A Consumer-Centric Open Innovation Framework for Food and Packaging Manufacturing

This article has been archived following written permission from IGI Global.Closed innovation approaches have been employed for many years in the food industry. But, this sector recently perceives its end-user to be wary of radically new products and changes in consumption patterns. However, new product development involves not only the product itself but also the entire manufacturing and distribution network. In this paper, we present a new ICT based framework that embraces open innovation to place customers in the product development loop but at the same time assesses and eventually coordinates the entire manufacturing and supply chain. The aim is to design new food products that consumers will buy and at the same time ensure that these products will reach the consumer in time and at adequate quantity. On the product development side, our framework enables new food products that offer an integrated sensory experience of food and packaging, which encompass customization, healthy eating, and sustainability

Supporting novel home network management interfaces with Openflow and NOX

The Homework project has examined redesign of existing home network infrastructures to better support the needs and requirements of actual home users. Integrating results from several ethnographic studies, we have designed and built a home networking platform providing detailed per-flow measurement and management capabilities supporting several novel management interfaces. This demo specifically shows these new visualization and control interfaces, and describes the broader benefits of taking an integrated view of the networking infrastructure, realised through our router's augmented measurement and control APIs. Aspects of this work have been published: the Homework Database in Internet Management (IM) 2011 and implications of the ethnographic results are to appear at the SIGCOMM W-MUST workshop 2011. Separate, more detailed expositions of the interface elements and system performance and implications are currently under submission at other venues. A partial code release is already available and we anticipate fuller public beta release by Q4 2011

Noise screen for attitude control system

An attitude control system comprising a controller and a noise screen device coupled to the controller. The controller is adapted to control an attitude of a vehicle carrying an actuator system that is adapted to pulse in metered bursts in order to generate a control torque to control the attitude of the vehicle in response to a control pulse. The noise screen device is adapted to generate a noise screen signal in response to the control pulse that is generated when an input attitude error signal exceeds a predetermined deadband attitude level. The noise screen signal comprises a decaying offset signal that when combined with the attitude error input signal results in a net attitude error input signal away from the predetermined deadband level to reduce further control pulse generation

Shared visiting in Equator city

In this paper we describe an infrastructure and prototype system for sharing of visiting experiences across multiple media. The prototype supports synchronous co-visiting by physical and digital visitors, with digital access via either the World Wide Web or 3-dimensional graphics

In-process monitoring and quality control of hot forging processes towards Industry 4.0

The importance of quality control in any manufacturing process has always been recognised. However, now more than ever before, it is a key requirement in order for manufacturing companies to remain competitive in the digital age. Because of the complexities and globalization of the manufacturing supply chain, real-time product quality analysis has become an important issue in the global manufacturing industry. However, in the metal forging industry, the attainment of efficient real-time quality control within forging processes has been faced with many technological challenges. These challenges are associated with the need for more sophisticated process modelling and simulation tools, cost-effective self-tuning sensors and a lack of robust and efficient in-process monitoring and quality control technologies for the forging industry

Making Industrial Robots Smarter with Adaptive Reasoning and Autonomous Thinking for Real-Time Tasks in Dynamic Environments: A Case Study

In order to extend the abilities of current robots in industrial applications towards more autonomous and flexible manufacturing, this work presents an integrated system comprising real-time sensing, path-planning and control of industrial robots to provide them with adaptive reasoning, autonomous thinking and environment interaction under dynamic and challenging conditions. The developed system consists of an intelligent motion planner for a 6 degrees-of-freedom robotic manipulator, which performs pick-and-place tasks according to an optimized path computed in real-time while avoiding a moving obstacle in the workspace. This moving obstacle is tracked by a sensing strategy based on machine vision, working on the HSV space for color detection in order to deal with changing conditions including non-uniform background, lighting reflections and shadows projection. The proposed machine vision is implemented by an off-board scheme with two low-cost cameras, where the second camera is aimed at solving the problem of vision obstruction when the robot invades the field of view of the main sensor. Real-time performance of the overall system has been experimentally tested, using a KUKA KR90 R3100 robot

Impacts of chronic wasting disease on a low density mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) population in the San Andres Mountains, Chihuahuan Desert, New Mexico

Chronic wasting disease (CWD), a contagious neurodegenerative disease of cervids, is becoming increasingly prevalent in the arid Southwest including the Chihuahuan Desert ecoregion. Population effects of CWD are uncertain, particularly in arid environments, as previous work has been on relatively high density deer populations in semi-arid or temperate environments. In 2002, CWD was detected in a low density mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) population in the arid San Andres Mountains, a Chihuahuan Desert range in southern New Mexico. We determined prevalence and distribution of CWD, and mortality and movements of deer, to assess the potential impact on low density deer populations in arid environments. Repeated seasonal primarily ante-mortem sampling found stable prevalence of 0.000–0.091, 2003–2008. Annual CWD mortality rate was <0.02, including deer that were culled. Monitoring of adult radio-collared deer showed no dispersal movements away from home ranges, with maximum movements of ≤20 km; similarly, no juveniles dispersed from maternal ranges. Distribution of infected deer was strongly related to presence of other infected deer. Annual survival rates of mule deer and population rate-of-increase suggested little effect of CWD on population-level mortality given observed prevalence. Transmission and reservoirs of CWD in the SAM were likely limited by low deer densities, patchy distribution, and environmental characteristics (i.e., low clay content of soils) unfavorable to prion persistence, characteristics that are typical of most mule deer populations in the Chihuahuan Desert ecoregion.La enfermedad crónica degenerativa (por sus siglas en inglés: CWD), una enfermedad neurodegenerativa contagiosa de los cérvidos, se está haciendo cada vez más frecuente en el suroeste árido americano incluyendo la ecoregión del desierto de Chihuahua. Los efectos de la CWD sobre poblaciones de cérvidos silvestres son inciertos, particularmente en ambientes áridos, ya que el trabajo previo ha estado en poblaciones de ciervos de densidad relativamente alta en ambientes semi-áridos o templados. En 2002, la CWD fue detectada en una población de venado bura (Odocoileus hemionus) de baja densidad en las áridas montañas de San Andrés, una región del Desierto Chihuahuense en el sur de Nuevo México. Se determinó la prevalencia y distribución de CWD, y la mortalidad y los movimientos de los venados, para evaluar su impacto potencial en poblaciones de baja densidad en ambientes áridos. En el muestreo ante-mortem previo repetido estacionalmente se encontró prevalencia estable de 0,000–0,091, 2003–2008. La tasa anual de mortalidad por CWD fue <0,02, incluyendo venados que fueron sacrificados. El monitoreo de venados con radio-collares adultos no mostró movimientos de dispersión fuera de los rangos de origen, con movimientos máximos de ≤20 km; de manera similar, no hay juveniles dispersos de los rangos maternos. La distribución de los venados infectados estaba fuertemente relacionada con la presencia de otros venados infectados. Las tasas anuales de supervivencia del venado mula y la tasa de aumento de la población sugirieron un efecto pequeño de la CWD en la mortalidad a nivel de la población dada la prevalencia observada. La transmisión y los depósitos de CWD en el SAM (Montañas San Andrés) fueron probablemente limitados por la baja densidad de los venados, su distribución irregular y las características ambientales (es decir, bajo contenido de arcilla de los suelos) desfavorables a la persistencia de priones, características típicas de la mayoría de las poblaciones de venados bura en la ecorregión del Desierto Chihuahuense

Smart sensing and adaptive reasoning for enabling industrial robots with interactive human-robot capabilities in dynamic environments—a case study

Traditional industry is seeing an increasing demand for more autonomous and flexible manufacturing in unstructured settings, a shift away from the fixed, isolated workspaces where robots perform predefined actions repetitively. This work presents a case study in which a robotic manipulator, namely a KUKA KR90 R3100, is provided with smart sensing capabilities such as vision and adaptive reasoning for real-time collision avoidance and online path planning in dynamically-changing environments. A machine vision module based on low-cost cameras and color detection in the hue, saturation, value (HSV) space is developed to make the robot aware of its changing environment. Therefore, this vision allows the detection and localization of a randomly moving obstacle. Path correction to avoid collision avoidance for such obstacles with robotic manipulator is achieved by exploiting an adaptive path planning module along with a dedicated robot control module, where the three modules run simultaneously. These sensing/smart capabilities allow the smooth interactions between the robot and its dynamic environment, where the robot needs to react to dynamic changes through autonomous thinking and reasoning with the reaction times below the average human reaction time. The experimental results demonstrate that effective human-robot and robot-robot interactions can be realized through the innovative integration of emerging sensing techniques, efficient planning algorithms and systematic designs

Supporting novel home network management interfaces with Openflow and NOX

The Homework project has examined redesign of existing home network infrastructures to better support the needs and requirements of actual home users. Integrating results from several ethnographic studies, we have designed and built a home networking platform providing detailed per-flow measurement and management capabilities supporting several novel management interfaces. This demo specifically shows these new visualization and control interfaces, and describes the broader benefits of taking an integrated view of the networking infrastructure, realised through our router's augmented measurement and control APIs. Aspects of this work have been published: the Homework Database in Internet Management (IM) 2011 and implications of the ethnographic results are to appear at the SIGCOMM W-MUST workshop 2011. Separate, more detailed expositions of the interface elements and system performance and implications are currently under submission at other venues. A partial code release is already available and we anticipate fuller public beta release by Q4 2011