Effizienzsteigerung entlang der Wertschöpfungskette Schweinefleisch in China : das Potential der Schlachtschweine-Klassifizierung

Seit langem verdient die chinesische Schweineindustrie wegen der weltweit größten Produktions- sowie Verbrauchsmenge besondere Beachtung. Aber es gibt noch ungelöste Probleme in Bezug auf die Qualität der Schlachtschweine und die Effizienz in der Produktion. Um die effektiven Lösungen zu finden wurde zuerst die Struktur der Wertschöpfungskette Schweinefleisch analysiert und dabei die wichtigsten Erfolgsfaktoren durch SWOT-Analyse und eine Befragung identifiziert. Hieraus wurde eine Methodik zur Effizienzsteigerung der Wertschöpfungskette abgeleitet – Klassifizierung. Als Empfehlungsmethode wurde in dieser Arbeit eine praktische Zulassungsprüfung für ein Klassifizierungsverfahren beispielhaft vorgestellt. Im Ergebnis ist es gelungen, einen passenden Vergütungsmechanismus mithilfe eines gemeinschaftlichen Klassifizierungssystems für Schweineschlachtkörper zu entwickeln, um die Effizienzsteigerung entlang der Wertschöpfungskette Schweinefleisch zu fördern.For a long time, China is the largest pork producer and consumer in the world, and it has deserved special attention. However, there are also some unresolved issues, which is in relation to quality of hogs and pork production efficiency. Therefore, an analysis of the structure of Chinese pork value china was firstly carried out and after that the most important success factors were also identified by SWOT-Analysis and a questionnaire survey. From this, a methodology for efficiency improvement along the value chain was derived – classification. As a recommendation method for China and the Chinese pork industry, the practical approval classification test was also presented in this paper. As result, it is possible to build a more acceptable compensation mechanism using a common classification system for pig carcass, which can promote efficiency improvement along the value chain pork in China

Improving Tolerance Control On Modular Construction Project With 3D Laser Scanning and Bim: A Case Study of Removable Floodwall Project

Quality control is essential to a successful modular construction project and should be enhanced throughout the project from design to construction and installation. The current methods for analyzing the assembly quality of a removable floodwall heavily rely on manual inspection and contact-type measurements, which are time-consuming and costly. This study presents a systematic and practical approach to improve quality control of the prefabricated modular construction projects by integrating building information modeling (BIM) with three-dimensional (3D) laser scanning technology. The study starts with a thorough literature review of current quality control methods in modular construction. Firstly, the critical quality control procedure for the modular construction structure and components should be identified. Secondly, the dimensions of the structure and components in a BIM model is considered as quality tolerance control benchmarking. Thirdly, the point cloud data is captured with 3D laser scanning, which is used to create the as-built model for the constructed structure. Fourthly, data analysis and field validation are carried out by matching the point cloud data with the as-built model and the BIM model. Finally, the study employs the data of a removable floodwall project to validate the level of technical feasibility and accuracy of the presented methods. This method improved the efficiency and accuracy of modular construction quality control. It established a preliminary foundation for using BIM and laser scanning to conduct quality control in removable floodwall installation. The results indicated that the proposed integration of BIM and 3D laser scanning has great potential to improve the quality control of a modular construction project

CityFlow: A Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Environment for Large Scale City Traffic Scenario

Traffic signal control is an emerging application scenario for reinforcement learning. Besides being as an important problem that affects people's daily life in commuting, traffic signal control poses its unique challenges for reinforcement learning in terms of adapting to dynamic traffic environment and coordinating thousands of agents including vehicles and pedestrians. A key factor in the success of modern reinforcement learning relies on a good simulator to generate a large number of data samples for learning. The most commonly used open-source traffic simulator SUMO is, however, not scalable to large road network and large traffic flow, which hinders the study of reinforcement learning on traffic scenarios. This motivates us to create a new traffic simulator CityFlow with fundamentally optimized data structures and efficient algorithms. CityFlow can support flexible definitions for road network and traffic flow based on synthetic and real-world data. It also provides user-friendly interface for reinforcement learning. Most importantly, CityFlow is more than twenty times faster than SUMO and is capable of supporting city-wide traffic simulation with an interactive render for monitoring. Besides traffic signal control, CityFlow could serve as the base for other transportation studies and can create new possibilities to test machine learning methods in the intelligent transportation domain.Comment: WWW 2019 Demo Pape

Enhanced high-temperature mechanical properties and strengthening mechanisms of chemically prepared nano-TiC reinforced IN738LC via laser powder bed fusion

Fabrication of high-strength nickel-based composites to meet the demanding service requirements in aerospace environments is a significant challenge. This paper introduces the wet chemical method to prepare the nano-TiC reinforced IN738LC. In contrast to the conventional ball milling approach, this method attains superior attachment of nanoparticles. By employing a full-factorial experimental design, the correlation between Laser-powder bed fusion (L-PBF) processing parameters and the porosity, micro-hardness, and high-temperature tensile strength of as-built samples was examined. The results indicate that the optimal processing parameters are a laser power of 225 W, scanning speed of 750 mm/s, and hatch space of 0.09 mm, with a Volumetric energy density (VED) of 111.1 J/mm3. Compared to IN738LC, the chemically prepared TiC-IN738LC exhibits a 45 % increase in room temperature tensile strength (400 MPa) and a 65 % increase in high-temperature tensile strength (120 MPa). Compared with ball-milled TiC-IN738LC, the chemically prepared samples present superior microstructure with more equiaxed grains. The morphological analysis of the tensile samples reveals that the presence of dimples are crucial in enhancing the ductility properties. Furthermore, this study identifies the Orowan strengthening mechanism and the grain refinement strengthening mechanism as the principal mechanisms of reinforcement by nano-ceramics.Graphical abstrac

Signaling pathways in the development of infantile hemangioma

Infantile hemangioma (IH), which is the most common tumor in infants, is a benign vascular neoplasm resulting from the abnormal proliferation of endothelial cells and pericytes. For nearly a century, researchers have noted that IH exhibits diverse and often dramatic clinical behaviors. On the one hand, most lesions pose no threat or potential for complication and resolve spontaneously without concern in most children with IH. On the other hand, approximately 10% of IHs are destructive, disfiguring and even vision- or life-threatening. Recent studies have provided some insight into the pathogenesis of these vascular tumors, leading to a better understanding of the biological features of IH and, in particular, indicating that during hemangioma neovascularization, two main pathogenic mechanisms prevail, angiogenesis and vasculogenesis. Both mechanisms have been linked to alterations in several important cellular signaling pathways. These pathways are of interest from a therapeutic perspective because targeting them may help to reverse, delay or prevent hemangioma neovascularization. In this review, we explore some of the major pathways implicated in IH, including the VEGF/VEGFR, Notch, β-adrenergic, Tie2/angiopoietins, PI3K/AKT/mTOR, HIF-α-mediated and PDGF/PDGF-R-β pathways. We focus on the role of these pathways in the pathogenesis of IH, how they are altered and the consequences of these abnormalities. In addition, we review the latest preclinical and clinical data on the rationally designed targeted agents that are now being directed against some of these pathways