Demystifying process-level scalability challenges in fashion remanufacturing: An interdependence perspective

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to determine how process-level challenges can be solved in order improve scalability of fashion remanufacturing. In order to do so, and prescribe solutions, the paper first conducts a systematic literature review to reveal three categories of process-level challenges that are related to sourcing of input material, process throughput time, and skillset requirement. These categories further guided us in conducting case study with a Swedish charity-owned fashion remanufacturer for exploring how the challenges are addressed and solved in order to achieve process-level scalability. First, our study reveals a systematized approach to determine product-process categories defined by production volume and degree of remanufacturing. Second, by exploring the process-level challenges of six different remanufactured product groups in the case study organization we identify process-level requirements for scalability, and challenges when these are unmet. The findings show that in fashion remanufacturing (particularly disassembly and reassembly), low degree of coupling, high level of formalization of activities and low skill specificity can be ways to attain process-level scalability. Overall, this highlights the need to build lower interdependence between disassembly and reassembly during fashion remanufacturing

Effects of Vibrations on Metal Forming Process: Analytical Approach and Finite Element Simulations

Vibration assisted forming is one of the most recent and beneficial technique used to improve forming process. Effects of vibration on metal forming processes can be attributed to two causes. First, the volume effect links lowering of yield stress with the influence of vibration on the dislocation movement. Second, the surface effect explains lowering of the effective coefficient of friction by periodic reduction contact area. This work is related to vibration assisted forming process in viscoplastic domain. Impact of change in vibration waveform has been analyzed. For this purpose, two analytical models have been developed for two different types of vibration waveforms (sinusoidal and triangular). These models were developed on the basis of Slice method that is used to find out the required forming force for the process. Final relationships show that application of triangular waveform in forming process is more beneficial as compare to sinusoidal vibrations in terms of reduced forming force. Finite Element Method (FEM) based simulations were performed using Forge2008®and these confirmed the results of analytical models. The ratio of vibration speed to upper die speed is a critical factor in the reduction of the forming force.ENSA

Coupled Dynamics of Cable-Harnessed Structures: Experimental Validation

The experimental study and model validations for the coupled dynamics of a cable-harnessed beam structure are presented. The system under consideration consists of multiple pretensioned cables attached along the length of the host beam structure positioned at an offset distance from the beam centerline. Analytical model presented by the coupled partial differential equations (PDEs) for various coordinates of vibrations is found, and the displacement frequency response functions (FRFs) obtained for both Euler–Bernoulli and Timoshenko-based models are compared to those from the experiments for validation. The results are shown to be in very good agreement with the experiments.Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Grant RGPIN-2016-0485

Attenuation of Kappa-opioid receptor sensitivity changes after chronic ethanol exposure in response to voluntary exercise

Exercise has been known to help alleviate addiction for many years. This research investigates the role of exercise on the mesolimbic dopamine circuit, specifically the attenuation of Kappa-opioid receptor sensitivity and how this plays a role in ethanol addiction

1,5-Dichloro-4,8-dinitro­anthraquinone

The ring skeleton of the title compound, C14H4Cl2N2O6, is close to planar (r.m.s. deviation of the carbon atoms 0.091 Å); the nitro goups are twisted with respect to the mean plane of the ring system by 70.8 (1) and 86.7 (2)°. The crystal studied was found to be a merohedral twin, with a domain ratio of 0.61 (8):0.39 (8)

Structured linear quadratic control computations over 2D grids

In this paper, we present a structured solver based on the preconditioned conjugate gradient method (PCGM) for solving the linear quadratic (LQ) optimal control problem for $K \times N$ sub-systems connected in a two-dimensional (2D) grid structure. Our main contribution is the development of a structured preconditioner based on a fixed number of inner-outer iterations of the nested block Jacobi method. We establish that the proposed preconditioner is positive-definite. Moreover, the proposed approach retains structure in both spatial dimensions as well as in the temporal dimension of the problem. The arithmetic complexity of each PCGM step scales as $O(KNT)$, where $T$ is the length of the time horizon. The computations involved at each step of the proposed PCGM are decomposable and amenable to distributed implementation on parallel processors connected in a 2D grid structure with localized data exchange. We also provide results of numerical experiments performed on two example systems.Comment: Submitted to the 62nd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control for possible publicatio

The Role of Interior Design in Optimizing Living Space: A Case Study in Interior Arrangement and Lighting

Individual’s behavior depends on the condition of living spaces and how comfortably he is spending time including activities or doing specified tasks in that atmosphere. Interior spaces are products of our architectural point of view and our imagination. In order to form these spaces, users need to familiarize themselves with their needs and make an effort to create a space to help them reflect their inner feeling. However, there are many other factors impact on the quality of these spaces including lighting and interior arrangement. Not only do artists pay attention to their living and work spaces and intend to change it accordingly by color, material and lighting, people would prefer to make the probable changes in interior spaces in different ways as they believe the interior can represent the whole building and it is strong enough to directly impact on people’s behavior. The best and simplest way in order to see changes are to adjust the lighting and of course work on the interior arrangement. This article aims to discuss in what way users can change the aforementioned factors properly and increase the quality of their living spaces