Rolling Kanban: a new visual tool to schedule family batch manufacturing processes with kanban

Rolling Kanban is the name of a kanban management methodology for batch processes manufacturing environment. Proposed in the early 2000s by FESTO Consulting, for two decades we have lost knowledge both from operative and scientific point of view. Basically, Rolling Kanban means a visual planning methodology based on the production of product-families and variants where: (i) set-up times are reduced between the products of the same family, and (ii) relevant times (dozens of minutes if not even hours) must be considered for changeover between products of different families. In addition, the cyclic production sequence between different product families cannot be maintained. Considering that very few technical information and documents are available about this approach, the main objective of this paper is to retrieve and present, for the first time to the scientific community, the Rolling Kanban methodology. Besides, a real industrial implementation concerning a manufacturer of domestic fittings is discussed as a case study. More specifically, two novel versions of the original Rolling Kanban technique are fully presented to effectively overcome certain limits and criticalities found during its operative use, such as the difficulty to realise a pull production, considering increased set-up time for changeover between products of different families.     

Mercury contamination in fish from gold mining areas in Indonesia and human health risk assessment

This study investigates the effects on fish and assesses human health hazards from mercury released in two gold mining areas in Indonesia: Tatelu (North Sulawesi Province) and Galangan (Katingan District, Central Kalimatan Province). In Tatelu, 154 fish specimens of 10 freshwater species were collected, as well as five marine species from the fish market. The mean concentration of total mercury in muscles of freshwater fish from this area was 0.58+/-0.44 microg/g, with more than 45% of fish having Hg levels above the WHO guideline for human consumption of 0.5 microg/g. In Galangan, where 263 fish specimens of 25 species were collected, the total mercury in muscles averaged 0.25+/-0.69 microg/g. Excluding data from flooded open pits in sub-area P4, mean Hg levels in fish from Galangan were 2 to 4 times lower than 0.5 microg/g, while fewer than 10% of fish from Galangan exceeded WHO guidelines. The Hazard Quotient (HQ) was applied to both areas to determine the threat of MeHg exposure for communities in both areas. The HQ is a risk assessment indicator which defines the ratio of exposure level to a single substance in relation to a reference dose. Samples from Tatelu (excluding marine species) had an HQ above one, while those from Galangan resulted in values of 2.4 for the whole area and 9.9 for sub-area P4, pointing to potentially harmful fish consumption for the local population. By using the single-compartment model to estimate mercury levels in blood and hair from daily intake dose, sub-area P4 showed the highest levels, higher than the upper limit guideline for pregnant women, but still lower than threshold levels associated with observed clinical effects.     

多层轻钢住宅纯框架结构体系研究

对目前国内常用的轻钢结构住宅体系的特点及设计原则进行了介绍,并指出轻钢住宅设计中所存在的问题。通过对某轻钢住宅设计实例的研究,表明框架柱采用方钢管截面,梁采用组合梁,且采用6m×8m的大柱网布置可以更好地体现轻钢住宅的优越性。     

Do Homeowners Have Higher Future Household Income?

Using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) between 1984 and 2001 among only renter households in 1984, this paper looks at the relationship between length of homeownership thereafter during that period and household income in 2001. The study found that the longer the period of homeownership during the studied period, the higher future household income was by 2001. It is estimated that each year of ownership is associated with approximately 2 per cent of increase in household income and doubling the length of ownership increases household income by about 11 per cent.     

Buckling of cracked thin-plates under tension or compression

Plates are easily susceptible to buckling under compression, in particular when plate's thickness becomes sufficiently small with respect to others plate's sizes; such a mode of failure is often prevalent with respect to strength failure. The buckling phenomena under tension loading can also occur, especially in plates containing defects such as cracks or holes; when the buckling load is reached, complex wrinkling deflection patterns in compressed regions develops around such imperfections.In the present paper, the buckling analysis of variously cracked rectangular elastic thin-plates under tension and compression is considered. A short explanation of the buckling phenomena in plates is recalled and several numerical analyses, carried out by using the Finite Element Method (FEM), are performed in order to determine the critical load multiplier, both in compression and in tension, by varying some plates' parameters. In particular, the critical load multiplier is determined for different relative crack length, crack orientation and Poisson's coefficient of the plate's material which is made to range between 0.1 and 0.49.Moreover a simple approximate theoretical model to explain and predict the buckling phenomena in cracked plates under tension is proposed and some comparisons are made with FE numerical results in order to assess its reliability in predicting buckling load multipliers.Finally, the obtained results are graphically summarised (in dimensionless form) in several graphs and some interesting conclusions are drawn.     

北京远南大厦设计及其成败得失

介绍了北京南大厦供暖，空调通风，机械排风以及防排烟系统的设计概况，总结了设计中的成功经验，并结合运行情况，提出了一些在设计，生产，施工安装中应注意的问题。     

A combined methodology for the hydraulic rehabilitation of urban drainage networks

During medium and high intensity storm events, urban drainage networks can rapidly reach their maximum capacity, and subsequently floods can occur. Owing to the non-linearity of the processes involved, it is evident that the return period of a rainfall is different from the return period of the generated overflows. Therefore, the assessment of the maximum overflow volume related to a given return period is a key element in the management of urban drainage networks, since it may cause problems to infrastructure and economic losses. In this paper, a combined methodology for the hydraulic rehabilitation of such networks is proposed, by expressing their hydraulic critical conditions in terms of overflow volumes rather than rainfall volumes and considering both observed rainfall data and synthetic hyetographs derived from statistical analysis. The first application of the proposed methodology to the sewer network of the Mesola Municipality is presented and commented on.     

Sintering Behavior and Dielectric Properties of Ultra‐Low Temperature Fired Silver Molybdate Ceramics

Ag₂MoO₄ ceramic was prepared by using the solid‐state reaction method, which could be sintered at 450°C for 2 h, having a relative permittivity of 8.08, a Qf value of 17 000 GHz, and a temperature coefficient of resonance frequency about ?133 ppm/°C. Ag₂MoO₄ ceramic was chemically compatible with silver but reacted seriously with aluminum to form (Ag_0.5Al_0.5)MoO₄ during the sintering. The fitting of infrared spectra and the Shannon's additive rule were employed to study intrinsic dielectric behaviors of the ceramics at microwave region. Ionic displacive polarization and the electronic polarization contributed almost equally to the dielectric permittivity of the ceramic at microwave region. The Ag₂MoO₄ ceramics could be a good candidate for ultra‐low temperature co‐fired microwave devices.     

Parametric Analysis of the Stability of Degraded Railroad Platforms

The current study is developed based on one of the types of subgrade rupture risk suggested by Selig and Waters （1994）. It aims to evaluate subgrade stability railroad, which consists of the slope stability analysis of a railway yard embankment subjected to a wagon load type gondola parked on this track. This proposed analysis was taken into consideration because there are Brazilian railroads in high deterioration level. In some of these lines the tracks are submitted to increasing amount of load every year. The adopted model slope stability to the studied railroad embankments considers the rupture on circular line. It was applied the Geoslope-Slope/W software, version 6, to the evaluation of the platform-slope system. Several situations are adopted to reach the minimum safety slope, permitting to analyze the platform stability to keep railroad traffic under adequate safety level.     

次临界反应性测量方法研究

压水堆启动前需要进行物理启动试验,其中调临界是相对耗时的一部分。采用次临界条件下的试验,可以省去调临界的步骤,提高物理启动试验的安全性和适用性,加速物理启动试验的进程,提高压水堆的负荷因子。目前,次临界反应性测量受限于测量信号较弱,背景噪声强,误差较大,难以满足商用压水堆的工程应用要求。本文基于源倍增方法,利用空间重要性修正因子和信号线性修正提高次临界反应性测量的精度,成功地在核电厂首循环上实现了次临界反应性测量的蒙特卡罗方法计算,取得了较好的计算精度与效果。