unit at Aston University as a starting point, the research employed empirically based fieldwork and a survey to investigate the process of production systems design and implementation within four UK manufacturing industries: electronics assembly, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and carpet manufacturing. The intention was to validate the basic DRAMA model as a framework for research enquiry within the electronics industry, where the initial IDOM work was conducted, and then to test its generic applicability, further developing the model where appropriate, within the other industries selected. The thesis contains a review of production systems design theory and practice prior to presenting thirteen industrial case studies of production systems design from the four industry sectors. The results and analysis of the postal survey into production systems design are then presented. The strategic decisions of manufacturing and their relationship to production systems design, and the detailed process of production systems design and operation are then discussed. These analyses are used to develop the generic model of production systems design entitled DRAMA II (Decision Rules for Analysing Manufacturing Activities). The model contains three main constituent parts: the basic DRAMA model, the extended DRAMA II model showing the imperatives and relationships within the design process, and a benchmark generic approach for the design and analysis of each component in the design process. DRAMA II is primarily intended for use by researchers as an analytical framework of enquiry, but is also seen as having application for manufacturing practitioners.

Reacting and responding in TESOL Quarterly:a generic analysis of procedure and purpose in intertextual critical exchanges

A key feature of ‘TESOL Quarterly’, a leading journal in the world of TESOL/applied linguistics, is its ‘Forum’ section which invites ‘responses and rebuttals’ from readers to any of its articles. These ‘responses or rebuttals’ form the focus of this research. In the interchanges between readers reacting to earlier research articles in TESOL Quarterly and authors responding to the said reaction I – examine the texts for evidence of genre-driven structure, whether shared between both ‘reaction’ and ‘response’ sections, or peculiar to each section, and attempt to determine the precise nature of the intended communicative purpose in particular and the implications for academic debate in general. The intended contribution of this thesis is to provide an analysis of how authors of research articles and their critics pursue their efforts beyond the research article which precipitated these exchanges in order to be recognized by their discourse community as, in the terminology of Swales (1981:51), ‘Primary Knowers’. Awareness of any principled generic process identified in this thesis may be of significance to practitioners in the applied linguistics community in their quest to establish academic reputation and in their pursuit of professional development. These findings may also be of use in triggering productive community discussion as a result of the questions they raise concerning the present nature of academic debate. Looking beyond the construction and status of the texts themselves, I inquire into the kind of ideational and social organization such exchanges keep in place and examine an alternative view of interaction. This study breaks new ground in two major ways. To the best of my knowledge, it is the first exploration of a bipartite, intertextual structure laying claim to genre status. Secondly, in its recourse to the comments of the writers’ themselves rather than relying exclusively on the evidence of their texts, as is the case with most studies of genre, this thesis offers an expanded opportunity to discuss perhaps the most interesting aspects of genre analysis – the light it throws on social ends and the role of genre in determining the nature of current academic debate as it here emerges.

Design methodology for the servo control of high speed multi-axis machinery (BL): decoupling and synchronisation of a generic machine by blockwise decentralised MIMO control

Traditional machinery for manufacturing processes are characterised by actuators powered and co-ordinated by mechanical linkages driven from a central drive. Increasingly, these linkages are replaced by independent electrical drives, each performs a different task and follows a different motion profile, co-ordinated by computers. A design methodology for the servo control of high speed multi-axis machinery is proposed, based on the concept of a highly adaptable generic machine model. In addition to the dynamics of the drives and the loads, the model includes the inherent interactions between the motion axes and thus provides a Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) description. In general, inherent interactions such as structural couplings between groups of motion axes are undesirable and needed to be compensated. On the other hand, imposed interactions such as the synchronisation of different groups of axes are often required. It is recognised that a suitable MIMO controller can simultaneously achieve these objectives and reconciles their potential conflicts. Both analytical and numerical methods for the design of MIMO controllers are investigated. At present, it is not possible to implement high order MIMO controllers for practical reasons. Based on simulations of the generic machine model under full MIMO control, however, it is possible to determine a suitable topology for a blockwise decentralised control scheme. The Block Relative Gain array (BRG) is used to compare the relative strength of closed loop interactions between sub-systems. A number of approaches to the design of the smaller decentralised MIMO controllers for these sub-systems has been investigated. For the purpose of illustration, a benchmark problem based on a 3 axes test rig has been carried through the design cycle to demonstrate the working of the design methodology.

Quality management (QM) implementation in the Kuwaiti Oil Industry:An empirical study and a proposed generic framework

In an Arab oil producing country in the Middle East such as Kuwait, Oil industry is considered as the main and most important industry of the country. This industry’s importance emerged from the significant role it plays in both country’s national economy and also global economy. Moreover, Oil industry’s criticality comes from its interconnectivity with national security and power in the Middle East region. Hence, conducting this research in this crucial industry had certainly added values to companies in this industry as it investigated thoroughly the main components of the TQM implementation process and identified which components affects significantly TQM’s implementation and its gained business results. In addition, as the Oil sector is a large sector that is known for its richness of employees with different national cultures and backgrounds. Thus, this culture-heterogeneous industry seems to be the most appropriate environment to address and satisfy a need in the literature to investigate the national culture values’ effects on TQM implementation process. Furthermore, this research has developed a new conceptual model of TQM implementation process in the Kuwaiti Oil industry that applies in general to operations and productions organizations at the Kuwaiti business environment and in specific to organizations in the Oil industry, as well it serves as a good theoretical model for improving operations and production level of the oil industry in other developing and developed countries. Thus, such research findings minimized the literature’s gap found the limited amount of empirical research of TQM implementation in well-developed industries existing in an Arab, developing countries and specifically in Kuwait, where there was no coherent national model for a universal TQM implementation in the Kuwaiti Oil industry in specific and Kuwaiti business environment in general. Finally, this newly developed research framework, which emerged from the literature search, was validated by rigorous quantitative analysis tools including SPSS and Structural Equation Modeling. The quantitative findings of questionnaires collected were supported by the qualitative findings of interviews conducted.

A compact, portable and low cost generic interrogation strain sensor system using an embedded VCSEL, detector and fibre Bragg grating

We present a compact, portable and low cost generic interrogation strain sensor system using a fibre Bragg grating configured in transmission mode with a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) light source and a GaAs photodetector embedded in a polymer skin. The photocurrent value is read and stored by a microcontroller. In addition, the photocurrent data is sent via Bluetooth to a computer or tablet device that can present the live data in a real time graph. With a matched grating and VCSEL, the system is able to automatically scan and lock the VCSEL to the most sensitive edge of the grating. Commercially available VCSEL and photodetector chips are thinned down to 20 µm and integrated in an ultra-thin flexible optical foil using several thin film deposition steps. A dedicated micro mirror plug is fabricated to couple the driving optoelectronics to the fibre sensors. The resulting optoelectronic package can be embedded in a thin, planar sensing sheet and the host material for this sheet is a flexible and stretchable polymer. The result is a fully embedded fibre sensing system - a photonic skin. Further investigations are currently being carried out to determine the stability and robustness of the embedded optoelectronic components. © 2012 Copyright Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).

Universal duality in a Luttinger liquid coupled to a generic environment

We study a Luttinger liquid (LL) coupled to a generic environment consisting of bosonic modes with arbitrary density-density and current-current interactions. The LL can be either in the conducting phase and perturbed by a weak scatterer or in the insulating phase and perturbed by a weak link. The environment modes can also be scattered by the imperfection in the system with arbitrary transmission and reflection amplitudes. We present a general method of calculating correlation functions under the presence of the environment and prove the duality of exponents describing the scaling of the weak scatterer and of the weak link. This duality holds true for a broad class of models and is sensitive to neither interaction nor environmental modes details, thus it shows up as the universal property. It ensures that the environment cannot generate new stable fixed points of the renormalization group flow. Thus, the LL always flows toward either conducting or insulating phase. Phases are separated by a sharp boundary which is shifted by the influence of the environment. Our results are relevant, for example, for low-energy transport in (i) an interacting quantum wire or a carbon nanotube where the electrons are coupled to the acoustic phonons scattered by the lattice defect; (ii) a mixture of interacting fermionic and bosonic cold atoms where the bosonic modes are scattered due to an abrupt local change of the interaction; (iii) mesoscopic electric circuits.

A compact, portable and low cost generic interrogation strain sensor system using an embedded VCSEL, detector and fibre Bragg grating

We present a compact, portable and low cost generic interrogation strain sensor system using a fibre Bragg grating configured in transmission mode with a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) light source and a GaAs photodetector embedded in a polymer skin. The photocurrent value is read and stored by a microcontroller. In addition, the photocurrent data is sent via Bluetooth to a computer or tablet device that can present the live data in a real time graph. With a matched grating and VCSEL, the system is able to automatically scan and lock the VCSEL to the most sensitive edge of the grating. Commercially available VCSEL and photodetector chips are thinned down to 20 µm and integrated in an ultra-thin flexible optical foil using several thin film deposition steps. A dedicated micro mirror plug is fabricated to couple the driving optoelectronics to the fibre sensors. The resulting optoelectronic package can be embedded in a thin, planar sensing sheet and the host material for this sheet is a flexible and stretchable polymer. The result is a fully embedded fibre sensing system - a photonic skin. Further investigations are currently being carried out to determine the stability and robustness of the embedded optoelectronic components. © 2012 Copyright Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).