A proposal for scheduling and delivery orders under VMI environment

[ENG] Vendor managed inventory (VMI) is a widely applied stock management method in SCM in which the inventory is controlled, planned and managed by the supplier, on behalf of the organization which consumes the product, based on an expected demand and on previously agreed inventory levels. Thus, is the supplier who, according to the customer inventory levels, generates a purchase order defining quantities and delivery dates. As a general rule, when such a stock management system is introduced, the objectives are diverse. One of the most important is to avoid excessive inventory levels in the different elements of the supply chain and the Bullwhip effect caused by demand variability. In addition, it is reasonable to expect a reduction of the administrative costs, due for instance to duplicity of administrative errors in the transmission of information. In the case described in this paper, the company QMC was able to identify the opportunity to improve some specific aspects on its operations management, relating to the products that as “vendor” would manage through VMI

Informe de la gestión y estrategias de la empresa Chester (industria c60202) en el simulador de negocios Capsim

El presente documento muestra el análisis y evolución de la toma de decisiones de la empresa Chester, que forma parte de la industria de los sensores, dentro de un ambiente de simulación en la plataforma Capsim. Se plantean los objetivos estratégicos, los principales indicadores de desempeño monitoreados a través de la herramienta de cuadro de mando integral y la definición de la estrategia que se siguió para cumplir con los objetivos

Speech-to-Speech synchronization protocol to classify human participants as high or low auditory-motor synchronizers

The ability to synchronize a motor action to a rhythmic auditory stimulus is often considered an innate human skill. However, some individuals lack the ability to synchronize speech to a perceived syllabic rate. Here, we describe a simple and fast protocol to classify a single native English speaker as being or not being a speech synchronizer. This protocol consists of four parts: the pretest instructions and volume adjustment, the training procedure, the execution of the main task, and data analysis

Ab initio study of the influence of nanoscale doping inhomogeneities in the phase separated state of La1−x_{1-x}Cax_{x}MnO3_3

The chemical influence in the phase separation phenomenon that occurs in perovskite manganites is discussed by means of ab initio calculations. Supercells have been used to simulate a phase separated state, that occurs at Ca concentrations close to the localized to itinerant crossover. We have first considered a model with two types of magnetic ordering coexisting within the same compound. This is not stable. However, a non-isotropic distribution of chemical dopants is found to be the ground state. This leads to regions in the system with different effective concentrations, that would always accompany the magnetic phase separation at the same nanometric scale, with hole-rich regions being more ferromagnetic in character and hole-poor regions being in the antiferromagnetic region of the phase diagram, as long as the system is close to a phase crossover.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, 1 tabl

Effect of forage type in the ovine diet on the nutritional profile of sheep milk cheese fat

[EN] The high nutritional value of sheep milk can be advantageous in the manufacture of cheese, and fat plays an important role in sheep cheese properties. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of feeding common hay or silage diets used in commercial farms on the nutritional value of sheep cheese fat. We also monitored the effect of cheese ripening period on the fatty acid profile. Cheeses were produced from milk of sheep fed hay and silage diets from 8 farms, on 4 separate occasions (February, May, August, and November) over a 1-yr period. Eighty-four individual fatty acids were determined and identified by gas chromatography. Ripening time (100 and 180 d) significantly reduced moisture, acidity, and water activity of cheeses but did not affect the fatty acid content. However, hay feeding, compared with silage feeding, led to cheeses with 1.5- and 1.3-fold higher contents of vaccenic acid and conjugated linoleic acid, without detrimental changes in saturated and n-3 (omega-3) fatty acid composition. Hay forages could be a low-cost alternative for producing cheese with a fatty acid profile suitable for human health, which is an aspect of great interest to the food industrySIThis work was supported by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Project AGL2016-75159- C2-2-R; Madrid, Spain) and the Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (Project TA2014-00069-CO2-02; Madrid, Spain). The authors also acknowledge Entrepinares S.A.U. Company (Valladolid, Spain) for the help in the cheese-making trial

CLA-producing adjunct cultures improve the nutritional value of sheep cheese fat

[EN]The influence of the autochthonous CLA-producing Lactobacillus plantarum TAUL 1588 and Lactobacillus casei subsp. casei SS 1644 strains and the ripening time on the fatty acid (FA) content and sensory characteristics of sheep cheese were investigated. Three cheese types with different cultures and the control cheese were produced in duplicate and ripened for 8 months. 86 individual FA were determined by gas chromatography. Ripening time (2, 90, 180 and 240 days) did not have a significant effect (P >.05) on the FA content. However, the presence of both Lactobacillus CLA-producing strains led to a decrease of the saturated FA content and to 1.30, 1.19 and 1.27 times higher levels of vaccenic acid, CLA and omega-3, respectively, when compared to the control cheese. This combination allowed obtaining sheep milk cheeses with a healthier FA content, without appreciable changes on sensory characteristics. This work could be a promising approach to increase the bioactive fatty acid content of cheeses.SIThe authors are grateful to the University of León (León, Spain) for granting a PhD fellowship to Erica Renes Bañuelos. Pilar Gómez-Cortés was subsidized with a Juan de la Cierva research contract from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. The authors also wish to acknowledge the Consortium for Ovine Promotion (Villalpando, Zamora, Castilla-León, Spain). The authors thank to F.J. Zorita for his technical assistance

Hydrogen physisorption channel on graphene: A highway for atomic H diffusion

We study the adsorption of atomic hydrogen on graphene by combining scanning tunneling microscopy experiments and first principle calculations. Our results reveal the existence of a physisorption channel over the graphene layer, dominated by van der Waals forces and thus homogeneous over the whole atomic lattice, where atomic hydrogen can move freely. Such physisorption channel is essential to understand the final configuration of hydrogen atoms chemisorbed on graphene. We find that ∼95% of chemisorbed H atoms form non-magnetic dimers even for very dilute concentrationsThis work was supported by Spain’s Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad under grants; PCIN-2015-030; FIS2015-64886-C5-5-P, MDM-2014-0377 and FIS2016-80434-P, by AEI and FEDER under projects MAT2016-80907-P and MAT2016-77852-C2-2-R (AEI/FEDER, UE), by the Fundación Ramón Areces, by the European Union through the FLAG ERA program and structural funds and by the Comunidad de Madrid MAD2D-CM program under grant S2013/MIT-3007

Effect of the mother tree age and acorn weight in the regenerative characteristics of Quercus faginea

[EN] The establishment of oak trees is often a slow and difficult process. Hence, it is necessary to determine the characteristics that can lead to improving their regeneration. In this genus, seed size is highly variable both at the interspecific and intraspecific levels, and the effects of intrapopulation variability are not well understood, being even less so for Quercus faginea. In this study, the effects of the age of the mother tree, seed weight and the interaction between these two factors on seed germination, emergence and growth (biomass) were analysed. For this purpose, 16 trees—8 young and 8 old—were selected with the intent to cover the entire range of acorn weights produced in this population. Among the main results, it should be noted that: (1) in older trees, it is easier to find larger acorns; (2) the percentage and the speed of germination of the acorns of young trees is greater than that of old trees; (3) the percentage and the speed of seedling emergence of young trees is greater than that of old trees; and (4) cotyledon weight is the variable that most influences biomass, quite often in a positive way. Therefore, maintaining intrapopulation variability seems to be an approach that most favours the persistence of these populations

Superelastic damping at nanoscale in ternary and quaternary Cu-based shape memory alloys

Superelasticity is a characteristic thermomechanical property in shape memory alloys (SMA), which is due to a reversible stress-induced martensitic transformation. Nano-compression experiments made possible the study of this property in Cu–Al–Ni SMA micropillars, showing an outstanding ultra-high mechanical damping capacity reproducible for thousands of cycles and reliable over the years. This scenario motivated the present work, where a comparative study of the damping capacity on four copper-based SMA: Cu–Al–Ni, Cu–Al–Be, Cu–Al–Ni–Be and Cu–Al–Ni–Ga is approached. For this purpose, [001] oriented single-crystal micropillars of comparable dimensions (around 1 µm in diameter) were milled by focused ion beam technique. All micropillars were cycled up to two hundred superelastic cycles, exhibiting a remarkable reproducibility. The damping capacity was evaluated through the dimensionless loss factor η, calculated for each superelastic cycle, representing the dissipated energy per cycle and unit of volume. The calculated loss factor was averaged between three micro-pillars of each alloy, obtaining the following results: Cu–Al–Ni η = 0.20 ± 0.01; Cu–Al–Be η = 0.100 ± 0.006; Cu–Al–Ni–Be η = 0.072 ± 0.004 and Cu–Al–Ni–Ga η = 0.042 ± 0.002. These four alloys exhibit an intrinsic superelastic damping capacity and offer a wide loss factor band, which constitutes a reference for engineering, since this kind of micro/nano structures can potentially be integrated not only as sensors and actuators but also as dampers in the design of MEMS to improve their reliability. In addition, the study of the dependence of the superelastic loss factor on the diameter of the pillar was approached in the Cu–Al–Ni–Ga alloy, and here we demonstrate that there is a size effect on damping at the nanoscale.Fil: Gómez Cortés, J.F.. Universidad del País Vasco; EspañaFil: Fuster, Valeria de Los Angeles. Universidad del País Vasco; España. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario. Instituto de Física de Rosario. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Instituto de Física de Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Pérez Cerrato, M.. Universidad del País Vasco; EspañaFil: Lorenzo, P.. Universidad del País Vasco; EspañaFil: Ruiz Larrea, I.. Universidad del País Vasco; EspañaFil: Breczewski, T.. Universidad del País Vasco; EspañaFil: Nó, M. L.. Universidad del País Vasco; EspañaFil: San Juan, J. M.. Universidad del País Vasco; Españ