Technology enablers for the implementation of Industry 4.0 to traditional manufacturing sectors: A review

The traditional manufacturing sectors (footwear, textiles and clothing, furniture and toys, among others) are based on small and medium enterprises with limited capacity on investing in modern production technologies. Although these sectors rely heavily on product customization and short manufacturing cycles, they are still not able to take full advantage of the fourth industrial revolution. Industry 4.0 surfaced to address the current challenges of shorter product life-cycles, highly customized products and stiff global competition. The new manufacturing paradigm supports the development of modular factory structures within a computerized Internet of Things environment. With Industry 4.0, rigid planning and production processes can be revolutionized. However, the computerization of manufacturing has a high degree of complexity and its implementation tends to be expensive, which goes against the reality of SMEs that power the traditional sectors. This paper reviews the main scientific-technological advances that have been developed in recent years in traditional sectors with the aim of facilitating the transition to the new industry standard.This research was supported by the Spanish Research Agency (AEI) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under the project CloudDriver4Industry TIN2017-89266-R

Pseudomyxoma Peritonei Presenting as Acute Appendicitis: Clinical and Imaging Findings

A 30-year old man presented with symptoms and signs of acute appendicitis. Abdominal imaging via ultrasound and computed tomography detected a mass in the right iliac fossa. Exploratory laparotomy revealed an appendiceal mass and gelatinous peritoneal fluid, while histopathology confirmed the diagnosis of pseudomyxoma peritonei arising from a mucocele of the appendix and attributed to an appendiceal cystadenocarcinoma. The clinical and imaging findings of this rare case are herein presented

Analysis of Genotype-Phenotype Association using Genomic Informational Field Theory (GIFT)

We show how field-and information theory can be used to quantify the relationship between genotype and phenotype in cases where phenotype is a continuous variable. Given a sample population of phenotype measurements, from various known genotypes, we show how the ordering of phenotype data can lead to quantification of the effect of genotype. This method does not assume that the data has a Gaussian distribution, it is particularly effective at extracting weak and unusual dependencies of genotype on phenotype. However, in cases where data has a special form, (eg Gaussian), we observe that the effective phenotype field has a special form. We use asymptotic analysis to solve both the forward and reverse formulations of the problem. We show how p-values can be calculated so that the significance of correlation between phenotype and genotype can be quantified. This provides a significant generalisation of the traditional methods used in genome-wide association studies GWAS. We derive a field-strength which can be used to deduce how the correlations between genotype and phenotype, and their impact on the distribution of phenotypes. Highlights: • new method for quantifying relationship between genotype and continuous phenotype • statistical significance can be calculated via explicit expressions for p-values • method makes no assumption on shape of distribution data • forward and inverse problems solved explicitly for the case of weak gene effec

Imaging of Cardiac Tumors and Masses

Objective: As noninvasive imaging is gaining widespread acceptance, the aim of the present study was to review our experience with the use of cross sectional imaging modalities to evaluate cardiac tumors and masses.  Background: Proper diagnosis of the type and extension of a cardiac tumor or mass is very important for therapy planning. Echocardiography has an established role as a non-invasive diagnostic imaging modality. Computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) also provide adequate delineation of cardiac tumors and masses.  Methods: Twenty-two patients referred to our department with a suspected cardiac mass, previously detected by cardiac ultrasound, were evaluated by CT (12 patients) and MRI (4 patients). Six patients were examined by both modalities. In 2 cases of staging of a known primary neoplasm and one case of a suspected epicardiac lesion, positron emission tomography (PET-CT) was performed. The CT cardiac examinations were performed using a 16-slice multislice scanner with ECG gating. The MRI examination was performed on a 1.5 Tesla MRI scanner using an ECG-gated cardiac protocol and the PET-CT examination was performed on an integrated PET-CT four-slice scanner, using 370 mMBq of fluorodeoxyglucose.   Results: Twenty-two cardiac masses were successfully detected and their characteristics adequately delineated, including eight myxomas, one angiosarcoma, one ventricular lymphoma, one endocardiac metastasis, one epicardiac paraganglioma, and 10 cases of intracardiac thrombi.  Conclusion: CT and MRI are noninvasive imaging modalities which can delineate cardiac tumors and masses and provide essential information for adequate diagnosis, staging and treatment planning. Compared to cardiac ultrasound, CT and MRI are superior in preoperative planning. Key words: cardiac tumors,  cross sectional imaging modalities, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging&nbsp

Investigative power of Genomic Informational Field Theory (GIFT) relative to GWAS for genotype-phenotype mapping

Identifying associations between phenotype and genotype is the fundamental basis of genetic analyses. Inspired by frequentist probability and the work of R.A. Fisher, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) extract information using averages and variances from genotype-phenotype datasets. Averages and variances are legitimated upon creating distribution density functions obtained through the grouping of data into categories. However, as data from within a given category cannot be differentiated, the investigative power of such methodologies is limited. Genomic Informational Field Theory (GIFT) is a method specifically designed to circumvent this issue. The way GIFT proceeds is opposite to that of GWAS. Whilst GWAS determines the extent to which genes are involved in phenotype formation (bottom-up approach), GIFT determines the degree to which the phenotype can select microstates (genes) for its subsistence (top-down approach). Doing so requires dealing with new genetic concepts, a.k.a. genetic paths, upon which significance levels for genotype-phenotype associations can be determined. By using different datasets obtained in ovis aries related to bone growth (Dataset-1) and to a series of linked metabolic and epigenetic pathways (Dataset-2), we demonstrate that removing the informational barrier linked to categories enhances the investigative and discriminative powers of GIFT, namely that GIFT extracts more information than GWAS. We conclude by suggesting that GIFT is an adequate tool to study how phenotypic plasticity and genetic assimilation are linked.</p

Sustainable educational supply chain performance measurement through DEA and Differential Evolution: a case on Indian HEI

Data envelopment analysis or DEA methodology is employed for assessing the relative efficiency of different homogeneous units. Through DEA one can analyze the areas which need more attention and can suggest measures for improving the performance of different sectors. Through this article, the authors have tried to analyze the relative efficiency of IITR (The Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee), a higher educational institute (HEI) in India. The efficiency of nineteen academic departments of IIT Roorkee is measured with respect to teaching and research. The novlty of the paper is twofold (1) the authiors have considered the environmental aspects (sustainability criteria) while measuring efficiency (2) Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm is employed in accordance with DEA on the fractional model generated for calculating efficiency

Molecular Pathology of Lewy Body Diseases

Lewy body diseases are characterized by the presence of Lewy bodies, alpha-synuclein(AS)-positive inclusions in the brain. Since their main component is conformationally modified AS, aggregation of the latter is thought to be a key pathogenic event in these diseases. The analysis of inclusion body constituents gives additional information about pathways also involved in the pathology of synucleinopathies. Widespread mitochondrial dysfunction is very closely related to disease development. The impairment of protein degradation pathways, including both the ubiquitin-proteasome system and the autophagy-lysosome pathway also play an important role during the development of Lewy body diseases. Finally, differential expression changes of isoforms corresponding to genes primarily involved in Lewy body formation point to alternative splicing as another important mechanism in the development of Parkinson’s disease, as well as dementia with Lewy bodies. The present paper attempts to give an overview of recent molecular findings related to the pathogenesis of Lewy body diseases