Transformation around intruders in granular media

Sintering, glass melting and other industrially relevant processes turn batches of grains into homogeneous products. Such processes involve coupled chemical and physical transformations of the granular packing. For sake of simplicity, we study how local evolutions on grains (volume decreases for example) entail mechanical rearrangements in the overall pile. Inert bidisperse metallic disks are mixed and confined in a vertical 2D cell. At the bottom of this set-up, initial intruders (one or two) have been previously set and mechanically linked to a linear motorized jack. While we quasi-statically pull the intruder(s) downward out of the cell at constant speed and constant liberated surface, we tracked the surrounding granular packing. Events largely distributed both spatially and temporally occur around intruders. We focus on the influence of the distance between the intruders on the local dynamic of the packing. We compare the distribution of the size of the event and their frequency as function of the relative position of the intruder, as a function of their radius. We show that their influence decreases rapidly. At short distance the mechanical perturbation induced by one intruder can destabilize the packing around the other

Smart textiles for healthcare and medicine applications (WG1): state-of-the art report, CONTEXT Project

The aim of this document is to provide information on the state-of-the-art related to the topics covered by each working group within the CONTEXT project. It provides information on materials and technologies used to develop smart textiles with targeted performance, general applications of smart textiles in the field, case-studies on the use of smart textiles, opportunities for smart textiles considering the needs of each field, trends on the development of smart textiles in terms of market and technical expectations. This paper gives an overview of the potential of smart textiles for healthcare & medicine, ongoing developments, state-of-the-art products and future developments

The Public Relations Process - A Rethink

Much new work has been undertaken in the field of strategic management in recent years. Corporate planning, especially popular in the 1980s, has given way to new and dynamic management models. Similarly, various techniques for making organisations more effective such as ‘management by objectives’ (MBO) and ‘total quality management’ (TQM) have been employed. Business process re‐engineering (BPR) as proposed by Hammer and Champny was regarded as a radical leap forward in business organisation, but that is being challenged by the newer business transformation as propounded by Gouillart and Kelly and by the concept of the supply chain. Whatever management techniques are used, slimmer, flatter organisations are emerging as ‘right‐size’ and re‐organised organisations. The role of public relations in strategic management and organisation is crucial. Management theorists agree that good communication is vital to successful organisations. Despite the problems associated with it, BPR and its successors are expected to be major infuences on the way in which enterprises are organised. What is now required is a re‐thinking of the structure and role of public relations within process‐oriented organisations. This paper offers some initial thinking on how this could be done and the inherent difficulties. Some of the ideas are borrowed from BPR, but no judgement is made as to whether BPR is a ‘right’ approach. The paper then goes on to look at the implications for the way in which public relations can effectively contribute to ‘new’ organisations and the critical role of information technolog