Remanufacturing and product design: designing for the 7th generation

The following is taken directly from the research report. This report investigates Design for Remanufacture in terms of both detailed product design and the business context in which Design for Remanufacture may operate. Key Study Objectives • To understand the link between design and remanufacture • To understand how Design for Remanufacture can lead to increased innovation and Sustainable Development (SD) • To identify proactive strategies to further Design for Remanufactur

Remanufacturing and product design

This article is the result of long-standing research in eco-design, and builds directly on a report produced in 2007 for South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) on 'Remanufacturing and Production' and particularly 'Design for Remanufacturing' (DfR). Although DfR is an under-researched area, there is growing interest worldwide in 'cradle to cradle', 'closed loop' and 'circular economy' concepts, thinking and practice. While remanufacture has been a consideration of much of my research since the mid-1990s, not least within the areas of 'producer responsibility', legislation (such as the WEEE Directive) and eco-design, this article draws together a diverse body of research for the first time around this theme. Drawing on desk research, personal interviews and an expert workshop, undertaken as part of the aforementioned SEEDA project that I developed and led, the article focuses on DfR as a new business model that needs to incorporate a more holistic perspective, including design principles, reverse logistics, manufacturing, marketing and business strategy. On the basis of research undertaken through two DTI missions and an EC funded project concerned with eco-design, recycling, and electronics manufacture in Japan, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, the paper argues that DfR is a strategic rather than an operational design concept, one that has been implemented successfully by only a few global leadership companies. As the senior researcher, I led the conception, structuring and writing of this paper based substantially on my personal research activities, previous reports and presentations in this area. My co-author provided specific details derived from desk research

The green algal underground : evolutionary secrets of desert cells

Author Posting. © American Institute of Biological Sciences, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Institute of Biological Sciences for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in BioScience 58 (2008): 114-122, doi:10.1641/B580206.Microscopic, unicellular, free-living green algae are found in desert microbiotic crusts worldwide. Although morphologically simple, green algae in desert crusts have recently been found to be extraordinarily diverse, with membership spanning five green algal classes and encompassing many taxa new to science. This overview explores this remarkable diversity and its potential to lead to new perspectives on the diversity and evolution of green plants. Molecular systematic and physiological data gathered from desert taxa demonstrate that these algae are long-term members of desert communities, not transient visitors from aquatic habitats. Variations in desiccation tolerance and photophysiology among these algae include diverse evolutionary innovations that developed under selective pressures in the desert. Combined with the single embryophyte lineage to which more familiar terrestrial green plants belong, multiple desert green algal lineages provide independent evolutionary units that may enhance understanding of the evolution and ecology of eukaryotic photosynthetic life on land.This work was supported by grants from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Exobiology Program (EXB02-0042-0054) to L. A. L. and Z. G. C., from the National Science Foundation (DEB- 0529737) to L. A. L., and from the University of Connecticut Research Foundation to Z. G. C

Modulation of autonomic activity in neurological conditions: Epilepsy and Tourette Syndrome

This manuscript considers the central but neglected role of the autonomic nervous system in the expression and control of seizures in epilepsy (small) and tics in Tourette Syndrome (TS). In epilepsy, consideration of autonomic involvement is typically confined to differential diagnoses (e.g., syncope), or in relation to Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP). Investigation is more limited in Tourette Syndrome. The role of the autonomic nervous system in the generation and prevention of epileptic seizures is largely overlooked. Emotional stimuli such as anxiety and stress are potent causes of seizures and tic activity in epilepsy and TS, respectively. This manuscript will describe a possible neural mechanism by which afferent autonomic projections linked to cognition and behavior influence central thalamo-cortical regulation, which appears to be an important means for controlling both seizure and tic activity. It also summarizes the link between the integrity of the default mode network and autonomic regulation in patients with epilepsy as well as the link between impaired motor control and autonomic regulation in patients with TS. Two neurological conditions; epilepsy and TS were chosen, as seizures and tics represent parameters that can be easily measured to investigate influences of autonomic functions. The EDA biofeedback approach is anticipated to gain a strong position within the next generation of treatment for epilepsy, as a non-invasive technique with minimal side effects. This approach also takes advantage of the current practical opportunity to utilize growing digital health technology

CADD: predicting the deleteriousness of variants throughout the human genome

Combined Annotation-Dependent Depletion (CADD) is a widely used measure of variant deleteriousness that can effectively prioritize causal variants in genetic analyses, particularly highly penetrant contributors to severe Mendelian disorders. CADD is an integrative annotation built from more than 60 genomic features, and can score human single nucleotide variants and short insertion and deletions anywhere in the reference assembly. CADD uses a machine learning model trained on a binary distinction between simulated de novo variants and variants that have arisen and become fixed in human populations since the split between humans and chimpanzees; the former are free of selective pressure and may thus include both neutral and deleterious alleles, while the latter are overwhelmingly neutral (or, at most, weakly deleterious) by virtue of having survived millions of years of purifying selection. Here we review the latest updates to CADD, including the most recent version, 1.4, which supports the human genome build GRCh38. We also present updates to our website that include simplified variant lookup, extended documentation, an Application Program Interface and improved mechanisms for integrating CADD scores into other tools or applications. CADD scores, software and documentation are available at https://cadd.gs.washington.edu

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Search for chargino-neutralino production with mass splittings near the electroweak scale in three-lepton final states in √s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for supersymmetry through the pair production of electroweakinos with mass splittings near the electroweak scale and decaying via on-shell W and Z bosons is presented for a three-lepton final state. The analyzed proton-proton collision data taken at a center-of-mass energy of √s=13  TeV were collected between 2015 and 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139  fb−1. A search, emulating the recursive jigsaw reconstruction technique with easily reproducible laboratory-frame variables, is performed. The two excesses observed in the 2015–2016 data recursive jigsaw analysis in the low-mass three-lepton phase space are reproduced. Results with the full data set are in agreement with the Standard Model expectations. They are interpreted to set exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level on simplified models of chargino-neutralino pair production for masses up to 345 GeV

Prion protein amyloidosis with divergent phenotype associated with two novel nonsense mutations in PRNP

Stop codon mutations in the gene encoding the prion protein (PRNP) are very rare and have thus far only been described in two patients with prion protein cerebral amyloid angiopathy (PrP-CAA). In this report, we describe the clinical, histopathological and pathological prion protein (PrPSc) characteristics of two Dutch patients carrying novel adjacent stop codon mutations in the C-terminal part of PRNP, resulting in either case in hereditary prion protein amyloidoses, but with strikingly different clinicopathological phenotypes. The patient with the shortest disease duration (27 months) carried a Y226X mutation and showed PrP-CAA without any neurofibrillary lesions, whereas the patient with the longest disease duration (72 months) had a Q227X mutation and showed an unusual Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker disease phenotype with numerous cerebral multicentric amyloid plaques and severe neurofibrillary lesions without PrP-CAA. Western blot analysis in the patient with the Q227X mutation demonstrated the presence of a 7 kDa unglycosylated PrPSc fragment truncated at both the N- and C-terminal ends. Our observations expand the spectrum of clinicopathological phenotypes associated with PRNP mutations and show that a single tyrosine residue difference in the PrP C-terminus may significantly affect the site of amyloid deposition and the overall phenotypic expression of the prion disease. Furthermore, it confirms that the absence of the glycosylphosphatidylinositol anchor in PrP predisposes to amyloid plaque formation