Risk Sources Affecting the Asset Management Decision-Making Process in Manufacturing: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Part 4: Product and Asset Life Cycle Management in Smart Factories of Industry 4.0International audienceAsset Management (AM) is promising for value creation from assets in the long term. A major concern to this end relates with the capabilities to achieve effective AM decision-making at every organisational level, i.e. operational, tactical, and strategical. Therefore, the goal of this research, grounded on a systematic literature review, is to identify which are the main sources of uncertainty that may influence the achievement of AM system related objectives and, as such, should be taken into consideration in a risk-informed decision-making process. Taking the manufacturing sector as a reference, the risk sources addressed by the extant literature are identified and mapped against a reference classification scheme. As a result, the research offers a comprehensive framework where risk sources, affecting the AM decision-making process, are systematically mapped. Information management is found to be the main risk source when making asset-related decisions

Neuroserpin polymorphisms and stroke risk in a biracial population: the stroke prevention in young women study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Neuroserpin, primarily localized to CNS neurons, inhibits the adverse effects of tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA) on the neurovascular unit and has neuroprotective effects in animal models of ischemic stroke. We sought to evaluate the association of neuroserpin polymorphisms with risk for ischemic stroke among young women.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A population-based case-control study of stroke among women aged 15–49 identified 224 cases of first ischemic stroke (47.3% African-American) and 211 age-matched control subjects (43.1% African-American). Neuroserpin single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) chosen through HapMap were genotyped in the study population and assessed for association with stroke.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of the five SNPs analyzed, the A allele (frequency; Caucasian = 0.56, African-American = 0.42) of SNP rs6797312 located in intron 1 was associated with stroke in an age-adjusted dominant model (AA and AT vs. TT) among Caucasians (OR = 2.05, p = 0.023) but not African-Americans (OR = 0.71, p = 0.387). Models adjusting for other risk factors strengthened the association. Race-specific haplotype analyses, inclusive of SNP rs6797312, again demonstrated significant associations with stroke among Caucasians only.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study provides the first evidence that neuroserpin is associated with early-onset ischemic stroke among Caucasian women.</p

Climate Change, Coral Reef Ecosystems, and Management Options for Marine Protected Areas

Marine protected areas (MPAs) provide place-based management of marine ecosystems through various degrees and types of protective actions. Habitats such as coral reefs are especially susceptible to degradation resulting from climate change, as evidenced by mass bleaching events over the past two decades. Marine ecosystems are being altered by direct effects of climate change including ocean warming, ocean acidification, rising sea level, changing circulation patterns, increasing severity of storms, and changing freshwater influxes. As impacts of climate change strengthen they may exacerbate effects of existing stressors and require new or modified management approaches; MPA networks are generally accepted as an improvement over individual MPAs to address multiple threats to the marine environment. While MPA networks are considered a potentially effective management approach for conserving marine biodiversity, they should be established in conjunction with other management strategies, such as fisheries regulations and reductions of nutrients and other forms of land-based pollution. Information about interactions between climate change and more “traditional” stressors is limited. MPA managers are faced with high levels of uncertainty about likely outcomes of management actions because climate change impacts have strong interactions with existing stressors, such as land-based sources of pollution, overfishing and destructive fishing practices, invasive species, and diseases. Management options include ameliorating existing stressors, protecting potentially resilient areas, developing networks of MPAs, and integrating climate change into MPA planning, management, and evaluation

Some stages in the implementation of Markov decision processes

The paper is concerned with applicational aspects of discrete random systems. Such systems appear in a large number of practical areas ranging from purely technical to social and demographic systems. For analyzing such systems the models to be used range from purely descriptive models to optimization models. We will use a simplified example to illustrate how the organizational requirements determine the type of models to be used as well as the way in which they should be incorporated in a system to support the decision making process

Episodic heterogeneous decline and recovery of coral cover in the Indian Ocean

Long-term changes in coral cover for the Caribbean and the Pacific/Southeast Asia regions (PSEA) have proven extremely useful in assessing the main drivers, magnitude and timescales of change. The one major coral reef region where such assessments have not been made is the Indian Ocean (IO). Here, we compiled coral cover survey data from across the IO into a database of similar to 2,000 surveys from 366 coral reef sites collected between 1977 and 2005. The compilation shows that the 1998 mass coral bleaching event was the single most important and widespread factor influencing the change in coral cover across the region. The trend in coral cover followed a step-type function driven by the 1998 period, which differs from findings in the Caribbean and the PSEA regions where declines have been more continuous and mostly began in the 1980s. Significant regional variation was observed, with most heterogeneity occurring during and after 1998. There was a significant relationship between cover and longitude for all periods, but the relationship became stronger in the period immediately after 1998. Before 1998, highest coral cover was observed in the central IO region, while this changed to the eastern region after 1998. Coral cover and latitude displayed a significant U-shaped relationship immediately after 1998, due to a large decrease in cover in the northern-central regions. Post-1998 coral cover was directly correlated to the impact of the disturbance; areas with the lowest mortality having the highest cover with India-Sri Lanka being an outlier due to its exceptionally high recovery. In 1998, reefs within Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) were more heavily impacted than unmanaged reefs, losing significantly greater total cover. MPA recovery was greater such that no differences were observed by 2001-2005. This study indicates that the regional patterns in coral cover distribution in the IO are driven mainly by episodic and acute environmental stress