Proceedings of the 21th International Configuration Workshop

International audienc

Cross-Company Routing Planning: Determining Value Chains in a Dynamic Production Network Through a Decentralized Approach

Demand-based, local production will gain relevance in the context of sustainability and circular economy. One way to implement local value creation is through establishing highly dynamic networks that consolidate the competencies of regional manufacturers. Consequently, the structure of the value chains needs to be determined ad hoc dependent on demand. This is a rather challenging task due to the dynamics within such networks and the flat hierarchies. Traditionally, value chains are defined and controlled in a centralized form by a lead firm or a separate stakeholder (e.g. Intermediary, Broker). However, to accommodate the dynamics of demand and the increasing complexity of products, we propose a decentralized form of coordination. The basic idea is to upscale Routing Planning, used in Process Planning, to a network level. Meaning instead of a centralized instance within a company defining the production steps, the stakeholders will collaboratively determine the cross-company Routing Plan, effectively building the value chain. Thus, the accumulated experience and knowledge of all stakeholders can be utilized to efficiently fulfil current customer demand, since the value chain will be executed by the same stakeholders that created it. But in order to coordinate the sequencing of operations by multiple stakeholders, suitable methods need to be implemented. We look at a strategy to facilitate such a collaboration between companies and demonstrate one possible technical implementation based on AI planning using Planning Domain Definition Language (PDDL)

The immune system and the impact of zinc during aging

The trace element zinc is essential for the immune system, and zinc deficiency affects multiple aspects of innate and adaptive immunity. There are remarkable parallels in the immunological changes during aging and zinc deficiency, including a reduction in the activity of the thymus and thymic hormones, a shift of the T helper cell balance toward T helper type 2 cells, decreased response to vaccination, and impaired functions of innate immune cells. Many studies confirm a decline of zinc levels with age. Most of these studies do not classify the majority of elderly as zinc deficient, but even marginal zinc deprivation can affect immune function. Consequently, oral zinc supplementation demonstrates the potential to improve immunity and efficiently downregulates chronic inflammatory responses in the elderly. These data indicate that a wide prevalence of marginal zinc deficiency in elderly people may contribute to immunosenescence

Children’s and adolescents’ rising animal-source food intakes in 1990–2018 were impacted by age, region, parental education and urbanicity

Animal-source foods (ASF) provide nutrition for children and adolescents’ physical and cognitive development. Here, we use data from the Global Dietary Database and Bayesian hierarchical models to quantify global, regional and national ASF intakes between 1990 and 2018 by age group across 185 countries, representing 93% of the world’s child population. Mean ASF intake was 1.9 servings per day, representing 16% of children consuming at least three daily servings. Intake was similar between boys and girls, but higher among urban children with educated parents. Consumption varied by age from 0.6 at <1 year to 2.5 servings per day at 15–19 years. Between 1990 and 2018, mean ASF intake increased by 0.5 servings per week, with increases in all regions except sub-Saharan Africa. In 2018, total ASF consumption was highest in Russia, Brazil, Mexico and Turkey, and lowest in Uganda, India, Kenya and Bangladesh. These findings can inform policy to address malnutrition through targeted ASF consumption programmes.publishedVersio

Incident type 2 diabetes attributable to suboptimal diet in 184 countries

The global burden of diet-attributable type 2 diabetes (T2D) is not well established. This risk assessment model estimated T2D incidence among adults attributable to direct and body weight-mediated effects of 11 dietary factors in 184 countries in 1990 and 2018. In 2018, suboptimal intake of these dietary factors was estimated to be attributable to 14.1 million (95% uncertainty interval (UI), 13.8–14.4 million) incident T2D cases, representing 70.3% (68.8–71.8%) of new cases globally. Largest T2D burdens were attributable to insufficient whole-grain intake (26.1% (25.0–27.1%)), excess refined rice and wheat intake (24.6% (22.3–27.2%)) and excess processed meat intake (20.3% (18.3–23.5%)). Across regions, highest proportional burdens were in central and eastern Europe and central Asia (85.6% (83.4–87.7%)) and Latin America and the Caribbean (81.8% (80.1–83.4%)); and lowest proportional burdens were in South Asia (55.4% (52.1–60.7%)). Proportions of diet-attributable T2D were generally larger in men than in women and were inversely correlated with age. Diet-attributable T2D was generally larger among urban versus rural residents and higher versus lower educated individuals, except in high-income countries, central and eastern Europe and central Asia, where burdens were larger in rural residents and in lower educated individuals. Compared with 1990, global diet-attributable T2D increased by 2.6 absolute percentage points (8.6 million more cases) in 2018, with variation in these trends by world region and dietary factor. These findings inform nutritional priorities and clinical and public health planning to improve dietary quality and reduce T2D globally.publishedVersio

Lothar Hotz 95 What makes the Difference?- Basic Characteristics of Configuration

This paper focuses on configuration as a process that iteratively applies commonly known reasoning techniques and creates an incrementally growing configuration description. This approach emphasizes the synthesis aspect of configuration, which continuously acquires requirements and computes their effects on a configuration in a cyclic way. We provide the definitions of needed ingredients as there are partial configuration, configuration decision, and reasoning for computing entailments of made configuration decisions. These ingredients are the basis for implementations of configuration systems that follow these approach.