Project Summaries, 1989 - 1990

Student designs summarized here include two undergraduate space designs and five graduate space designs from fall 1989, plus four undergraduate space designs and four undergraduate aircraft designs from spring 1990. Progress in a number of programs is described. The Geostationary Satellite Servicing Facility, the Lunar Farside Observatory and Science Base, the Texas Educational Satellite, an asteroid rendezvous vehicle, a Titan probe, a subsystems commonality assessment for lunar/Mars landers, a nuclear-thermal rocket propelled Earth-Mars vehicle, and a comprehensive orbital debris management program are among the topics discussed

Conflict and error management: A case in the furniture industry

The purpose of this study is to investigate and provide tools for the furniture industry, for detecting and preventing damage from propagating errors. Many of the errors cascading in a furniture manufacturing facility are typically detected only after the original process that causes the error had already caused errors. Previous research has developed and validated theoretical methods, such as CEPD, to prevent and detect errors and conflicts. This thesis is the first effort to implement the logic of CEPD in the furniture industry. There are four relevant measures that are analyzed and improved in this thesis; they are preventability, reliability, damage, and time to completion. The study proposed an Efficient inspection assigning method that is based on Centralized and Decentralized strategy. The efficient inspection method increases performance by reducing the working time and maintains the preventability and reliability of the system. The method was validated for a case of laminating department of a furniture industry. A total of eighteen scenarios for the case were analyzed and simulated using ARENA simulation. For comparison, each simulation result scenario went through pairwise t-test. The significance test shows the new Efficient inspection method can maintain preventability and reliability with lower working time: On average, reliability was increased by 0.54% with standard deviation 0.09%; working time was reduced on averaged by 5.54% with standard deviation of 2.13%. Both improvements are directly realized by error and conflict prevention. Future research will address hybrid decentralized/centralized system optimization on performance without deteriorating reliability. Useful observations were also found that can lead to improvements in the CEPD logic

A survey on performance analysis of warehouse carousel systems

This paper gives an overview of recent research on the performance evaluation and design of carousel systems. We discuss picking strategies for problems involving one carousel, consider the throughput of the system for problems involving two carousels, give an overview of related problems in this area, and present an extensive literature review. Emphasis has been given on future research directions in this area

A synthetic library of RNA control modules for predictable tuning of gene expression in yeast

Advances in synthetic biology have resulted in the development of genetic tools that support the design of complex biological systems encoding desired functions. The majority of efforts have focused on the development of regulatory tools in bacteria, whereas fewer tools exist for the tuning of expression levels in eukaryotic organisms. Here, we describe a novel class of RNA-based control modules that provide predictable tuning of expression levels in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. A library of synthetic control modules that act through posttranscriptional RNase cleavage mechanisms was generated through an in vivo screen, in which structural engineering methods were applied to enhance the insulation and modularity of the resulting components. This new class of control elements can be combined with any promoter to support titration of regulatory strategies encoded in transcriptional regulators and thus more sophisticated control schemes. We applied these synthetic controllers to the systematic titration of flux through the ergosterol biosynthesis pathway, providing insight into endogenous control strategies and highlighting the utility of this control module library for manipulating and probing biological systems

A study of some M[x]/G/1 type queues with random breakdowns and bernouilli schedule server vacations based on a single vacation policy

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Queueing systems arise in modelling of many practical applications related to computer sciences, telecommunication networks, manufacturing and production, human computer interaction, and so on. The classical queueing system, even vacation queues or queues subject to breakdown, might not be sufficiently realistic. The purpose of this research is to extend the work done on vacation queues and on unreliable queues by studying queueing systems which take into consideration both phenomena. We study the behavior of a batch arrival queueing system with a single server, where the system is subject to random breakdowns which require a repair process, and on the other hand, the server is allowed to take a vacation after finishing a service. The breakdowns are assumed to occur while serving a customer, and when the system breaks down, it enters a repair process immediately while the customer whose service is interrupted comes back to the head of the queue waiting for the service to resume. Server vacations are assumed to follow a Bernoulli schedule under single vacation policy. We consider the above assumptions for different queueing models: queues with generalized service time, queues with two-stages of heterogeneous service, queues with a second optional service, and queues with two types of service. For all the models mentioned above, it is assumed that the service times, vacation times, and repair times all have general arbitrary distributions. Applying the supplementary variable technique, we obtain probability generating functions of queue size at a random epoch for different states of the system, and some performance measures such as the mean queue length, mean waiting time in the queue, proportion of server's idle time, and the utilization factor. The results obtained in this research, show the effect of vacation and breakdown parameters upon main performance measures of interest. These effects are also illustrated using some numerical examples and graphs.This work is funded by the Ministry of Education, Kingdom of Bahrain

A control strategy for promoting shop-floor stability

This research aimed to study real-time shop floor control problem in a manufacturing environment with dual resource (machine and labour), under impact of machine breakdowns. In this study, a multiperspective (order and resource perspectives) control strategy is proposed to improve effectiveness of dispatching procedure for promoting shop floor stability. In this control strategy, both order and resource related factors have been taken into account according to information on direct upstream and succeeding workcentres. A simulated manufacturing environment has been developed as a platform for testing and analysing performances of the proposed control strategy. A series of experiments have been carried out in a variety of system settings and conditions in the simulated manufacturing environment. The experiments have shown that the proposed control strategy outperformed the ODD (Earliest Operation Due Date) rule in hostile environments, which have been described by high level of shop load and/or high intensity of machine breakdowns. In hostile environments, the proposed control strategy has given best performance when overtime was not used, and given promising results in reduction of overtime cost when overtime was used to compensate for capacity loss. Further direction of research is also suggested

Low molecular weight ϵ-caprolactone-pcoumaric acid copolymers as potential biomaterials for skin regeneration applications

ϵ-caprolactone-p-coumaric acid copolymers at different mole ratios (ϵ-caprolactone:p-coumaric acid 1:0, 10:1, 8:1, 6:1, 4:1, and 2:1) were synthesized by melt-polycondensation and using 4-dodecylbenzene sulfonic acid as catalyst. Chemical analysis by NMR and GPC showed that copolyesters were formed with decreasing molecular weight as p-coumaric acid content was increased. Physical characteristics, such as thermal and mechanical properties, as well as water uptake and water permeability, depended on the mole fraction of pcoumaric acid. The p-coumarate repetitive units increased the antioxidant capacity of the copolymers, showing antibacterial activity against the common pathogen Escherichia coli. In addition, all the synthesized copolyesters, except the one with the highest concentration of the phenolic acid, were cytocompatible and hemocompatible, thus becoming potentially useful for skin regeneration applications