Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « High variety Low volume system »

Purpose Shop floor control systems are generally major points of discussion in production planning and control literature. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how lean production control principles can be used in a make-to-order (MTO) job shop, where the volume is typically low and there is high variety. This paper examines the procedures involved in implementing a constant work-in-process (CONWIP)/Kanban hybrid system in the shop floor environment and also provides insights and guidelines on the implementation of a hybrid system in a high-variety/low-volume environment. Design/methodology/approach The authors review literature on Kanban, CONWIP, and CONWIP/Kanban hybrid systems to analyze how lean production control principles can be used in a MTO job shop. The second part focuses on the process of implementation. Using a case study of a manufacturer of electromechanical components for valve monitoring and controls, the paper describes how the operation is transformed by for more efficient shop floor control systems. Real experiments are used to compare pre- and post-improvement performance. Findings The study shows that the proposed hybrid Kanban-CONWIP system reduced the cycle time and achieved an increase of 38 percent in inventory turnover. The empirical results from this pilot study provide useful managerial insights for a benchmarking analysis of the actions to be taken into consideration by companies that have similar manufacturing systems. Research limitations/implications The statistic generalization of the results is impossible due to the use of a single case method of study. Originality/value This paper provides insights and guidelines on the implementation of a hybrid system in a high-variety/low-volume environment. The literature on real applications of hybrid CONWIP/Kanban by case study is limited.

The growth of winter travel on alpine roads in the western United States has increased the risk to motorists and highway maintenance personnel owing to a variety of natural hazards. Hazards include snow and ice, avalanching snow, and blowing and drifting snow. The conditions call for attendant need for incident response. A substantial number of affected routes are low-volume rural winter roads. Configurations have been developed for rural intelligent transportation system (ITS) technology that can detect hazards and provide, autonomously and in real time, warnings to and traffic control actions for motorists, highway maintainers, and incident responders for roadway natural hazards. These warnings include on-site traffic control signing and road closure gates, in-vehicle audio alarms for agency maintenance and patrol vehicles, and notification to highway agency maintenance facilities or centralized multiagency dispatchers. These actions and notifications are initiated automatically from the remote rural sites and via manual intervention from off-site personnel, well removed from the rural roadway corridor itself. About 5 years of experience have been accumulated in using these rural ITS natural-hazard reduction systems, including snow avalanche detection and warning systems on Loveland Pass, Colorado; Hoback Canyon, Wyoming; and Banner Summit, Idaho. Automated road closure gates on the Teton Pass in Idaho and Wyoming now allow for remote road closure during heavy snow events. These cost-effective ITS natural-hazard systems are highly exportable for other processes that affect rural low-volume roadways, including landslide, flooding, high surf, high winds, loss of visibility, wildlife, and other natural hazards of this type.

PurposeWhilst capabilities in exploiting existing assets and simultaneously exploring new opportunities have proven essential in today's organisations, an understanding of how these so-called ambidextrous capabilities are deployed remains elusive. Thus, the authors aim to investigate the role of better management practices (BMP), as organisational routines, in deploying ambidextrous capabilities in practice.Design/methodology/approachHigh-variety, low-volume (HVLV) manufacturers are adopted as exemplar ambidextrous organisations. A conceptual model was developed where BMP, including human resource management (HRM) and production planning and control (PPC), are considered as mediators in the relationship between ambidextrous capabilities and organisational performance outcomes. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was adopted to analyse the results of a survey undertaken by Australian HVLV manufacturers.FindingsThe results suggest that merely holding ambidextrous capabilities is not enough – demonstrating a fully mediating role of BMP between ambidextrous capabilities and HVLV manufacturer performance outcomes. However, the individual effects of PPC and HRM prove varied in their unique impact on HVLV manufacturer performance.Practical implicationsThis study also provides a rare account of how HVLV manufacturers can leverage their inherently ambidextrous design towards greater organisational performance and highlights critical considerations in the selection of organisational capabilities.Originality/valueBy exemplifying the explanatory power of BMP in ambidextrous capability deployment, this study moves beyond the more prevalent stance on the links between BMP and ambidextrous capabilities as that of capability building through management practices, to one concerning the deployment of the capability itself.

Purpose – This paper aims to focus on integrating a lean framework in a high-mix-low-volume (HMLV) printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) environment to enhance current assembly processes and facility layouts. An HMLV PCBA environment is characterized by stochastic demands, a variety of products in terms of shapes and sizes and different sequences of assembly and test operations, in addition to long cycle times and high fall-out rates. Design/methodology/approach – Preliminary analysis indicates that the push inventory control system led to the longer cycle times, such that various lean methodologies have been applied to enhance the assembly operations. In this research, Kanban sizes for different assembly lines are also estimated to integrate and implement a “pull-system” into the lean framework. In addition, material movement and facility layout have been studied to minimize work-in-process travel time. An “iterative-MAIC” approach has been applied to implement lean principles. Findings – As a result, a lean manufacturing pilot line has been implemented to evaluate the effectiveness of the lean principles before rolling them out across the manufacturing floor. It has been shown that the cycle times of the pilot line products are decreased by 40 per cent and the number of defects decreased by 10-30 per cent, depending on different assembly processes, after the lean implementation. Originality/value – There is limited literature that addresses lean transformation in an HMLV electronics manufacturing service provider handling several product types with different testing methodologies, frequent product revision changes and higher fall-out rates. Hence, in this research, lean manufacturing has been implemented in an HMLV PCBA environment, which has the challenges of varying demand with a mix of assembly and test operations for different product families.

The high-mix, low-volume (HMLV) industry has seen growth in the need for product customisation with research to increase manufacturers’ flexibility for the variation in market demands. This paper reviews 152 documents from 2000 to October 2022, discussing work related to HMLV production. From an industrial perspective, this paper analyses the industries with HMLV, revealing production sectors and research areas, categorising the developed work, type of validation, and applications. The results show that most work is not industry-specific, with production planning as the central aspect of the research. While other parts of the production processes and value chain received less attention, the semiconductor and electronics industries are the two most researched with substantial validation, leaving gaps in other industries. Earlier work primarily focused on the theoretical development of production planning; however, the development of Industry 4.0 technologies advocates decision support systems for reactive production planning. This period sees the rise in robotics and automation, with improved robotics capability and human—robot collaboration. Assembly assistance systems were developed for manual production to aid operators in managing the variety of information. This paper serves as a reference for the HMLV manufacturing industry in a structured manner while identifying potential for future research in this field.

PurposeThe study aims to examine a discrepant industrial case that demonstrates how to achieve economies of scale with additive manufacturing (AM), thereby expanding the scope of AM beyond high-variety, customised production contexts.Design/methodology/approachAbductive reasoning is applied to analyse a case of using AM to compete with conventional production, winning a contract to supply 7,700,000 products. Comparing this case to existing theories and contemporary practices reveals new research directions and practical insights.FindingsEconomies of scale were realised through a combination of technological innovation and the adoption of operations management practices atypical of AM shops (e.g. design for volume, low-cost resource deployment and material flow optimisation). The former improved AM process parameters in terms of time, cost and dependability; the latter improved the entire manufacturing system, including non-AM operations/resources. This system-wide improvement has been largely overlooked in the literature, where AM is typically viewed as a disruptive technology that simplifies manufacturing processes and shortens supply chains.Originality/valueIt is empirically shown that an AM shop can achieve economies of scale and compete with conventional manufacturing in high-volume, standardised production contexts.

Glomerular diseases (GD) lead to a variety of disorders of the vascular and the total body water volumes. Various pathomechanisms, including vascular underfill and overfill, have been suggested to explain these disturbances. Accordingly, the circulating renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (cRAAS) is expected to be activated as either a cause or a result of these fluid disorders. The aim of this study was to characterize the activity of the cRAAS in dogs with GD and to evaluate its relationship with the vascular volume status. In a prospective study, we evaluated the plasma renin activity and the serum aldosterone concentration in 15 dogs with GD. Their fluid volume status was estimated with clinical variables reflecting volemia and hydration, echocardiographic volume assessment, N-terminal pro B-type natriuretic peptide, blood urea nitrogen:creatinine ratio, and the urinary fractional excretion of sodium. Ten dogs with chronic kidney disease (CKD) with matching degree of azotemia were recruited as controls. The activity of the cRAAS was low in 10 dogs, normal in 3 dogs, high in 1 dog and equivocal (high renin—low aldosterone) in 1 dog with GD. These dogs had a lower cRAAS activity than dogs with CKD (p = 0.01). The clinical evaluation showed 8 hypovolemic and 7 non-hypovolemic dogs; 3 dehydrated, 9 euhydrated and 3 overhydrated dogs. The cRAAS activity was not different between hypovolemic and non-hypovolemic dogs. The down-regulated cRAAS without obvious association with the clinical volume status of these dogs with GD, suggests different mechanisms of fluid volume dysregulation in dogs with GD than previously assumed. This finding however should be confirmed in a focused larger scale study, as it may influence the use of cRAAS blockers as part of the standard therapy of GD in dogs.

Les travaux présentés dans cette thèse portent sur la conception d'une méthodologie d'ordonnancement/optimisation pour les systèmes de production à grande variété de produits et faible densité de flux appelés systèmes HVLV (High-Variety, LowVolume). Les caractéristiques de ces systèmes nous permettent d'appréhender la représentation des flux y circulant par un modèle discret. Le comportement discontinu des systèmes HVLV peut être caractérisé par la connaissance des dates de début et de fin des activités de production. L'algèbre (max, +) est utilisée pour représenter ce type de systèmes où les relations entre les dates de début des activités nécessitent l'utilisation des opérateurs maximum et addition. Afin d'utiliser l'algèbre (max, +) pour l'ordonnancement des systèmes HVLV, il est indispensable de résoudre un problème de conflit et d'optimisation sous contraintes dans cette algèbre. D'abord, nous avons développé dans ces travaux de recherche un modèle d'ordonnancement (max, +) pour les systèmes HVLV dans lequel des variables de décision ont été introduites afin de résoudre le problème de conflit entre les opérations exécutées sur les machines. Ensuite, nous avons amélioré le modèle proposé pour tenir compte de la maintenance préventive. Deux types de maintenance ont été considérés : Maintenance Périodique Répétitive (MPR) et Maintenance Flexible Périodique (MFP). Dans les deux cas, un problème d'ordonnancement non-linéaire sous contraintes a été résolu afin de minimiser certains critères de performance. Enfin, la méthodologie proposée a été validée par simulation, sur des systèmes HVLV complexes de type job-shop.

Lean Manufacturing has proven to be a very successful strategy for achieving production efficiencies. The basic elements of lean manufacturing are flow and pull. The traditional methods for establishing flow and pull do not fit well in the realm of high variety low volume manufacturing systems. This thesis provides a general framework for establishing flow and pull in high variety low volume manufacturing systems, through the concept of hybrid flow layouts. The existing analytical procedure for forming hybrid flow layouts is described and a new heuristic procedure, that overcomes some of the limitations of the existing procedure, is proposed. The performance of the new procedure in comparison to the existing procedure is illustrated using a real world case study. Finally, certain practical implementation issues that affect the formation of hybrid flow layouts are provided.

Certain types of high-variety, low-volume manufacturing operations employ clusters of machines to execute general classes of operations in the manufacture of their product mix, but those operations differ significantly from job to job. Consequently operations are not standardized and batch and queue operational strategies are employed with all attendant shortcomings. However, closer examination reveals that these operations largely consist of a small number of elemental machine functions that are exercised in various combinations. The functions provide a basis to for defining richly descriptive standardized work at the individual process level using parameters to distinguish the unique settings and characteristics for processing a given job. Moreover, it appears the pareto principle applies to functional sequences, and high frequency sequences can be used to establish system level production engineering issues, including facility layout, process interfacing, and cellular standard work routines that achieve flow and labor balance in a flexible manner for the majority of products. This approach is demonstrated using and industrial case study.

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Engineering, System Design and Management Program, 2017.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (page 64).
This thesis introduces a low-volume, high variation manufacturing company that is experiencing issues managing its supply chain. Issues include lack of process ownership, poor requirements flow down to vendors, and an ineffective supplier selection process. This example uses a systematic approach for addressing re-occurring problems related to supply chain management. The premise underlying the approach exemplifies that modem process improvement techniques such a Lean Manufacturing boast large efficiency gains in operations, but fail to address pre-operation process issues such as supplier selection based on capability alignment. By breaking down the current condition, issues within the current process and their associated root causes were identified. These included: inadequate internal processes, lack of access to information on supplier capabilities, and responsibility ambiguity. Corrective actions and countermeasures to these root causes such as: defined roles for the supplier selection process; a Supplier Capability Matrix; and internal requirements for supplier selection serve as a basis for a redesigned process. This results in a target condition that differs from the current in organizational structure, internal process requirements for supplier selection, and fewer non-conformance identified at incoming inspection. This thesis also provides a proposal for transitioning towards the target condition via an incremental implementation. This process utilizes the scientific method as a methodology for incorporating new processes, and to validate their effectiveness on the overall system in a step by step fashion. Verification of improvement can serve as a business case for additional change and implementation. This case study of a small electronics manufacturing company demonstrates the method in practical application. Results suggest that application is best suited for organizations that are looking to optimize their supply chain by reducing the risk of receiving non-conforming, or unusable material from their suppliers. The approach for identifying process issues, determining root causes, and implementing countermeasures provides a robust example for process improvement efforts.
by David Parry.
S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, June 2009.
"August 2008." Page 120 blank.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 119).
This thesis project seeks to optimize floor layouts for semiconductor equipment assembly operations. The assembly of semiconductor equipment is characterized by low volume and high product diversity and complexity. Demand for semiconductor equipment is highly periodic and often shifts rapidly from one type of semiconductor equipment to the other. Thus, the goal is to develop an assembly system that easily handles high part counts per assembly and facilitates material management, but at the same time allows reacting to changes in demand quickly and efficiently. Lead time and floor space usage are further metrics that are considered. Capturing the current state of the floor layout in a 3D drawing software and documenting important aspects of current operations is the first step towards achieving those goals. Current assembly operations consist of the build of subassemblies in dedicated cells and the final assembly of machines in dedicated build lines. That is, each type of product is assembled in a specific area and the required inventory is stored within these areas. In order to increase production flexibility, reduce inventory levels, and to lower floor space usage, a new assembly system is developed. This system features consolidated inventory for both the build of subassemblies and final assembly. It is proposed that technicians pull parts for subassemblies by driving with a cart and attached foam cut-outs as part trays through an inventory aisle. This aisle accommodates inventory for all subassemblies, which is currently stored within approximately 20 cells spread over the production floor.
(cont.) Subsequently, technicians drive these carts to generic workbenches and start assembly. Using generic, standardized workbenches rather than dedicated workbenches boosts flexibility and efficiency. Parts for the final assembly would be kitted for each machine by material handlers on movable racks. This allows building any type of machine in any area of the production floor. A block system is proposed to decouple assembly of different machines and to enable easy management of assembly operations. A floor layout based on these ideas is developed. Finally, a pilot proposal is developed to serve as a stepping stone towards full scale implementation and this proposal is in part physically implemented.
by Richard Clemens Schwenke.
M.Eng.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, 2004.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 156).
Value Stream Mapping is a powerful tool for identifying sources of waste and for creating the vision for the future state of a production system. As a management tool, however, it lacks in specific focus of roles, responsibilities, and actions required to achieve the future state vision. The limitations become more evident and the problems of execution become exacerbated when multiple value stream projects are launched with limited human resources available. This thesis describes a set of management tools to complement Value Stream Mapping. The tools are expected to improve management visibility and accountability. The design of a lean production system is also proposed in this thesis. The lean production system includes a newly designed layout for the manufacturing cell as well as the "operating system" for the cell. The layout is based on the principles of cellular manufacturing in order to promote flow and improve quality. The operating system includes such things as production batch sizes, product routings, and strategic inventory locations. Based on the future state value stream map and supported by a discrete-event simulation, the new operating system is designed to align the lean strategy with the technical capabilities of the manufacturing line. As confirmed by the simulation, implementation of the new production system is expected to reduce lead time for the cell by 2/3, realize a corresponding one-time reduction in inventory of $350,000, and increase on-time delivery of the cell to over 97%. In total, the project has a three-year net present value exceeding a quarter of a million dollars.
by Matthew David Gates.
S.M.
M.B.A.

Lean Manufacturing (LM) is widely accepted as a world-class manufacturing paradigm, its currency and superiority are manifested in numerous recent success stories. Most lean tools including Just-in-Time (JIT) were designed for repetitive serial production systems. This resulted in a substantial stream of research which dismissed a priori the suitability of LM for non-repetitive non-serial job-shops. The extension of LM into non-repetitive production systems is opposed on the basis of the sheer complexity of applying JIT pull production control in non-repetitive systems fabricating a high variety of products. However, the application of LM in job-shops is not unexplored. Studies proposing the extension of leanness into non-repetitive production systems have promoted the modification of pull control mechanisms or reconfiguration of job-shops into cellular manufacturing systems. This thesis sought to address the shortcomings of the aforementioned approaches. The contribution of this thesis to knowledge in the field of production and operations management is threefold: Firstly, a Multi-Agent System (MAS) is designed to directly apply pull production control to a good approximation of a real-life job-shop. The scale and complexity of the developed MAS prove that the application of pull production control in non-repetitive manufacturing systems is challenging, perplex and laborious. Secondly, the thesis examines three pull production control mechanisms namely, Kanban, Base Stock and Constant Work-in-Process (CONWIP) which it enhances so as to prevent system deadlocks, an issue largely unaddressed in the relevant literature. Having successfully tested the transferability of pull production control to non-repetitive manufacturing, the third contribution of this thesis is that it uses experimental and empirical data to examine the impact of pull production control on job-shop performance. The thesis identifies issues resulting from the application of pull control in job-shops which have implications for industry practice and concludes by outlining further research that can be undertaken in this direction.

Hepatic blood inflow is from two sources—high-pressure, well-oxygenated blood from the hepatic artery and low-pressure, partly deoxygenated blood from the portal vein. Hepatic inflow is maintained by variation in flows in these two systems. Although less than a third of total blood flow is delivered via the hepatic artery, it is responsible for the majority of hepatic oxygen supply. The liver can be subdivided into eight functionally independent segments, each with its own vascular inflow, outflow, and biliary drainage. The tri-dimensional hepatic microstructure is complex with geographic heterogeneity of hepatocellular function, and resistance to toxic, ischaemic, and metabolic damage. The liver is central to a wide variety of synthetic, metabolic, and detoxification functions. The overall balance of activity may be altered rapidly in response to systemic inflammatory stimuli.

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

Lasers are created to study the timescale of electron motion in atoms and molecules. They also have wide applications in areas like solid state, plasma physics, nanoscience and defence technology. This book helps readers to master the large variety of physical phenomena and technological aspects involved in laser technology. Besides explaining the physical principles and common techniques of laser science and technology, it also elaborates on topics like High-harmonic Generation (HHG) and strong-field Non-sequential Double Ionization (NSDI), effects of a low energy atto-second pulse, laser spectroscopy, laser cooling and trapping, quantum optics and laser applications. Many important concepts covered include a new test system design of comprehensive characterization of non-imaging laser IR guided missiles, advanced laser and opto-electronics technologies for Low Intensity Conflict (LIC) applications and development of highly advanced laser cavity and resonator for high power chemical oxygen iodine laser at the Laser Science and Technology Centre (LASTEC).

Acute lung injury (ALI) and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) are characterized by rapidly developing hypoxaemic respiratory failure and bilateral pulmonary infiltrates on chest X-ray. ALI/ARDS are a relatively frequent diagnosis in protracted-stay patients in the intensive care unit. The pathology is a non-specific response to a wide variety of insults. Impaired gas exchange, ventilation-perfusion mismatch, and reduced compliance ensue. Mechanical ventilation is the mainstay of management, along with treatment of the underlying cause. Mortality remains very high at around 40%. The condition is challenging to treat. Injury to the lungs, indistinguishable from that of ARDS, has been attributed to the use of excessive tidal volumes, pressures, and repeated opening and collapsing of alveoli. Lung-protective strategies aim to minimize the effects of ventilator-induced lung injury. Use of low tidal volume ventilation has been shown to improve mortality. Emerging ventilatory therapies include high-frequency oscillatory ventilation and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.

This volume explores the extremely rich diversity found under the “modal umbrella” in natural language. Offering a cross-linguistic perspective on the encoding of modal meanings that draws on novel data from an extensive set of languages, the book supports a view according to which modality infuses a much more extensive number of syntactic categories and levels of syntactic structure than has traditionally been thought. The volume distinguishes between “low modality,” which concerns modal interpretations that associate with the verbal and nominal cartographies in syntax, “middle modality” or modal interpretation associated to the syntactic cartography internal to the clause, and “high modality” that relates to the cartography known as the left periphery. By offering enticing combinations of cross-linguistic discussions of the more studied sources of modality together with novel or unexpected sources of modality, the volume presents specific case studies that show how meanings associated with low, middle, and high modality crystallize across a large variety of languages. The chapters on low modality explore modal meanings in structures that lack the complexity of full clauses, including conditional readings in noun phrases and modal features in lexical verbs. The chapters on middle modality examine the effects of tense and aspect on constructions with counterfactual readings, and on those that contain canonical modal verbs. The chapters on high modality are dedicated to constructions with imperative, evidential, and epistemic readings, examining, and at times challenging, traditional perspectives that syntactically associate these interpretations with the left periphery of the clause.

In the United States, the welfare state has long been a source of political and academic debate, and this volume pulls together much of our current knowledge about its origins, development, functions, and challenges. This introductory chapter provides an overview of the volume’s main themes and sections. For example, many of the following chapters emphasize the public-private mix in social policy, in which the government helps certain groups of citizens directly (e.g., through social insurance) or indirectly (e.g., through tax expenditures and regulations). Many chapters stress disjointed patterns of policy-making, which can lead simultaneously to problems of high cost and low impact on poverty and inequality. Even under a variety of stresses, however, much of the American welfare state remains quite resilient. The contributing authors are experts from political science, sociology, history, economics, and other social sciences.

AbstractDefense and aerospace industries usually possess unique high-mix low-volume production characteristics. This uniqueness generally calls for prohibitive production costs and long production lead-time. One of the major trends in advanced, smart manufacturing is to be more responsive and better readiness while ensuring the same or higher production quality and lower cost. This study reviews the state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies to solve these issues and previews two levels of flexibility, i.e., system and process, that could potentially reduce the costs while increasing the production volume in such a scenario. The main contribution of the work includes an assessment of the current solutions for HMLV scenarios, especially within the defense of aerospace sectors, and a survey of the current and potential future practices focusing on smart production process planning and flexible assembly plan driven by emerging techniques.

AbstractPixel-based multiple-point statistical (MPS) modelling is an appealing geostatistical modelling technique as it easily honours well data and allows use of geologically-derived training images to reproduce the desired heterogeneity. A variety of different training image types are often proposed for use in MPS modelling, including object-based, surface-based and process-based models. The purpose of the training image is to provide a description of the geological heterogeneities including sand geometries, stacking patterns, facies distributions, depositional architecture and connectivity. It is, however, well known that pixel-based MPS modelling has difficulty reproducing facies connectivity, and this study investigates the performance of a widely-available industrial SNESIM algorithm at reproducing the connectivity in a geometrically-representative, idealized deep-water reservoir sequence, using different gridding strategies and training images. The findings indicate that irrespective of the sand connectivity represented in the training image, the MPS models have a percolation threshold that is the same as the well-established 27% percolation threshold of random object-based models. A more successful approach for generating poorly connected pixel-based MPS models at high net:gross ratios has been identified. In this workflow, a geometrical transformation is applied to the training image prior to modelling, and the inverse transformation is applied to the resultant MPS model. The transformation is controlled by a compression factor which defines how non-random the geological system is, in terms of its connectivity.

AbstractCOVID-19 has again brought into focus the need for building a resilient health system which can cater efficiently and equitably to the population during normal times as well as during unforeseen events like an epidemic, pandemic, or other unanticipated occurrences that impact human health. To be prepared well in advance means to avoid unnecessary morbidity and mortality on the one hand, and minimize socio-economic impact on individuals and households, on the other. The author argues that each component that goes into building a resilient health system requires financing, making health financing the key policy knob for the government. India has had to struggle in real time to fill the various gaps in the health system during the pandemic, by undertaking emergency investment on a variety of essential goods and services for the health sector. The analysis of trends in health financing indicates that government investment has remained very low which has prevented strengthening key areas of the health system like infrastructure, personnel, and medical supplies. It has also resulted in high out-of-pocket expenditures for health care by households, exacerbating inequalities in access. Finally, the latest budget outlays for health are examined to analyze whether India has been able to use the pandemic as a wake-up call for prioritizing the health sector and build a stronger health system.

AbstractPEM fuel cells are well established in a number of niche markets. However, due to low production volume and manufacturer-specific designs, the assembly has been carried out manually most of the time. With new fields of application being exploited there is a rising demand for production systems. As there is no standardized design or material, production systems are often custom-made, thus being inflexible to design changes or different products. In combination with a volatile demand the need for flexible and scalable systems arises. In this paper special attention is paid onto pick and place operations of the catalyst coated membrane (CCM). Design criteria of a vacuum gripper are derived from the material properties. To meet the further requirements for a high position accuracy in an automated assembly the impact of process parameters onto the repeatability is investigated to identify optimization trends. The requirements and investigations lead to a conceptual assembly system that is able to cover several steps in fuel cell production.

AbstractThe development of new manufacturing technologies opens up new perspectives for the production of propellers (diameter < 5 m), especially since the use of the established sand casting process as a technology is only partially competitive in today’s market. Therefore, different applications of generative manufacturing methods for the implementation into the production process were investigated. One approach is the mould production using additive manufacturing processes. Investigations showed that especially for large components with high wall thicknesses available systems and processes for sand casting mould production are cost-intensive and conditionally suitable. With our development of a large-format FDM printer, however, the direct production of large-format positive moulds for, for example, yacht propellers up to 4 m in diameter is possible. Due to the comparatively low accuracy requirements for the mould, the focus is on the durability of the drive system and the rigidity of this FDM printer. Equipped with simple linear technology in portal design and cubic design of the frame structure with rigid heated print bed, the aim is to achieve maximum material extrusion via the print head. The production of plastic models not only facilitates handling during the moulding process, but also allows considerable time and cost savings to be made during the running process. A further step in our development is the direct production of the components using WAAM. A possible concept for robot-supported build-up welding for the production of new innovative propeller geometries is presented using the example of a hollow turbine blade for a tidal power plant.

HVLV environments are characterized by high product variety and small lot production, pushing companies to recursively design and optimize their production systems in a very short time to reach high-level performance. To increase their competitiveness, companies belonging to these industries, often SMEs working as third parties, ask for decision-making tools to support them in a quick and reactive reconfiguration of their production lines. Traditional discrete event simulation models, widely studied in the literature to solve production-related issues, do not allow real-time support to business decisions in dynamic contexts, due to the time-consuming activities needed to re-align parameters to changing environments. Data-driven approach overcomes these limitations, giving the possibility to easily update input and quickly rebuild the model itself without any changes in the modeling code. The proposed data-driven simulation model has also been interfaced with a commonly-used BI tool to support companies in the iterative comparison of different scenarios to define the optimal resource allocation for the requested production plan. The simulation model has been implemented into a SME operating in the footwear industry, showing how this approach can be used by companies to increase their performance even without a specific knowledge in building and validating simulation models.

Diffractive lenses are key elements in a large variety of optical systems. In hybrid refractive/diffractive optical systems they are used as powerful elements for aberration correction. Other applications, such as fiber coupling and optoelectronic devices, benefit from the fact that diffractive structures are thin and lightweight, enabling very compact systems. In addition, low-cost replication processes with a high profile fidelity make the use of diffractive lenses in prototype systems as well as in volume production very attractive.

The Quasiturbine turbo-machine is a pressure driven, continuous torque and symmetrically deformable spinning wheel. Excluding conventional turbines, the next step in the world of engine research is to make the gas engines as efficient as the diesel engines and the diesel engines as clean (or better) as the gas engines. Turbine characteristics help achieving this goal. The Quasiturbine (Qurbine or Kyotoengine) is a new engine technology that was conceived in early 1990 and patented in 1996 and later. The Quasiturbine is inspired by the turbine, perfects the piston and improves upon the Wankel engine. Efficient and compact, the Quasiturbine is also an engine concept optimization theory based on «volume pulse shaping» at design. While current technologies adapt combustion processes to engine design, the Quasiturbine theory tends to adapt the engine design to combustion processes. It is a non-eccentric crankshaft, true rotary engine (no piston like movement), that uses a 4 face articulated rotor with a free and accessible center, rotating without vibration nor propulsive dead time and producing a strong torque at low RPM under a variety of modes and fuels. The Quasiturbine goes along the best modern engine development strategy, which is to get as many ignitions as possible per minute, with a mechanical device rotating as slowly as possible. Quasiturbine allows designs with up to «7 conceptual degrees of freedom», substantially more than conventional turbine or piston engine, permitting to better shape the compression and relaxation volume pulse and further improved optimization. Taking full advantage of its unique short and fast linear ramp volume pulsed properties, its AC Model is a natural HCCI «detonation - knocking» engine. Such a detonation Quasiturbine has very little low-power-efficiency-penalty, is multi-fuel compatible (including direct hydrogen combustion), offers a drastic reduction in the overall propulsion system weight, size, maintenance and cost. Because Quasiturbine cycle is pressure driven instead of aerodynamically driven, it has a comparatively flat high efficiency characteristic in regard to RPM, load and power, which makes it most suitable for power modulation applications like in transportation and windmill energy storage and recovery systems. Used in Stirling and Brayton cycles, the Quasiturbine offers new ways to recover and transform thermal energy.

Compared with machining by automation, handwork is suitable for high-variety low-volume manufacturing, because such manufacturing requires a lower cost and shorter lead time. However, high-concentration machining should be implemented in handwork. Furthermore, any mistake generated by disturbance from tool rotation results in useless products and wasted materials. Our goal was to develop a finish machining support system that can realize high-accuracy machining in the case of tool rotational direction orthogonal to the feed direction without any machining mistakes. Specifically, in this study we developed a fixture-type machining support robot with a parallel link system to achieve good usability and highly accurate machining. We estimate the operator’s hand stiffness from the machining force and end effector position during grinding, and then the grinding force is controlled based on estimation of the worker’s hand stiffness. As a result, the influence of grinding force on the worker’s hand is suppressed, and the problems with machining accuracy in handwork are lessened. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is shown by grinding experiments.

Manufacturing systems have recently been shifted from high-volume/low-mix manufacturing to high-mix/low-volume manufacturing and renamed “flexible manufacturing systems” (FMSs). However, problems have occurred, primarily the fact that such systems might not be able to cope with quick environment changes. It is not easy to change the layout and facilities of a factory once we build a big system because it controls the whole manufacturing system in FMS hierarchically. Therefore, new systems for variety-variable manufacturing with flexibility are proposed. A general idea of an autonomous and distributed manufacturing system has been suggested, and it seems feasible because each component part has original information-treatment and decision-making functions. The system gives the constituent elements of its manufacturing system an autonomous decision-making function. The role of an automated guided vehicle (AGV) conveyance system, which controls the flow of parts in a factory, is becoming more important, but research in the conveyance system has been uneven. Examples include studies on AGV action decision-making theory, scheduling, and so on, whereas meanwhile, the use of autonomous decision-making controls in places where transportation is received and transported has hardly been researched. On the other hand, applications of knowledge from one field to a different field have recently drawing much attention. Such activity is known as a mimetic solution. We propose an application of knowledge hidden in traffic engineering to manufacture a trial mimetic solution. Manufacturing systems must withstand such uncertain factors as a sudden change of the manufacturing process, and we therefore propose applying the characteristics of taxi transportation with flexibility to an AGV conveyance system. A taxi is a transport unit in a traffic system with higher flexibility in traveling routes and arrival/departure points compared with railways and buses. Our proposed system’s performance is shown based on conveyance efficiency and energy consumption. Additionally, the multiple-load taxis, which are based on taxi characteristics such different body types (small or medium), are applied and evaluated in terms of their conveyance efficiency. Results indicate that a combination of such multiple-load AGVs shows a good performance in terms of higher conveyance efficiency and lower environmental impact.

This paper describes the development of an inhomogeneous multiphase model for the prediction of phase transition and nonequilibrium droplet dynamics under transonic flow conditions. The primary application of interest is low pressure steam turbines, where high speeds and complex geometry result in a second phase exhibiting significant droplet size variation, with associated thermal and inertial nonequilibrium relative to the vapor phase. The formulation uses a pressure based, implicit in time, algorithm with finite-volume/finite-element discretization of the conservation equations. For each phase, the velocity, energy state, volume fraction and droplet number are computed. For a two material phase system (water vapor and liquid) a parent and any number of (source based) condensed liquid phases are possible to handle the variety (and complexity) of droplet behavior as found in low pressure steam turbines. The model is tested against experimental data available in the steam turbine community. In particular the influence of inertial nonequilibrium on the phase transition behavior in a steam turbine cascade geometry is examined.

Meso-scale power systems (10 W to 1000 W) are needed to power untethered mobile robots and assisting devices such as powered exoskeletons. Air-breathing combustion driven actuators, used in a direct acting manner, can be used for such applications and take advantage of the high power density of fluidic actuators and the high energy density of chemical fuels. However, fuel-to-mechanical energy conversion efficiency is critical to make such chemical systems viable over electrical systems. This paper presents the efficiency-based design and experimental characterization of two combustion driven actuators intended to reach high specific power and specific energy. First, efficiency oriented design principles are derived from internal combustion engine theory: (1) an ideal-cycle thermodynamic model of a generic constant volume combustion system suggests that compression ratio and the expansion/compression ratio should both be maximized, and (2) the practical effects of heat, mass and friction losses as well as fuel choice in a small scale combustion chamber context are discussed. Second, two simplified prototypes are built and tested. The first prototype uses a rolling diaphragm seal to limit the effect of mass and friction losses. The second prototype consists of a standard air cylinder that minimizes heat losses by reducing the surface-to-volume ratio of the combustion chamber. Hydrogen is selected as fuel because it allows lean combustion which limits the effect of heat loss with low combustion temperatures. Compression ratio and equivalence ratio are varied experimentally to evaluate their effect on efficiency. Experimental results demonstrate an energy conversion efficiency of 15.3% at a compression ratio of 4.15 and a low equivalence ratio of 0.3. Ragone analysis of relevant meso-scale power systems for mobile robotic suggest that, with proper optimization and system integration, combustion driven power systems can become a viable solution for lightweight and long range meso-scale robotic applications.

Major advances in combustor technology are required to meet the conflicting challenges of improving performance, increasing durability and maintaining cost. Ultra-short combustors to minimize residence time, with special flame-holding mechanisms to cope with increased through-velocities are likely in the future. This paper focuses on vortex-stabilized combustor technologies that can enable the design of compact, high-performance combustion systems. Compact combustors weigh less and take up less volume in space-limited turbine engine for aero applications. This paper presents the UCC, a novel design based on TVC work that uses high swirl in a circumferential cavity to enhance mixing rates via high cavity g-loading on the order of 3000 g’s. The UCC design integrates compressor and turbine features which will enable a shorter and potentially less complex gas turbine engine. Ultimately, it is envisioned that this type of combustion system can be used as the main combustor and/or as a secondary combustor between the high pressure and low pressure turbine to operate as a reheat cycle engine. The focus on this paper includes experimental results of the UCC for a variety of conditions: (1) the addition of turbine vanes in the combustor flowpath, (2) a comparison of JP-8 and FT fuel performance in the combustor, (3) the use of trapped-vortex-like air addition to increase combustor flammability limits, and (4) combustor performance related to two different fuel injector designs. Lean blowout fuel-air ratio limits at 20% the value of current systems were demonstrated. Combustion efficiency was measured over a wide range of UCC operating conditions. This data begins to build the design space required for future engine designs that may use these novel, compact, high-g combustion systems.

In this paper, the thermal performance of a high concentration ratio parabolic trough system and the potential for improved thermal performance using Syltherm800-CuO nanofluid were investigated and presented. The parabolic trough system considered in this study has a concentration ratio of 113 compared with 82 in current commercial systems. The heat transfer fluid temperature was varied between 350 K and 650 K and volume fractions of nanoparticle were in the range 1–6%. Monte-Carlo ray tracing was used to obtain the actual heat flux on the receiver’s absorber tube. The obtained heat flux profiles were subsequently coupled with a computational fluid dynamics tool to investigate the thermal performance of the receiver. From the study, the results show that with increased concentration ratios, receiver thermal performance degrades, with both the receiver heat loss and the absorber tube circumferential temperature differences increasing, especially at low flow rates. The results further show that the use of nanofluids significantly improves receiver thermal performance. The heat transfer performance increases up to 38% while the thermal efficiency increases up to 15%. Significant improvements in receiver thermal efficiency exist at high inlet temperatures and low flow rates.

Abstract High-frequency ensonification of the head has the potential to excite unusual and difficult-to-measure internal vibration behavior. The head is a complex, interconnected vibroacoustic volume filled with and bounded by air, fluids, soft tissue structures, and bone. A literature gap exists in assessment of how ultrasonic vibrations of relatively low frequency and low amplitude might propagate within the skull and cranial contents of humans and cynomolgus macaque monkeys. Ultrasonic emitters are ubiquitous in modern society, including uses in vehicular proximity sensing, room occupancy monitoring, pest control, and industrial cleaning. This investigation uses finite-element techniques to examine vibro-acoustic behaviors of the skull and structures within the cranial cavity in the context of excitation by ultrasonic signals. Previous analysis procedures designed for assessment of possible resonant phenomena in the auditory and vestibular systems are revised and extended to assessment of the skull and the contents of the cranial cavity of humans and macaques, including volumes of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and the brain. Results include identification of cranial regions that may experience high-amplitude vibrations in response to ultrasonic excitation. These methods and results are useful for assessing how a wide variety of devices, including communications equipment, might produce biological effects.

Background. In the United States, patients referred to as high-need, high-cost (HNHC) constitute a very small percentage of the patient population but account for a disproportionally high level of healthcare use and cost. Payers, health systems, and providers would like to improve the quality of care and health outcomes for HNHC patients and reduce their costly use of potentially preventable or modifiable healthcare services, including emergency department (ED) and hospital visits. Methods. We assessed evidence of criteria that identify HNHC patients (best fit framework synthesis); developed program theories on the relationship among contexts, mechanisms, and outcomes of interventions intended to change HNHC patient behaviors (realist review); and assessed the effectiveness of interventions (systematic review). We searched databases, gray literature, and other sources for evidence available from January 1, 2000, to March 4, 2021. We included quantitative and qualitative studies of HNHC patients (high healthcare use or cost) age 18 and over who received intervention services in a variety of settings. Results. We included 110 studies (117 articles). Consistent with our best fit framework, characteristics associated with HNHC include patient chronic clinical conditions, behavioral health factors including depression and substance use disorder, and social risk factors including homelessness and poverty. We also identified prior healthcare use and race as important predictors. We found limited evidence of approaches for distinguishing potentially preventable or modifiable high use from all high use. To understand how and why interventions work, we developed three program theories in our realist review that explain (1) targeting HNHC patients, (2) engaging HNHC patients, and (3) engaging care providers in these interventions. Theories identify the need for individualizing and tailoring services for HNHC patients and the importance of building trusting relationships. For our systematic review, we categorized evidence based on primary setting. We found that ED-, primary care–, and home-based care models result in reduced use of healthcare services (moderate to low strength of evidence [SOE]); ED, ambulatory intensive caring unit, and primary care-based models result in reduced costs (low SOE); and system-level transformation and telephonic/mail models do not result in changes in use or costs (low SOE). Conclusions. Patient characteristics can be used to identify patients who are potentially HNHC. Evidence focusing specifically on potentially preventable or modifiable high use was limited. Based on our program theories, we conclude that individualized and tailored patient engagement and resources to support care providers are critical to the success of interventions. Although we found evidence of intervention effectiveness in relation to cost and use, the studies identified in this review reported little information for determining why individual programs work, for whom, and when.

The objectives of this project were to develop nondestructive methods for detection of internal properties and firmness of fruits and vegetables. One method was based on a soft piezoelectric film transducer developed in the Technion, for analysis of fruit response to low-energy excitation. The second method was a dot-matrix piezoelectric transducer of North Carolina State University, developed for contact-pressure analysis of fruit during impact. Two research teams, one in Israel and the other in North Carolina, coordinated their research effort according to the specific objectives of the project, to develop and apply the two complementary methods for quality control of agricultural commodities. In Israel: An improved firmness testing system was developed and tested with tropical fruits. The new system included an instrumented fruit-bed of three flexible piezoelectric sensors and miniature electromagnetic hammers, which served as fruit support and low-energy excitation device, respectively. Resonant frequencies were detected for determination of firmness index. Two new acoustic parameters were developed for evaluation of fruit firmness and maturity: a dumping-ratio and a centeroid of the frequency response. Experiments were performed with avocado and mango fruits. The internal damping ratio, which may indicate fruit ripeness, increased monotonically with time, while resonant frequencies and firmness indices decreased with time. Fruit samples were tested daily by destructive penetration test. A fairy high correlation was found in tropical fruits between the penetration force and the new acoustic parameters; a lower correlation was found between this parameter and the conventional firmness index. Improved table-top firmness testing units, Firmalon, with data-logging system and on-line data analysis capacity have been built. The new device was used for the full-scale experiments in the next two years, ahead of the original program and BARD timetable. Close cooperation was initiated with local industry for development of both off-line and on-line sorting and quality control of more agricultural commodities. Firmalon units were produced and operated in major packaging houses in Israel, Belgium and Washington State, on mango and avocado, apples, pears, tomatoes, melons and some other fruits, to gain field experience with the new method. The accumulated experimental data from all these activities is still analyzed, to improve firmness sorting criteria and shelf-life predicting curves for the different fruits. The test program in commercial CA storage facilities in Washington State included seven apple varieties: Fuji, Braeburn, Gala, Granny Smith, Jonagold, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, and D'Anjou pear variety. FI master-curves could be developed for the Braeburn, Gala, Granny Smith and Jonagold apples. These fruits showed a steady ripening process during the test period. Yet, more work should be conducted to reduce scattering of the data and to determine the confidence limits of the method. Nearly constant FI in Red Delicious and the fluctuations of FI in the Fuji apples should be re-examined. Three sets of experiment were performed with Flandria tomatoes. Despite the complex structure of the tomatoes, the acoustic method could be used for firmness evaluation and to follow the ripening evolution with time. Close agreement was achieved between the auction expert evaluation and that of the nondestructive acoustic test, where firmness index of 4.0 and more indicated grade-A tomatoes. More work is performed to refine the sorting algorithm and to develop a general ripening scale for automatic grading of tomatoes for the fresh fruit market. Galia melons were tested in Israel, in simulated export conditions. It was concluded that the Firmalon is capable of detecting the ripening of melons nondestructively, and sorted out the defective fruits from the export shipment. The cooperation with local industry resulted in development of automatic on-line prototype of the acoustic sensor, that may be incorporated with the export quality control system for melons. More interesting is the development of the remote firmness sensing method for sealed CA cool-rooms, where most of the full-year fruit yield in stored for off-season consumption. Hundreds of ripening monitor systems have been installed in major fruit storage facilities, and being evaluated now by the consumers. If successful, the new method may cause a major change in long-term fruit storage technology. More uses of the acoustic test method have been considered, for monitoring fruit maturity and harvest time, testing fruit samples or each individual fruit when entering the storage facilities, packaging house and auction, and in the supermarket. This approach may result in a full line of equipment for nondestructive quality control of fruits and vegetables, from the orchard or the greenhouse, through the entire sorting, grading and storage process, up to the consumer table. The developed technology offers a tool to determine the maturity of the fruits nondestructively by monitoring their acoustic response to mechanical impulse on the tree. A special device was built and preliminary tested in mango fruit. More development is needed to develop a portable, hand operated sensing method for this purpose. In North Carolina: Analysis method based on an Auto-Regressive (AR) model was developed for detecting the first resonance of fruit from their response to mechanical impulse. The algorithm included a routine that detects the first resonant frequency from as many sensors as possible. Experiments on Red Delicious apples were performed and their firmness was determined. The AR method allowed the detection of the first resonance. The method could be fast enough to be utilized in a real time sorting machine. Yet, further study is needed to look for improvement of the search algorithm of the methods. An impact contact-pressure measurement system and Neural Network (NN) identification method were developed to investigate the relationships between surface pressure distributions on selected fruits and their respective internal textural qualities. A piezoelectric dot-matrix pressure transducer was developed for the purpose of acquiring time-sampled pressure profiles during impact. The acquired data was transferred into a personal computer and accurate visualization of animated data were presented. Preliminary test with 10 apples has been performed. Measurement were made by the contact-pressure transducer in two different positions. Complementary measurements were made on the same apples by using the Firmalon and Magness Taylor (MT) testers. Three-layer neural network was designed. 2/3 of the contact-pressure data were used as training input data and corresponding MT data as training target data. The remaining data were used as NN checking data. Six samples randomly chosen from the ten measured samples and their corresponding Firmalon values were used as the NN training and target data, respectively. The remaining four samples' data were input to the NN. The NN results consistent with the Firmness Tester values. So, if more training data would be obtained, the output should be more accurate. In addition, the Firmness Tester values do not consistent with MT firmness tester values. The NN method developed in this study appears to be a useful tool to emulate the MT Firmness test results without destroying the apple samples. To get more accurate estimation of MT firmness a much larger training data set is required. When the larger sensitive area of the pressure sensor being developed in this project becomes available, the entire contact 'shape' will provide additional information and the neural network results would be more accurate. It has been shown that the impact information can be utilized in the determination of internal quality factors of fruit. Until now,

This project objective evaluated the potential of improving linked weather-and-mobility model predictions by blending soil moisture observations from a Cosmic-ray Soil Moisture Observing System (COSMOS) sensor with weather-informed predictions of soil moisture and soil strength from the Geospatial Weather-Affected Terrain Conditions and Hazards (GeoWATCH). Assimilating vehicle-borne COSMOS observations that measure local effects model predictions of soil moisture offered potential to produce more accurate soil strength and vehicle mobility forecast was the hypothesis. This project compared soil moisture observations from a COSMOS mobile sensor driven around an area near Iowa Falls, IA, with both GeoWATCH soil moisture predictions and in situ probe observations. The evaluation of the COSMOS rover data finds that the soil moisture measurements contain a low measurement bias while the GeoWATCH estimates more closely matched the in situ data. The COSMOS rover captured a larger dynamic range of soil moisture conditions as compared to GeoWATCH, capturing both very wet and very dry soil conditions, which may better flag areas of high risk for mobility considerations. Overall, more study of the COSMOS rover is needed to better understand sensor performance in a variety of soil conditions to determine the feasibility of assimilating the COSMOS rover estimates into GeoWATCH.

Background to the topic: For food safety and security reasons, hundreds of pesticides, veterinary drugs, and environmental pollutants should be monitored in the food supply, but current methods are too time-consuming, laborious, and expensive. As a result, only a tiny fraction of the food is tested for a limited number of contaminants. Original proposal objectives: Our main original goal was to develop fast, practical, and effective new approaches for the analysis of hazardous chemicals in the food supply. We proposed to extend the QuEChERS approach to more pesticides, veterinary drugs and pollutants, further develop GC-MS and LC-MS with SMB and combine QuEChERS with GC-SMB-MS and LC-SMB-EI-MS to provide the “ultimate” approach for the analysis of hazardous chemicals in food. Major conclusions, solutions and achievements: The original QuEChERS method was validated for more than 200 pesticide residues in a variety of food crops. For the few basic pesticides for which the method gave lower recoveries, an extensive solvent suitability study was conducted, and a buffering modification was made to improve results for difficult analytes. Furthermore, evaluation of the QuEChERS approach for fatty matrices, including olives and its oil, was performed. The QuEChERS concept was also extended to acrylamide analysis in foods. Other advanced techniques to improve speed, ease, and effectiveness of chemical residue analysis were also successfully developed and/or evaluated, which include: a simple and inexpensive solvent-in-silicone-tube extraction approach for highly sensitive detection of nonpolar pesticides in GC; ruggedness testing of low-pressure GC-MS for 3-fold faster separations; optimization and extensive evaluation of analyte protectants in GC-MS; and use of prototypical commercial automated direct sample introduction devices for GC-MS. GC-MS with SMB was further developed and combined with the Varian 1200 GCMS/ MS system, resulting in a new type of GC-MS with advanced capabilities. Careful attention was given to the subject of GC-MS sensitivity and its LOD for difficult to analyze samples such as thermally labile pesticides or those with weak or no molecular ions, and record low LOD were demonstrated and discussed. The new approach of electron ionization LC-MS with SMB was developed, its key components of sample vaporization nozzle and flythrough ion source were improved and was evaluated with a range of samples, including carbamate pesticides. A new method and software based on IAA were developed and tested on a range of pesticides in agricultural matrices. This IAA method and software in combination with GC-MS and SMB provide extremely high confidence in sample identification. A new type of comprehensive GCxGC (based on flow modulation) was uniquely combined with GC-MS with SMB, and we demonstrated improved pesticide separation and identification in complex agricultural matrices using this novel approach. An improved device for aroma sample collection and introduction (SnifProbe) was further developed and favorably compared with SPME for coffee aroma sampling. Implications, both scientific and agricultural: We succeeded in achieving significant improvements in the analysis of hazardous chemicals in the food supply, from easy sample preparation approaches, through sample analysis by advanced new types of GC-MS and LCMS techniques, all the way to improved data analysis by lowering LOD and providing greater confidence in chemical identification. As a result, the combination of the QuEChERS approach, new and superior instrumentation, and the novel monitoring methods that were developed will enable vastly reduced time and cost of analysis, increased analytical scope, and a higher monitoring rate. This provides better enforcement, an added impetus for farmers to use good agricultural practices, improved food safety and security, increased trade, and greater consumer confidence in the food supply.

Access to books is key to learning to read and sustaining a love of reading. Yet many low- and middle-income countries struggle to provide their students with reading materials of sufficient quality and quantity. Since 2008, RTI International has provided technical assistance in early reading assessment and instruction to ministries of education in dozens of low- and middle-income countries. The central objective of many of these programs has been to improve learning outcomes—in particular, reading—for students in the early grades of primary school. Under these programs, RTI has partnered with ministry staff to produce and distribute evidence-based instructional materials at a regional or national scale, in quantities that increase the likelihood that children will have ample opportunities to practice reading skills, and at a cost that can be sustained in the long term by the education system. In this paper, we seek to capture the practices RTI has developed and refined over the last decade, particularly in response to the challenges inherent in contexts with high linguistic diversity and low operational capacity for producing and distributing instructional materials. These practices constitute our approach to developing and producing instructional materials for early grade literacy. We also touch upon effective planning for printing and distribution procurement, but we do not consider the printing and distribution processes in depth in this paper. We expect this volume will be useful for donors, policymakers, and practitioners interested in improving access to cost-effective, high-quality teaching and learning materials for the early grades.