A Total Product System Concept - a case study of the smart (tm) automobile

Increasing demand from consumers plus EU legislation has raised awareness within the automotive production sector of the urgent need to reduce the environmental impacts from the three main stages in vehicle life – car manufacture, car use and end-of life vehicle processing. The paper reviews how the originator and manufacturer of the smart automobile has worked directly with its main system partners to address environmental issues in these three stages while optimizing performance across the parameters of commercial viability. This required the creation of strategic relationships within the supply chain. Overall, this innovative approach is viewed in the context of a total product system. The smart car highlights the following critical areas: use of modularity in product design and production facility layout; emphasis on partner participation from product creation to after-sales; and the use of highly customised build-to-order product system to 'green' the entire supply chain. In particular, the case study compares the process characteristics empoyed at the smart car factory, called 'smartville', with more traditional approaches to vehicle manufacture. It exmaines these issues in a preliminary attempt to establish the actual or potential reduction of environmental impact in the three stages of vehicle life, including the role of main suppliers in this process

A Strategic Niche Analysis of Urban Road Pricing in the UK and Norway

Traditional transport policies of road expansion entail a relatively simple system of actors and processes around which expertise, knowledge, and skills which has built up over many decades. Some of the more radical Travel Demand Management measures, including urban road pricing, involve a complicated set of institutions, processes, people and procedures. Road pricing schemes often get delayed or abandoned due to controversy, disagreements, unanticipated problems and a whole host of other delaying factors. If they are implemented, they tend to be diluted and consequently become less effective. Strategic Niche Management (SNM) has previously been used to provide guidelines on the implementation of innovative transport technologies through setting up protected experimental settings (niches) in which actors learn about the design, user needs, social and political acceptability, and other aspects. Here SNM is modified to cover a policy approach through the analysis of road user charging case studies in the UK and Norway. A detailed analysis of the road user charging schemes in Bergen, Oslo, Durham and London is presented. Key factors identified include the role of stakeholder and user networks, the existence of a project champion, understanding the motivations and expectations of stakeholders and users, learning with regards to the regional context, and the change in perceptions associated with acceptance. Comparison between the four cases shows different approaches emerging from each country in implementing and ‘marketing’ of the policies. The paper concentrates on approaches such as: the purpose for introducing the policies, the involvement of users in the planning process and, the use of revenues for either providing alternative transport modes or financing road infrastructure. Key factors identified using the SNM framework include the role of stakeholder and user networks, the existence of a project champion, understanding the motivations and expectations of stakeholders and users, learning with regards to the regional context, and the change in perceptions associated with acceptance. This type of analysis could prove useful for transport planners envisaging the implementation of road pricing projects.&nbsp

Appetite, energy intake, and PYY3-36 responses to energy-matched continuous exercise and submaximal high-intensity exercise.

High-intensity intermittent exercise induces physiological adaptations similar to energy-matched continuous exercise, but the comparative appetite and energy balance responses are unknown. Twelve healthy males (mean ± SD: age, 22 ± 3 years; body mass index, 23.7 ± 3.0 kg·m(-2); maximum oxygen uptake, 52.4 ± 7.1 mL·kg(-1)·min(-1)) completed three 8 h trials (control, steady-state exercise (SSE), high-intensity intermittent exercise (HIIE)) separated by 1 week. Trials commenced upon completion of a standardized breakfast. Exercise was performed from hour 2 to hour 3. In SSE, 60 min of cycling at 59.5% ± 1.6% of maximum oxygen uptake was performed. In HIIE, ten 4-min cycling intervals were completed at 85.8% ± 4.0% of maximum oxygen uptake, with a 2-min rest between each interval. A standardized lunch and an ad libitum afternoon meal were provided at hours 3.75 and 7, respectively. Appetite ratings and peptide YY3-36 concentrations were measured throughout each trial. Appetite was acutely suppressed during exercise, but more so during HIIE (p < 0.05). Peptide YY3-36 concentrations increased significantly upon cessation of exercise in SSE (p = 0.002), but were highest in the hours after exercise in HIIE (p = 0.05). Exercise energy expenditure was not different between HIIE and SSE (p = 0.649), but perceived exertion was higher in HIIE (p < 0.0005). Ad libitum energy intake did not differ between trials (p = 0.833). Therefore, relative energy intake (energy intake minus the net energy expenditure of exercise) was lower in the SSE and HIIE trials than in the control trial (control, 4759 ± 1268 kJ; SSE, 2362 ± 1224 kJ; HIIE, 2523 ± 1402 kJ; p < 0.0005). An acute bout of energy-matched continuous exercise and HIIE were equally effective at inducing an energy deficit without stimulating compensatory increases in appetite

quasiharmonic equations of state for dynamically-stabilized soft-mode materials

We introduce a method for treating soft modes within the analytical framework of the quasiharmonic equation of state. The corresponding double-well energy-displacement relation is fitted to a functional form that is harmonic in both the low- and high-energy limits. Using density-functional calculations and statistical physics, we apply the quasiharmonic methodology to solid periclase. We predict the existence of a B1--B2 phase transition at high pressures and temperatures

Density functional theory of phase coexistence in weakly polydisperse fluids

The recently proposed universal relations between the moments of the polydispersity distributions of a phase-separated weakly polydisperse system are analyzed in detail using the numerical results obtained by solving a simple density functional theory of a polydisperse fluid. It is shown that universal properties are the exception rather than the rule.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, to appear in PR

Discovery and genotyping of structural variation from long-read haploid genome sequence data

In an effort to more fully understand the full spectrum of human genetic variation, we generated deep single-molecule, real-time (SMRT) sequencing data from two haploid human genomes. By using an assembly-based approach (SMRT-SV), we systematically assessed each genome independently for structural variants (SVs) and indels resolving the sequence structure of 461,553 genetic variants from 2 bp to 28 kbp in length. We find that &gt;89% of these variants have been missed as part of analysis of the 1000 Genomes Project even after adjusting for more common variants (MAF &gt; 1%). We estimate that this theoretical human diploid differs by as much as ∼16 Mbp with respect to the human reference, with long-read sequencing data providing a fivefold increase in sensitivity for genetic variants ranging in size from 7 bp to 1 kbp compared with short-read sequence data. Although a large fraction of genetic variants were not detected by short-read approaches, once the alternate allele is sequence-resolved, we show that 61% of SVs can be genotyped in short-read sequence data sets with high accuracy. Uncoupling discovery from genotyping thus allows for the majority of this missed common variation to be genotyped in the human population. Interestingly, when we repeat SV detection on a pseudodiploid genome constructed in silico by merging the two haploids, we find that ∼59% of the heterozygous SVs are no longer detected by SMRT-SV. These results indicate that haploid resolution of long-read sequencing data will significantly increase sensitivity of SV detection.</jats:p

Habitable Zones of Host Stars During the Post-MS Phase

A star will become brighter and brighter with stellar evolution, and the distance of its habitable zone will become farther and farther. Some planets outside the habitable zone of a host star during the main sequence phase may enter the habitable zone of the host star during other evolutionary phases. A terrestrial planet within the habitable zone of its host star is generally thought to be suited to life existence. Furthermore, a rocky moon around a giant planet may be also suited to life survive, provided that the planet-moon system is within the habitable zone of its host star. Using Eggleton's code and the boundary flux of habitable zone, we calculate the habitable zone of our Solar after the main sequence phase. It is found that Mars' orbit and Jupiter's orbit will enter the habitable zone of Solar during the subgiant branch phase and the red giant branch phase, respectively. And the orbit of Saturn will enter the habitable zone of Solar during the He-burning phase for about 137 million years. Life is unlikely at any time on Saturn, as it is a giant gaseous planet. However, Titan, the rocky moon of Saturn, may be suitable for biological evolution and become another Earth during that time. For low-mass stars, there are similar habitable zones during the He-burning phase as our Solar, because there are similar core masses and luminosities for these stars during that phase.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures. Accepted by Ap & S

Experimental Entanglement Concentration and Universal Bell-state Synthesizer

We report a novel Bell-state synthesizer in which an interferometric entanglement concentration scheme is used. An initially mixed polarization state from type-II spontaneous parametric down-conversion becomes entangled after the interferometric entanglement concentrator. This Bell-state synthesizer is universal in the sense that the output polarization state is not affected by spectral filtering, crystal thickness, and, most importantly, the choice of pump source. It is also robust against environmental disturbance and a more general state, partially mixed$-$partially entangled state, can be readily generated as well.Comment: Minor update (Newer data

Counterion Penetration and Effective Electrostatic Interactions in Solutions of Polyelectrolyte Stars and Microgels

Counterion distributions and effective electrostatic interactions between spherical macroions in polyelectrolyte solutions are calculated via second-order perturbation (linear response) theory. By modelling the macroions as continuous charge distributions that are permeable to counterions, analytical expressions are obtained for counterion profiles and effective pair interactions in solutions of star-branched and microgel macroions. The counterions are found to penetrate stars more easily than microgels, with important implications for screening of bare macroion interactions. The effective pair interactions are Yukawa in form for separated macroions, but are softly repulsive and bounded for overlapping macroions. A one-body volume energy, which depends on the average macroion concentration, emerges naturally in the theory and contributes to the total free energy.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

First-principles study of the structural energetics of PdTi and PtTi

The structural energetics of PdTi and PtTi have been studied using first-principles density-functional theory with pseudopotentials and a plane-wave basis. We predict that in both materials, the experimentally reported orthorhombic $B19$ phase will undergo a low-temperature phase transition to a monoclinic $B19'$ ground state. Within a soft-mode framework, we relate the $B19$ structure to the cubic $B2$ structure, observed at high temperature, and the $B19'$ structure to $B19$ via phonon modes strongly coupled to strain. In contrast to NiTi, the $B19$ structure is extremely close to hcp. We draw on the analogy to the bcc-hcp transition to suggest likely transition mechanisms in the present case.Comment: 8 pages 5 figure