Assessing Bottlenecks in Vertically Organized Beef Systems

Agribusiness,

Parameters affecting quality in manual assembly of engines

In manufacturing, it is vital that operators and other production personnel have the right information at the right time and right place. But what happens if we overestimate the usability of information for supporting the personnel in their assembly tasks?When does information serve as a quality assurance tool, and when does it become a too large part of the workload, thus reducing the time for core workplace activities, and instead becoming a part of the personnel’s workload? This paper reports on work that has been conducted at a heavy diesel engine assembly plant with the aim of finding information usability parameters that can affect the personnel negatively or positively. The paper presents and describes an evaluation of an existing information system at the plant. The aim of the evaluation was to find out why the assembly personnel, despite the fact that they had “all the information they needed”, did not always assemble the product according to specification and thereby caused an engine reject that had to be re-assembled. The initial hypothesis was that there would be a strong correlation between the production volume and the number of rejects due to “Information Overload”. However, the study revealed that the personnel do not use the IT system in a way that causes information overload. Instead, the degree to which the IT system supports/triggers different forms of information seeking behaviour is thought to be one of the main factors influencing internal reject

Ergonomics analysis in a virtual environment

Simulation can support the design of an ergonomic workplace by enabling early assessment of ergonomic conditions in a virtual environment. An important feature is the possibility to study alternative solutions or the effect of improvements from an ergonomics perspective. To be able to conduct an efficient and reliable evaluation in a virtual environment, an objective analysis method is essential. Such an analysis method should be integrated in the simulation software, and support a company's everyday ergonomics work process. In order to gain from existing ergonomics knowledge within a company, the possibility to implement such wisdom in the current simulation software becomes important. This paper presents an implementation work done with the purpose of integrating an established ergonomics work process into a virtual environment. It describes the benefits of an ergonomics work process where simulation and evaluation at early stages of a design process are key factors. The paper will also describe the integration process, i.e., the technical issues as well as the change in work methods

An assembly line information system study

Assembly line information systems are designed to provide assembly workers with appropriate information that allows the assembly of the product in good time and good quality. In this context product quality might be defined relative to the number of internal rejects or products which need some kind of reworking before being in a deliverable condition. This paper describes a pilot study of a heavy diesel engine assembly line where considerable variety is presented to the assembly workers in the form of engines destined for trucks, buses, marine applications and stationary power generation each of which has to comply with a variety of national and international standards. Internal rejects might for example occur through the fitting of subassemblies that are unsuited to the eventual application, and although an extensive information system is currently in place the level of internal rejects is considered to be unsatisfactory. The objectives of the study were to understand how the assembly workers interact with information systems and the impact this has on product quality and productivity. A single line was studied for ten days during which 2600 engines were assembled. At four of the assembly stations the existing information system was changed to reduce the amount of information to be assimilated by the workers, the timing of its presentation and its location. The use of simple colour-coded cards and symbols resulted in the reduction of internal rejects by 40% on two of the assembly stations and to zero on the other two stations. It is believed that changing the information system has changed the workers' behaviour through a reduction in cognitive stress levels. The pilot study has provided useful insights into the basis for modifying information systems and a further study of the final assembly of heavy trucks is planned with an ultimate aim of determining a rationale for the design of information systems for use within the assembly of customised products

Optimization of supply diversity for the self-assembly of simple objects in two and three dimensions

The field of algorithmic self-assembly is concerned with the design and analysis of self-assembly systems from a computational perspective, that is, from the perspective of mathematical problems whose study may give insight into the natural processes through which elementary objects self-assemble into more complex ones. One of the main problems of algorithmic self-assembly is the minimum tile set problem (MTSP), which asks for a collection of types of elementary objects (called tiles) to be found for the self-assembly of an object having a pre-established shape. Such a collection is to be as concise as possible, thus minimizing supply diversity, while satisfying a set of stringent constraints having to do with the termination and other properties of the self-assembly process from its tile types. We present a study of what we think is the first practical approach to MTSP. Our study starts with the introduction of an evolutionary heuristic to tackle MTSP and includes results from extensive experimentation with the heuristic on the self-assembly of simple objects in two and three dimensions. The heuristic we introduce combines classic elements from the field of evolutionary computation with a problem-specific variant of Pareto dominance into a multi-objective approach to MTSP.Comment: Minor typos correcte

An overview of Clinical Quality Registries (CQRs) on gynecological oncology worldwide

Introduction: Clinical Quality Registries (CQRs) were initiated in order to compare clinical outcomes between hospitals or regions within a country. To get an overview of these CQRs worldwide the aim of this study was to identify these CQRs for gynecological oncology and to summarize their characteristics, processes and QI's and to establish whether it is feasible to make an international comparison in the future. Methods: To identify CQRs in gynecological oncology a literature search in Pubmed was performed. All papers describing the use of a CQR were included. Administrative, epidemiological and cancer registries were excluded as these registries do not primarily serve to measure quality of care through QI's. The taskforce or contact person of the included CQR were asked to participate and share information on registered items, processes and indicators. Results: Five nations agreed to collaborate: Australia, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden. Denmark, Netherlands and Sweden established a nationwide registry, collecting data on multiple tumor types, and various QI's. Australia and Italy included patients with ovarian cancer only. All nations had a different process to report feedback results to participating hospitals. Conclusion: CQRs serve the same purpose to improve quality of care but vary on different aspects. Although similarities are observed in the topics measured by the QI's, an international comparison was not feasible as numerators or denominators differ between registries. In order to compare on an international level it would be useful to harmonize these registries and to set an international standard to measure the quality of care with similar indicators

The influence of soil communities on the temperature sensitivity of soil respiration

Soil respiration represents a major carbon flux between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere, and is expected to accelerate under climate warming. Despite its importance in climate change forecasts, however, our understanding of the effects of temperature on soil respiration (RS) is incomplete. Using a metabolic ecology approach we link soil biota metabolism, community composition and heterotrophic activity, to predict RS rates across five biomes. We find that accounting for the ecological mechanisms underpinning decomposition processes predicts climatological RS variations observed in an independent dataset (n = 312). The importance of community composition is evident because without it RS is substantially underestimated. With increasing temperature, we predict a latitudinal increase in RS temperature sensitivity, with Q10 values ranging between 2.33 ±0.01 in tropical forests to 2.72 ±0.03 in tundra. This global trend has been widely observed, but has not previously been linked to soil communities

A longitudinal study of perceived health during pregnancy: antecedents and outcomes

Perceived health was studied longitudinally in a sample of 364 nulliparous women. Psychosocial, contextual, and biomedical factors were taken into account to predict medically relevant versus benign symptoms which were then used to predict perceived health over time. The results of structural equation modeling showed that pregnancy adjustment and medically relevant symptoms which were affected by social support, perceived stress, and negative affect predicted later perceived health. The outcomes of perceived health were examined during the third trimester in terms of medical care utilization and emergency room visits. Perceived health solely accounted for medical care utilization, while emergency room visits were accounted by medical care utilization and perceived stress

Sequential adjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy in endometrial cancer--results from two randomised studies.

INTRODUCTION: Endometrial cancer patients with high grade tumours, deep myometrial invasion, or advanced stage disease have a poor prognosis. Randomized studies have demonstrated prevention of loco-regional relapses with radiotherapy with no effect on overall survival. The possible additive effect of chemotherapy remains unclear. Two randomized clinical trials (NSGO-EC-9501/EORTC-55991 and MaNGO ILIADE-III) were undertaken to clarify if sequential combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy improves progression-free survival in high-risk endometrial cancer. The two studies were pooled. METHODS: Patients (n=540; 534 evaluable) with operated endometrial cancer FIGO stage I-III with no residual tumour and prognostic factors implying high-risk were randomly allocated to adjuvant radiotherapy with or without sequential chemotherapy. RESULTS: In the NSGO/EORTC study, combined modality treatment was associated with a 36 % reduction in the risk for relapse or death (HR 0.64, 95 % CI 0.41-0.99; P=0.04); two-sided tests were used. The result from the MaNGO-study pointed in the same direction (HR 0.61), but was not significant. In combined analysis, the estimate of risk for relapse or death was similar but with narrower confidence limits (HR 0.63, CI 0.44-0.89; P=0.009). Neither study showed significant differences in overall survival. In combined analysis, overall survival approached statistical significance (HR 0.69, CI 0.46-1.03; P = 0.07) and cancer-specific survival was significant (HR 0.55, CI 0.35-0.88; p=0.01). CONCLUSION: Addition of adjuvant chemotherapy to radiation improves progression-free survival in operated endometrial cancer patients with no residual tumour and high risk profile. A remaining question for future studies is if addition of radiotherapy to chemotherapy improves the results

Strong correlation between the rates of intrinsically antibiotic-resistant species and the rates of acquired resistance in Gram-negative species causing bacteraemia, EU/EEA, 2016

BackgroundAntibiotic resistance, either intrinsic or acquired, is a major obstacle for treating bacterial infections.AimOur objective was to compare the country-specific species distribution of the four Gram-negative species Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter species and the proportions of selected acquired resistance traits within these species.MethodWe used data reported for 2016 to the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network (EARS-Net) by 30 countries in the European Union and European Economic Area.ResultsThe country-specific species distribution varied considerably. While E. coli accounted for 31.9% to 81.0% (median: 69.0%) of all reported isolates, the two most common intrinsically resistant species P. aeruginosa and Acinetobacter spp. combined (PSEACI) accounted for 5.5% to 39.2% of isolates (median: 10.1%). Similarly, large national differences were noted for the percentages of acquired non-susceptibility to third-generation cephalosporins, carbapenems and fluoroquinolones. There was a strong positive rank correlation between the country-specific percentages of PSEACI and the percentages of non-susceptibility to the above antibiotics in all four species (rho > 0.75 for 10 of the 11 pairs of variables tested).ConclusionCountries with the highest proportion of P. aeruginosa and Acinetobacter spp. were also those where the rates of acquired non-susceptibility in all four studied species were highest. The differences are probably related to national differences in antibiotic consumption and infection prevention and control routines