Expected impact quantification–based reliability assessment methodology for Chilean copper smelting process: A case study

Currently, a lack of interpretation tools and methodologies hinders the ability to assess the performance of a single piece of equipment or a total system. Therefore, a reliability, availability, and maintainability analysis must be combined with a quantitative reliability impact analysis to interpret the actual performance and identify bottlenecks and improvement opportunities. This article proposes a novel methodology that uses reliability, availability, and maintainability analysis to quantify the expected impact. The strengths of the failure expected impact methodology include its ability to systematically and quantitatively assess the expected impact in terms of reliability, availability, and maintainability indicators and the logical configuration of subsystems and individual equipment, which show the direct effects of each element on the total system. This proposed analysis complements plant modeling and analysis. Determining the operational effectiveness impact, as the final result of the computation process, enables the quantitative and unequivocal prioritization of the system elements by assessing the associated loss as a ‘‘production loss’’ regarding its unavailability and effect on the system process. The Chilean copper smelting process study provides useful results for developing a hierarchization that enables an analysis of improvement actions that are aligned with the best opportunities

Multi-criteria decision tool applied to a system reliability for the priorization of spare parts

This paper proposes a method for spare part priorization based on the system reliability behavior. The method considers the values taken by the reliability distribution parameters, as the result of a multi-criteria decision process. The range of values is divided into possible alternatives, which depend on the importance of different criteria. The presented exercise provides a quick view about how different spare part policies can be selected by the effect, not only of the design, installation quality or performed maintenance, but also due to factors that sometimes come from subjective assessments. Hence, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) includes both qualitative and quantitative criteria in the priorization scheme. The presented method is intended to be a starting point for the analysis of external factors that make an important influence on the decision–making of complex industrial assets, with high amounts of data, system configurations, and maintenance inputs, which will be analyzed in future researches with the support of a tailored software application

La Helena de la geometría

Debido al gran desarrollo de la informática, la práctica educativa realiza esfuerzos permanentemente por incorporar las nuevas tecnologías a las aulas. En este proyecto se han desarrollado, con la ayuda de Cabri, una propuesta didáctica que le permitan al alumno a través de la exploración y el uso del software reproducir el proceso histórico que llevo al hombre a descubrir las propiedades de la curva cicloide

Understanding the new Context of Uncertainty and Risk under the 4th Industry Revolution

Proceedings of the 29th European Safety and Reliability Conference (ESREL), 22 – 26 September 2019, Hannover, Germany. Editors, Michael Beer and Enrico ZioThe revolution towards the Industry 4.0, requires as a fundamental challenge the advanced treatment of risk in physical assets according to this new context. This revolution also includes the transition towards a new concept of assets and production systems giving rise to those known as cyber-physical systems (CPS) where the available information and knowledge about the systems and its behaviour should promote a level of control of the risk not known until now. In this context, the transition from classical model for risk management to other concepts, more flexible and dynamic is needed. It is the context that this paper is intended to illustrate, approaching risk control to the available data and technology.Gobierno de España. FFI2017- 89639-P, “Mechanisms in the sciences: from the biological to the social

Methodological proposal in order to increase the organizational learning based on experts’ knowledge and information systems in the field of asset management and maintenance

This paper deals with the formalization of knowledge of an organization, the structuring of a suitable logic sequence and the processing to achieve the applicability of this knowledge in the practical field for the organization. All this is done through a methodological proposal that allows increasing the organizational knowledge, which is based on the information found in the organization’s computer systems as well as on the knowledge and experience of experts, generating significant synergies. The motivation to develop this paper comes from the need to align organizational goals with the knowledge of the people and data in information systems related to the field of asset management and maintenance. This methodological proposal uses a recursive process of knowledge generation, where the iteration of processes and the permanent consultation regarding compliance with the objectives, generate a cyclic process whose results are materialized in a conceptual model that contains qualitative and quantitative information, in order to increase the understanding of the system

Increased expression of CD25, CD83, and CD86, and secretion of IL-12, IL-23, and IL-10 by human dendritic cells incubated in the presence of Toll-like receptor 2 ligands and Giardia duodenalis

Background: Effects of Giardia duodenalis on dendritic cell (DC) functions may contribute to the pathogenesis of chronic giardiasis. G. duodenalis lysate has been shown to inhibit the activation of murine DCs through the ligands of various Toll-like receptors (TLRs), including TLR2 and TLR4. Our study aimed at translating these findings to human DCs. Findings: As described previously for murine DCs, also human DCs were only weakly activated by the parasite itself. LPS-stimulated DCs incubated in the presence of G. duodenalis lysate produced less IL-12/23p40 (p = 0.002), IL-12p70 (p = 0.011), and IL-23 (p = 0.004), but more IL-10 (p = 0.006) than cells incubated in the absence of the parasite. Concomitantly, the expression of CD25, CD83, CD86, and HLA-DR was reduced on G. duodenalis-incubated DCs as compared to control cells. In contrast, human DCs stimulated through TLR2 in combination with TLR1 or TLR6 and G. duodenalis lysate secreted significantly more IL-12/23p40 (p = 0.006), IL-23 (p = 0.002), and IL-10 (p = 0.014) than cells stimulated through TLR2 ligands alone. Ligands for TLR2/TLR1 or TLR2/TLR6 also induced enhanced extracellular expression of CD25, CD83, and CD86 (p

El cambio evolutivo en el nicho de germinación de dos especies relacionadas dentro del clado Neoporteria (Cactaceae) es idiosincrático al tipo de hábitat

An appropriate germination response to environmental conditions is the first requirement for the establishment of a plant in a determined geographic area; therefore changes in the germination niche may be critical in configuring the current pattern of species distributions. Furthermore, the spread of many Neotropical groups to higher latitudes are constrained by the combination of cold and humid conditions. This raises the question whether evolutionary trends in germination niche are essential for the mechanism that allows the colonization of edge habitats characterized by humid and cold conditions. Here, we evaluated the variation of seed germination probabilities of two species of cacti (Neoporteria clade), closely related but endemic to habitats with different temperature and water availability conditions. The germination niche and differences in germination performance of Eriosyce subgibbosa and E. villosa were evaluated, using common garden experiments and varying temperature and soil water potential (?) conditions. Seeds of E. subgibbosa showed overall higher germination probabilities compared to E. villosa. Interestingly, most of the detected differences on seed germination performance are related with a higher ability of E. subgibbosa seeds to germinate under conditions with more water availability and under colder conditions compared to E. villosa seed germination. This study highlights one of the critical features that could be involved in the mechanism that leads to the expansion of the Neoporteria clade to more mesic habitats. Particularly the adaptation of the germination niche of E. subgibbosa may allow an expansion from an arid habitat that characterized basal species of the group (plesiomorphic state) to more humid and cold habitats.Una respuesta apropiada a las condiciones ambientales es el primer requisito para el establecimiento de una planta en un área geográfica, por lo tanto cambios en el nicho de germinación podrían ser críticos en configurar el actual patrón de distribución de especies. Además, la propagación de muchos grupos de origen neotropical hacia altas latitudes está limitada por la combinación de condiciones frías y alta humedad. Esto lleva a preguntarse si las tendencias evolutivas en el nicho de la germinación son esenciales en el mecanismo que permite la colonización del borde del hábitat caracterizado por ser frío y húmedo. Por ello, evaluamos la variación en las probabilidades de germinación de dos especies de cactáceas (clado Neoporteria), cercanamente relacionadas pero endémicas a hábitats con diferentes condiciones de temperatura y disponibilidad de agua. Usando experimentos de jardín común se varió la temperatura y el potencial osmótico del sustrato (?), se caracterizó el nicho evaluando las diferencias germinativas en Eriosyce subgibbosa y E. villosa. Las semillas de E. subgibbosa mostraron en general mayor germinación que las semillas de E. villosa. Interesantemente, la mayoría de las diferencias detectadas en la germinación de semillas están relacionadas con la mayor habilidad de las semillas de E. subgibbosa a germinar bajo condiciones de mayor disponibilidad hídrica y menores temperaturas comparado con la germinación de E. villosa. Este estudio llama la atención sobre uno de los aspectos críticos que podrían estar involucrados con el mecanismo que podría llevar la expansión del clado Neoporteria a hábitats más mésicos. Particularmente la adaptación del nicho de germinación de E. subgibbosa podría permitir la expansión en la distribución de un habitat árido que caracteriza a las especies basales del grupo como E. villosa (carácter plesiomórfico) hacia hábitats más húmedos y fríos

The Incidence of Subsidies to Residential Public Services in Argentina: The Subsidy System in 2014 and Some Alternatives

More than a decade of energy and transport subsidies have weakened Argentina’s fiscal capacity. Following the 2001 crisis, public services tariffs were frozen in an attempt to offset the negative effects on households’ real purchasing power. However, these subsidies steadily increased over the years, particularly since 2006, becoming a significant fiscal burden.2 Though subsidies can be a tool to protect the poor, in Argentina they led to distortions and a large share have been absorbed by upper classes and non-residential consumers. In 2015, electricity bills reflected less than 10% of production costs (Bidegaray, 2015), and lower tariffs have led to an increased demand of public services. Not only have energy and transport subsidies distorted both demand and supply, they have also not been efficiently targeted to the poor; instead, they have been distributed across all income groups, with the non-poor receiving the largest shares (Castro and Barafani, 2015; Lombardi et al., 2014; Marchionni et al., 2008; Navajas, 2015; Puig and Salinardi, 2015). For a recent discussion of the distortionary aspects of subsidies in Argentina, see Coppola et al. (2016). This report starts by analyzing the incidence of the 2014 system of residential federal subsidies to residential public services (defined as electricity, gas, water and transport) building on the work by Puig and Salinardi (2015).3 Figure 1 is a summary of the main results that will be explained in more detail in Section II. The left panel of Figure 1 shows the share of each subsidy going to the various quintiles of the income distribution. The public subsidies are in decreasing order of the share received by the poorest quintile which we have used here to describe targeting. It is clear that the subsidies to trains, piped gas and airlines benefit the richer segments disproportionally more. Electricity appears relatively neutral which still means that it could be targeted better. Programa Hogar is included in our incidence analysis, even if it was not introduced until 2015, since it will be used for the baseline of the simulation.Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS