Strategy Selection for Product Service Systems Using Case-based Reasoning

A product service system integrates products and services in order to lower environmental impact. It can achieve good eco-efficiency and has received increase in the last decade. This study focuses on strategy selection for product service system design. Case-based reasoning is utilized to provide suggestions for finding an appropriate strategy. To build a case database, successful PSS cases from the literature and websites were collected and formulated. Twelve indices under three categories were analyzed and selected to describe cases. A lot of successful PSS cases and their information were collected. Forty seven cases were used in this study because of the completeness of information. The analytic hierarchic process is used to find the relative weights of the factors that relate to the selection of customers. These weights are used in calculating the similarity in the case-based reasoning process. The successful strategy of the most similar case is extracted and recommended for PSS strategy determination. More than 90% of tested cases obtained an appropriate strategy from the most similar case. Finally, two new products are introduced to find the best strategy for product service system design and development using the proposed case-based reasoning system

Linalool: a key contributor to the aroma nuances in hoppy beer, cocoa liquor, wines, and fermented tea beverage

Linalool (3,7-dimethyl-1,6-octadien-3-ol) is an important monoterpene alcohol that contributes to the flowery and tea-like flavour of some liquid food products such as cocoa liquor, wines, juices, and fermented tea (black tea). In addition, linalool has been reported as the most aromatic flavour odorant of hop essential oils and by extension hoppy beer. However, the mechanism of linalool formation in most of these liquid food products remains a subject of interest. It has been assumed that terpene alcohols are probably produced from oxygenated isoprenoid hydrocarbons. In addition, linalool has been shown to occur in two forms: (1) free form in juices and (2) non-volatile precursor form. The non-volatile precursors, which are monoterpene disaccharide glycosides, have been subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis to yield linalool

Onsager's variational principle for nonreciprocal systems with odd elasticity

Using Onsager's variational principle, we derive dynamical equations for a nonequilibrium active system with odd elasticity. The elimination of the extra variable that is coupled to the nonequilibrium driving force leads to the nonreciprocal set of equations for the material coordinates. The obtained nonreciprocal equations manifest the physical origin of the odd elastic constants that are proportional to the nonequilibrium force and the friction coefficients. Our approach offers a systematic and consistent way to derive nonreciprocal equations for active matter in which the time-reversal symmetry is broken

A Robust Hessian-based Trust Region Algorithm for Spherical Conformal Parameterizations

Surface parameterizations are widely applied in computer graphics, medical imaging and transformation optics. In this paper, we rigorously derive the gradient vector and Hessian matrix of the discrete conformal energy for spherical conformal parameterizations of simply connected closed surfaces of genus-$0$. In addition, we give the sparsity structure of the Hessian matrix, which leads to a robust Hessian-based trust region algorithm for the computation of spherical conformal maps. Numerical experiments demonstrate the local quadratic convergence of the proposed algorithm with low conformal distortions. We subsequently propose an application of our method to surface registrations that still maintains local quadratic convergence

Effects of different ceramic and dentin thicknesses on the temperature rise during photocuring

AbstractBackground/purposeThe aims of this investigation were to describe the effect of different ceramic and remaining dentin thicknesses on substrate temperature during photocuring, and investigate whether the temperature increased by >5.5°C for different dentin/ceramic combinations.Materials and methodsThree groups of dentin thicknesses of 1.0 (D1.0), 1.5 (D1.5), and 2.0 mm (D2.0), and three groups of ceramic thicknesses of 1.5 (C1.5), 2.5 (C2.5), and 3.5 mm (C3.5) were examined. Temperature changes and the maximum temperature were observed under a high-intensity halogen light (QTH-Atralis 10 ECS program at 1200mW/cm2 for 30 seconds, Ivoclar Vivadent AG, Schaan, Liechtenstein). Four groups, D1.0–C1.5 (+11°C), D1.5–C1.5 (+7.2°C), D1.0–C2.5 (+6.7°C), and D2–0C1.5 (+5.8°C), demonstrated temperature changes of >5.5°C.Results and ConclusionsA statistical analysis showed that separate individual thicknesses and combinations of dentin and ceramic had significant effects on temperature changes (P<0.01). It was observed that the ceramic exhibited a smaller temperature shielding effect than dentin. Clinically, it would be optimal to preserve the dentin to avoid damaging pulp tissues. Where there is insufficient overall thickness (≤3.5mm), continuous high-energy output photocuring should be avoided to protect pulp tissues from thermal injury

Simulations of Odd Microswimmers

We perform numerical simulations of odd microswimmers consisting of three spheres and two odd springs. To describe the hydrodynamic interaction, both the Oseen-type and the Rotne-Prager-Yamakawa (RPY)-type mobilities are used. For the Oseen-type mobility, the simulation results quantitatively reproduce the asymptotic expression of the average velocity. For the RPY-type mobility, on the other hand, the average velocity is smaller than that of the Oseen-type mobility and the deviation is more pronounced for larger spheres. We also perform simulations of microswimmers having different sphere sizes and show that the average velocity becomes smaller than that of the equal size case. The size of the middle sphere plays an important role in determining the average velocity

Odd elasticity of a catalytic micromachine

We perform numerical simulations of a model micromachine driven by catalytic chemical reactions. Our model includes a mechano-chemical coupling between the structural variables and the nonequilibrium variable describing the catalytic reactions. The time-correlation functions of the structural variables are calculated and further analyzed in terms of odd Langevin dynamics. We obtain the effective odd elastic constant that manifests the broken time-reversal symmetry of a catalytic micromachine. Within the simulation, we separately estimate the quantity called nonreciprocality and show that its behavior is similar to that of the odd elasticity.Our approach suggests a new method to extract the nonequilibrium properties of a micromachine only by measuring its structural dynamics