Digitalization of the product development process at Scania engine assembly

The technology is constantly developing and companies are striving to work towards a more digital approach. Scania CV AB is a world leading Company manufacturing buses and trucks for heavy transport applications. To maintain their competitive position at the market the company has the ambition for the Product development process to become more digitalized. A goal is to implement a more simulation based and drawing free working method. This project has been carried out at the engine assembly department. The purpose with the thesis was to identify how parts of the product development process could be more digitalized. This included identifying the gap that will occur between the current working process and a more digital approach. Furthermore, it involved finding solutions for the gap and to present possible impacts of a digital working approach. The initial phase of the thesis was to find a suitable methodology for this type of study. The project proceeded with conducting a literature study to gain deeper insight of the subjects covered. A good foundation was obtained and the empirical study could commence. The data collection in the empirical study was gathered mainly within Scania through interviews, observations and archive analyses. Based on this information an analysis and result was carried out and presented. A gap was identified describing deficient areas in the current digital environment. The working method Model Based Definition (MBD) and a software called Industrial Path Solutions (IPS) are presented as solutions for the gap. Suggestions of how the working process should be modified have been set as prerequisites. Impacts including cost savings, quality improvements, shorter lead times and ergonomic benefits have been submitted.Tekniken utvecklas ständigt och företag strävar därför att arbeta mot ett mer digitalt arbetssätt. Scania CV AB är ett världsledande företag som tillverkar bussar och lastbilar för tunga transporter. För att behålla sin konkurrenskraftiga position på marknaden har företaget ambitionen att göra produktutvecklingsprocessen mer digitaliserad. Ett mål är att utveckla en mer simuleringsbaserad och ritningslös arbetsmetod. Detta projekt har genomförts på produktionsavdelningen där montering av motorer sker. Syftet med uppsatsen var att identifiera hur delar av den nuvarande produktutvecklingsprocessen skulle kunna bli mer digitaliserad. Detta innebar att identifiera det gap som kommer att uppstå mellan den nuvarande arbetsprocessen och ett mer digitaliserat tillvägagångssätt. Lösningar på gapet och effekterna av ett mer digitalt arbete skulle också presenteras. Den inledande delen av arbetet innefattade att hitta en lämplig metod för denna typ av studie. Projektet fortskred med en litteraturstudie för att få djupare inblick i de ämnen som projektet kommer att grundas i. Med en bra grundförståelse kunde en empirisk studie påbörjas. Datainsamlingen till den empiriska studien samlades huvudsakligen in på Scania genom intervjuer, observationer och arkivanalyser. Baserat på denna information genomfördes och presenterades en analys och ett resultat. Ett gap som beskriver de bristfälliga områden i den nuvarande digitala miljön identifierades. Arbetsmetoden Model Based Definition (MBD) och mjukvaran Industrial Path Solutions (IPS) presenterades som lösningar på gapet. Även förslag på hur arbetsprocessen kan ändras för att möjliggöra för ett mer digitalt tillvägagångssätt har redogjorts. Följderna av detta som inkluderar kostnadsbesparingar, kvalitetsförbättringar, kortare ledtider och ergonomifördelar har också sammanställts

Aktuella trender inom nötköttsproduktionen

I den här studien beskrivs framtida trender och möjligheter inom köttindustrin med fokus på konsumenternas behov. Det är främst två trender som identifieras i studien, i) förändringar i animalieproduktionen och ii) förändringar i framställning av köttprodukter. Förr var utmaningen inom animalieproduktionen den ökade tillväxten av befolkningen, idag är målet främst att förbättra konsumtionen så att den är hållbar för miljön utan att kompromissa med produktionens effektivitet. Konsumenternas efterfrågan på hälsosamma produkter är också en viktig drivkraft inom köttindustrin och efterfrågan på dessa produkter ökar stadigt. Inom animalieproduktionen är de stora trenderna ekologisk produktion och användning av nutritionella ingredienser i djurfodret för att förbättra kvalitén och näringsvärdet på slutprodukten, t.ex. foder med en fettsyrasammansättning men hög halt av PUFA(polyunsaturated fattyacids). Den ekologiska produktionen antas vara till nytta för djurskyddet som Sverige värnar om. Inom köttproduktionen är den stora trenden utvecklingen av hälsosamma produkter, t.ex. låg fetthalt, saltreducerande och probiotika berikade produkter. Den andra trenden är att garantera säkra produkter och förbättra hållbarheten på kött genom att använda nya förpackningstekniker t.ex. aktiva förpackningar. Arbetet inom industrin har också fokuserat på att försöka utnyttja animaliska biprodukter på ett effektivt sätt och använda dessa vid framtida utveckling av funktionella köttprodukter.This study was performed to identify novel trends and future opportunities in meat industry with special emphasis on consumer's needs. Two major types of trends were identified in this study, i) changes in livestock production and ii) changes in meat processing. Additionally, efforts in meat industry are focused on attempts to efficiently utilize animal by-products. Previously, challenges in livestock production were mainly determined by growth of human population, whereas nowadays major goal is to improve environmental sustainability without compromising livestock production efficiency. Consumer’s demand for healthy products is also important driver in livestock production. Thus, within livestock production sector major current trends are organic production and use of specific dietary ingredients in animal feed to improve nutritional value of final product, for example, fatty acid composition with higher PUFA content. Additionally, organic production is believed to be beneficial for animal welfare. Within meat procession sector, one of the major trends is development of healthy products, for example low-fat products, salt-reduced products and products enriched with probiotics. The second trend is to ensure meat safety and improve meat shelf-live by using novel packaging, for example active packaging

GAN-based generative modelling for dermatological applications -- comparative study

The lack of sufficiently large open medical databases is one of the biggest challenges in AI-powered healthcare. Synthetic data created using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) appears to be a good solution to mitigate the issues with privacy policies. The other type of cure is decentralized protocol across multiple medical institutions without exchanging local data samples. In this paper, we explored unconditional and conditional GANs in centralized and decentralized settings. The centralized setting imitates studies on large but highly unbalanced skin lesion dataset, while the decentralized one simulates a more realistic hospital scenario with three institutions. We evaluated models' performance in terms of fidelity, diversity, speed of training, and predictive ability of classifiers trained on the generated synthetic data. In addition we provided explainability through exploration of latent space and embeddings projection focused both on global and local explanations. Calculated distance between real images and their projections in the latent space proved the authenticity and generalization of trained GANs, which is one of the main concerns in this type of applications. The open source code for conducted studies is publicly available at \url{https://github.com/aidotse/stylegan2-ada-pytorch}.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, 2 table

Postprandial differences in the plasma metabolome of healthy Finnish subjects after intake of a sourdough fermented endosperm rye bread versus white wheat bread

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The mechanism behind the lowered postprandial insulin demand observed after rye bread intake compared to wheat bread is unknown. The aim of this study was to use the metabolomics approach to identify potential metabolites related to amino acid metabolism involved in this mechanism.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A sourdough fermented endosperm rye bread (RB) and a standard white wheat bread (WB) as a reference were served in random order to 16 healthy subjects. Test bread portions contained 50 g available carbohydrate. <it>In vitro </it>hydrolysis of starch and protein were performed for both test breads. Blood samples for measuring glucose and insulin concentrations were drawn over 4 h and gastric emptying rate (GER) was measured. Changes in the plasma metabolome were investigated by applying a comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled to time-of-flight mass spectrometry metabolomics platform (GC×GC-TOF-MS).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Plasma insulin response to RB was lower than to WB at 30 min (P = 0.004), 45 min (P = 0.002) and 60 min (P < 0.001) after bread intake, and plasma glucose response was significantly higher at time point 90 min after RB than WB intake (P = 0.045). The starch hydrolysis rate was higher for RB than WB, contrary to the <it>in vitro </it>protein digestibility. There were no differences in GER between breads. From 255 metabolites identified by the metabolomics platform, 26 showed significant postprandial relative changes after 30 minutes of bread intake (p and q values < 0.05). Among them, there were changes in essential amino acids (phenylalanine, methionine, tyrosine and glutamic acid), metabolites involved in the tricarboxylic acid cycle (alpha-ketoglutaric, pyruvic acid and citric acid) and several organic acids. Interestingly, the levels of two compounds involved in the tryptophan metabolism (picolinic acid, ribitol) significantly changed depending on the different bread intake.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A single meal of a low fibre sourdough rye bread producing low postprandial insulin response brings in several changes in plasma amino acids and their metabolites and some of these might have properties beneficial for health.</p

Improving coeliac disease risk prediction by testing non-HLA variants additional to HLA variants

Background: The majority of coeliac disease (CD) patients are not being properly diagnosed and therefore remain untreated, leading to a greater risk of developing CD-associated complications. The major genetic risk heterodimer, HLA-DQ2 and DQ8, is already used clinically to help exclude disease. However, approximately 40% of the population carry these alleles and the majority never develop CD. Objective: We explored whether CD risk prediction can be improved by adding non-HLA-susceptible variants to common HLA testing. Design: We developed an average weighted genetic risk score with 10, 26 and 57 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in 2675 cases and 2815 controls and assessed the improvement in risk prediction provided by the non-HLA SNP. Moreover, we assessed the transferability of the genetic risk model with 26 non-HLA variants to a nested case–control population (n=1709) and a prospective cohort (n=1245) and then tested how well this model predicted CD outcome for 985 independent individuals. Results: Adding 57 non-HLA variants to HLA testing showed a statistically significant improvement compared to scores from models based on HLA only, HLA plus 10 SNP and HLA plus 26 SNP. With 57 non-HLA variants, the area under the receiver operator characteristic curve reached 0.854 compared to 0.823 for HLA only, and 11.1% of individuals were reclassified to a more accurate risk group. We show that the risk model with HLA plus 26 SNP is useful in independent populations. Conclusions: Predicting risk with 57 additional non-HLA variants improved the identification of potential CD patients. This demonstrates a possible role for combined HLA and non-HLA genetic testing in diagnostic work for CD

GrassPlot - a database of multi-scale plant diversity in Palaearctic grasslands

GrassPlot is a collaborative vegetation-plot database organised by the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG) and listed in the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD ID EU-00-003). GrassPlot collects plot records (releves) from grasslands and other open habitats of the Palaearctic biogeographic realm. It focuses on precisely delimited plots of eight standard grain sizes (0.0001; 0.001;... 1,000 m(2)) and on nested-plot series with at least four different grain sizes. The usage of GrassPlot is regulated through Bylaws that intend to balance the interests of data contributors and data users. The current version (v. 1.00) contains data for approximately 170,000 plots of different sizes and 2,800 nested-plot series. The key components are richness data and metadata. However, most included datasets also encompass compositional data. About 14,000 plots have near-complete records of terricolous bryophytes and lichens in addition to vascular plants. At present, GrassPlot contains data from 36 countries throughout the Palaearctic, spread across elevational gradients and major grassland types. GrassPlot with its multi-scale and multi-taxon focus complements the larger international vegetationplot databases, such as the European Vegetation Archive (EVA) and the global database " sPlot". Its main aim is to facilitate studies on the scale-and taxon-dependency of biodiversity patterns and drivers along macroecological gradients. GrassPlot is a dynamic database and will expand through new data collection coordinated by the elected Governing Board. We invite researchers with suitable data to join GrassPlot. Researchers with project ideas addressable with GrassPlot data are welcome to submit proposals to the Governing Board