A Strategic Approach for Bottleneck Identification in Make-To-Order Environments: A Drum-Buffer-Rope Action Research Based Case Study

Purpose: This study focused on providing a strategic perspective for the selection and exploitation of bottlenecks in make-to-order production systems, a largely unexplored field in the literature. The researchers developed a systematic decision-making process that operationalized the first two stages of Goldratt’s drum-buffer-rope methodology. This process was derived from the seminal work of Goldratt, who introduced key insights from the resource-based view and practice-based view strategic perspectives. The process also included original contributions from the authors to understand which purpose should be fulfilled, what decisions should be made and how the process should be applied in an operative way. Design/methodology/approach: Given the practical nature of the research project, action research was an appropriate methodological approach, since this approach aims to contribute to academic research while solving real-world problems. Additionally, the research process complied with necessary criteria to assure the research quality required for action research. Findings: The systematic process was successfully tested by means of a case study on a make-to-order company. This case study answered the research question regarding systematically selecting and exploiting a bottleneck to enhance competitive advantage/firm performance. Originality/value: The key contributions focused on the make-to-order environment and were as it follows: (1) four specific criteria to select the bottleneck, far beyond a load versus capacity perspective (i.e., a strategic perspective inspired by the main concepts of the resource-based view regarding the contribution of strategic resources to sustain competitive advantage). A first case study presenting a partial version of this contribution has been discussed on a previous publication of the authors (Lizarralde, Apaolaza, & Mediavilla, 2019b), which describes the case of production plant of a company dedicated to producing steel tubes by extrusion; (2) a detailed discussion on how to exploit the bottleneck aligned with the practice-based view, which recognised that practices could provide superior performance to organisations; and (3) an overarching systematic process that enables an operative deployment in the specific steps to select strategically the bottleneck and exploit this constraint according to some of Goldratt’s seminal proposals

Reliable and Low-Power Communications System Based on IR-UWB for Offshore Wind Turbines

In this paper, we propose the design of a low-power wireless sensor network architecture that enables robust communications inside offshore wind turbines. This research work is in the scope of the WATEREYE EU Project, where we have designed a corrosion monitoring solution to work unattended. The architecture is composed of several fixed sensor nodes, one mobile sensor node, several anchors and the WATEREYE Computer (WEC). Our approach is based on Impulse Radio Ultra wideband (IR-UWB) technology offering reliable and low-power communications in these harsh environments. On top of that, we propose a double star network using two UWB channels for the following purposes: one network for communications to send the sensor data and another one for ranging estimations to calculate the indoor positioning of the mobile sensor node. The power strategies applied to our system, at Hardware (HW) and Firmware (FW) levels, are described in detail. Furthermore, we present power consumption measurements obtaining the power profiles and the autonomy of the most important components of the proposed architecture supplied by battery. On the other hand, we describe the methodology to analyze the range, reliability and continuity of the two UWB links providing the packet loss and gaps as a function of distance. The proposed communications system has been validated in three different scenarios considering two of them very hostile environments. Furthermore, one of the scenarios is a real offshore wind turbine

Ardiaren ehun desberdinetan karakterizatutako eta kuantifikatutako miRNAen adierazpenaren banaketaren azterketa

[EUS] MicroRNAk (miRNAk) 22 base-pare inguruko RNA ez-kodetzaile txikiak dira eta prozesu biologiko gehienen erregulazioan parte hartzen dute. Etxe-abereekin lan egitean miRNAk oso erabilgarriak izan daitezke osasun egoeraren bioindikatzaile bezala edo hazkuntza programetan intereseko fenotipoen hautaketarako markatzaile bezala. Ardian ehun desberdinetako miRNAen adierazpena ikertu den arren ez da ehun asko biltzen dituen lan integraturik egin eta lan mota horiek garrantzitsuak dira miRNA ehun espezifikoak identifikatzeko eta ehunetako miRNAen adierazpenaren ikuspegi globalago bat izateko. Hori dela eta, lan honetan datu-baseetan aurkitutako ardiaren 15 lan desberdinetako 152 miRNA-seq lagin gordin bildu eta 19 ehunetan sailkatu ditugu. MiRNA berriak aurresan eta ezagunekin batera kuantifikatu ditugu miRDeep2 programaren bidez. Prozesu eta analisi guztiak programa informatiko, metodologia eta genoma berdinarekin burutu dira, datuak era konparagarri eta uniformean aztertu ahal izateko. MiRNA ehun espezifikoak identifikatzeko tau izeneko ehun espezifitate indizea (EEI) erabili dugu. Aztertutako ehunen miRNAen adierazpenaren portzentajerik handiena miRNA gutxi batzuek hartzen dutela eta, batzuetan, miRNA bakar batek har dezakeela ikusi dugu. Baita ere ehunetako miRNA adierazienek ziklo zelularraren erregulazioan parte hartzen dutela ikusi dugu eta, orokorrean, ehun espezifikotasun baxua izan dutela. Ehun askotan miRNA adieraziena mir-143 izan da, ziklo zelularraren erregulazioan parte hartzen duena eta miRNA adierazienen artean EEI baxuena izan duena. Horrez gain, identifikaturiko miRNA ehun espezifiko batzuk beste espezie batzuetan ere miRNA ehun espezifiko bezala identifikatu direla ikusi da. Bestalde, lan desberdinetan erabilitako metodoak edo ardi arrazak ehun jakin bateko miRNAen adierazpenean desberdintasun nabariak eragin ditzakeela ikusi dugu eta datu-base eguneratu eta fidagarrien eskuragarritasunak duen garrantzia agerian geratu da. Azkenik, lan honek identifikaturiko miRNAek ehun desberdinetan zehar duten adierazpen profila erakutsi du lehen aldiz ardian.[EN] MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small noncoding RNAs of about 22 base pairs that play multiple roles in regulating most biological processes. MiRNAs can be very useful in livestock as animal health biomarkers or as markers of phenotypes of interest during the process of genomic selection in breeding programs. Although studies have been carried out on the expression of miRNAs in different tissues of the sheep, there has not been a study that integrates many tissues of the sheep and this type of work is very important to identify tissue-specific miRNAs and to have a global approach of the expression of miRNA across tissues. Therefore, in this work we have collected 152 miRNA-seq raw samples of 15 different works from databases and classified them into 19 tissues. We have predicted novel miRNAs and quantified them together with known miRNAs using miRDeep2. All processes and analyses have been done using the same computer programs, methodology and genome, to analyze data in a comparable and uniform way. To identify the tissue-specific miRNAs we have used a tissue specificity index (TSI) called tau. We have seen that the expression in the tissues we have studied is dominated by a few miRNAs, with a single miRNA dominating in some tissues. We have also seen that the more expressed miRNAs have a role in cell cycle regulation and generally present a lower TSI. MiR-143 has been the most expressed miRNA in various tissues, which has a role in cell cycle regulation and has presented the lowest TSI. Furthermore, some of the tissue-specific miRNAs identified in this work have also been identified as tissue-specific miRNA in other species. On the other hand, we have seen that the methods or sheep breeds used in different works can cause differences in miRNAs expression in a given tissue and the importance of accessibility to updated and reliable databases has been seen. Lastly, this work has shown for the first time the expression profile of the identified miRNAs across different tissues in sheep

Reliable and Low-Power Communications System Based on IR-UWB for Offshore Wind Turbines

In this paper, we propose the design of a low-power wireless sensor network architecture that enables robust communications inside offshore wind turbines. This research work is in the scope of the WATEREYE EU Project, where we have designed a corrosion monitoring solution to work unattended. The architecture is composed of several fixed sensor nodes, one mobile sensor node, several anchors and the WATEREYE Computer (WEC). Our approach is based on Impulse Radio Ultra wideband (IR-UWB) technology offering reliable and low-power communications in these harsh environments. On top of that, we propose a double star network using two UWB channels for the following purposes: one network for communications to send the sensor data and another one for ranging estimations to calculate the indoor positioning of the mobile sensor node. The power strategies applied to our system, at Hardware (HW) and Firmware (FW) levels, are described in detail. Furthermore, we present power consumption measurements obtaining the power profiles and the autonomy of the most important components of the proposed architecture supplied by battery. On the other hand, we describe the methodology to analyze the range, reliability and continuity of the two UWB links providing the packet loss and gaps as a function of distance. The proposed communications system has been validated in three different scenarios considering two of them very hostile environments. Furthermore, one of the scenarios is a real offshore wind turbine

The sheep miRNAome: Characterization and distribution of miRNAs in 21 tissues

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are evolutionarily conserved small non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression. In livestock species, miRNAs also show great potential as biomarkers for animal health and product quality. In sheep, few miRNAs have been described in comparison with other livestock species or model organisms. We uniformly analyzed 172 public ovine small RNA sequencing datasets from 21 different tissues in order to predict conserved and novel miRNA precursors and profile their expression patterns. In addition to the 106 annotated sheep miRNAs, 1047 previously unannotated miRNA precursor sequences were detected and 41 % of them were assigned an orthologue from other close species. Considering expression levels, a set of miRNAs with high sequence conservation were detected in all tissues, while 733 mature miRNAs were robustly expressed in at least one tissue. 270 miRNAs showed high tissue specificity index values. Brain, male reproductive tissues and PBMCs showed the most distinct expression patterns. Strikingly, over one hundred precursors from the ruminant specific family of mir-2284/mir-2285 miRNAs were found, which were enriched in immune related tissues. This work supports the known high conservation of many miRNAs, but also highlights the potential of clade-specific innovations in ruminant evolution.This research was supported by the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) by means of grants PPGA18/11 and GIU20/071 to B.M.J. and predoctoral fellowships to M.B-A. (PIF17/ 306) and E.V-M. (PIF15/361)