Social impacts and life cycle assessment: proposals for methodological development for SMEs in the European food and drink sector

Purpose: Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) account for 99 % of companies operating in the European food and drink industry and, often, are part of highly fragmented and complex food chains. The article focuses on the development of a social impact assessment methodology for SMEs in selected food and drink products as part of the EU-FP7 SENSE research project. The proposed methodology employs a top-down and bottom-up approach and focuses on labour rights/working conditions along the product supply chain as the key social impact indicator, limiting key stakeholder classification to workers/employees and local communities impacted by the production process. Problems related to this emerging field are discussed, and questions for further research are expounded. Methods: The article reviews both academic and 'grey' literature on life cycle assessment (LCA) and its relationship to social LCA (S-LCA) and SMEs at the beginning of 2013 and includes case study evidence from the food sector. A pilot questionnaire survey sent to European food and drink sector SMEs and trade associations (as partners in the research project) about their knowledge, experience and engagement with social impacts is presented. Proposals are elaborated for a social impact assessment methodology that identifies the key data for SMEs to collect. Results and discussion: The literature reveals the complexity of the S-LCA approach as it aims to unite disparate and often conflicting interests. Findings from the pilot questionnaire are discussed. Using a top-down and bottom-up approach, the proposed methodology assesses data from SMEs along the supply chain in order to gauge social improvements in the management of labour-related issues for different product sectors. Issues relating to the 'attributional' choice of a social impact indicator and key stakeholder categories are discussed. How 'scoring' is interpreted and reported and what the intended effect of its use will be are also elaborated upon. Conclusions: Whilst recognising the difficulty of devising a robust social impact assessment for SMEs in the food and drink sector, it is argued that the proposed methodology makes a useful contribution in this fast-emerging field

Autonomous 3D geometry reconstruction through robot-manipulated optical sensors

Many industrial sectors face increasing production demands and the need to reduce costs, without compromising the quality. The use of robotics and automation has grown significantly in recent years, but versatile robotic manipulators are still not commonly used in small factories. Beside of the investments required to enable efficient and profitable use of robot technology, the efforts needed to program robots are only economically viable in case of large lot sizes. Generating robot programs for specific manufacturing tasks still relies on programming trajectory waypoints by hand. The use of virtual simulation software and the availability of the specimen digital models can facilitate robot programming. Nevertheless, in many cases, the virtual models are not available or there are excessive differences between virtual and real setups, leading to inaccurate robot programs and time-consuming manual corrections. Previous works have demonstrated the use of robot-manipulated optical sensors to map the geometry of samples. However, the use of simple user-defined robot paths, which are not optimized for a specific part geometry, typically causes some areas of the samples to not be mapped with the required level of accuracy or to not be sampled at all by the optical sensor. This work presents an autonomous framework to enable adaptive surface mapping, without any previous knowledge of the part geometry being transferred to the system. The novelty of this work lies in enabling the capability of mapping a part surface at the required level of sampling density, whilst minimizing the number of necessary view poses. Its development has also led to an efficient method of point cloud down-sampling and merging. The article gives an overview of the related work in the field, a detailed description of the proposed framework and a proof of its functionality through both simulated and experimental evidences

Tumor-derived GDF-15 blocks LFA-1 dependent T cell recruitment and suppresses responses to anti-PD-1 treatment

Immune checkpoint blockade therapy is beneficial and even curative for some cancer patients. However, the majority don’t respond to immune therapy. Across different tumor types, pre-existing T cell infiltrates predict response to checkpoint-based immunotherapy. Based on in vitro pharmacological studies, mouse models and analyses of human melanoma patients, we show that the cytokine GDF-15 impairs LFA-1/β2-integrin-mediated adhesion of T cells to activated endothelial cells, which is a pre-requisite of T cell extravasation. In melanoma patients, GDF-15 serum levels strongly correlate with failure of PD-1-based immune checkpoint blockade therapy. Neutralization of GDF-15 improves both T cell trafficking and therapy efficiency in murine tumor models. Thus GDF-15, beside its known role in cancer-related anorexia and cachexia, emerges as a regulator of T cell extravasation into the tumor microenvironment, which provides an even stronger rationale for therapeutic anti-GDF-15 antibody development. Experimental cancer immunology and therap

“Take me to the back, or they'll think I am not normal” - Ethical reflections on narrative research with people with dementia living in long-term care institutions

Background: Over 80% of older adults in long-term care institutions live with cognitive impairment/dementia. They represent a particularly vulnerable group, yet the perspective of people with advanced dementia has still not been sufficiently explored. These people are often excluded from research, also because of ethical and methodical issues and legal barriers. Design: In this paper we discuss ethical considerations und challenges which arise in qualitative research with people living with advanced dementia. We present ethical issues in research using a design inspired by ethnography with the aim to encourage future research in this field. Methods applied were observations, interviews and informal talks with people diagnosed with moderate and severe dementia. Two different long-term care institutions were researched: a specialized dementia-care unit and an institution based on a community- oriented household-model. Participants were older adults with dementia, and data were collected within a period of two years. Staff and next of kin were included in data collection. A thematic and narrative analysis was performed.Challenges linked to ethical and methodological issues were experienced throughout the whole research process. These included getting approval from a local ethical committee, gaining access to the field, dealing with process consent and complex qualitative analysis, representing the participant's stories in a respectful way, enabling reciprocity as well as dealing with difficult situations in long-term care and questions of the vulnerability of both the participants and the researcher. Conclusion: It is possible to include vulnerable adults living with advanced dementia in qualitative research. This should be done more extensively in order to make the experience of a group that is growing in numbers visible. Strategies of reflexivity have to be carefully planned and organized in advance because methodological and ethical aspects are strongly intertwined. In contemporary qualitative narrative research, it is recommended to not only present the participant's stories, but also the researcher's own story that exerts influence on the research process. Approaches derived from care- and process ethics as well as appreciative inquiry can provide valuable support throughout the research process