ROWO Coating (Germany)

Das erste Ziel besteht darin, die wichtigsten Wirkungen des Einsatzes von Exoskeletten in intralogistischen Prozessen pragnant zu identifizieren. Das zweite Ziel ist die systematische Unterstutzung von Unternehmen bei der Implementierung von Exoskelett-Losungen.

It is routinely observed that persons with increased urinary stone risk factors do not necessarily form uroliths. Furthermore, stone formers can present with urinalyses that do not reflect the clinical picture. We explain this discrepancy by differences in crystallization kinetics. In 1162 urines, crystallization of Ca-oxalate was induced according to the BONN-Risk-Index (BRI) method. The urine's relative light transmissivity (RLT) was recorded from 100% at start of titration to 95% due to nuclei formation and crystal growth. From the RLT changes, a measure of the thermodynamic inhibition threshold of crystal formation (BRI) and of crystal growth kinetics is derived ("turbidity slope" after crystallization onset). On average, subjects presenting with a low inhibition threshold, i.e., high BRI, also present significantly higher crystal growth rates compared with subjects in lower BRI classes. Only subjects in the highest BRI class show a lower growth rate than expected, probably due to a depletion of supersaturation by massive initial nucleation. With increasing thermodynamic risk of crystal formation (i.e., increasing BRI) due to an imbalance between inhibitors and promoters of crystal formation, an increase in the imbalance between inhibitors and promoters of crystal growth (i.e., increasing growth rate) is observed. Both lead to an increased urolith formation risk. Healthy subjects with increased BRI are an exception to this trend: their urine is thermodynamically prone to form stones, but they show a kinetic inhibition preventing nuclei from significant growth.

Urinary composition is the result of the interplay of all metabolic processes, including all metabolites and toxins produced. Any change in urine composition influences urinary supersaturation, the major thermodynamic driving force of crystal formation. Urolithiasis is a wide-spread disease with a prevalence rate of 4% to 10%. Formation risk of calcium-oxalate, by far the most common mineral in uroliths, is quantified by the Bonn-Risk-Index (BRI). The BRI measures induced crystal growth within native urine and shows superior diagnostic sensitivity and specificity compared to other urolithiasis risk indices. The concept of BRI quick test presented in this work allowes even untrained persons to easily determine the urolithiasis risk. Many diseases lack a simple, easily accessible and cost effective diagnostic approach to monitor their course and treatment success. Since BRI takes into account every constituent of native urine, it can be used to monitor a wide range of metabolic diseases.

Scientific objectives Urolithiasis is a widespread disease in the developed countries with rising prevalence rates which presently lie at least at 5%. Thus, 25 Mio. EU-citizens suffer from that symptom which burdens the healthcare systems by several tens of billions of Euros yearly. Stone formation is the result of an altered urinary composition, mostly caused by an underlying metabolic disease and disadvantageously interacting external risk factors. This makes the pathogenesis in each patient unique and thus diagnosis, causal treatment and therapeutic monitoring difficult, costly and time-consuming. Mostly, no specific long-term therapy for prevention of recurrence follows the purely symptom-based stone removal. The consequence is a diagnostic and therapeutic under-supply which inevitably results in a vicious circle of recurrent stone formation, although the recurrence rate can be lowered from 80% without metaphylaxis down to 20% under risk-adopted therapy. A paradigm shift from “stone-removal-only” towards a predictive, preventive and personalized treatment according to guideline recommendations is required. Routine urinalysis is restricted to only a few selected lithogenically important constituents whose concentrations partly can be combined to indices. However, to date no simple, cost-effective and precise method to determine the crystal formation risk of a native urine exists on the market. Technological approaches The scientifically established Bonn-Risk-Index (BRI) is based on a crystallization test induced within a sample of native urine. As urine composition reflects the influence of any of the patient’s metabolic processes – even of those analytically not directly accessible – BRI reflects a patient’s risk situation on a highly personalized level. BRI has proven its excellent appropriateness by showing diagnostic sensitivity and specificity clearly exceeding even those of the most evolved analysis-based risk indices. Whereas BRI can be cheaply and beneficially determined within a few minutes, standard urinalysis needs unacceptable amounts of time and costs. In 2008 the “Urolizer” mini-lab for fully-automated BRI measurement was developed; some devices are still in use. Experience shows that the requirements of medical laboratories, hospitals and medical offices differ in part. Whereas the former are very satisfied about the Urolizer, the latter two asked again for a simplified BRI test device.

The present study describes an economic and scalable approach to aqueous mesophases from bola-amphiphiles (BA) obtained via nucleophilic addition of dimer fatty acid based α,ω-polyesterdiols (PES) on cyclic acid anhydrides and conversion of the carboxylic end groups into ammonium salts. Novel bola-amphiphilic head groups are introduced using alkenyl succinic anhydrides (ASA). The additional terminal hydrophobic side chains favour the self-assembly of polymeric BA of different molecular weights into nanoscale anisotropic objects, their shape and ordering into nematic or lamellar-like phases being dependent on the length and structural uniformity of the ASA chains. Corresponding diester based on C15 (hydrogenated bisphenol-A, HBA) and C8 (1,4-cyclohexanedimethanol, CHDM) spacers have been prepared and the self-assembly of the resulting BA in water has been studied using SAXS, (2)H-NMR and optical polarization microscopy. While the rigid C8 spacer impedes any ordering, ASA capped C15 tends to form ordered hydrogels over extended regions of the phase diagram that resemble mesh phases and L(α)/L(3) polymorphism. Rheological and simulation results confirm the presence of elastically responding bicontinuous morphologies and biased porous assemblies resembling interconnected mesh phases. Both the use of the dimer fatty acid based spacer as well as of ASA head groups open up large-scale applications of ordered liquids (or hydrogels) as a formulation basis for e.g. films, coatings and adhesives.