Rationales of holonic manufacturing systems in leather industry

This paper presents an insight into leather manufacturing processes, depicting peculiarities and challenges faced by leather industry. An analysis of this industry reveals the need for a new approach to optimize the productivity of leather processing operations, ensure consistent quality of leather, mitigate the adverse health effects in tannery workers exposed to chemicals and comply with environmental regulation. Holonic manufacturing systems (HMS) paradigm represent a bottom-up distributed approach that provides stability, adaptability, efficient use of resources and a plug and operate functionality to the manufacturing system. A vision of how HMS might operate in a tannery is illustrated presenting the rationales behind its application in this industry. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.

Factor analysis and structural equation modelling of sustainable behaviour in contaminated land remediation

Contaminated land remediation has traditionally been viewed as sustainable practice because it reduces urban sprawl and mitigates risks to human being and the environment. However, in an emerging green and sustainable remediation (GSR) movement, remediation practitioners have increasingly recognized that remediation operations have their own environmental footprint. The GSR calls for sustainable behaviour in the remediation industry, for which a series of white papers and guidance documents have been published by various government agencies and professional organizations. However, the relationship between the adoption of such sustainable behaviour and its underlying driving forces has not been studied. This study aims to contribute to sustainability science by rendering a better understanding of what drives organizational behaviour in adopting sustainable practices. Factor analysis (FA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) were used to investigate the relationship between sustainable practices and key factors driving these behaviour changes in the remediation field. A conceptual model on sustainability in the environmental remediation industry was developed on the basis of stakeholder and institutional theories. The FA classified sustainability considerations, institutional promoting and impeding forces, and stakeholder's influence. Subsequently the SEM showed that institutional promoting forces had significant positive effects on adopting sustainability measures, and institutional impeding forces had significant negative effects. Stakeholder influences were found to have only marginal direct effect on the adoption of sustainability; however, they exert significant influence on institutional promoting forces, thus rendering high total effect (i.e. direct effect plus indirect effect) on the adoption of sustainability. This study suggests that sustainable remediation represents an advanced sustainable practice, which may only be fully endorsed by both internal and external stakeholders after its regulatory, normative and cognitive components are institutionalized. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Rapid hologram generation utilizing layer-based approach and graphic rendering for realistic three-dimensional image reconstruction by angular tiling

An approach of rapid hologram generation for the realistic three-dimensional (3-D) image reconstruction based on the angular tiling concept is proposed, using a new graphic rendering approach integrated with a previously developed layer-based method for hologram calculation. A 3-D object is simplified as layered cross-sectional images perpendicular to a chosen viewing direction, and our graphics rendering approach allows the incorporation of clear depth cues, occlusion, and shading in the generated holograms for angular tiling. The combination of these techniques together with parallel computing reduces the computation time of a single-view hologram for a 3-D image of extended graphics array resolution to 176 ms using a single consumer graphics processing unit card. © 2014 SPIE and IS and T.

The status, limits and countermeasures in the development of the silicon microelectronics industry

In this paper.. the status and limits in the development of the silicon microelectronics industry are presented briefly. The key countermeasures given are use of the new structure materials and the new device structures.

processline: visualizing time-series data in process industry

In modern process industry, it is often difficult to analyze a manufacture process due to its umerous time-series data. Analysts wish to not only interpret the evolution of data over time in a working procedure, but also examine the changes in the whole production process through time. To meet such analytic requirements, we have developed ProcessLine, an interactive visualization tool for a large amount of time-series data in process industry. The data are displayed in a fisheye timeline. ProcessLine provides good overviews for the whole production process and details for the focused working procedure. A preliminary user study using beer industry production data has shown that the tool is effective.

White polymeric light-emitting diodes with high color rendering index

The efficient white polymeric light-emitting diodes based on a white emissive polymer doped with a red phosphorescent dopant were fabricated by spin-coating method. The emission spectrum of the device is broadened to cover the full visible region by doping the red phosphorescent dye and thereby realizes white emission with high color-rendering index (CRI). By controlling the contents of the doped electron-transporting 2-(4-biphenylyl)-5-(4-tert-butylphenyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole and the red phosphorescent dopant, a luminous efficiency as high as 5.3 cd/A and a power efficiency of 3 lm/W were obtained with a CRI of 92.

Developing Porphyra/salmon integrated aquaculture for bioremediation and diversification of the aquaculture industry

FUNCTIONAL-FORM GROUPS; RED ALGAE; ATLANTIC SALMON; NEW-HAMPSHIRE; NITROGEN; PHOSPHORUS; RHODOPHYTA; TEMPERATURE; NUTRIENTS; KJELLMAN