Specialized business incubators as a strategy for small and medium-sized enterprises in the industry 4.0 era – a systemic approach

The present research aims to get a holistic view of the characteristics of specialization in business incubators models. This paper centers on building a general framework by taking into account a holistic look at the features, profiles, advantages, and disadvantages of specialization in business incubators models. The strategy aims to impact mainly stakeholders by adopting business incubators strategies, especially to those tenant firms of the manufacturing sector related to emerging technologies such as Industry 4.0 technologies. Moreover, the framework is built based on the discussion of the leading representatives' heads of the specialization in the field of specialized business incubators' models. The strategy aims to reduce the current short-term death rate expectancy prevailing in the contemporary economic context by a robust business model for business incubation. Business incubators hold tenants into a hub with not only supportive facilities for the business without investing vital capital, which is not part of their core chain value but also harnessing the closer source of knowledge transfer and skilfully workforce-related on these technologies. Finally, remarks and recommendations are proposed for futures tenant companies' prospects, who wish to reduce the bankruptcy risk by boosting innovative goods and services with high technological development in a specific field of knowledge.N/

Measuring operational excellence: an operational excellence profitability (OEP) approach.

The pursuit of operational excellence in the manufacturing industry is at rise, but its measurement still lacks of appropriate indicators to determine its financial benefits. The ambiguity is due to the impact arisen from manufacturing fluctuations such as price and cost, production mix, and direct and indirect parameters variations. Manufacturing fluctuations distort the cost benefit of operational excellence. This paper therefore proposes the OEP (Operational Excellence Profitability) indicators to isolate the impact of manufacturing fluctuation, and distinctly identify the payback of operational excellence strategies and initiatives through cost benefits of achieving higher efficiency and yield. The paper presents the conceptual and mathematical development of the proposed OEP indicators and the formulas used for their calculation. Hypothetical and industrial-based investigations and applications of the OEP indicators are conducted for their validation. The results obtained from the hypothetical exercise and industrial case suggest that OEP indicators can provide an effective cost benefit analysis of operational excellence. This would contribute in providing manufacturing organisations with more complete information regarding the performance of their processes, which will allow their directors and managers to take better decisions related to the management and improvement of their processes.N/

Influence of the Delta Phase in the Microstructure of the Inconel 718 subjected to “Delta-processing” Heat Treatment and Hot Deformed

AbstractInconel 718 (IN718) is a nickel base alloy widely used in the aerospace industry due to its mechanical stability at elevated temperatures. Stable δ phase with acicular morphology weakens the IN718, however, it has been found that a spherical morphology distributed in the grain boundaries acts as an anchor preventing grain growth during hot deformation. The delta processing (DP718) is a saturation of δ phase in the alloy by thermal treatment followed by thermomechanical working to control the grain growth and morphology during deformation. Two specimens (A and B) of IN718 alloy were solubilized for 1h at 1100°C WQ and aging at 900°C for 24hWQ thermal treatment, following bythermomechanical deformation. Sample A was deformed at 0.001 s -1 and sample Bat 0.01 s-1, both deformations were carried out at 960°C and the final microstructures were characterized by optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) in order to evaluate morphology and grainsize distribution

Towards sustainable industrial development - a systems thinking-based approach

Various critical global issues, including global warming and poverty, have been recognized and identified by the United Nations (UN) as drivers for unsustainability. Consequently, the UN established the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with the aim of seeking universal peace and larger freedom by balancing the three dimensions of sustainable development, i.e. economic, social and environmental. A particular attention SDGs pay is in eradicating poverty as this is considered one of the greatest global challenges. Poverty is not only an economic matter as it also has an impact on the social and environmental dimensions. A strategy to tackle poverty is to foster industry development. However, a holistic point of view is necessary by also considering stakeholders otherwise, it becomes a neoliberal solution. Despite the fact that some research has been conducted, e.g. case studies and surveys of sustainable practices, there is a lack of industrial sustainable development as a framework to tackle sustainability issues. Thus, this paper proposes a framework for industrial sustainable development under a socially inclusive approach within the context of the Mexican manufacturing industry. The framework proposal is based on a state-of-the-art literature review conducted in the Web of Science and Scopus databases.N/

The satisfactory growth and development at 2 years of age of the INTERGROWTH-21st Fetal Growth Standards cohort support its appropriateness for constructing international standards.

BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization recommends that human growth should be monitored with the use of international standards. However, in obstetric practice, we continue to monitor fetal growth using numerous local charts or equations that are based on different populations for each body structure. Consistent with World Health Organization recommendations, the INTERGROWTH-21st Project has produced the first set of international standards to date pregnancies; to monitor fetal growth, estimated fetal weight, Doppler measures, and brain structures; to measure uterine growth, maternal nutrition, newborn infant size, and body composition; and to assess the postnatal growth of preterm babies. All these standards are based on the same healthy pregnancy cohort. Recognizing the importance of demonstrating that, postnatally, this cohort still adhered to the World Health Organization prescriptive approach, we followed their growth and development to the key milestone of 2 years of age. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine whether the babies in the INTERGROWTH-21st Project maintained optimal growth and development in childhood. STUDY DESIGN: In the Infant Follow-up Study of the INTERGROWTH-21st Project, we evaluated postnatal growth, nutrition, morbidity, and motor development up to 2 years of age in the children who contributed data to the construction of the international fetal growth, newborn infant size and body composition at birth, and preterm postnatal growth standards. Clinical care, feeding practices, anthropometric measures, and assessment of morbidity were standardized across study sites and documented at 1 and 2 years of age. Weight, length, and head circumference age- and sex-specific z-scores and percentiles and motor development milestones were estimated with the use of the World Health Organization Child Growth Standards and World Health Organization milestone distributions, respectively. For the preterm infants, corrected age was used. Variance components analysis was used to estimate the percentage variability among individuals within a study site compared with that among study sites. RESULTS: There were 3711 eligible singleton live births; 3042 children (82%) were evaluated at 2 years of age. There were no substantive differences between the included group and the lost-to-follow up group. Infant mortality rate was 3 per 1000; neonatal mortality rate was 1.6 per 1000. At the 2-year visit, the children included in the INTERGROWTH-21st Fetal Growth Standards were at the 49th percentile for length, 50th percentile for head circumference, and 58th percentile for weight of the World Health Organization Child Growth Standards. Similar results were seen for the preterm subgroup that was included in the INTERGROWTH-21st Preterm Postnatal Growth Standards. The cohort overlapped between the 3rd and 97th percentiles of the World Health Organization motor development milestones. We estimated that the variance among study sites explains only 5.5% of the total variability in the length of the children between birth and 2 years of age, although the variance among individuals within a study site explains 42.9% (ie, 8 times the amount explained by the variation among sites). An increase of 8.9 cm in adult height over mean parental height is estimated to occur in the cohort from low-middle income countries, provided that children continue to have adequate health, environmental, and nutritional conditions. CONCLUSION: The cohort enrolled in the INTERGROWTH-21st standards remained healthy with adequate growth and motor development up to 2 years of age, which supports its appropriateness for the construction of international fetal and preterm postnatal growth standards

Cytotoxicity evaluation of methacrylate-based resins for clinical endodontics in vitro.

This study examines the cytotoxicity of Super-Bond C&B (SB-C&B), Super-Bond RC Sealer (SB-RC), MetaSEAL (Meta), and AH Plus Sealer (AH+). Freshly mixed and set materials (100 mg) were prepared in vitro and placed in cell culture medium (1 mL) for the working time and for 6 h, respectively. L929 cells seeded into 96-well plates at 5,000 cells/well were incubated with the eluted medium (200 μL) for 24 h. Cells cultured with medium alone served as the control. Cytotoxicity was evaluated by MTS assay and analyzed with ANOVA. In the freshly mixed group, the average ± SD (%) for cell viability were 66.0 ± 13.6, 55.5 ± 15.6, 10.6 ± 0.7, and 8.9 ± 2.2 for SB-C&B, SB-RC, Meta, and AH+, respectively. In the set group, the average ± SD (%) for cell viability were 100 ± 21.9, 81.8 ± 38.5, 24.9 ± 7.9, and 23.6 ± 10.0 for SB-C&B, SB-RC, Meta, and AH+, respectively. SB-C&B and SB-RC are less cytotoxic than are Meta and AH+