A SCOR-based model for supply chain performance measurement: application in the footwear industry

Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) is a widely employed model for SC performance assessment, regardless its generic nature. This article presents a SCOR-based model for performance measurement in supply chains (SC) and apply it in the context of Brazilian footwear industry. The model has two dimensions: SCOR processes (source, make, deliver and return) and performance standards adapted from original SCOR (cost, quality, delivery and flexibility). This structure delivers a 4 × 4 matrix, with each component assessed under analytical hierarchy process. Using focus groups, SC’s experts weighted each component of the matrix regarding their relevance. Thereafter, SC’s managers indicated respective results. The SC’s overall performance was obtained by adding the performance of all indicators. The model application embraced one focal footwear manufacturer, four suppliers, three distribution channels and a return channel, with 85 indicators assessed. The achieved performance for the whole SC is 75.29%.The main gaps were found in deliver process (12.78 percentual points of difference between relevance and achieved proportions) and in flexibility performance (9.82). Further application is recommended in order to find consolidated results.     

Public participation in EIA and attitude formation

Although public participation in EIAs aims for public acceptance, it does not guarantee the project (of which the EIA is part) is accepted. Moreover, when citizens participate in EIAs, they develop attitudes towards the project itself, and towards the broader policy. This paper addresses the complex relationship between participating in EIA studies and accepting policies. We first discuss what attitudes can develop towards a project, and how they may influence the perception of the broader policy sector and the attitude towards policy processes. We distinguish four attitudes and show they are present in a dike-relocation case in the Netherlands. We further show that different experiences in the EIA led to different project evaluations and this impacted stakeholders' attitudes to participation, projects and policy-making. We found four aspects of the EIA process of this project that partly explain the arisen difference in project attitudes. These aspects are important to consider in the design and management of participative EIAs.     

Anodic Oxidation of Both Particulate and Compact Iron in Chloride-Containing Acetate Buffer Electrolytes

The voltammetric records of Fe powder and compact iron electrode in chloride-free and chloride-containing acetate buffer electrolytes of various pH values were compared in the range 4.0 to 6.0. Owing to the consumption of the powder, the voltammetric current at the powder electrode decreases nearly to zero. Full passivation of the iron surface was observed in the absence of chloride on both electrodes. The differences become clear in chloride-containing electrolytes: with the compact electrode, the dissolution proceeds continuously while with the powder electrode the rate of the process is limited by both the degree of iron conversion and potential applied. Chloride ions not only incorporate into the intermediate species but also form soluble species in the passivation layer, leading to its degradation. The result is an observable anodic dissolution reaction of further Fe powder. The composition of the layer differs in dependence on pH. At lower pH, dissolution proceeds faster and to a larger extent. At higher pH, the thickness of the passive layer is larger and it contains more Fe hydroxides/oxides with higher resistance to the action of chloride. Scanning electron microscopy confirmed deep breakdown of the crystal structure of Fe grains.     

Study of Electroless Copper Deposition on Fe Powder

The electrolytic deposition of an electropositive metal is often accompanied by electroless deposition. However, this process is very difficult to control. For that reason, our study has been aimed at the conditions of the electroless deposition of copper coating onto the iron powder particles from sulphate electrolyte. The process consists of two partial reactions; solid iron substrate dissolves into the solution, thus providing the electrons necessary for reduction of copper. The course of the electroless process depends to a large extent on the composition and pH of the electrolyte as well as on the size and concentration of the iron powder particles in the electrolyte. In order to suppress the spontaneous electroless deposition of copper, sodium citrate as complexing agent was used. The following parameters were determined to characterize the reaction course: the heterogeneous rate constant of Fe powder dissolution and degree of Fe conversion as well as thickness of the Cu layer on the Fe powder, both of the latter evaluated upon attaining the stationary state. The main influence exhibited on the reaction course is the efficient surface area available for electroless deposition.     

Synthesis and functional characterization of tridegin and its analogues: inhibitors and substrates of factor XIIIa

Tridegin, a 66‐mer peptide isolated from the leech Haementeria ghilianii, is a potent inhibitor of the coagulation factor XIIIa. This paper describes the chemical synthesis of tridegin by two different strategies—solid‐phase assembly and native chemical ligation—both followed by oxidation in solution phase. Tridegin and truncated analogues were examined for their activity and revealed a particular importance of the C‐terminal region of the parent peptide. Based on these studies a minimal sequence required for factor XIIIa inhibition could be identified. Our data revealed that the glutamine residue at position 52 (Q⁵²) of tridegin most likely binds to the active site of factor XIIIa and was therefore suggested to react with the enzyme. The function of the N‐terminal region is also discussed, as the isolated C‐terminal segment of tridegin lost its inhibitory activity rapidly in the presence of factor XIIIa, whereas this was not the case for the full‐length inhibitor.     

Nonstationary harmonic modeling for ECG removal in surface EMG signals

We present a compact approach for mitigating the presence of electrocardiograms (ECG) in surface electromyographic (EMG) signals by means of time-variant harmonic modeling of the cardiac artifact. Heart rate and QRS complex variability, which often account for amplitude and frequency time variations of the ECG, are simultaneously captured by a set of third-order constant-coefficient polynomials modulating a stationary harmonic basis in the analysis window. Such a characterization allows us to significantly suppress ECG from the mixture by preserving most of the EMG signal content at low frequencies (less than 20?Hz). Moreover, the resulting model is linear in parameters and the least-squares solution to the corresponding linear system of equations efficiently provides model parameter estimates. The comparative results suggest that the proposed method outperforms two reference methods in terms of the EMG preservation at low frequencies.