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Topic Review
Shark Net
A shark net is a submerged net placed around beaches to reduce shark attacks on swimmers. The majority of Shark nets used are Gillnets which is a wall of netting that hangs in the water and captures the targeted sharks by entanglement. The nets in Queensland, Australia, are typically 186m long, set at a depth of 6 m, have a mesh size of 500 mm and are designed to catch sharks longer than 2m in length. Shark nets are not to be confused with shark barriers. Shark nets do not offer complete protection but work on the principle of "fewer sharks, fewer attacks". They reduce occurrence via shark mortality. Shark nets such as those in New South Wales are designed to entangle and kill sharks and other animals that pass near them. Reducing the local shark populations is believed to reduce the chance of an attack. Historical shark attack figures suggest that the use of shark nets and drumlines does markedly reduce the incidence of shark attack when implemented on a regular and consistent basis. The large mesh size of the nets is designed specifically to capture sharks and prevent their escape until eventually, they drown. Due to boating activity, the nets also float 4 metres or more below the surface and do not connect with the shoreline (excluding Hong Kong's shark barrier nets) thus allowing sharks the opportunity to swim over and around nets. Shark nets can cost A$1 million or A$20,000 per beach per year. Shark nets have been criticized by environmentalists, conservationists and animal rights activists — they say shark nets are unethical and harm the marine ecosystem. They also say there is no science showing that nets make the ocean safer for people. Christopher Neff, a Ph.D. scholar at the University of Sydney notes, "Internationally, shark nets have been labeled a 'key threatening process' for killing endangered species." He adds: " ... killing endangered species to boost public confidence or to show government action is not workable. It is a disservice to the public." Jessica Morris of Humane Society International calls shark nets a "knee-jerk reaction" and says, "sharks are top order predators that play an important role in the functioning of marine ecosystems. We need them for healthy oceans."
  • 549
  • 05 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Circular Economy Implementation
The circular economy, as a promising response to sustainability issues, is a crucible for carefully designed ecofriendly actions and integrative mechanisms in enterprises, households, and societies for the attainment of the desired outcomes. It is in this context that CE strategies are examined, with the use of metrics, indicators, and standards. The desired outcomes of the CE are well embedded and articulated in the sustainable development goals that the UN and its member countries have vowed to achieve along a designated timeline.
  • 548
  • 15 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Lean Transformation and Implementation
The application of Lean Manufacturing (LM) in both the service and manufacturing industries has demonstrated improvements in organizational performance. Other benefits obtained from LM implementation include improved flexibility, profitability, and efficiency; continuous improvement in processes; reduced production costs; improved customer satisfaction; enhanced just-in-time production (JIT); ergonomic improvements for employees; and increased product reliability. This success implies that Lean is universal and is not a fad that will pass away. Furthermore, recent research shows that LM is a base upon which new technologies such as Industry 4.0 can be built.
  • 547
  • 10 Jun 2022
Topic Review
UX in AR-Supported Industrial Human–Robot Collaborative Tasks
The fourth industrial revolution is promoting the Operator 4.0 paradigm, originating from a renovated attention towards human factors, growingly involved in the design of modern, human-centered processes. New technologies, such as augmented reality or collaborative robotics are thus increasingly studied and progressively applied to solve the modern operators’ needs. Human-centered design approaches can help to identify user’s needs and functional requirements, solving usability issues, or reducing cognitive or physical stress. 
  • 541
  • 14 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Manufacturing Scheduling
The recent advances in technology and the demand for highly customized products have been forcing manufacturing companies to adapt and develop new solutions in order to become more dynamic and flexible to face the changing markets. Manufacturing scheduling plays a core role in this adaptation since it is crucial to ensure that all operations and processes are running on time in the factory.
  • 538
  • 18 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Corrosion Stiction in Automotive Braking Systems
The rotor–brake pad assembly for application in automotive braking systems is a complex multimaterial system subjected to several aggressive environments, including rain, snow, and chlorides during winter driving. Corrosion issues involving the rotor–brake pad assembly, in particular for cast-iron rotors, can negatively affect the performance, safety, and reliability of the braking system. Under highly oxidative conditions, electrochemical processes occurring at the gray cast-iron rotor surface can generate corrosion products (iron oxides) that can penetrate the brake pad material through the intrinsic porosity of the friction material employed for the production of the brake pad. The corrosion of gray cast iron discs can lead to a strong adhesion of the brake pad at the pad/disc interface that can impair the reliability and performance of the braking system.
  • 527
  • 30 May 2023
Topic Review
Flashing Phenomena in Pressure Hydrometallurgy
Pressure hydrometallurgy has attracted much attention for its characteristics, such as the high adaptability of raw materials and environmental friendliness. Flashing (flash boiling or flash evaporation) refers to the phase change phenomenon from liquid to gas triggered by depressurization, which is an important connection between high-pressure processes and atmospheric ones in pressure hydrometallurgy.
  • 527
  • 18 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Criteria for the Adoption of Sustainable Maintenance Practice
The evolution from traditional industrial maintenance to sustainable maintenance (SM) is pivotal within the existing industrial ecosystem. It represents a critical transition towards integrating sustainability principles into maintenance practices including environmental, social and economic outcomes. Increasingly focused on SM, the importance of understanding the impact of environmental initiatives and sustainability indicators becomes a focal point. However, the paradigm shift of SM is lagging in the industrial ecosystem. Although it marked a growing interest in the academic community, the lack of empirical studies and practical implications of adopting SM has been reported. Based on the Bayesian analysis, and the bibliometric and thematic analyses, the role of digital technologies in enhancing SM practices highlights the potential pathways for easier transition and applicability of sustainability-related maintenance practices.
  • 523
  • 01 Mar 2024
Topic Review
Requirement Quality Assessment Method Based on User Stories
Agile development processes based on user stories often face issues such as incomplete, inconsistent, and inaccurate user requirements, which increase the workload of agile development teams and reduce the efficiency of product function development, ultimately resulting in the inability to respond quickly to user requirements.
  • 516
  • 25 May 2023
Topic Review
Anaesthetic Vaporizer
An anaesthetic vaporizer is a device generally attached to an anaesthetic machine which delivers a given concentration of a volatile anaesthetic agent. It works by controlling the vaporisation of anaesthetic agents from liquid, and then accurately controlling the concentration in which these are added to the fresh gas flow. The design of these devices takes account of varying: ambient temperature, fresh gas flow, and agent vapour pressure.
  • 508
  • 09 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Robust Composite Materials for Transmission Conductors
The demand for electricity has increased drastically due to population explosion globally. Unfortunately, supply does not meet the demand. Consequently, the transmission grid becomes overloaded, culminating in frequent power outages. It was observed that besides inherent conductor defects, overloading, bush fire, short-circuit, harsh weather, and lightning were the factors that ravage the transmission grid. There is a need to develop more robust conductor materials that can withstand these challenges.
  • 487
  • 24 Aug 2022
Topic Review
Integration of SysML and Virtual Reality Environment
In recent years, Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) has continued to develop as a standard for designing, managing, and maintaining increasingly complex systems. Unlike the document centric approach, MBSE puts the model at the heart of system design. Among the various MBSE language development efforts, “Systems Modeling Language (SysML)”, is the most anticipated and broadly utilized in the research and in industrial practice. SysML originated from Unified Modeling Language (UML) and follows the Object-Oriented Systems Engineering Method (OOSEM). SysML diagrams help users create various systems engineering artifacts, including requirements, use cases, operational concepts, system architecture, system behaviors, and parametric analyses of a system model. In the early days of implementation, MBSE languages, including SysML, typically relied on static viewpoints and limited simulation support to depict and analyze a system model. Due the continuous improvement efforts and new implementation approaches by researchers and organizations, SysML has advanced vastly to encompass dynamic viewpoints, in-situ simulation and enable integration with external modeling and simulation (M&S) tools. Virtual Reality (VR) has emerged as a user interactive and immersive visualization technology and can depict reality in a virtual environment at different levels of fidelity. VR can play a crucial role in developing dynamic and interactive viewpoints to improve the MBSE approach.
  • 487
  • 17 Nov 2023
Topic Review
Customer Shopping Behavior Analysis by RFID Models
Analyzing customer shopping habits in physical stores is crucial for enhancing the retailer–customer relationship and increasing business revenue. Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has emerged as a solution and has been implemented in physical stores for purposes such as smart trolleys and analyzing customer shopping paths. Additionally, previous research has demonstrated that the phase readings and received signal strength (RSS) of RFID, combined with machine-learning algorithms, can effectively track customer activity within the physical store, including product browsing. Therefore, employing machine learning models for identifying customer behavior inside the store is crucial to enhance the efficiency of customer behavior analysis.
  • 485
  • 18 Dec 2023
Topic Review
Photovoltaic Distributed Generators with an Energy Storage System
Disruptive events, such as the winter storm of 2021 that left 40 million people in the U.S. without power, have revealed the potential danger of societal dependence on centralized energy sources. Localized energy grids (called microgrids (MGs)) can help add energy reliability and independence by using distributed generators (DGs) with photovoltaic (PV) energy sources and energy storage systems (ESSs). Such MGs can independently energize critical energy demand nodes (DNs) when isolated from the primary grid with renewable energy. The optimal sizes and assignments of PVDG/ESS units to the DNs during outages are crucial to increasing energy reliability. 
  • 482
  • 27 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Challenges of Adopting Artificial Intelligence to Industry 4.0
Corroborating with Industry 4.0, Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerges as a field of computer science that aims to develop systems capable of performing tasks that require human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, perception, language, and decision-making. The adoption of Artificial Intelligence technologies in Industry 4.0 emerges as a problematic issue due to the challenges of various characteristics that hinder or limit this adoption.
  • 481
  • 28 Sep 2023
Topic Review
Sustainable Human-Robot Collaboration System in Mold Assembly
Molds are still assembled manually because of frequent demand changes and the requirement for comprehensive knowledge related to their high flexibility and adaptability in operation. Human-robot collaboration (HRC) systems can be applied to improve manual mold assembly. A status recognition system based on parts, tools, and actions using a pre-trained YOLOv5 model is developed. This study improves the sustainability of the mold assembly from the point of view of human safety, with reductions in human workload and assembly time.
  • 477
  • 12 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Plate Heat Exchanger for Condensing Duties
Increasing energy usage efficiency requires enhanced heat energy recuperation between process streams in the industry and civic sector with waste heat utilization. The condensation of different vapours is the process encountered in many industrial applications.  Increasing the heat recuperation in this process is possible with efficient heat transfer equipment, among which a Plate Heat Exchanger (PHE) is at the leading position. PHE in processes of vapour condensation is the fast-developing type of heat transfer equipment. Their main advantages compared to traditional shell-and-tube heat exchangers are compactness, small mass and inner volume, and enhanced heat transfer. The construction of PHE can be adapted to the required conditions of specific applications as condensers. 
  • 476
  • 02 Mar 2023
Topic Review
Lean Management
Lean management has generated new approaches to reduce non-value-adding activities in different sectors of the economy, including in higher education systems. Lean principles in higher education institutions (HEIs) contribute positively to sustainability performance. 
  • 472
  • 06 May 2022
Topic Review
A Blockchain Prototype on Container Shipping Operations
Blockchain technology has been proposed as a solution to these concerns. It is a decentralised ledger system that can record and track transactions in a secure and transparent manner. Moreover, it is possible to create a tamper-proof record of the container’s movements and status throughout the shipping process using blockchain to record the data from e-seals.
  • 472
  • 09 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Environmental Risk Assessment and Management in Industry 4.0
According to the International Labour Organization, occupational injury is a personal injury, disease, or death that results from an occupational accident. Occupational accidents, in turn, are unexpected occurrences, including acts of violence, arising out of or in connection with work and resulting in one or more workers incurring personal injury, disease, or death. Occupational diseases are acquired through personal exposure to environmental risks, such as physical, chemical, and biological agents in situations above the tolerance limits imposed by legislation or applicable standards. These diseases are caused or aggravated by specific activities, and are characterized when the causal link is established. between damage to the worker’s health and exposure to certain work-related risks. Occupational diseases occur after various years of exposure, and in some cases, they can arise even after the worker is no longer in contact with the causative agent.
  • 465
  • 30 Aug 2022
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