Reducing tardy jobs by integrating process planning and scheduling functions

This paper presents a dynamic approach to reduce tardy jobs through the integration of process planning and scheduling in a batch-manufacturing environment. The developed method aims at re-generating a schedule with fewer tardy jobs, step by step, by exploring the process plan solution space of the tardy jobs. The integrated system comprises a process planning module, a scheduling module, and an integrator module. The process planning module employs an optimisation approach in which the entire plan solution space is first generated and a search algorithm is then used to find the optimal plan, while the scheduling module is based on commonly used heuristics. Based on the job tardiness information of the generated schedule, the integrator module automatically issues a modification order to the process plan solution space of the tardy jobs. The process planning and scheduling modules are then re-run to generate a new plan/schedule solution. Through this iterative process, a satisfactory schedule can be gradually achieved. The uniqueness of this approach is characterised by the flexibility of the process planning strategy, which makes full use of the plan solution space intuitively to achieve a satisfactory schedule. Several examples are presented to confirm the efficacy and the effectiveness of the developed integration system.     

US water resource centres use Zenon technology

Zenon Environmental Inc’s ZeeWeed technology is being used in what the company claims is its largest project to date for wastewater treatment in the USA. It involves expanding the Gwinnett County F. Wayne Hill Water Resources Center in Georgia.This is a short news story only. Visit www.filtsep.com for the latest filtration industry news     

Cumulative carbon emissions, emissions floors and short-term rates of warming: implications for policy

A number of recent studies have found a strong link between peak human-induced global warming and cumulative carbon emissions from the start of the industrial revolution, while the link to emissions over shorter periods or in the years 2020 or 2050 is generally weaker. However, cumulative targets appear to conflict with the concept of a 'floor' in emissions caused by sectors such as food production. Here, we show that the introduction of emissions floors does not reduce the importance of cumulative emissions, but may make some warming targets unachievable. For pathways that give a most likely warming up to about 4°C, cumulative emissions from pre-industrial times to year 2200 correlate strongly with most likely resultant peak warming regardless of the shape of emissions floors used, providing a more natural long-term policy horizon than 2050 or 2100. The maximum rate of CO(2)-induced warming, which will affect the feasibility and cost of adapting to climate change, is not determined by cumulative emissions but is tightly aligned with peak rates of emissions. Hence, cumulative carbon emissions to 2200 and peak emission rates could provide a clear and simple framework for CO(2) mitigation policy.     

Reducing the use of nullable types through non-null by default and monotonic non-null

With Java 5 annotations, the authors note a marked increase in tools that can statically detect potential null dereferences. To be effective, such tools require that developers annotate declarations with nullity modifiers and have annotated API libraries. Unfortunately, in the experience of the authors, specifying moderately large code bases, the use of non-null annotations is more labour intensive than it should be. Motivated by this experience, the authors conducted an empirical study of five open source projects totalling 700K lines-of-code, which confirms that, on average, 75% of reference declarations are meant to be non-null, by design. Guided by these results, the authors propose the adoption of non-null-by-default semantics. This new default has advantages of better matching general practice, lightening developer annotation burden and being safer. The authors also describe the Eclipse Java Modelling Language (JML) Java Development Tooling (JDT), a tool supporting the new semantics, including the ability to read the extensive API library specifications written in the JML. Issues of backwards compatibility are addressed. In a second phase of the empirical study, the authors analysed the uses of null and noted that over half of the nullable field references are only assigned non-null values. For this category of reference, the authors introduce the concept of monotonic non-null type and illustrate the benefits of its use.     

Environmental policy and clean technology in Europe

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy -     

Observations on the technology and economics of digital emissions

Unwanted digital information such as spam is often sent to recipients who did not request it. In the absence of policy intervention, the rate of these “digital emissions” will exceed the social optimum, causing a market failure. Some scholars have noted the similarities between this type of digital market failure and market failures observed in other domains—namely, pollution such as sulfur dioxide emissions in the natural environment. The purpose of this paper is to extend the analysis of these market failures to explore the applicability of analogous mechanisms in these seemingly unrelated domains. We argue that several mechanisms developed for environmental regulation can indeed be applied to digital domains such as labor markets and social media. Doing so could increase equity as well as efficiency.     

Science and technology policy planning imperatives for Africa

Delay in coping with overdue technological change is considered one of the primary causes of the present African crisis. Full African recovery appears contingent upon the design and implementation of policies and plans to anticipate, supply and manage technological necessities. Although there is some understanding of the deficiencies in science and technology supplies, not much has been done to stimulate local demand, which appears crucial to the installation of practical—and, consequently, adequately supported—science and technology infrastructures. Excessive dependency on outside technological competence has impeded Africa's creativity and innovativeness, which are indispensable to rural progress, increased food production, and overall, self-sustained development. Curtailment of dependency necessitates the reduction of poverty, the increase of technological sagacity, and the growth of African collective self-reliance, which are difficult to achieve without independent scientific and technological decisions and purposeful guidance of technical change.     

Quantitative indicators for federal government research and technology policy

Five years ago theBMFT implemented a strategy to improve the knowledge of the output aspect of the GermanR&D system. The inherent objective is to help establish science policy research as an academic discipline and scientometrics as one of its methodologies. First results and possible future trends are discussed with respect to the use of scientometrics for policy making.     

Agent-based simulation for science,technology, and innovation policy

Scientometrics - Policymaking implies planning, and planning requires prediction—or at least some knowledge about the future. This contribution starts from the challenges of complexity,...     

German technology policy,innovation, and national institutional frameworks

This paper examines the patterns of technological innovation in Germany, and compares them with those prevalent in the US and UK economies. The paper argues that the institutional features of the German system of innovation lend it comparative advantage in innovation. The paper discusses these issues in a framework of the economics of organisation in industry; it closes by discussing some of the limitations of the German system in regard to newly emergent technologies.     

Diffusivity studies of transparent liquid solutions by use of digital holographic interferometry

Real-time digital holography is used to study the diffusion process in transparent liquid solutions. Holograms of an object diffusively reflecting through an experimental cell containing diffusing solutions are recorded at different time instances. The recording medium is a CCD chip. The holographic interference of the object at two time instances is carried out numerically in a PC and is used to determine the diffusion coefficient. Holographic interferometric fringes can be displayed on a PC monitor in near real time. The software developed for this method determines the diffusion coefficients automatically. The calculated diffusion coefficients obtained with this method matched well with literature values.     

膜过程集成提纯茶黄素的研究

以云南红碎茶为原料,以1：8与1：7的茶水比在90℃下浸提两次,每次30min,合并浸提液;以膜面积为1m^2、孔径为0．2μm的陶瓷膜、膜面积为4m^2、截留分子量为3500或10000的卷式超滤膜以及膜面积为4m^2、截留分子量为300的卷式纳滤膜依次进行微滤澄清、超滤分离与纳滤浓缩,系统研究了各膜滤过程的性能表征及其效应。结果表明：微滤对料液具有很好的澄清效果,茶黄素的得率达91．85％,且膜的再生能力强;3500膜超滤能有效去除蛋白质、碳水化合物,其截留率分别为91．23％,92．50％,茶黄素纯度为1．72％,但茶黄素得率只有27．35％;10000膜超滤对蛋白质、碳水化合物的截留率分别为50．19％,47．93％,茶黄素的得率与纯度分别为85．79％,1．00％;300膜纳滤浓缩10000膜超滤液至13．16倍,茶黄素截留率达93．39％,且茶黄素的纯度提高至1．14％;利用NaOH＋三聚磷酸钠（pH12）的清洗液清洗污染的超滤膜与纳滤膜,可使其得到很好的恢复。     

Measurement of light absorption by aquatic particles: improvement of the quantitative filter technique by use of an integrating sphere approach

Determination of particulate absorption in natural waters is often made by measuring the transmittance of samples on glass-fiber filters with the so-called quantitative filter technique (QFT). The accuracy of this technique is limited due to variations in the optical properties of the sample/filter composite, and due to uncertainties in the path-length amplification induced by multiple scattering inside the filter. Some variations in the optical properties of the sample/filter composite can be compensated by additional measurements of the filter's reflectance (transmittance-reflectance method [T-R] [S. Tassan and G. M. Ferrari, Limnol. Oceanogr. 40, 1358 (1995)]). We propose a different, rarely used approach, namely to measure the filter's absorptance in the center of a large integrating sphere, to avoid problems with light losses due to scattering. A comparison with other QFTs includes a sensitivity study for different error sources and determination of path-length amplification factors for each measurement technique. Measurements with a point-source integrating-cavity absorption meter were therefore used to determine the true absorption. Filter to filter variability induced a much lower error in absorptance compared to a measured transmittance. This reduced error permits more accurate determination of the usually low absorption coefficient in the near IR spectral region. The error of the T-R method was lower than that of the transmittance measurement but slightly higher than that of an absorptance measurement. The mean path-length amplification was much higher for the absorptance measurement compared to the T-R method (4.50 versus 2.45) but was found to be largely independent of wavelength and optical density. With natural samples the path-length amplification was less variable for the absorptance measurement, reducing the overall error for absorption to less than ±14%, compared to ±25% for the T-R method.     

制定中文新闻信息技术标准实现全球中文新闻信息资源共享和应用

“中文新闻信息技术标准”是科技部2003年11月立项的国家“十五”重大科技攻关专项,包括“中文新闻信息置标语言”(简称CNML)和“中文新闻信息分类与代码”(简称《分类标准》)两个标准。CNML是基于XML技术制定的,既要参照国际上相关的通行标准,又要体现我国国情和中文特点,并兼有跨媒体、简洁灵活、扩展性好的优点《。分类标准》是在深入研究和博采众长的基础上制定的,既借鉴国际新闻同行的经验,又汇集国内各新闻单位的成果,具有涵盖面广、新闻特点明显、扩展性好、易于推广的特点《。分类标准》还是制定CNML中的元数据和受控词表所依…     

Environmental regulation,economic policy uncertainty,and green technology innovation

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - Green technology innovation is imperative to sustainable and environmentally sound economic development and is currently facing increasingly serious...