Towards a Rule-based Manufacturing Integration Assistant

Recent developments and steadily declining prices in ICT enable an economic application of advanced digital tools in wide areas of manufacturing. Solutions based on concepts and technologies of the “Internet of Things” or “cyber physical systems” can be used to implement monitoring as well as self-organization of production, maintenance or logistics processes. However, integration of new digital tools in existing heterogeneous manufacturing IT systems and integration of machines and devices into manufacturing environments is an expensive and tedious task. Therefore, integration issues on IT and manufacturing level significantly prevent agile manufacturing. Especially small and medium-sized enterprises do not have the expertise or the investment possibilities to realize such an integration. To tackle this issue, we present the approach of the Manufacturing Integration Assistant - MIALinx. The objective is to develop and implement a lightweight and easy-to-use integration solution for small and medium-sized enterprises based on recent web automation technologies. MIALinx aims to simplify the integration using simple programmable, flexible and reusable “IF-THEN” rules that connect occurring situations in manufacturing, such as a machine break down, with corresponding actions, e.g., an automatic maintenance order generation. For this purpose, MIALinx connects sensors and actuators based on defined rules whereas the rule set is defined in a domain-specific, easy-to-use manner to enable rule modeling by domain experts. Through the definition of rule sets, the workers’ knowledge can be also externalized. Using manufacturing-approved cloud computing technologies, we enable robustness, security, and a low-effort, low-cost integration of MIALinx into existing manufacturing environments to provide advanced digital tools also for small and medium-sized enterprises

Short‐Range Structural Correlations in Amorphous 2D Polymers

Many 2D covalent polymers synthesized as single layers on surfaces show inherent disorder, expressed for example in their ring‐size distribution. Systems which are expected to form the thermodynamically favored hexagonal lattice usually deviate from crystallinity and include high numbers of pentagons, heptagons, and rings of other sizes. The amorphous structure of two different covalent polymers in real space using scanning tunneling microscopy is investigated. Molecular dynamics simulations are employed to extract additional information. We show that short‐range correlations exist in the structure of one polymer, i. e. that polygons are not tessellating the surface randomly but that ring neighborhoods have preferential compositions. The correlation is dictated by the energy of formation of the ring neighborhoods

Influence of the Sputtering Technique and Thermal Annealing on YSZ Thin Films for Oxygen Sensing Applications

Yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) thin films were deposited using direct current (reactive and metallic) and radio frequency magnetron sputtering. The effect of the deposition technique and annealing treatment on the microstructure and crystallinity of the thin films was assessed. Using the films produced in this work, oxygen gas sensors were built and their performance under vacuum conditions was evaluated. All the films exhibited a cubic crystalline structure after a post-deposition thermal treatment, regardless of the sputtering technique. When the annealing treatment surpassed 1000 °C, impurities were detected on the thin film surface. The oxygen gas sensors employing the reactive and oxide-sputtered YSZ thin films displayed a proportional increase in the sensor current as the oxygen partial pressure was increased in the evaluated pressure range (5 × 10−6 to 2 × 10−3 mbar). The sensors which employed the metallic-deposited YSZ films suffered from electronic conductivity at low partial pressures

Farmers' willingness to accept land-use changes in Xishuangbanna, China

Das diesem Bericht zugrunde liegende Projekt „SURUMER –Nachhaltiger Kautschukanbau in der Mekong-Region: Entwicklung eines integrativen Landnutzungskonzepts in der chinesischen Provinz Yunnan“ wurde mit Mitteln des Bundesministeriums für Bildung und Forschung unter dem Kennzeichen 01 LL 0919 gefördert. Die Verantwortung für den Inhalt liegt bei den Autoren

Towards a rule-based manufacturing integration assistant

Recent developments and steadily declining prices in ICT enable an economic application of advanced digital tools in wide areas of manufacturing. Solutions based on concepts and technologies of the "Internet of Things" or "cyber physical systems" can be used to implement monitoring as well as self-organization of production, maintenance or logistics processes. However, integration of new digital tools in existing heterogeneous manufacturing IT systems and integration of machines and devices into manufacturing environments is an expensive and tedious task. Therefore, integration issues on IT and manufacturing level significantly prevent agile manufacturing. Especially small and medium-sized enterprises do not have the expertise or the investment possibilities to realize such an integration. To tackle this issue, we present the approach of the Manufacturing Integration Assistant - MIALinx. The objective is to develop and implement a lightweight and easy-to-use integration solution for small and medium-sized enterprises based on recent web automation technologies. MIALinx aims to simplify the integration using simple programmable, flexible and reusable "IF-THEN" rules that connect occurring situations in manufacturing, such as a machine break down, with corresponding actions, e.g., an automatic maintenance order generation. For this purpose, MIALinx connects sensors and actuators based on defined rules whereas the rule set is defined in a domain-specific, easy-to-use manner to enable rule modeling by domain experts. Through the definition of rule sets, the workers' knowledge can be also externalized. Using manufacturing-approved cloud computing technologies, we enable robustness, security, and a low-effort, low-cost integration of MIALinx into existing manufacturing environments to provide advanced digital tools also for small and medium-sized enterprises

Inter-laboratory comparison of four RT-PCR based methods for the generic detection of pospiviroids in tomato leaves and seeds

Four pospiviroid detection methods consisting of a pair of RT-PCR (ANSES 1-2), a pair of real time RT-PCR (Botermans 1-2) and two single RTPCR methods (Luigi and Olivier) were evaluated for their relative accuracy, diagnostic sensitivity, diagnostic specificity, analytical sensitivity and reproducibility through a comparison in eight laboratories. All detection methods were tested on 13 tomato leaf and nine tomato seed samples as well as on 100-fold dilutions of the corresponding RNA extracts. Two different RNA extraction kits and three combinations of RNA extraction and RT-PCR kits were assessed. According to the statistical analysis of the results, ANSES 1-2 method provided the best performance criteria whatever the matrix consisted of, while the relative accuracies of Botermans 1-2 and Olivier methods were not significantly different from ANSES 1-2 for seed and leaf samples respectively. The results also showed that the relative accuracy of the Luigi and Olivier methods significantly increased when primer concentrations were raised to 1 μM, the latter method giving the best relative accuracy of the test in these conditions. No statistical differences were observed between accuracies obtained for the two extraction kits or the three combinations of extraction and RTPCR kits used. ANSES 1-2 method is proposed as international standard for the generic detection of pospiviroids on tomato leaves and seed