Strategic maintenance technique selection using combined quality function deployment, the analytic hierarchy process and the benefit of doubt approach

The business performance of manufacturing organizations depends on the reliability and productivity of equipment, machineries and entire manufacturing system. Therefore, the main role of maintenance and production managers is to keep manufacturing system always up by adopting most appropriate maintenance methods. There are alternative maintenance techniques for each machine, the selection of which depend on multiple factors. The contemporary approaches to maintenance technique selection emphasize on operational needs and economic factors only. As the reliability of production systems is the strategic intent of manufacturing organizations, maintenance technique selection must consider strategic factors of the concerned organization along with operational and economic criteria. The main aim of this research is to develop a method for selecting the most appropriate maintenance technique for manufacturing industry with the consideration of strategic, planning and operational criteria through involvement of relevant stakeholders. The proposed method combines quality function deployment (QFD), the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the benefit of doubt (BoD) approach. QFD links strategic intents of the organizations with the planning and operational needs, the AHP helps in prioritizing the criteria for selection and ranking the alternative maintenance techniques, and the BoD approach facilitates analysing robustness of the method through sensitivity analysis through setting the realistic limits for decision making. The proposed method has been applied to maintenance technique selection problems of three productive systems of a gear manufacturing organization in India to demonstrate its effectiveness

Global Intraurban Intake Fractions for Primary Air Pollutants from Vehicles and Other Distributed Sources

We model intraurban intake fraction (iF) values for distributed ground-level emissions in all 3646 global cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, encompassing a total population of 2.0 billion. For conserved primary pollutants, population-weighted median, mean, and interquartile range iF values are 26, 39, and 14-52 ppm, respectively, where 1 ppm signifies 1 g inhaled/t emitted. The global mean urban iF reported here is roughly twice as large as previous estimates for cities in the United States and Europe. Intake fractions vary among cities owing to differences in population size, population density, and meteorology. Sorting by size, population-weighted mean iF values are 65, 35, and 15 ppm, respectively, for cities with populations larger than 3, 0.6-3, and 0.1-0.6 million. The 20 worldwide megacities (each >10 million people) have a population-weighted mean iF of 83 ppm. Mean intraurban iF values are greatest in Asia and lowest in land-rich high-income regions. Country-average iF values vary by a factor of 3 among the 10 nations with the largest urban populations

Nucleophile-Catalyzed Additions to Activated Triple Bonds. Protection of Lactams, Imides, and Nucleosides with MocVinyl and Related Groups

Additions of lactams, imides, (S)-4-benzyl-1,3-oxazolidin-2-one, 2-pyridone, pyrimidine-2,4-diones (AZT derivatives), or inosines to the electron-deficient triple bonds of methyl propynoate, tert-butyl propynoate, 3-butyn-2-one, N-propynoylmorpholine, or N-methoxy-N-methylpropynamide in the presence of many potential catalysts were examined. DABCO and, second, DMAP appeared to be the best (highest reaction rates and E/Z ratios), while RuCl3, RuClCp*(PPh3)2, AuCl, AuCl(PPh3), CuI, and Cu2(OTf)2 were incapable of catalyzing such additions. The groups incorporated (for example, the 2-(methoxycarbonyl)ethenyl group that we name MocVinyl) serve as protecting groups for the above-mentioned heterocyclic CONH or CONHCO moieties. Deprotections were accomplished via exchange with good nucleophiles: the 1-dodecanethiolate anion turned out to be the most general and efficient reagent, but in some particular cases other nucleophiles also worked (e.g., MocVinyl-inosines can be cleaved with succinimide anion). Some structural and mechanistic details have been accounted for with the help of DFT and MP2 calculations

A922 Sequential measurement of 1 hour creatinine clearance (1-CRCL) in critically ill patients at risk of acute kidney injury (AKI)

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Low-Temperature CO Oxidation over Combustion Made Fe- and Cr-Doped Co3O4 Catalysts: Role of Dopant’s Nature toward Achieving Superior Catalytic Activity and Stability

Co3O4 with a spinel structure shows unique activity for CO oxidation at low temperature under dry conditions; however the active surface is not very stable. In this study, two series of Fe- and Cr-doped Co3O4 catalysts were prepared by a single-step solution combustion technique. Fe was chosen because of its redox activity corresponding to the Fe2+/Fe3+ redox couple and compared to Cr, which is mainly stable in the Cr3+ state. The catalytic activity of new materials for low-temperature CO oxidation was correlated to the nature of the dopant. As a function of dopant concentration, the temperature corresponding to the 50% CO conversion (T50) demonstrated significant differences. The maximal activity was achieved for 15% Fe-doped Co3O4 with T50 of −85 °C and remained almost constant up to 25% Fe. In the case of Cr, the activity was observed to be maximum for 7% of Cr with T50 of −42 °C and significantly decreased for higher Cr loadings. Similarly, there was a contrasting behavior in catalyst stability too. 100% CO conversion was achieved below −60 °C for 15% Fe/Co3O4 catalyst and remained unchanged even after calcination at 600 °C. In contrast, Co3O4 or 15% Cr/Co3O4 catalysts strongly deactivated after the same treatment. These differences were correlated to the oxidation states, coordination numbers, the nature of surface planes, and the redox properties. We observed that both Cr and Fe were typically present in the +3 oxidation state, occupying octahedral sites in the spinel structure. The catalysts were mainly exposed to (111) and (220) planes on the surface. H2-TPR indicated clear differences in the redox activity of materials due to Fe and Cr substitutions. The reducibility of surface Co3+ species remained similar in all Fe-doped Co3O4 catalysts in contrast to nonreducible Cr-doped analogs, which shifted the reduction temperature to the higher values. As the Fe3+/Fe2+ redox couple partly substituted the Co3+/Co2+ redox couple in the spinel structure, similar bond strength of Fe–O keep redox activity of Co3+ species almost unchanged leading to higher activity and stability of Fe/Co3O4 catalysts for low-temperature CO oxidation. In contrast, nonreducible Cr3+ species characterized by strong Cr–O bond substituting active Co3+ sites can make the Cr/Co3O4 surface less active for CO oxidation

Ultra-Low Temperature CO Oxidation Activity of Octahedral Site Cobalt Species in Co3O4 Based Catalysts: Unravelling the Origin of Unique Catalytic Property

Co3O4 with spinel structure shows CO oxidation activity at very low temperature under dry conditions. This study aims at finding the origin of the unique catalytic activity of Co species in Co3O4 based oxides. Although, octahedral site Co3+ species have been reported to be active in Co3O4 based catalysts, there is no solid explanation as to why Co is so special as compared with other metals like Fe having similar redox states. In this study, mainly, three model spinel catalysts including MnCo2O4, MnFe2O4, and CoCr2O4 have been chosen. A detailed analysis of bulk and crystal surface structure, surface properties of the catalysts, and redox properties of the active metals has been performed to understand the unusual catalytic activity. Low-temperature CO oxidation activity decreases in the following order: MnCo2O4 ≫ MnFe2O4 > CoCr2O4. It indicates that the Co2+ species in a tetrahedral site (in CoCr2O4) remains inactive for low-temperature catalytic activity, while Co3+ in an octahedral site (in MnCo2O4) is active in Co3O4 based catalysts. This result is corroborated with CoFe2O4 which shows a higher activity than CoCr2O4, as it has partial occupation of the octahedral site. Fe, being a weak redox metal, does not show low-temperature activity, although crystallite facets of MnCo2O4 and MnFe2O4 catalysts are predominantly exposed in the (100) and (110) lattice planes, which contain quite similar concentrations of Co3+ and Fe3+ species in both. The intensity of the redox peak for CO oxidation involving a Co3+/Co2+ couple in MnCo2O4 indicates a highly favorable reaction, while a nonresponsive behavior of Co species is observed in CoCr2O4. As expected, MnFe2O4 is proven to be weak, giving a much lower intensity of electrochemical CO oxidation. Both CO- and H2-TPR indicate a much higher reducibility of Co species in MnCo2O4 as compared with Co species in CoCr2O4 or Fe in MnFe2O4