Designing sustainable cold chains for long-range food distribution: Energy-effective corridors on the Silk Road Belt

Modern food production-distribution processes represent a critical stressor for the environment and for natural ecosystems. The rising flows of food across growing and consumption areas couple with the higher expectations of consumers for the quality of products and compel the intensive use of refrigerated rooms and transport means throughout the food supply chain. In order to aid the design of sustainable cold chains that incorporate such aspects, this paper proposes a mixed integer linear programming model to minimize the total energy consumption associated with the cold operations experienced by perishable products. This model is intended for food traders, logistics practitioners, retail managers, and importers collaboratively called to design and plan a cost and environmentally effective supply strategy, physical channels, and infrastructures for cold chains. The proposed model is validated with a case study inspired by the distribution of two example food products, namely fresh apples and ice cream, along the New Silk Road connecting Europe and China. The illustrated analysis investigates the effect of alternative routes and transport modes on the sustainability of the cold chain. It is found that the most energy-efficient route for ice cream is via rail over a northern route and, for apples, is via a southern maritime route, and, for these two routes, the ratios of the total energy consumed to the energy content of the food are 760 and 913, respectively. By incorporating the energy lost due to the food quality decay, the model identifies the optimal route to adopt in accordance with the shelf life and the conservation temperature of each product

Home automation and simulation of presence in empty environments

Since their humble beginnings at the dawn of the 20th Century until contemporary age, automation and control systems have grown exponentially in both complexity and importance. Its relevance on human activities, be they mundane tasks or crucial processes, is self-evident. Among its many utilities, automated systems acquire a noble mission when put in service to protect life and property from aggressors of any kind. This paper discusses how home automation components can be utilized to implement an alternative domestic security strategy that consists in simulating the presence of an individual in an empty environment in the absence of its owner in order dissuade potential trespassing criminals, once they would feel highly discouraged to carry the criminal act should they believe the property is occupied

The metalanguage of the conquest: christian rhetoric and the fracture of the indigenous voices

El artículo trata de la vida en el Tawantinsuyo y del caos instaurado con la muerte de Atahuallpa (1533) en manos de los conquistadores españoles. A partir de los cronistas Titu Cussi Yupanqui, Guamán Poma de Ayalay Garcilaso de la Vega, formulamos un análisis sobre el desconcierto del pueblo Quechua por la pérdida de su líder y el proceso de aculturación instaurado por los españoles, en un intento (frustrado) de borrar el legado cultural de los Incas.The present article deals with life in Tawantinsuyo and the chaos after the murder of Atahuallpa (1533) by the Spanish conquerors. On the basis of chronicles by Titu Cussi Yupanqui, Guamán Poma de Ayala and Garcilaso de la Vega, we analyze the discomfiture of the Quechua people due to the loss of their leader and the process of acculturation established by the Spaniards in their (failed) attempt to efface the cultural legacy of the Incas

FORTES: Forensic Information Flow Analysis of Business Processes

Nearly 70% of all business processes in use today rely on automated workflow systems for their execution. Despite the growing expenses in the design of advanced tools for secure and compliant deployment of workflows, an exponential growth of dependability incidents persists. Concepts beyond access control focusing on information flow control offer new paradigms to design security mechanisms for reliable and secure IT-based workflows. This talk presents FORTES, an approach for the forensic analysis of information flow properties. FORTES claims that information flow control can be made usable as a core of an audit-control system. For this purpose, it reconstructs workflow models from secure log files (i.e. execution traces) and, applying security policies, analyzes the information flows to distinguish security relevant from security irrelevant information flows. FORTES thus cannot prevent security policy violations, but by detecting them with well-founded analysis, improve the precision of audit controls and the generated certificates

Les difficultés rencontrées lors de la mise en place d'un système HSE sur de petits sites industriels

Le système de management de l'hygiène, de la sécurité et de l'environnement que nous avons aidé à mettre en place est issu d'une collaboration fructueuse entre ELF ATOCHEM et l'INERIS. L'objectif visé était de réaliser un système qui ne serait pas trop lourd, car prévu pour de petits sites industriels (20 à 300 personnes), et serait compatible avec l'ISO 14 001 et la Directive SEVESO II. Un référentiel HSE a été calqué sur la structure de l'ISO 14001, afin de bénéficier de la réactivation issue de la Revue de Direction annuelle, qui relance la boucle de l'amélioration continue PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act, soit : planifier, faire, vérifier, agir). A partir d'un référentiel HSE, calqué sur la structure de l'ISO 14 001, d'un guide d'application, et de leurs pratiques existantes, les différents sites pilotes se sont mis d'accord au cours de réunions plénières sur les diverses actions à mettre en oeuvre pour répondre aux différents chapitres du référentiel, sur les documents du système et sur leur contenu. La synthèse de ces décisions a été réalisée sous la forme d'un guide opérationnel

Synthesis and biological evaluation of pentafluorophosphates as amphiphilic non-cleavable phosphatase inhibitors

The aim of this work was the identification and the subsequent fine tuning of a convenient synthetic route from commercially available phenylalanine to pentafluorophosphates, as well as the incorporation of these fluorine-rich, amphiphilic phosphotyrosine mimetics in peptides. Although acid sensibility of pentafluorophosphates hampered the identification of a protocol compatible with solid phase peptide synthesis (SPPS), this was ultimately achieved using an excess of fluorides that allowed the synthesis of mono and bivalent model peptides. After the synthesis on solid support, the determination of the inhibitory potential against protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B) was determined in a photometric assay. Furthermore, in a joint research work it was possible to further investigate properties and potential of this moiety, including the crystal structure and the lipophilicity of the first pentafluorinated amino acid

Integrated Models and Tools for Design and Management of Global Supply Chain

In modern and global supply chain, the increasing trend toward product variety, level of service, short delivery delay and response time to consumers, highlight the importance to set and configure smooth and efficient logistic processes and operations. In order to comply such purposes the supply chain management (SCM) theory entails a wide set of models, algorithms, procedure, tools and best practices for the design, the management and control of articulated supply chain networks and logistics nodes. The purpose of this Ph.D. dissertation is going in detail on the principle aspects and concerns of supply chain network and warehousing systems, by proposing and illustrating useful methods, procedures and support-decision tools for the design and management of real instance applications, such those currently face by enterprises. In particular, after a comprehensive literature review of the principal warehousing issues and entities, the manuscript focuses on design top-down procedure for both less-than-unit-load OPS and unit-load storage systems. For both, decision-support software platforms are illustrated as useful tools to address the optimization of the warehousing performances and efficiency metrics. The development of such interfaces enables to test the effectiveness of the proposed hierarchical top-down procedure with huge real case studies, taken by industry applications. Whether the large part of the manuscript deals with micro concerns of warehousing nodes, also macro issues and aspects related to the planning, design, and management of the whole supply chain are enquired and discussed. The integration of macro criticalities, such as the design of the supply chain infrastructure and the placement of the logistic nodes, with micro concerns, such the design of warehousing nodes and the management of material handling, is addressed through the definition of integrated models and procedures, involving the overall supply chain and the whole product life cycle. A new integrated perspective should be applied in study and planning of global supply chains. Each aspect of the reality influences the others. Each product consumed by a customer tells a story, made by activities, transformations, handling, processes, traveling around the world. Each step of this story accounts costs, time, resources exploitation, labor, waste, pollution. The economical and environmental sustainability of the modern global supply chain is the challenge to face

3D-printed coded apertures for x-ray backscatter radiography

Copyright 2017 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modification of the content of the paper are prohibited.Many different mask patterns can be used for X-ray backscatter imaging using coded apertures, which can find application in the medical, industrial and security sectors. While some of these patterns may be considered to have a self-supporting structure, this is not the case for some of the most frequently used patterns such as uniformly redundant arrays or any pattern with a high open fraction. This makes mask construction difficult and usually requires a compromise in its design by drilling holes or adopting a no two holes touching version of the original pattern. In this study, this compromise was avoided by 3D printing a support structure that was then filled with a radiopaque material to create the completed mask. The coded masks were manufactured using two different methods, hot cast and cold cast. Hot casting involved casting a bismuth alloy at 80°C into the 3D printed acrylonitrile butadiene styrene mould which produced an absorber with density of 8.6 g cm-3. Cold casting was undertaken at room temperature, when a tungsten/epoxy composite was cast into a 3D printed polylactic acid mould. The cold cast procedure offered a greater density of around 9.6 to 10 g cm-3 and consequently greater X-ray attenuation. It was also found to be much easier to manufacture and more cost effective. A critical review of the manufacturing procedure is presented along with some typical images. In both cases the 3D printing process allowed square apertures to be created avoiding their approximation by circular holes when conventional drilling is used

Fingerprinting Wolframite: An Atomic/crystallographic, Chemical And Spectroscopic Study Along The Solid Solution Series

In accordance with the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, conflict minerals refer to gold, tantalum, tin, and tungsten bearing minerals sourced from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that have been mined illegally and used to funnel funds to rebel forces. In response to an increasing demand for these metals used in cellphones, computers, and other popular technologies, Dodd-Frank mandates that industrial consumers demonstrate due diligence and assure that the materials they use have been extracted legally. Because current chain-of-custody methods have not been effective in sourcing ores, a study was undertaken whereby the range of mineralogical characteristics of 15 samples along the wolframite solid solution series were determined in order to ascertain if differences in these characteristics would permit fingerprinting of the source deposit of wolframite, of which the DRC is the world\u27s fifth largest producer. For these 15 samples, single-crystal X-ray structure and powder X-ray diffraction studies have been conducted; major, minor and trace element chemistry has been determined using ICP-MS and ICP-OES; and Raman spectroscopy has been carried out. Finally, statistical methods were used to determine relationships between samples, and the results of that mathematical work show that there is no firm method at the present time of determining the provenance of a sample based on the information of the crystal structure, diffraction patterns, vibrational frequencies/scattering, or major and trace elemental chemistry. This study elucidates the range of mineralogical properties along the hübnerite-ferberite solid solution series while working towards to development of an analytical technique that is affordable, practical, accessible and effective for industrial consumers seeking product certification and compliance with the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act

Characterizing and targeting fibrosis in a model of Lama2-related muscular dystrophy

Laminin-deficient congenital muscular dystrophy 1A (MDC1A) is the second most prevalent congenital muscular dystrophy (CMD) and is due to a defect in the alpha chain of the basement membrane protein laminin-211. This protein serves as the vital link between the muscle cell membrane (sarcolemma) and the extracellular matrix (ECM) via interactions with integrins and a-dystroglycan. Loss of laminin results in impaired myofiber anchoring, structural instability, and a multitude of dysregulated signaling pathways leading to many devastating secondary pathologies. Much of the work to date has focused on studying pathology at the end-stages of disease in mouse models. However, because this is a congenital disease that presents at/soon after birth, the most relevant time periods of study are those that most closely reflect human disease, early development. This thesis will characterize dysregulated pathways throughout development and into end-stage pathology as well as elucidate amelioration of these pathways due to intervention and applicable non-invasive biomeasures to track therapeutic progress. Because this work focuses on secondary manifestations of pathology, the work outlined in this thesis has the potential to be applied to an array of neurodegenerative diseases that are currently without any form of treatment