Simuleringsanalys för produktionshöjande åtgärder på SCA Cellplast

För en tid sedan så bestämde sig SCA Cellplast, som producerar cellplast huvudsakligen till förpackningar, för att lägga ner en av sina tre fabriker i Sverige. Syftet med detta var att man skulle få bättre kostnadseffektivitet i sin produktion. Som en konsekvens av detta så flyttades ett antal maskiner ner till SCA Cellplasts fabrik i Värnamo, en fabrik som till följd av detta blev väldigt trång och fick en försämrad leveransprecision. Man kontaktade med anledning av problemen som uppstod institutionen för förpackningslogistik vid LTH med ett förslag på ett examensarbete för att utreda dessa. Efter att ha besökt fabriken i Värnamo och pratat med SCA Cellplasts VD Magnus Carlsson och vår handledare Ola Johansson på institutionen för förpackningslogistik vid LTH så bestämde vi oss för att genomföra en simuleringsstudie av produktionen för att kunna öka produktionsvolymen med ca femton procent. Studiens fokus ligger på att identifiera flaskhalsar i produktionen och att undersöka hur dessa kan elimineras och huruvida maskinkapaciteten kan medge den efterfrågade ökningen i produktionsvolym. Förutom detta så har vi undersökt vad som händer då man minskar ställtiderna som i dagsläget både är stora och varierar kraftigt. Om man minskar dessa och dess varians så kan man öka flexibiliteten i produktionen avsevärt och kan arbeta mera enligt den japanska produktionsfilosofin. Våra resultat tyder på att man mycket väl med bibehållen maskinpark kan uppnå en femtonprocentig ökning av produktionsvolymen. Men det krävs en del åtgärder från SCA's sida. Man måste komma till rätta med den stora varians som idag finns i produktionen och det bästa sättet att komma till rätta med det problemet är att i en högre grad dokumentera avvikelserna och förbättra rutinerna. Dessutom så bör man förbättra rutinerna vid verktygsbyten i maskinerna. På så vis kan man få ner ställtiderna

Assistive technology use is associated with reduced capability poverty: a cross-sectional study in Bangladesh.

Purpose: About half of all people with disabilities in developing countries live in extreme poverty. Focusing on the ends rather than the economic means of human development, the capability approach offers an alternative view of poverty. The purpose of this study was to explore the relation between assistive technology use and capability poverty in a low-income country. Method: Self-reported data on food intake, health care, education, politics, self-determination, self-respect, family relationships and friendships were collected in Bangladesh through interviews of people with hearing impairments using and not using hearings aids, and people with ambulatory impairments using and not using manual wheelchairs (N = 583). Differences in outcomes between users and non-users of assistive technology were analyzed using logistic regression. Results: Assistive technology users were more likely than non-users to report enhanced capabilities, hearing aid users to a larger extent than wheelchair users. Synergistic effects between assistive technology use and education were found. Conclusion: The use of assistive technology is predictive of reduced capability poverty in Bangladesh. Lack of wheelchair accessibility and the nature of selected outcomes may explain the limited association in the ambulatory group. Enhancing the effects of the other, there is support for providing education in combination with hearing aids

European Reference Network for Critical Infrastructure Protection: - Novel Detection Technologies for Nuclear Security

Radiation detectors are used in nuclear security to detect nuclear and other radioactive materials out of regulatory control. In nuclear security, both the operational environment and detector technologies are constantly evolving. This document provides an overview on recent development on radiation detection technologies that are likely to have an impact on nuclear security in the near future. The four main topics covered are: detectors for gamma-ray spectrometry, neutron detectors, data acquisition and source localisation. This document will be published together with another report that concentrates on the impact of novel detection technologies from operational point of view. Therefore, the focus of this document is on technical aspects of the technologies.JRC.E.2-Technology Innovation in Securit

Ergo, SMIRK is Safe: A Safety Case for a Machine Learning Component in a Pedestrian Automatic Emergency Brake System

Integration of Machine Learning (ML) components in critical applications introduces novel challenges for software certification and verification. New safety standards and technical guidelines are under development to support the safety of ML-based systems, e.g., ISO 21448 SOTIF for the automotive domain and the Assurance of Machine Learning for use in Autonomous Systems (AMLAS) framework. SOTIF and AMLAS provide high-level guidance but the details must be chiseled out for each specific case. We report results from an industry-academia collaboration on safety assurance of SMIRK, an ML-based pedestrian automatic emergency braking demonstrator running in an industry-grade simulator. We present the outcome of applying AMLAS on SMIRK for a minimalistic operational design domain, i.e., a complete safety case for its integrated ML-based component. Finally, we report lessons learned and provide both SMIRK and the safety case under an open-source licence for the research community to reuse.Comment: Under revie

High-resolution genomic and expression analyses of copy number alterations in HER2-amplified breast cancer

To access publisher full text version of this article. Please click on the hyperlink in Additional Links fieldINTRODUCTION: HER2 gene amplification and protein overexpression (HER2+) define a clinically challenging subgroup of breast cancer with variable prognosis and response to therapy. Although gene expression profiling has identified an ERBB2 molecular subtype of breast cancer, it is clear that HER2+ tumors reside in all molecular subtypes and represent a genomically and biologically heterogeneous group, needed to be further characterized in large sample sets. METHODS: Genome-wide DNA copy number profiling, using bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH), and global gene expression profiling were performed on 200 and 87 HER2+ tumors, respectively. Genomic Identification of Significant Targets in Cancer (GISTIC) was used to identify significant copy number alterations (CNAs) in HER2+ tumors, which were related to a set of 554 non-HER2 amplified (HER2-) breast tumors. High-resolution oligonucleotide aCGH was used to delineate the 17q12-q21 region in high detail. RESULTS: The HER2-amplicon was narrowed to an 85.92 kbp region including the TCAP, PNMT, PERLD1, HER2, C17orf37 and GRB7 genes, and higher HER2 copy numbers indicated worse prognosis. In 31% of HER2+ tumors the amplicon extended to TOP2A, defining a subgroup of HER2+ breast cancer associated with estrogen receptor-positive status and with a trend of better survival than HER2+ breast cancers with deleted (18%) or neutral TOP2A (51%). HER2+ tumors were clearly distinguished from HER2- tumors by the presence of recurrent high-level amplifications and firestorm patterns on chromosome 17q. While there was no significant difference between HER2+ and HER2- tumors regarding the incidence of other recurrent high-level amplifications, differences in the co-amplification pattern were observed, as shown by the almost mutually exclusive occurrence of 8p12, 11q13 and 20q13 amplification in HER2+ tumors. GISTIC analysis identified 117 significant CNAs across all autosomes. Supervised analyses revealed: (1) significant CNAs separating HER2+ tumors stratified by clinical variables, and (2) CNAs separating HER2+ from HER2- tumors. CONCLUSIONS: We have performed a comprehensive survey of CNAs in HER2+ breast tumors, pinpointing significant genomic alterations including both known and potentially novel therapeutic targets. Our analysis sheds further light on the genomically complex and heterogeneous nature of HER2+ tumors in relation to other subgroups of breast cancer

Is centre-based provision of hearing aids better than community-based provision? A cluster-randomized trial among adolescents in Bangladesh

Purpose: In response to the need for hearing aids in low-income countries, an approach to provide hearing aids through trained community workers was developed. This study compares the effectiveness of the community-based approach with that of a centre-based approach. Methods: One hundred and forty adolescents (56% girls; 12–18 years; mean: 15 years) from eleven sub-districts participated in a cluster-randomized trial comparing a community-based service (n = 75) with a centre-based service (n = 65) in Bangladesh. The International Outcome Inventory for Hearing Aids (IOI-HA) was administered to the participants six weeks after fitting of a hearing aid, and its scores were analyzed by Mann–Whitney U-tests and an ordinal regression model. Results: The community-based approach performed as well as the centre-based approach on five out of seven outcome measures. The latter approach performed statistically significantly better on Residual participation restrictions (p = .007) and Impact on others (p = .012), but the effect sizes were small. Controlling for sex, age, hearing loss, place of living and proxy responses did not change the results. Conclusions: The community-based approach is a viable and effective option for hearing aid delivery in low-resourced settings. The approach needs to be adapted to particular contexts, and possible down-sides may need to be counteracted by special interventions.Implications for RehabilitationHearing aid use can contribute to improved activity, participation and quality of life among adolescents in low-income countries.Community-based approaches to delivering hearing aids can be viable and effective options to centre-based services

Users' perspectives on the provision of assistive technologies in Bangladesh: awareness, providers, costs and barriers.

Abstracts Purpose: The purpose of this work was to contribute to a better understanding of challenges and solutions to equitable provision of assistive technologies in resource limited environments by (i) describing sources of awareness, types of providers and costs of assistive technologies; (ii) describing common reasons for not possessing assistive technologies; and (iii) comparing these sources, providers, costs and reasons among younger and older men and women living in urban and rural settings. Methods: Descriptive and analytic statistics were used to analyze cross-sectional data from a total sample of 581 hearing aid users, wheelchair users, individuals with hearing impairments not using hearing aids and individuals with ambulatory impairments not using wheelchairs living in eight districts of Bangladesh. Results: Major sources of awareness, types of providers and costs paid varied between users of different types of assistive technology. Lack of affordability was the main reason for not possessing assistive technology. Outcome differences were found between younger and older groups, men and women, and literate and illiterate respondents, while no differences related to place of living were identified. Conclusions: Age, gender, type of impairment and socioeconomic status need to be considered when planning and implementing equitable provision of assistive technologies. Implications for Rehabilitation Provision of assistive technologies needs to be made affordable as lack of affordability was the major reason for not possessing such technologies. To ensure equitable provision of assistive technology, services ought to consider age, gender, impairment and socioeconomic status of their target groups. This includes offering a range of products of different sizes provided by culturally appropriate personnel at affordable cost, which to many may be at no or reduced cost. To cater to the assistive technology needs among the most vulnerable groups, assistive technology providers may learn from CBR strategies, such as, awareness raising and service delivery at community level, the use of local resources, collaboration and coordination, and the consideration of cultural factors

The right to assistive technology: for whom, for what, and by whom?

Despite its facilitating role in creating opportunities for people with disabilities to exercise human rights, access to assistive technology is limited in many countries. It is therefore promising that the Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) addresses this area. The purpose of this study was to analyse the assistive technology content of the CRPD from a basic human rights perspective in order to clarify its limitations and opportunities for formulation of policies and implementation strategies. Data were collected through a content analysis of the CRPD. It is concluded that a non-discriminatory interpretation of the provisions entitles all people with disabilities to a right to demand available and affordable assistive technology. Ensuring this right is a national as well as an international responsibility

Is ‘legal empowerment of the poor’ relevant to people with disabilities in developing countries? : An empirical and normative review

Background: Legal empowerment of the poor is highly relevant to public health as it aims to relieve income poverty, a main determinant of health. The Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (CLEP) has proposed legal empowerment measures in the following four domains: access to justice and the rule of law, property, labor, and business rights. Despite being overrepresented among the poor, CLEP has not explicitly considered the situation of people with disabilities. Objectives: To examine the empirical evidence for the relevance of the CLEP legal empowerment measures to people with disabilities in low-and lower middle-income countries, and to evaluate the extent to which the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) addresses those measures. Methods: Critical literature review of empirical studies and a checklist assessment of the CRPD. Results: Fourteen included articles confirm that people with disabilities experience problems in the domains of access to justice and the rule of law, labor rights, and business rights. No texts on property rights were found. Evidence for the effectiveness of the proposed measures is insufficient. Overall, the CRPD fully or partially supports two-thirds of the proposed measures (seven out of nine measures for access to justice and the rule of law, none of the five measures for property rights, all seven measures for labor rights, and six out of nine measures for business rights). Conclusions: Although most of the domains of the CLEP legal empowerment measures are relevant to people with disabilities from both empirical and normative perspectives, it is uncertain whether the devised measures are of immediate relevance to them. Further research is warranted in this regard

Do Assistive Products Enhance or Equalize Opportunities? : A Comparison of Capability across Persons with Impairments Using and Not Using Assistive Products and Persons without Impairments in Bangladesh

Aiming to compare capability across persons with impairments using and not using assistive products and persons without impairments in Bangladesh for 16 different functionings, we contrast two sets of self-reported cross-sectional data from eight districts of Bangladesh: (i) data from persons with hearing impairment not using hearing aids, persons with hearing impairment using hearing aids and persons without impairments (N = 572); and (ii) data from persons with ambulatory impairment not using manual wheelchairs, persons with ambulatory impairment using manual wheelchairs and persons without impairments (N = 598). Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to compare levels of capability across the three groups in each data set. Results showed that, for all functionings in both data sets, the levels of capability were statistically significantly highest for persons without impairments. Compared to persons with hearing impairment not using hearing aids, persons with hearing impairment using hearing aids scored higher in all functionings, with statistical significance at the .05 level for 12 of them. Persons with ambulatory impairment using manual wheelchairs scored higher than persons with ambulatory impairment not using manual wheelchairs for 11 of the functionings, but none of the comparisons between the two groups were significant at the .05 level. Assistive products-hearing aids more than manual wheelchairs-enhance capabilities but do not fully equalize opportunities between people with and without impairments