Embedded smart bearing for condition monitoring of rolling mill for Industry 4.0

The implementation of smart manufacturing in steelmaking includes a continuous monitoring of cluster cold rolling mill to perform an effective activity of prognosis, diagnosis and maintenance. Some back bearings are applied to the outer crown of backup rolls within the mill cage to play the role of physical node, for a cloud-based interconnected monitored system. The concept of smart bearing, equipped with sensors, is here revised and fitted to purpose. Since main goals of monitoring are detecting any abnormal operation of mill and identifying any damage within the bearing, some key measurements to be performed and a trade-off of sensors technologies are proposed, through the Model Based Systems Engineering approach, according to the Industry 4.0

Design procedure against thermomechanical fatigue damage of RF–MEMS switch

The RF–MEMS switch undergoes a complex loading in service, including nonlinear electromechanical excitation, heating and alternate contact between electrodes. Thermomechanical coupling makes aggressive fatigue damage, and requires a suitable strategy to effectively predict the MEMS life. This paper assesses a suitable procedure to predict the microswitch behaviour, to define a suitable range of load and temperature, in operation, against the thermomechanical damages and provides a design criterion looking compatible with set-ups of some commercial products

Physical activity programs for balance and fall prevention in elderly: A systematic review

BACKGROUND: Due to demographic changes the world's population is progressively ageing. The physiological decay of the elderly adult may lead to a reduction in the ability to balance and an increased risk of falls becoming an important issue among the elderly. In order to counteract the decay in the ability to balance, physical activity has been proven to be effective. The aim of this study is to systematically review the scientific literature in order to identify physical activity programs able to increase balance in the elderly. METHODS: This review is based on the data from Medline-NLM, Pubmed, ScienceDirect, and SPORTDiscuss and includes randomized control trials that have analyzed balance and physical activity in healthy elderly over 65 years of age during the last decade. A final number of 8 manuscripts were included in the qualitative synthesis, which comprised 200 elderly with a mean age of 75.1 ± 4.4 years. The sample size of the studies varied from 9 to 61 and the intervention periods from 8 to 32 weeks. RESULTS: Eight articles were considered eligible and included in the quantitative synthesis. The articles investigated the effects of resistance and aerobic exercise, balance training, T-bow© and wobble board training, aerobic step and stability ball training, adapted physical activity and Wii Fit training on balance outcomes. Balance measures of the studies showed improvements between 16% and 42% compared to baseline assessments. CONCLUSIONS: Balance is a multifactorial quality that can be effectively increased by different exercise training means. It is fundamental to promote physical activity in the aging adult, being that a negative effect on balance performance has been seen in the no-intervention control groups

Global health governance, healthy systems and development cooperation

La salute globale è un’area emergente di studi, ricerca e pratiche interdisciplinari che considera gli effetti della globalizzazione sulla salute con particolare attenzione alle questioni inerenti ai suoi determinanti sociali e alle iniziative di carattere transnazionale, e alla loro interazione con i sistemi nazionali e locali. Il tema della cooperazione internazionale allo sviluppo fa parte integrante dell’agenda della governance globale “della” e “per” la salute, soprattutto a seguito dell'emergere nell'ultimo decennio di nuovi attori non governativi sovra-nazionali che vengono a modificare sostanzialmente gli equilibri di potere e i processi decisionali globali riguardo alla salute. In tale contesto, nel 2009 il Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Direzione Generale per la Cooperazione allo Sviluppo, ha prodotto il documento Salute Globale: Principi Guida della Cooperazione Italiana inteso a “guidare i programmi sanitari della Cooperazione Italiana, a rafforzare la complementarità e la coerenza del sistema italiano di cooperazione, e a promuovere l’allineamento delle politiche di aiuto pubblico allo sviluppo alle politiche dei paesi partner, così come l’armonizzazione con quelle degli altri donatori, e in particolare dell’Unione Europea.” Declinando il tema sia secondo la questione “partenariati e sistemi per la cooperazione”, sia sul piano dell’interazione tra saperi e poteri globali e processi di sviluppo locali, questo Panel intende esplorare il ruolo delle università nell’approfondire e applicare nella pratica tali principi guida (lotta alla povertà e alle diseguaglianze, accesso universale ed equo ai servizi sanitari, rafforzamento dei sistemi sanitari nazionali, partecipazione delle comunità, partenariato internazionale nella ricerca scientifica e nella formazione, efficacia dell’aiuto). In questo contesto assume particolare rilevanza il rilancio dei principi contenuti nella Dichiarazione di Alma-Ata (1978). Tra quelli anche quello di garantire l’accesso ai farmaci essenziali a tutta la popolazione (cui oggi si aggiunge la necessità di far fronte al problema globale dei farmaci contraffatti). Le università italiane possono perseguire questo scopo attraverso attività di ricerca, con appropriati percorsi di formazione interdisciplinare e interculturale, e fornendo adeguato know-how e tecnologia appropriata, nonché sostenendo – interagendo con le istituzioni competenti e con la società civile - interventi mirati di informazione, prevenzione e controllo

Finite elements prediction of thermal stresses in work roll of hot rolling mills

AbstractA simplified numerical approach based on finite elements to compute thermal stresses occurring in work roll of hot rolling mills is here proposed. To decrease both the complexity of the analysis and the computational effort, this approach implements a plane finite element model of the work roll alone, loaded on its surface by the rotating thermal actions due to the cyclic sequence of the conductive heating caused by the contact with hot strip and cooling provided by water jets. Results from thermal analysis are preliminary compared to an analytical solution available in the literature and then applied as thermal input in the subsequent mechanical finite elements simulations, which provide thermal stress in the work roll and the elastic-plastic evolution of elements, close to the work roll surface

Systems Engineering and Its Application to Industrial Product Development

PREFACE : Mastering the complexity of innovative systems currently looks a challenging goal of design and product development as well as embedding a suitable degree of smartness in devices, machines and equipment to make them able of adapting their operation to variable conditions or effects of a harsh environment. This goal is achieved through a continuous monitoring of the system in service, an effec-tive control of its behavior and a wide connectivity towards many other systems. Only an effective system design and manufacture, able to cover all the required actions, can assure this kind of assessment overall the life cycle since a very ear-ly concept of the product to a full disposal and service. Complexity makes hard managing the product development, because of the number of functions, subsystems, components and related interfaces usually in-volved, like in motor vehicles, robots, railways systems, aircrafts and spacecrafts as well as in large industrial manufacturing systems or very innovative microsys-tems and bioinspired devices. A crucial issue in this activity is performing a bright and complete elicitation of requirements, which need to be fully and suit-ably allocated to the system components, through a clear traceability, especially in systems produced as a result of material processing and assembling of parts. Moreover, the product must fit the requirements associated to some customer needs, innovation targets, and technical standards and be compatible with the manufacturer’s capabilities. As it looks clear from the current state–of–art, since several years the Systems Engineering assures a suitable answer to the needs above mentioned. It provides a methodology to drive the product lifecycle assessment that is implemented through a well defined process, being based on some specific and graphical lan-guages and even formalized in several tools enabling the required analyses, tak-ing advantage of the capabilities of some dedicated commercial software. Those contents lead to create a platform, consisting of a sort of tools chain, which might be used and shared among different industrial and professional partners to digitalize both the information and even the whole industrial product develop-ment, as far as the current strategy referred to as “Industry 4.0 / The Factory of the Future” brightly suggests and supports. The so–called Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is then successfully proposing an effective and modern al-ternative to the document-based approach, using data models as a main element of the design process. Some technical standards already drive the user in imple-menting the Systems Engineering, thus leading to develop a systematic approach the design aimed at satisfying the customer needs. Suitable capabilities in the manufactured system are assured by the so–called architectural frameworks, which support the system development and integration. The Model Based Systems Engineering allows proceeding with a modeling activity which investigates requirements, behavior and architecture through a combined operational, functional and logical analysis, being linked and interop-erated with a mathematical and physical modeling, which is typically more known and widely used within the industrial engineering. A full integration of all the activities of the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is currently going on, to include the system architecture definition and its Application Lifecycle Man-agement (ALM) as well as the Product Data Management (PDM), i.e. the design activity together with the tasks of production, testing, homologation and service. A recognized standard certification to qualify the Systems Engineer is even available as the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) pro-vides. The scenario above described is strongly integrated with the increasing devel-opment of both the network and the cyber–physical systems, for a fully distribut-ed connectivity, to be exploited in advanced smart systems and devices as well as in intelligent manufacturing, according to the most recent strategies of innova-tion as the “Industry 4.0” initiative and the “Lean manufacturing” idea. Simulta-neously, the system smartness and connectivity together increase the demand of data transmission and elaboration, thus linking this topic to the technology of big data management, whilst they benefit of the progress in information technology, through a secure cloud based on the network. The context just described motivates the fast diffusion of the Model Based Systems Engineering as a tool for innovating all the production processes. The increasing demand of specialized software and of educational activities as well as the number of workshops and conferences focused on this topic confirm this trend. However, it might be remarked that several contributions to the literature about the Systems Engineering widely grew up during the last years, thus making the Reader sometimes confused, especially when approaching this topic at first. The Systems Engineering topics are so many that it looks rather difficult mas-tering its skills, without a preliminary classification of contents. Technical do-mains involved are mainly those of engineering and computer science, although many other ones play the role of a daily user of this methodology. According to the most recent development of the Systems Engineering, whose typical applica-tion fields were the software and electronic systems even for space missions, the current focus consists of several industrial systems, being gradually innovated by introducing the tailored solutions of mechatronics. It is worthy noticing that a significant advancement was introduced between the very early implementation of the Systems Engineering and its recent evolution, since several new applica-tions are focused on the production of systems, which need to be manufactured through a material processing. Usually, they exhibit some attributes related both to their physical nature and to the functions performed, thus requiring to model both their functional and physical behaviors together. This need is changing the scenario of the typical applications of the Systems Engineering as software de-sign. This handbook expressively avoids to cover all the typical contents of the spe-cialized literature of the Model Based Systems Engineering, whilst is aimed at making easier a first approach to this topic and sharing a preliminary experience performed by the authors within some industrial domains, by proceeding in the modeling activity in a real industrial environment. The main goal is drawing a sort of simple and hopefully clear roadmap in modeling and developing the in-dustrial and material systems and in implementing the Systems Engineering, par-ticularly in the design activity. Therefore, the target audience of this handbook includes professional engineers, scientists and students dealing with the Applica-tion Lifecycle Management and the system architecture assessment, more than the Product Data Management or the whole Product Lifecycle Management. The approach followed is that of introducing some examples of implementa-tion of the Systems Engineering, by proceeding step by step from the screening of needs and the elicitation of requirements till a synthesis of the system design. Each action will be referred to the literature, related to the implementation of the Systems Modeling Language or SysML and to the use of some tools available on market, thus highlighting benefits, drawbacks and current limitations of some dedicated software or even of some proposed methodologies. Several comments will be provided to describe the troubles shared among some users of the Sys-tems Engineering as they were detected in daily practice by the authors. They wish that this handbook could briefly and gradually provide the Reader with a preliminary guideline to approach professionally the Model Based Systems En-gineering, by understanding its main contents and applying it to the industrial environment. As a desired result, this work might be considered as an integration of some textbooks of Machine Design, and it is aimed at completing the education within Engineering Design or at simply providing a friendly introduction to the Systems Engineerin

The primordial environment of super massive black holes: large scale galaxy overdensities around z∼6z\sim6 QSOs with LBT

We investigated the presence of galaxy overdensities around four $z\sim6$ QSOs, namely SDSS J1030+0524 (z = 6.28), SDSS J1148+5251 (z = 6.41), SDSS J1048+4637 (z = 6.20) and SDSS J1411+1217 (z = 5.95), through deep $r$-, $i$- and $z$- band imaging obtained with the wide-field ($\sim23'\times25'$) Large Binocular Camera (LBC) at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). We adopted color-color selections within the $i-z$ vs $r-z$ plane to identify samples of $i$-band dropouts at the QSO redshift and measure their relative abundance and spatial distribution in the four LBC fields, each covering $\sim8\times8$ physical Mpc at $z\sim6$. The same selection criteria were then applied to $z$-band selected sources in the $\sim$1 deg$^2$ Subaru-XMM Newton Deep Survey to derive the expected number of dropouts over a blank LBC-sized field ($\sim$0.14 deg$^2$). The four observed QSO fields host a number of candidates larger than what is expected in a blank field. By defining as $i$-band dropouts objects with $z_{AB}1.4$ and undetected in the $r$-band, we found 16, 10, 9, 12 dropouts in SDSS J1030+0524, SDSS J1148+5251, SDSS J1048+4637, and SDSS J1411+1217, respectively, whereas only 4.3 such objects are expected over a 0.14 deg$^2$ blank field. This corresponds to overdensity significances of 3.3, 1.9, 1.7, 2.5$\sigma$, respectively. By considering the total number of dropouts in the four LBC fields and comparing it with what is expected in four blank fields of 0.14 deg$^2$ each, we find that high-z QSOs reside in overdense environments at the $3.7\sigma$ level. This is the first direct and unambiguous measurement of the large scale structures around $z\sim6$ QSOs. [shortened]Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in A&