XXXVIII Jornadas de Automática

Producción CientíficaThis work presents a decision-support tool to address the model-based optimization approach for online load allocation and scheduling of cleaning operations in an evaporation network. The aim is improving the resource efficiency by supplying the optimal solution for a given production goal. The approach includes the semi-automatic update of evaporator models, which is based on historical data for minimal modelling effort. The structure of the problem is formulated via mixed-integer programming and integrated into the plant supervision systems. Production constraints, concerns about the practical implementation and visualization preferences are also taken into account in the design of the prototypical tool.MINECO/FEDER Grant DPI2015-70975 (INOPTCON)EU H2020-SPIRE Grant Agreement nº 723575 (CoPro

Robust integrated production-maintenance scheduling for an evaporation network

Producción CientíficaThis work aims to reduce the global resource consumption in an industrial evaporation network by better tasks management and coordination. The network works in continuous, processing some products in several evaporation plants, so optimal load allocation and product-plant assignment problems appear. The plants have different features (capacity, equipment, etc.) and their performance is affected by fouling inside the heat exchangers and external factors. Hereby, the optimizer has to decide when maintenance operations have to be triggered. Therefore, a mixed production/maintenance scheduling problem arises. The plant behavior is approximated by surrogate linear models obtained experimentally, allowing thus the use of mixed-integer linear optimization routines to obtain solutions in acceptable time. Furthermore, uncertainty in the weather forecast and in the production plan is also considered via a two-stage stochastic programming approach. Finally, a trade-off analysis between other objectives of interest is given to support the decision maker.Spanish Government with project INOPTCON (MINECO/FEDER DPI2015-70975-P)

Support to Decision-Making in a Network of Industrial Evaporators

[EN] Production and maintenance scheduling within an equipment network is a task whose complexity increases exponentially with the number of products, equipment and tasks. Finding optimal solutions (economic or resource efficient) becomes especially difficult for a human scheduler, even more when taking decisions in short time periods is required. This work addresses the problem of load allocation in real time and cleaning scheduling in a network of industrial evaporators via decision-support tools based on mixed-integer optimization with plant models. The proposed tools take into account the operators’ visualization preferences and they are integrated with the plant supervision system. Apart from providing recommendations for the optimal operation of the network, a semi-automatic model updating system based on historical operation data is included.[ES] La planificación de la producción y tareas de mantenimiento en una red de equipos es una tarea cuya complejidad aumenta exponencialmente con el número de productos, equipos y tareas. Encontrar soluciones óptimas económicas o de eficiencia de recursos) se hace especialmente difícil para un planificador humano, más aún cuando se requiere tomar decisiones en breves periodos de tiempo. Este trabajo aborda el problema de distribución de carga en tiempo real y programación de limpiezas en una red de evaporadores industriales mediante herramientas de ayuda a la decisión basadas en optimización mixta entera con modelos. Las herramientas propuestas tienen en cuenta las preferencias de visualización de los operarios y están integradas con el sistema de supervisión de la planta. Además de proporcionar recomendaciones para la operación óptima de la red, se incluye un sistema semiautomático de actualización de modelos basado en datos históricos de operación.Este trabajo ha sido financiado por el programa Horizonte 2020 de la UE (contrato nº 723575) y por el Gobierno de España con fondos MINECO/FEDER (DPI2015-70975-P).Kalliski, M.; Pitarch, JL.; Jasch, C.; De Prada, C. (2018). Apoyo a la toma de decisión en una red de evaporadores industriales. Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática. 16(1):26-35. https://doi.org/10.4995/riai.2018.9233SWORD263516

Efficacy and Toxicity of Different Chemotherapy Protocols for Concurrent Chemoradiation in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer—A Secondary Analysis of the PET Plan Trial

(1) Background: The optimal chemotherapy (CHT) regimen for concurrent chemoradiation (cCRT) is not well defined. In this secondary analysis of the international randomized PET-Plan trial, we evaluate the efficacy of different CHT. (2) Methods: Patients with inoperable NSCLC were randomized at a 1:1 ratio regarding the target volume definition and received isotoxically dose-escalated cCRT using cisplatin 80 mg/m2 (day 1, 22) and vinorelbin 15 mg/m2 (day 1, 8, 22, 29) (P1) or cisplatin 20 mg/m2 (day 1–5, 29–33) and vinorelbin 12.5 mg/m2 (day 1, 8, 15, 29, 36, 43) (P2) or carboplatin AUC1 (day 1–5, 29–33) and vinorelbin 12.5 mg/m2 (day 1, 8, 15, 29, 36, 43) (P3) or other CHT at the treating physician’s discretion. (3) Results: Between 05/2009 and 11/2016, 205 patients were randomized and 172 included in the per-protocol analysis. Patients treated in P1 or P2 had a better overall survival (OS) compared to P3 (p = 0.015, p = 0.01, respectively). Patients treated with carboplatin had a worse OS compared to cisplatin (HR 1.78, p = 0.03), but the difference did not remain significant after adjusting for age, ECOG, cardiac function creatinine and completeness of CHT. (4) Conclusions: Carboplatin doublets show no significant difference compared to cisplatin, after adjusting for possibly relevant factors, probably due to existing selection bias

Zur Rolle der Innenverwaltung im Dritten Reich bei der Vorbereitung und Organisation des Genozids an den Europäischen Juden. Der Fall des Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart (1902 – 1953)

The author argues that the Nazi state as a modern totalitarian state needed a legal framework to “organise“ a crime on the scale of the holocaust. Laws became a tool for rationalising the process of depriving Jewish citizens of their rights, expropriating them and eventually deporting them to Ghettos and death camps. These laws were carefully designed by lawyers in the ministerial administration such as Dr. W. Stuckart, since March 1935 state-secretary in the Reich's Ministry of Interior. The SS-member Stuckart became one of the most influential civil servants in the Reich's administration despite the gradual loss of powers suffered by the Reich's Ministry of Interior as a whole in the late 1930s and early 1940s. At the infamous Wannsee-Conference on January 20, 1942 Stuckart opposed Heydrich's plans for including so-called “mixed people“ in the deportations, since he considered that such a step would not be conducive to the overall aim of achieving a “final solution of the Jewish question“ within the cautiously designed definitions of the “legal framework“ of the Nuremberg laws. Despite being no less of an ardent racial-anti-Semite as Heydrich, SS-Brigadeführer Stuck-art wanted to defend his kingdom and insisted on the deportations being carried out in an “orderly“, legalistic manner that was less likely to stir-up opposition in the majority population. After the war he was indicted in the so-called “Wilhelmstrassen- or Ministries' trial“, the last trial organised by the US-military administration in Nuremberg from 1947 to 1949. With the help of his former subordinates he successfully defended himself by presenting his “pragmatic attitude“ at the Wannsee-Conference as an act of resistance in an ongoing battle between the Nazi-party organisations and the state-administration. He thus contributed to creating the legend that the civil administration (similar to the armed forces, the “Wehrmacht“) had always remained “anständig“ (decent) while party- and SS-circles were to be blamed for the “excesses“ of the “Third Reich“. His successful defence and his bad state of health lead the Nuremberg judges to pass a mild sentence which enabled him to pursue his re-integration into German post-war society. The perception that the civil-service, very much like the “Wehrmacht“, had remained “anständig“ “ decent“ has shaped historical interpretation ever since which presented the lawyers in the administration as mere – more or less willing – executioners of the political will of the party-leadership. The example of Stuckart demonstrates however, that some of them did not acquiesce into passive complicity and that their work was absolutely essential to make monstrous crimes such as the holocaust possible

Genexpression in primary cutaneous B-Cell-Lymphoma by custom-made microarrays

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurden die Genexpressionsmuster von zehn Patienten mit primär kutanen B-Zell-Lymphomen untersucht. Zu diesem Zweck wurde die Methode des cDNA-Labeling in der Arbeitsgruppe etabliert. Fünfzig Gene, deren Funktion bei systemischen Lymphomen bekannt war, bzw. postuliert wurde, wurden isoliert und aus diesen ein sogenanntes „custom-made“ Microarray angefertigt. Aus kryokonservierten Biopsien der Patienten wurde RNA gewonnen und diese nach Umschreiben in cDNA fluoreszenzmarkiert. Ebenso wurde mit RNA aus den Lymphozyten eines gesunden Spenders verfahren. Die markierten Proben wurden nach Inkubation auf dem Array bezüglich ihrer Expressionsmuster verglichen und im Vergleich als Über- oder Unterexpression bewertet. Aufgrund der geringen Fallzahl konnten keine Unterschiede in den einzelnen Entitäten der PCBCL gefunden werden, jedoch zeigten sich einzelne Gene als Kandidaten für weitere Untersuchungen, die an Signalprozessen der Zelle, der Angiogenese oder der Tumorsuppression beteiligt sind. Durch weitere Experimente mit spezialisierten Microarrays bzw. vergleichbaren Methoden wie RT-PCR werden die dargestellten Kandidatengene in ihrer Funktion und Interaktion im Zusammmenhang mit der Genese primär kutaner Lymphome überprüft werden müssen. Die dargestellte Verfahrensweise ist für primär kutane Lymphome noch nicht beschrieben und stellt ein mögliches Screeningverfahren für die Genexpression dieser Tumoren dar, insbesondere wenn weitere in der Lymphomgenese beteiligten Gene bekannt werden. Weitere Einsatzmöglichkeiten stellt neben der Therapiekontrolle die Möglichkeit der weiteren Forschung bezüglich neuer an der der Entstehung von Lymphomen beteiligter Gene und deren unterschiedliche Expression in den unterschiedlichen Entitäten und im Vergleich mit systemischen Lymphomen dar.The intention of these investigations were to evaluate the gene expression profiles of ten patients with primary cutaneous B-Cell-Lymphoma. The method of cDNA-labeling needed to be established for our experiments. Fifty genes, with known or postulated functions in systemic lymphoma were isolated, and spotted to a “custom-made” microarray. RNAs were isolated from frozen tissues, converted to cDNA and labeled with fluorescent dyes. RNA from lymphocytes of a healthy donor was treated as well. The specimens were evaluated in regard to their gene expression profiles and to their levels of over- and underexpression. Because of the small number of specimens no differences could be found in the individual entities of PCBCL, but a number of genes proved to be worthy of further investigations because of their functions in signal processing, angiogenesis and tumor-suppression. Further investigations with more specialized microarrays or similiar methods like real-time pcr have to follow to evaluate their functions in regard of oncogenesis of primary cutaneous lymphoma. The described method shows a possible screening method for the gene expression profiles of PCBCL, especially when new genes of lymphogenesis will be found. Therapy management and control, gene expression profiles in different entities of primary cutaneous lymphoma and in contrast to systemic lymphoma are other possible applications