We report the results of geological studies by the Opportunity Mars rover on the Endeavour Crater rim. Four major units occur in the region (oldest to youngest): the Matijevic, Shoemaker, Grasberg, and Burns formations. The Matijevic formation, consisting of fine‐grained clastic sediments, is the only pre‐Endeavour‐impact unit and might be part of the Noachian etched units of Meridiani Planum. The Shoemaker formation is a heterogeneous polymict impact breccia; its lowermost member incorporates material eroded from the underlying Matijevic formation. The Shoemaker formation is a close analog to the Bunte Breccia of the Ries Crater, although the average clast sizes are substantially larger in the latter. The Grasberg formation is a thin, fine‐grained, homogeneous sediment unconformably overlying the Shoemaker formation and likely formed as an airfall deposit of unknown areal extent. The Burns formation sandstone overlies the Grasberg, but compositions of the two units are distinct; there is no evidence that the Grasberg formation is a fine‐grained subfacies of the Burns formation. The rocks along the Endeavour Crater rim were affected by at least four episodes of alteration in the Noachian and Early Hesperian: (i) vein formation and alteration of preimpact Matijevic formation rocks, (ii) low‐water/rock alteration along the disconformity between the Matijevic and Shoemaker formations, (iii) alteration of the Shoemaker formation along fracture zones, and (iv) differential mobilization of Fe and Mn, and CaSO4‐vein formation in the Grasberg and Shoemaker formations. Episodes (ii) and (iii) possibly occurred together, but (i) and (iv) are distinct from either of these.

The design and implementation of base of the pyramid (BoP) solutions or products require multinational companies to make adjustments to their business strategies and processes. While this strategic opportunity has been argued for in BoP related publications, a 'traditional' strategic management perspective has not been applied. This paper aims towards using the strategic management process as an analytic framework for case studies at the BoP, allowing analysis of which aspects are particularly critical for achieving respective solutions. This includes reaching sustainability related objectives. A total of seven cases covering both products and services have been researched, allowing a contribution towards the applicability of strategic management in respective situations. Further, the importance of specific strategy process elements is assessed. While it seems obvious that strategic management thought can be applied, the analytic criteria put forward (i.e. company, initial need, motivation, external analysis, stakeholder, product/service, strategic choice, organizational implementation, supply chain, economic outcome, effects on sustainable development) are particularly geared towards the BoP solutions. While previous literature centres on analysing needs, the case based research provides the insight that aspects of internal organization, supply chain management and sustainability outcomes are of equal importance. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Micro-structured electrode (MSE) arrays allow the generation of large-area uniform glow discharges over a wide pressure range up to atmospheric pressure. The electrode widths, thicknesses and distances in the micrometre range are realized by means of modern micro-machining and galvanic techniques. The electrode distance, the gap width d, is small enough to generate sufficiently high electric field strengths to ignite gas discharges by applying only moderate radio frequency (RF, 13.56 MHz) voltages (80-390 V in Ne, He, Ar, N 2 and air). The non-thermal plasma system is characterized by a special probe measuring the electric parameters. We tested MSE arrays with d = 70, 25 and 15 µm. The MSE driven plasmas show a different behaviour from conventional RF discharge plasmas. Due to the very small electrode gap width we can describe the behaviour of the charged particles in the RF field of our system with the dc Townsend breakdown theory, depending on the pressure range and gas. With decreasing pressure, the gas discharges, especially in Ne and He, are increasingly dominated by field electron emission. With the MSE arrays as plasma sources several applications were developed and successfully tested, e.g. decomposition of waste gases and sterilization of food packaging materials at atmospheric pressure.

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