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Topic Review
Industry 4.0 and Lean Six Sigma Integration
In recent years, Industry 4.0 (I4.0) has been a recurrent theme in the literature on Lean Six Sigma (LSS), given the synergies that can arise from their combination. However, several factors can affect the integration of I4.0 and LSS in practice. This article presents a systematic literature review of the barriers to integration and the critical success factors (i.e., enablers) involved in this process.
  • 1.1K
  • 28 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Conditional Frontier Analysis (DEA)
Conditional Frontier Analysis is part of the Nonparametric Robust Estimators proposed to overcome some drawbacks in the traditional Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Free Disposal Hull (FDH) measures for the technical efficiency. In special, this methodology extends the nonparametric input/output production technology to robustly account for extreme values or outliers in the data, and allow measuring the effect of external environmental variables on the efficiency of Decision Making Units (DMUs). 
  • 1.1K
  • 01 May 2021
Topic Review
Ophthalmoscopy
Ophthalmoscopy, also called funduscopy, is a test that allows a health professional to see inside the fundus of the eye and other structures using an ophthalmoscope (or funduscope). It is done as part of an eye examination and may be done as part of a routine physical examination. It is crucial in determining the health of the retina, optic disc, and vitreous humor. The pupil is a hole through which the eye's interior will be viewed. Opening the pupil wider (dilating it) is a simple and effective way to better see the structures behind it. Therefore, dilation of the pupil (mydriasis) is often accomplished with medicated eye drops before funduscopy. However, although dilated fundus examination is ideal, undilated examination is more convenient and is also helpful (albeit not as comprehensive), and it is the most common type in primary care. An alternative or complement to ophthalmoscopy is to perform a fundus photography, where the image can be analysed later by a professional.
  • 1.1K
  • 19 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Competitive Swimwear
Competitive swimwear refers to the swimsuit, clothing, equipment, and accessories used in the aquatic sports of swimming, diving, synchronized swimming, triathlon, and water polo. Some swimsuits are designed specifically for swimming competitions where they may be constructed of a special low resistance fabric that reduces skin drag. For some kinds of swimming and diving, special bodysuits called "diveskins" are worn. These suits are made from spandex and provide little thermal protection, but they do protect the skin from stings and abrasion. Most competitive swimmers also wear special swimsuits including partial bodysuits, racerback styles, jammers and racing briefs to assist their glide through the water thus gaining a speed advantage. Unlike regular swimsuits, which are designed mainly for the aesthetic appearances, swimsuits designed to be worn during competitions are manufactured to assist the athlete in swim competitions. They reduce friction and drag in the water, increasing the efficiency of the swimmer's forward motion. The tight fits allow for easy movement and are said to reduce muscle vibration, thus reducing drag. This also reduces the possibility that a high forwards dive will remove a divers swimwear. Starting around 2000, in an effort to improve the effectiveness of the swimsuits, engineers have taken to designing them to replicate the skin of sea-based animals, sharks in particular. In July 2009, FINA voted to ban non-textile (non-woven) swimsuits in competitive events from 2010. The new policy was implemented to combat the issues associated with performance enhancing swimsuits, hindering the ability to accurately measure the performance of swimmers. Subsequently, the new ruling states that men's swimsuits may maximally cover the area from the navel to the knee, and women's counterparts from the shoulder to the knee. Some swimmers use a specialized training suit called drag suits to artificially increase drag during practice. Drag suits are swimwear with an outer layer of looser fabric – often mesh or nylon – to increase resistance against the water and build up the swimmer's endurance. They come in a variety of styles, but most resemble a looser fitting square-cut or swim brief.
  • 1.1K
  • 06 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Machine Learning for RC monitoring
The reciprocating compressor (RC) is a key piece of equipment in petroleum and chemical industries. If the RC does not operate in the rated efficiency, it will lead to great economic loss to the company. Sometimes RCs are used to compress inflammable and explosive gases working under high pressures and temperatures, such as hydrogen, ethylene, and natural gas, which would threat human life once the machine malfunctions. Furthermore, due to the intricate structure of the compressor, a large amount of wearing parts, and the complicated interactional relationship between moving parts of the compressor, it is essential to monitor the compressor operating condition and detect failures of RCs accurately and in a timely manner. Operating condition detection and fault diagnosis are very important for reliable operation of reciprocating compressors. Machine learning is one of the most powerful tools in this field.
  • 1.0K
  • 06 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Waste Heat Recovery Technologies Revisited with New Solutions
Waste heat recovery (WHR) has been a challenge for industries, as it can lead to energy savings, higher energy efficiency, and sustainability. WHR technologies are usually classified based on the output provided, namely heat recovery (HR) or heat-to-power (H2P) conversion. 
  • 1.0K
  • 18 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Innovation Capacity in Developing Countries
Innovation is an intrinsic capacity of humankind, enabling the adaptation to changes and managing probable solutions to problems regarding its welfare or its surroundings. It constitutes a key driver of sustainable growth. Moreover, innovation capacity is among the dynamic capacities leading to achieving a competitive and sustainable advantage. Hence, by adopting innovative and R&D practices, a country might enhance its growth and competitiveness, particularly for a developing country. In addition, it encompasses diverse perspectives, e.g., organizational capacity, public capacity, regional capacity, national capacity, among others. Therefore, many public and private organizations have focused their efforts on identifying and quantifying the variables that determine the innovation capacity of a country. Various mechanisms have been proposed to assess this capacity, such as the national innovation capacity, Global Innovation Index (GII), Global Competitive Index (GCI) , or European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS). These mechanisms aim at providing an objective measurement of the performance of a country regarding innovation capacity or innovation as a means to competitiveness. Each one of these presents a particular set of determinants, methods, and interpretations to assess innovation.
  • 1.0K
  • 05 Jul 2022
Topic Review
Respirator Cartridge
A respirator cartridge or canister is a container that cleans pollution from air. People working in polluted atmospheres use respirators for health preservation. If the air in the workplace is polluted with noxious gases, but contains sufficient oxygen (>19.5% in US; >18% in RF) they often use air-purifying respirators (APR). These respirators provide users breathable air by removing pollution from ambient air using canisters or cartridges. There are cartridges of different types, and they must be chosen correctly and replaced in a timely manner.
  • 1.0K
  • 11 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Smart Manufacturing Systems
Smart Manufacturing is considered as a new paradigm that make work smarter and more connected, bringing speed and flexibility through the introduction of digital innovation. Today, digital innovation is closely linked to the “sustainability” of companies. Digital innovation and sustainability are two inseparable principles which are based on the concept of circular economy. Digital innovation enables circular economy model promoting the use of solutions like digital platforms, smart devices, artificial intelligence that help to optimize resources. Thus, the purpose of the research is to present a systematic literature review on what enabling technologies can promote new circular business models.
  • 1.0K
  • 11 Apr 2021
Topic Review
Guard Rail
Guard rail, guardrails — or railings around properties and more generally outside of North America in some uses overlaps the industrial term "guide rail". They are a boundary feature and may be a means to prevent or deter access to dangerous or off-limits areas while allowing light and visibility in a greater way than a fence. Common shapes are flat, rounded edge, and tubular in horizontal railings, whereas tetraform spear-headed or ball-finialled are most common in vertical railings around homes. Park and garden railings commonly in metalworking feature swirls, leaves, plate metal areas and/or motifs particularly on and beside gates. High security railings (particularly if in flat metal then a type of palisade) may instead feature jagged points and most metals are well-suited to anti-climb paint. A handrail is less restrictive on its own than a guard rail and provides support.
  • 1.0K
  • 07 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Industry 5.0
Industry 5.0 presents itself as a strategy that puts the human factor at the centre of production, where the well-being of the worker is prioritized, as well as more sustainable and resilient production systems. For human centricity, it is necessary to empower human beings and, respectively, industrial operators, to improve their individual skills and competences in collaboration or cooperation with digital technologies.
  • 1.0K
  • 01 Feb 2023
Topic Review
Air Displacement Pipette
Piston-driven air displacement pipettes are a type of micropipette, which are tools to handle volumes of liquid in the microliter scale. They are more commonly used in biology and biochemistry, and less commonly in chemistry; the equipment is susceptible to damage from many organic solvents.
  • 1.0K
  • 25 Oct 2022
Topic Review
NEV Battery GU and Recycling
Recycling and gradient utilization (GU) of new energy vehicle (NEV) power batteries plays a significant role in promoting the sustainable development of the economy. GU is an effective means to extend the life cycle of NEV batteries and recognize their value fully. GU refers to the retesting, screening, repairing, pairing, and reuse of power batteries that have been retired from NEV (their performance is reduced to less than 80% of initial performance) under relatively mild conditions. Batteries after GU can be disassembled, and they can be recycled (typically when the remaining capacity is less than 30%) to recover cobalt, lithium, and other precious metals to achieve the “win-win” of resource recovery and environmental protection.
  • 976
  • 08 Jun 2021
Topic Review
High Speed Roll Caster
There were two types of high-speed twin-roll casters and a single-roll caster equipped with a scraper. One of the twin-roll casters is a vertical-type high-speed twin-roll caster, and the other twin-roll caster is an unequal-diameter twin-roll caster. The vertical-type high-speed twin-roll caster can cast strip at speeds of up to 120 m/min. The unequal-diameter twin-roll caster casts strip at speeds up to 60 m/min. The unequal-diameter twin-roll caster is superior to the vertical-type high-speed twin-roll caster at the point of conveyance of the cast strip. A single-roll caster equipped with a scraper can cast strip without center-line segregation at speeds of up to 40 m/min. The use of a copper alloy roll and the non-use of a parting material enable high-speed roll casting. Since the roll loads of these casters are smaller than 0.1 kN/mm, soft copper alloy roll can be used. The strip does not stick to the roll without the parting material because of the use of the copper alloy roll with high thermal conductivity and the small roll load. The cooling rate near the surface is higher than 2000 °C/s.
  • 973
  • 05 May 2021
Topic Review
Renewable Carbon
Renewable carbon is one of the most important materials which have been used in a wide range of applications, such as chemical catalysis, medicinal purification, environmental cleaning and metal extraction. Meanwhile, with the development of technology, the use field of renewable carbon keeps expanding to new areas, such as electrode and super-capacitors for energetic cell, as well as many other innovative industries. Similar to carbon nanotube (CNT) or graphene, it has variable characteristics of surface groups, along with high interface reactivity. These surface groups provide abundant reaction sites for chemical modification via electrostatic/van der Waals force, chemical bonding or noncovalent π-π interactions, thus imparting carbon particles with excellent natural affinity toward a large number of substrates. Moreover, the highly developed porous structure renders renewable carbon with a large range of surface area (500-3000 m2/g). It consists of thin graphite layers with exceptional mechanical strength, which highlights its great potential to be used as reinforcement agent in advanced packaging composites.
  • 958
  • 01 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Xylose Metabolism in Bacteria
Some wild-type and genetically modified bacteria can metabolize xylose through three different main pathways of metabolism: xylose isomerase pathway, oxidoreductase pathway, and non-phosphorylative pathway (including Weimberg and Dahms pathways). Two of the commercially interesting intermediates of these pathways are xylitol and xylonic acid, which can accumulate in the medium either through manipulation of the culture conditions or through genetic modification of the bacteria. 
  • 956
  • 28 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Flexible Fluxgate Sensor
Fluxgate sensors are magnetic flux density measurement instruments. They are high-accuracy direction sensitive magnetometers that include the Earth’s magnetic field in their measuring range. For this reason, they are commonly used for magnetic compass applications. Among others, many current measurement devices are based on fluxgate sensors, since they can measure DC magnetic fields as well as low-frequency AC magnetic fields.
  • 948
  • 01 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Be-Al Alloy
Be-Al alloy is a type of in situ metal matrix composite composed of a primary Be phase for strength and stiffness and a continuous Al matrix for ductility and toughness. Be-Al alloy  has the characteristics of low density (2.1-2.2 g/cm3), high elastic modulus (＞170 GPa) and specific stiffness (＞88 GPa/(g/cm3)) as a preferred material for lightweight aerospace products.
  • 943
  • 05 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Quality Control in the Resistance Spot Welding Process
Resistance spot welding (RSW) is a process characterized by its high speed and adaptability for automation that renders it suitable for mass production. 
  • 936
  • 11 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Signal Processing of Pulsed Thermography for Enhanced Detectability
Non-destructive testing (NDT) is a broad group of testing and analysis techniques used in science and industry to evaluate the properties of a material, structure, or system for characteristic defects and discontinuities without causing damage. Recently, infrared thermography is one of the most promising technologies as it can inspect a large area quickly using a non-contact and non-destructive method. Moreover, thermography testing has proved to be a valuable approach for non-destructive testing and evaluation of structural stability of materials. Pulsed thermography is one of the active thermography technologies that utilizes external energy heating. However, due to the non-uniform heating, lateral heat diffusion, environmental noise, and limited parameters of the thermal imaging system, there are some difficulties in detecting and characterizing defects.
  • 930
  • 17 Jan 2022
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