A screening programme on chronic solvent-induced encephalopathy among Dutch painters

Background: Long-term exposure to organic solvents may lead to chronic solvent induced encephalopathy (CSE) in painters. In combination with reduction of exposure, a workers' health surveillance programme was developed, resulting in a three-stage CSE screening procedure for early neurobehavioural changes possibly predicting chronic health effects. The screening consists of a questionnaire (Neurosymptom Screening Checklist 60, NSC-60), computerised neurobehavioural functioning testing (Neurobehavioural Evaluation System; NES2) and multidisciplinary differential diagnostic evaluation by experts (called 'Solvent Team'). Results from the screening were compared with the results of the 'care as usual' (CAU), in which symptomatic patients were referred directly to the Solvent Team by occupational physicians, general practitioners or medical specialists. Parallel to the screening programme, a legal ban on indoor use of solvent-based paints resulted in lower exposure to solvents. Objective: To investigate the usefulness of the NSC-60 questionnaire as a screening tool for CSE among painters and to investigate the course of the number of CSE cases over the years as a potential consequence of improved prevention and control. Results: From 1998 to 2004, more than 40,000 painters were invited to participate in a health surveillance programme including a periodical occupational health examination (PHE) and 50% did participate. Four percent (N = 794) of these had a positive score on the NSC-60. The Solvent Team assessed 101 of these for CSE, which resulted in 27 CSE cases diagnosed. CAU during the same period of the surveillance (1998-2004) yielded 619 painters and 75 of these had the diagnosis CSE. After 2002 the number of CSE diagnosed cases dropped considerably and in 2004 only one case of CSE could be diagnosed. The substantially lower prevalence of CSE diagnosed cases in painters after 2002 might partly be explained as a result of a successful participation in the screening procedure of most prevalent CSE cases during the years 1998-2002. A second reason for the reduction of new diagnosed cases of CSE can be the effectiveness of the ban on indoor use of solvent-based paints resulting in lower exposure levels at work. Conclusion: The screening procedure is useful to screen for CSE among people taking part in the PHE programme. Control of CSE can be achieved by an integrated preventive approach with reduction of exposure and screening on early health effects. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserve

Value-driven Model-Based Optimization coupling Design-Manufacturing-Supply Chain in the Early Stages of Aircraft Development: Strategy and Preliminary Results

International audienceA value-driven model-based approach concurrently coupling design, manufacturing and supply chain in the early development stage of aircraft design has been developed within the European project AGILE4.0. The benefits of using this methodology have been highlighted by the aeronautical application case focused on the design, manufacturing and supply chain of an horizontal tail plane. Finding a Pareto-front simultaneously optimizing the design, manufacturing and supply chain domains is the next challenge to face. The research activity proposed in this paper represents the first step of this ambitious goal. The objective is to identify the optimization strategy to use for the global optimization campaign by exploring, first, simple and representative Multidisciplinary Design and Optimization (MDO) problems related to the supply chain domain. In the first MDO problem, a 4-objective optimization is executed and then the optimized attributes are aggregated in a single measure named value. In the second MDO problem instead, attributes are first aggregated in a value and then a bi-objective value-cost optimization is executed. Thus, two optimization strategies are investigated, but both lead to the value-cost Pareto-front investigation. The application case addressed in this research activity provides interesting insights for the value-driven optimization strategy to use for future-complex optimization problems involving design, manufacturing and supply chain domains

Value-driven Model-Based Optimization coupling Design-Manufacturing-Supply Chain in the Early Stages of Aircraft Development: Strategy and Preliminary Results

International audienceA value-driven model-based approach concurrently coupling design, manufacturing and supply chain in the early development stage of aircraft design has been developed within the European project AGILE4.0. The benefits of using this methodology have been highlighted by the aeronautical application case focused on the design, manufacturing and supply chain of an horizontal tail plane. Finding a Pareto-front simultaneously optimizing the design, manufacturing and supply chain domains is the next challenge to face. The research activity proposed in this paper represents the first step of this ambitious goal. The objective is to identify the optimization strategy to use for the global optimization campaign by exploring, first, simple and representative Multidisciplinary Design and Optimization (MDO) problems related to the supply chain domain. In the first MDO problem, a 4-objective optimization is executed and then the optimized attributes are aggregated in a single measure named value. In the second MDO problem instead, attributes are first aggregated in a value and then a bi-objective value-cost optimization is executed. Thus, two optimization strategies are investigated, but both lead to the value-cost Pareto-front investigation. The application case addressed in this research activity provides interesting insights for the value-driven optimization strategy to use for future-complex optimization problems involving design, manufacturing and supply chain domains

An MBSE-Based Requirement Verification Framework to support the MDAO process

According to a study performed by the Project Management Institute, around 47% of unsuccessful projects do not meet their goals and objectives due to poor requirements management. Taking requirements into account during the aircraft design process and ensuring requirement compliance during all design phases is important to obtain good and feasible aircraft designs. However, a typical aircraft design process is very complex and many requirements need to be taken into account. This paper proposes a new framework that implements requirements in the design process by establishing a direct link between Model-Based Systems Engineering and Multidisciplinary Design Analysis and Optimization (MDAO). Model-based requirements are directly implemented in the optimization problem and based on the requirement verification methods the MDAO workflows are formulated. When requirements or verification methods change, the workflow is automatically updated accordingly. This way, requirement compliance can either be automatically enforced or checked based on the optimization or analysis results. Automatically generated requirement reports provide information on the requirement compliance results. The framework has been implemented in a software prototype, which was applied to the design of a wing box, showing the functionalities of the framework. With the framework, the traceability from requirements to product design is improved, as all stakeholders can see how the design process was formulated and how requirement compliance has been achieved. Furthermore, optimized designs can be obtained that satisfy all the stakeholders' needs.Flight Performance and Propulsio

A collaborative design method for the aircraft supply chain: multi-level optimization

In the AGILE project, advanced technologies for optimization, multi-disciplinary colla- boration and knowledge-enabled engineering are developed and applied to conceptual and preliminary aircraft design. Various representative use cases of some conventional and un- conventional aircraft configurations are considered. This paper describes the application of a multilevel optimization (MLO) strategy based on analytical target cascading (ATC) to a use case of rudder design on a conventional aircraft configuration. As a reference a traditional nested optimization method is applied as well. Both methods arrive at the same design optima. In the case of ATC the amount of interaction between the global and the local level optimiza- tions is reduced. The MLO is demonstrated by applying surrogate models that were derived from aircraft and rudder design analyses performed by the partners in the AGILE project. The rudder design case illustrates that applying MLO provides insight into the coupled design problem both for the aircraft OEM and for the supplier. Development time is reduced by minimizing the number of interaction events, providing a common understanding of the design problem, establishing interfaces in the design process and therefore reducing the risk of late design changes

A Value-driven Concurrent Approach for Aircraft Design-Manufacturing-Supply Chain

ABSTRACTThe research activity proposed in this paper is framed within the context of the concurrent engineering applied to the complex aeronautical system development. The main objective is to extend the aircraft design parameters with those of manufacturing and supply chain including, among others, logistics aspects, quality management, risk production, resources and materials availability. This surely complicates the design problem due to an enlargement of the alternatives populating the solutions tradespace. However, it provides a great opportunity to gain agility, variety and competitive advantages in the nowadays global market. The formulation and implementation of the new value-driven methodology, here-proposed, offers advantageous benefits to the decision-maker, as also highlighted by the aeronautical application case addressed in this paper

Value-driven System Engineering Approach addressing Manufacturing, Supply-chain and Aircraft Design in the Decision-Making Process

In the last decades, some studies have highlighted that the integration of the product design and supply chain management leads to an increase of the profitability and efficiency of companies. However, considering manufacturing, supply chain and overall aircraft design variables in the early design phase increases the size of the solutions tradespace and thus the complexity in performing the decision-making process. This paper, follow-up of previous research activities addressed within the European project AGILE4.0, demonstrates how to leverage the value-model theory to simplify the decision-process when multiple criteria are accounted in the design phase

Palestijnse Kinderen en Militaire Detentie [Palestinian Children and Military Detention]

Dit rapport heeft tot doel bijzondere aandacht te vragen van de Nederlandse regering, in het bijzonder de Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken, voor de praktijken van arrestatie, verhoor, detentie en berechting van Palestijnse kinderen door de Israëlische militaire autoriteiten op de Westelijke Jordaanoever. Hiermee beoogt het rapport de Minister ertoe aan te zetten om, in diens betrekkingen met de Israëlische and Palestijnse autoriteiten, en waar mogelijk in Europese Unie-verband, te bevorderen dat arrestatie, verhoor, detentie en ebrechting van Palestijnse kinderen door de Israëlische militaire autoriteiten uitsluitend plaats vindt in overeenstemming met de internationaal erkende rechten van het kind en de daarbij behorende standaarden

Bringing Manufacturing into the MDO domain using MBSE

Most MDO problems currently do not include manufacturing as an optimization domain. Within the H2020 project AGILE 4.0 the intent is to bring manufacturing into the MDO domain using MBSE techniques developed within the project. To demonstrate how manufacturing can be brought into the MDO domain application cases are set up that resemble MDO problems from industry. In this paper, the MDO techniques will be used for the design of a Flap for a regional jet. The manufacturing aspect is represented by including the manufacturing cost of the flap in a Design Of Experiments (DOE). In this DOE different flap kinematic mechanisms and different flap sizes and paths are explored. The DOE is set up using the MDO toolset developed within AGILE 4.0. It allows for an automatic definition of the DOE workflow. The DOE results show that the choice of flap configuration has a significant effect on the Flap manufacturing cost, the flap wright and the landing performance of the aircraft. Next steps will be to investigate more flap configurations, improved the manufacturing cost model used and to set up a true flap optimization.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Flight Performance and PropulsionAerospace Structures & Computational Mechanic

Hout vasthouden. Archeologische houtvondsten uit Vlaanderen

Deze publicatie is het resultaat van een synthetiserend onderzoek naar houten voorwerpen in archeologische context in Vlaanderen. Het project had tot doel de houten gebruiksvoorwerpen die sinds de invoering van het Valletta-Verdrag zijn opgegraven, te inventariseren en deze informatie toegankelijk te maken via het online platform WOODAN, zowel voor de archeologische gemeenschap als voor het brede publiek. Bovendien zijn houten voorwerpen uit oude collecties van vóór de Malta-overeenkomst in de studie opgenomen. Het onderzoek is een initiatief van de Stichting WOODAN. Tijdens het onderzoek zijn archeologische basisrapportages, monografieën en andere publicaties geraadpleegd, en zijn archeologische depots in Vlaanderen bezocht. Dit heeft bijna 2500 houten gebruiksvoorwerpen uit de prehistorie tot vroegmoderne tijd opgeleverd. De diversiteit van deze voorwerpen laat zien hoe belangrijk hout als grondstof was voor verschillende toepassingen in het verleden. Daarmee geeft het onderzoek inzicht in het dagelijks leven en de ambachtelijke technologie van het verleden. Archeologisch hout behoort tot de organische materiaalgroepen binnen de archeologie. Het opgraven, bergen en onderzoeken ervan vereist kennis van het materiaal, en zonder conservering blijft het niet bewaard. Helaas blijkt uit de resultaten van het onderzoek dat hout niet altijd de aandacht krijgt die het verdient. Deze onderwaardering van archeologisch hout is deels te wijten aan een gebrek aan kennis over de onderzoekwaarde van deze archeologische materiaalgroep. Door deze publicatie hopen we dan ook een bijdrage te leveren aan de verdere studie van de geschiedenis van Vlaanderen en het belang van hout als grondstof en informatiebron voor de archeologie