Computer-assisted production scheduling, planning and control in foundries

The present study describes a pragmatic approach to the implementation of production planning and scheduling techniques in foundries of all types and looks at the use of `state-of-the-art' management control and information systems. Following a review of systems for the classification of manufacturing companies, a definitive statement is made which highlights the important differences between foundries (i.e. `component makers') and other manufacturing companies (i.e. `component buyers'). An investigation of the manual procedures which are used to plan and control the manufacture of components reveals the inherent problems facing foundry production management staff, which suggests the unsuitability of many manufacturing techniques which have been applied to general engineering companies. From the literature it was discovered that computer-assisted systems are required which are primarily `information-based' rather than `decision based', whilst the availability of low-cost computers and `packaged-software' has enabled foundries to `get their feet wet' without the financial penalties which characterized many of the early attempts at computer-assistance (i.e. pre-1980). Moreover, no evidence of a single methodology for foundry scheduling emerged from the review. A philosophy for the development of a CAPM system is presented, which details the essential information requirements and puts forward proposals for the subsequent interactions between types of information and the sub-system of CAPM which they support. The work developed was oriented specifically at the functions of production planning and scheduling and introduces the concept of `manual interaction' for effective scheduling. The techniques developed were designed to use the information which is readily available in foundries and were found to be practically successful following the implementation of the techniques into a wide variety of foundries. The limitations of the techniques developed are subsequently discussed within the wider issues which form a CAPM system, prior to a presentation of the conclusions which can be drawn from the study.

Examining green production and its role within the competitve strategy of manufacturers

Purpose: This paper reviews current literature and contributes a set of findings that capture the current state-of-the-art of the topic of green production. Design/methodology/approach: A literature review to capture, classify and summarize the main body of knowledge on green production and, translate this into a form that is readily accessible to researchers and practitioners in the more mainstream operations management community. Findings: The existing knowledge base is somewhat fragmented. This is a relatively unexplored topic within mainstream operations management research and one which could provide rich opportunities for further exploration. Originality/value: This paper sets out to review current literature, from a more conventional production operations perspective, and contributes a set of findings that capture the current state-of-the-art of this topic.

Editorial overview:new protein production tools for structural biology

Full text: The idea of producing proteins from recombinant DNA hatched almost half a century ago. In his PhD thesis, Peter Lobban foresaw the prospect of inserting foreign DNA (from any source, including mammalian cells) into the genome of a λ phage in order to detect and recover protein products from Escherichia coli [ 1 and 2]. Only a few years later, in 1977, Herbert Boyer and his colleagues succeeded in the first ever expression of a peptide-coding gene in E. coli — they produced recombinant somatostatin [ 3] followed shortly after by human insulin. The field has advanced enormously since those early days and today recombinant proteins have become indispensable in advancing research and development in all fields of the life sciences. Structural biology, in particular, has benefitted tremendously from recombinant protein biotechnology, and an overwhelming proportion of the entries in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) are based on heterologously expressed proteins. Nonetheless, synthesizing, purifying and stabilizing recombinant proteins can still be thoroughly challenging. For example, the soluble proteome is organized to a large part into multicomponent complexes (in humans often comprising ten or more subunits), posing critical challenges for recombinant production. A third of all proteins in cells are located in the membrane, and pose special challenges that require a more bespoke approach. Recent advances may now mean that even these most recalcitrant of proteins could become tenable structural biology targets on a more routine basis. In this special issue, we examine progress in key areas that suggests this is indeed the case. Our first contribution examines the importance of understanding quality control in the host cell during recombinant protein production, and pays particular attention to the synthesis of recombinant membrane proteins. A major challenge faced by any host cell factory is the balance it must strike between its own requirements for growth and the fact that its cellular machinery has essentially been hijacked by an expression construct. In this context, Bill and von der Haar examine emerging insights into the role of the dependent pathways of translation and protein folding in defining high-yielding recombinant membrane protein production experiments for the common prokaryotic and eukaryotic expression hosts. Rather than acting as isolated entities, many membrane proteins form complexes to carry out their functions. To understand their biological mechanisms, it is essential to study the molecular structure of the intact membrane protein assemblies. Recombinant production of membrane protein complexes is still a formidable, at times insurmountable, challenge. In these cases, extraction from natural sources is the only option to prepare samples for structural and functional studies. Zorman and co-workers, in our second contribution, provide an overview of recent advances in the production of multi-subunit membrane protein complexes and highlight recent achievements in membrane protein structural research brought about by state-of-the-art near-atomic resolution cryo-electron microscopy techniques. E. coli has been the dominant host cell for recombinant protein production. Nonetheless, eukaryotic expression systems, including yeasts, insect cells and mammalian cells, are increasingly gaining prominence in the field. The yeast species Pichia pastoris, is a well-established recombinant expression system for a number of applications, including the production of a range of different membrane proteins. Byrne reviews high-resolution structures that have been determined using this methylotroph as an expression host. Although it is not yet clear why P. pastoris is suited to producing such a wide range of membrane proteins, its ease of use and the availability of diverse tools that can be readily implemented in standard bioscience laboratories mean that it is likely to become an increasingly popular option in structural biology pipelines. The contribution by Columbus concludes the membrane protein section of this volume. In her overview of post-expression strategies, Columbus surveys the four most common biochemical approaches for the structural investigation of membrane proteins. Limited proteolysis has successfully aided structure determination of membrane proteins in many cases. Deglycosylation of membrane proteins following production and purification analysis has also facilitated membrane protein structure analysis. Moreover, chemical modifications, such as lysine methylation and cysteine alkylation, have proven their worth to facilitate crystallization of membrane proteins, as well as NMR investigations of membrane protein conformational sampling. Together these approaches have greatly facilitated the structure determination of more than 40 membrane proteins to date. It may be an advantage to produce a target protein in mammalian cells, especially if authentic post-translational modifications such as glycosylation are required for proper activity. Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells and Human Embryonic Kidney (HEK) 293 cell lines have emerged as excellent hosts for heterologous production. The generation of stable cell-lines is often an aspiration for synthesizing proteins expressed in mammalian cells, in particular if high volumetric yields are to be achieved. In his report, Buessow surveys recent structures of proteins produced using stable mammalian cells and summarizes both well-established and novel approaches to facilitate stable cell-line generation for structural biology applications. The ambition of many biologists is to observe a protein's structure in the native environment of the cell itself. Until recently, this seemed to be more of a dream than a reality. Advances in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy techniques, however, have now made possible the observation of mechanistic events at the molecular level of protein structure. Smith and colleagues, in an exciting contribution, review emerging ‘in-cell NMR’ techniques that demonstrate the potential to monitor biological activities by NMR in real time in native physiological environments. A current drawback of NMR as a structure determination tool derives from size limitations of the molecule under investigation and the structures of large proteins and their complexes are therefore typically intractable by NMR. A solution to this challenge is the use of selective isotope labeling of the target protein, which results in a marked reduction of the complexity of NMR spectra and allows dynamic processes even in very large proteins and even ribosomes to be investigated. Kerfah and co-workers introduce methyl-specific isotopic labeling as a molecular tool-box, and review its applications to the solution NMR analysis of large proteins. Tyagi and Lemke next examine single-molecule FRET and crosslinking following the co-translational incorporation of non-canonical amino acids (ncAAs); the goal here is to move beyond static snap-shots of proteins and their complexes and to observe them as dynamic entities. The encoding of ncAAs through codon-suppression technology allows biomolecules to be investigated with diverse structural biology methods. In their article, Tyagi and Lemke discuss these approaches and speculate on the design of improved host organisms for ‘integrative structural biology research’. Our volume concludes with two contributions that resolve particular bottlenecks in the protein structure determination pipeline. The contribution by Crepin and co-workers introduces the concept of polyproteins in contemporary structural biology. Polyproteins are widespread in nature. They represent long polypeptide chains in which individual smaller proteins with different biological function are covalently linked together. Highly specific proteases then tailor the polyprotein into its constituent proteins. Many viruses use polyproteins as a means of organizing their proteome. The concept of polyproteins has now been exploited successfully to produce hitherto inaccessible recombinant protein complexes. For instance, by means of a self-processing synthetic polyprotein, the influenza polymerase, a high-value drug target that had remained elusive for decades, has been produced, and its high-resolution structure determined. In the contribution by Desmyter and co-workers, a further, often imposing, bottleneck in high-resolution protein structure determination is addressed: The requirement to form stable three-dimensional crystal lattices that diffract incident X-ray radiation to high resolution. Nanobodies have proven to be uniquely useful as crystallization chaperones, to coax challenging targets into suitable crystal lattices. Desmyter and co-workers review the generation of nanobodies by immunization, and highlight the application of this powerful technology to the crystallography of important protein specimens including G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). Recombinant protein production has come a long way since Peter Lobban's hypothesis in the late 1960s, with recombinant proteins now a dominant force in structural biology. The contributions in this volume showcase an impressive array of inventive approaches that are being developed and implemented, ever increasing the scope of recombinant technology to facilitate the determination of elusive protein structures. Powerful new methods from synthetic biology are further accelerating progress. Structure determination is now reaching into the living cell with the ultimate goal of observing functional molecular architectures in action in their native physiological environment. We anticipate that even the most challenging protein assemblies will be tackled by recombinant technology in the near future.

Servitization:revisiting the state-of-the-art and research priorities

Purpose – This paper consolidates the servitization knowledge base from an organisational change perspective, identifying developed, developing and undeveloped topics to provide a platform that directs future research. Design/methodology/approach – This paper addresses three objectives : a) it comprehensively examines organisational change management literature for selection of a theoretical framework, b) it classifies extant studies within the framework through a systemic literature review, and (c) it analyses 232 selected papers and proposes a research agenda. Findings – Analysis suggests increasing global awareness of the importance of services to manufacturers. However, some topics, especially related to servitization transformation, remain undeveloped. Research limitations/implications – Although the authors tried to include all publications relevant to servitization, some might not have been captured. Evaluation and interpretation relied on the research team and subsequent research workshops. Practical implications - One of the most significant challenges for practitioners of servitization is how to transform a manufacturing organisation to exploit the opportunity. This paper consolidates literature regarding servitization, identifying progress concerning key research topics and contributing a platform for future research. The goal is to inform research to result eventually in a roadmap for practitioners seeking to servitize. Originality/value - Although extant reviews of servitization identify themes that are examined well, they struggle to identify unanswered questions. This paper addresses this gap by focusing on servitization as a process of organisational change.

Parallel nonconvex generalized Benders decomposition for natural gas production network planning under uncertainty

A scenario-based two-stage stochastic programming model for gas production network planning under uncertainty is usually a large-scale nonconvex mixed-integer nonlinear programme (MINLP), which can be efficiently solved to global optimality with nonconvex generalized Benders decomposition (NGBD). This paper is concerned with the parallelization of NGBD to exploit multiple available computing resources. Three parallelization strategies are proposed, namely, naive scenario parallelization, adaptive scenario parallelization, and adaptive scenario and bounding parallelization. Case study of two industrial natural gas production network planning problems shows that, while the NGBD without parallelization is already faster than a state-of-the-art global optimization solver by an order of magnitude, the parallelization can improve the efficiency by several times on computers with multicore processors. The adaptive scenario and bounding parallelization achieves the best overall performance among the three proposed parallelization strategies.

The technical and artistic branches and ways of organizing production in Argentine soap operas

Production processes and work organization in the cultural industries have been little discussed. For this reason, the study focuses on the production phases and the division of labor in technical and artistic branches in Argentine soap operas. There are six branches: production, direction, photography, art, sound and edition. We explain the branches, the workers involved and their function and activities. This research is based on a communicational perspective, the Political Economy of Communication and recovers contributions of the Sociology of Labour. From this combination, we attempt to provide elements of analysis to understand the functioning and organisation of daily television series. In the same way, we examine the creative work, the types of work redundant or random, the division of labour and the economies of time. The methodological approach is qualitative. In this way, the examination is based on the production of interviews with key actors of the sector and the documentary and bibliographical survey so as to systematize the data for the research.

The Role of Art in Computer Game Design

Computer games are significant since they embody our youngsters’ engagement with contemporary culture, including both play and education. These games rely heavily on visuals, systems of sign and expression based on concepts and principles of Art and Architecture. We are researching a new genre of computer games, ‘Educational Immersive Environments’ (EIEs) to provide educational materials suitable for the school classroom. Close collaboration with subject teachers is necessary, but we feel a specific need to engage with the practicing artist, the art theoretician and historian. Our EIEs are loaded with multimedia (but especially visual) signs which act to direct the learner and provide the ‘game-play’ experience forming semiotic systems. We suggest the hypothesis that computer games are a space of deconstruction and reconstruction (DeRe): When players enter the game their physical world and their culture is torn apart; they move in a semiotic system which serves to reconstruct an alternate reality where disbelief is suspended. The semiotic system draws heavily on visuals which direct the players’ interactions and produce motivating gameplay. These can establish a reconstructed culture and emerging game narrative. We have recently tested our hypothesis and have used this in developing design principles for computer game designers. Yet there are outstanding issues concerning the nature of the visuals used in computer games, and so questions for contemporary artists. Currently, the computer game industry employs artists in a ‘classical’ role in production of concept sketches, storyboards and 3D content. But this is based on a specification from the client which restricts the artist in intellectual freedom. Our DeRe hypothesis places the artist at the generative centre, to inform the game designer how art may inform our DeRe semiotic spaces. This must of course begin with the artists’ understanding of DeRe in this time when our ‘identities are becoming increasingly fractured, networked, virtualized and distributed’ We hope to persuade artists to engage with the medium of computer game technology to explore these issues. In particular, we pose several questions to the artist: (i) How can particular ‘periods’ in art history be used to inform the design of computer games? (ii) How can specific artistic elements or devices be used to design ‘signs’ to guide the player through the game? (iii) How can visual material be integrated with other semiotic strata such as text and audio?

Integrated science and art education for creative climate change communication

An interdisciplinary field trip to a remote marine lab joined graduate students from fine arts and natural resource science departments to think creatively about the topic of climate change and science communication. We followed a learning cycle framework to allow the students to explore marine ecosystems and participate in scientific lectures, group discussions, and an artist-led project making abstract collages representing climate change processes. Students subsequently worked in small groups to develop environmental communication material for public visitors. We assessed the learning activity and the communication product using pre- and post-field trip participant surveys, focus group discussions, and critiques by art and communication experts of the products. Significant changes in knowledge about climate change occurred in program participants. Incorporating artists and the arts into this activity helped engage multiple senses and emphasized social interaction, as well as providing support to participants to think creatively. The production of art helped to encourage peer learning and normalize the different views among participants in communicating about climate change impacts. Students created effective communication products based on external reviews. Disciplinary differences in cultures, language, and standards challenged participating faculty, yet unanticipated outcomes such as potentially transformative learning and improved teacher evaluations resulted.

Modeling the Network of Dutch and Flemish Print Production, 1550-1750

The production of artistic prints in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Netherlands was an inherently social process. Turning out prints at any reasonable scale depended on the fluid coordination between designers, platecutters, and publishers; roles that, by the sixteenth century, were considered distinguished enough to merit distinct credits engraved on the plates themselves: invenit, fecit/sculpsit, and excudit. While any one designer, plate cutter, and publisher could potentially exercise a great deal of influence over the production of a single print, their individual decisions (Whom to select as an engraver? What subjects to create for a print design? What market to sell to?) would have been variously constrained or encouraged by their position in this larger network (Who do they already know? And who, in turn, do their contacts know?) This dissertation addresses the impact of these constraints and affordances through the novel application of computational social network analysis to major databases of surviving prints from this period. This approach is used to evaluate several questions about trends in early modern print production practices that have not been satisfactorily addressed by traditional literature based on case studies alone: Did the social capital demanded by print production result in centralized, or distributed production of prints? When, and to what extent, did printmakers and publishers in the Low countries favor international versus domestic collaborators? And were printmakers under the same pressure as painters to specialize in particular artistic genres? This dissertation ultimately suggests how simple professional incentives endemic to the practice of printmaking may, at large scales, have resulted in quite complex patterns of collaboration and production. The framework of network analysis surfaces the role of certain printmakers who tend to be neglected in aesthetically-focused histories of art. This approach also highlights important issues concerning art historians’ balancing of individual influence versus the impact of longue durée trends. Finally, this dissertation also raises questions about the current limitations and future possibilities of combining computational methods with cultural heritage datasets in the pursuit of historical research.

Self determination, embodied languages and landscapes in women's video art.

This paper addresses how, since the 1960s to the present, part of women's video art has broken the traditional representation of women’s body and proposed new forms of recording women's images, explicit or symbolic, using body part close-ups, and not sparing any efforts to ensure the prevention of the cataloguing of women’s bodies according to normative categories, such as gender, race and age, and in this way challenging the Western representation codes that objectify women. The methodology employed had as its primary purpose the examination of the association existing between the micro-sociological level of body gestures and performances in women's videos and the macro-sociological level of social forces such as the dimensions of gender and sexuality. This study concluded that narratives of identity and self-determination are present in women's video pieces contributing to women's empowerment through visual discourses that could possibly point to the production of new signs and symbols, new values and models, but also for the formation of new types of social roles and even a new type of interpersonal relationships.

The art of wool

A curatorial project that brings together garments from the International Woolmark Prize archive with works from the Howard Hinton and Chandler Coventry Collections at New England Regional Art Museum. Themed around qualities of wool that are also present in the artworks, the exhibition considers attributes such as Production, Romance, Pattern, Texture, Drape and Artistry. From the sale yards and shearing sheds of the New England landscape to the international catwalks, merino wool provides a staple thread made durable through works from these extraordinary collections.

Materiality, language and the prduction of knowledge art, subjectivity and Indigenous ontology

If ontology concerns theories of being, and epistemology theories of knowing, how might we bring the two together to account for movements between being and knowing that constitute cultural production? something occurs or lies behind language and meaning that must be acknowledged if we are to arrive at an explanation. In this essay, I examine some key ideas that emerge from the work of Julia Kristeva, as well as those of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari on sensation and affect, to demonstrate how ontology and epistemology are inextricably entwined in knowledge production.1 Kristeva’s perspective of creative practice not only aligns with the new materialist acknowledgement of the agency of matter, but, in contrast to Deleuze and Guattari, it also affirms the dimension of human or subjective agency that is implicated in cultural production.

Abjection, affect and othering through art

In keeping within a new materialist approach, this paper involves a transversal encounter with, Kristeva’s thinking on abjection. She says of abjection, that it is a primer of culture, because as a process it is fundamental to the constitution of identity and the renewal of meaning through an expansion of language. Here, I will argue that abjection is also a primer of affect and is the operation through which affects are given valency: either negative or positive, which in turn articulate modalities of othering as oscillations between the empathetic and ethical, or repellent and adversarial derived from an instinctual movement towards what is enabling and away from that which present threst or danger to the organism. I argue further, that it is the notion of jouissance and positive affect that distinguishes Kristeva’s account of cultural production from other thinkers such as Freud, and that this has significant implications for understanding the dynamics of othering or the kinds of relationality made possible through language.

Loop openness: a video reflection on the open work of art

The objective of this article is to reflect on the video art work in its loop production to perceive the possibility of it being received as an open work. In order to contextualize this reflection the text is anchored in the concept of image-crystal from Gilles Deleuze. For the purpose of empirically explore theoretical concepts such as video art, open work and image-crystal it was produced a practical project of video art that intends to reflect on the notion of time in a context of a loop exhibition. Therefore this project aims to motivate the reflection on the loop as a mechanism to contour the ephemeral character of video art and, at the same time, it seeks to emphasize questions about the element of multiplicity and plurality in art. It is a scientific and artistic project in which the practical component supports the dialectic between theory and practice, action and reflection. In this sense, based on the video entitled "The Walk" this article demonstrates how the theoretical concepts were used to support the artistic creation. Finally the conclusions sustain that the work of video art, when presented in loop, is a creative and expository strategy which encourages multiple interpretations that vary according to the narrative, the context in which it takes place and the attitude and the background of the spectator.