The number of persons with disabilities in Europe for ages sixteen and above is estimated to be 25% or over 100 million people. Due to an aging society, it is estimated that this amount will increase in the next years. Moreover, persons with disabilities have an above-average rate of unemployment. As a result, the large potential of the labor force for societies remains unused. In the area of production, there are opportunities to include these groups of people due to emerging technologies within Industry 5.0 and the age of digitalization. However, there is practically no holistic methodology to estimate the effort and benefits of the implementation of such technologies for the manufacturer. In this paper, we develop a methodology that allows for such an estimation to be made. The novelty of this paper lies in the fact that it presents a universal methodology that is not limited only to the manufacturer, but everywhere where persons with disabilities execute tasks. The practicability and application of this methodology are shown based on a real use case in an Austrian manufacturer.
The turnover of the epidermis beginning with the progenitor cells in the basal layer to the fully differentiated corneocytes is tightly regulated by calcium. Calcium more than anything else promotes the differentiation of keratinocytes which implies the need for a calcium gradient with low concentrations in the stratum basale and high concentrations in the stratum granulosum. One of the hallmarks of skin aging is a collapse of this gradient that has a direct impact on the epidermal fitness. The rise of calcium in the stratum basale reduces cell proliferation, whereas the drop of calcium in the stratum granulosum leads to a changed composition of the cornified envelope. We showed that keratinocytes respond to the calcium induced block of cell division by a large increase of the expression of several miRNAs (hsa-mir542-5p, hsa-mir125a, hsa-mir135a-5p, hsa-mir196a-5p, hsa-mir491-5p and hsa-mir552-5p). The pitfall of this rescue mechanism is a dramatic change in gene expression which causes a further impairment of the epidermal barrier. This effect is attenuated by a pseudogene (SPRR2C) that gives rise to a lncRNA. SPRR2C specifically resides in the stratum granulosum/corneum thus acting as a sponge for miRNAs.
The automotive powertrain is undergoing a transformation due to the increased electrification. This transformation brings a number of technical challenges relating to the design and integration of electrified elements into the powertrain with it. Powertrain-related targets can be achieved in an increasing number of ways by varying and balancing the powertrain elements. This chapter discusses the challenges that engineers are facing in the development and production of internal combustion engines, e-drives, transmissions, batteries, and fuel cells, and how a systems engineering approach is the key to understand and take advantage of all the possibilities in such complex electrified powertrains.
