Good ergonomics and team diversity reduce absenteeism and errors in car manufacturing

Prior research suggests that ergonomics work design and mixed teams (in age and gender) may compensate declines in certain abilities of ageing employees. This study investigates simultaneous effects of both team level factors on absenteeism and performance (error rates) over one year in a sample of 56 car assembly teams (N = 623). Results show that age was related to prolonged absenteeism and more mistakes in work planning, but not to overall performance. In comparison, high-physical workload was strongly associated with longer absenteeism and increased error rates. Furthermore, controlling for physical workload, age diversity was related to shorter absenteeism, and the presence of females in the team was associated with shorter absenteeism and better performance. In summary, this study suggests that both ergonomics work design and mixed team composition may compensate age-related productivity risks in manufacturing by maintaining the work ability of older employees and improving job quality.     

FT-IR spectroscopic study of hydrogen bonding in PA6/clay nanocomposites

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was used to investigate PA6/clay nanocomposites (PA6CN) with various cooling histories from the melt, including rapid cooling (water-quenched), middle-rate cooling (air-cooling) and slow cooling (mold-cooling). In contrast to pure PA6 dominated by the α-phase, the addition of clay silicate layers favor the formation of the γ-crystalline phase in PA6CN.We focus on the reason why silicate layers favor the formation of γ-phase in PA6. Vaia et al. suggested that the addition of clay layers forces the amide groups of PA6 out of the plane formed by the chains. This results in conformational changes of the chains, which limits the formation of H-bonded sheets so that the γ-phase is favored. If this assumption is correct, PA6CN is expected to show some differences as compared with PA6 with respect to hydrogen bonding.The silicate layers were indeed found to weaken the hydrogen bonding both in the α- and γ-phases. This was also confirmed by X-ray diffraction studies. The γ-phase is most likely concentrated in regions close to the silicate layers, whereas the α-phase is favored in the bulk matrix.     

The min-dist location selection and facility replacement queries

We propose and study a new type of location optimization problem, the min-dist location selection problem: given a set of clients and a set of existing facilities, we select a location from a given set of potential locations for establishing a new facility, so that the average distance between a client and her nearest facility is minimized. The problem has a wide range of applications in urban development simulation, massively multiplayer online games, and decision support systems. We also investigate a variant of the problem, where we consider replacing (instead of adding) a facility while achieving the same optimization goal. We call this variant the min-dist facility replacement problem. We explore two common approaches to location optimization problems and present methods based on those approaches for solving the min-dist location selection problem. However, those methods either need to maintain an extra index or fall short in efficiency. To address their drawbacks, we propose a novel method (named MND), which has very close performance to the fastest method but does not need an extra index. We then utilize the key idea behind MND to approach the min-dist facility replacement problem, which results in two algorithms names MSND and RID. We provide a detailed comparative cost analysis and conduct extensive experiments on the various algorithms. The results show that MND and RID outperform their competitors by orders of magnitude.     

Margarine oil formulation and control

The formulation and control of margarine oils and margarines is based on an understanding of the relation between various physical measurements and the composition of the oils and margarines. Solid-to-liquid-fat ratios are determined by dilatometry or by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Oils are chosen for their crystal habit under conditions of processing and finishing. Some margarine test methods involve appearance, oral melting characteristics, oil-off, slump or collapse, get-away, penetration, and spreadability. Many measurements are effective only when they describe conditions over a range of temperatures. These include dilatometry and consistency determinations which require multipoint measurements. Presented at the American Oil Chemists' Society Short Course on “Processing and Quality Control of Fats and Oils,” Aug. 29–Sept. 1, 1966, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich.     

Variations in the composition of sterols,tocopherols and lignans in seed oils from fourSesamum species

Seeds from different collections of cultivatedSesamum indicum Linn and three related wild species [specifically,S. alatum Thonn.,S. radiatum Schum & Thonn. andS. angustifolium (Oliv.) Engl.] were studied for their oil contents and fatty acid composition of the total lipids. The oils from wild seeds were characterized by higher percentages of unsaponifiables (4.9, 2.6 and 3.7%, respectively) compared toS. indicum (1.4–1.8%), mainly due to their high contents of lignans. Total sterols accounted forca. 40, 22, 20 and 16% of the unsaponifiables of the four species, respectively. The four species were different in the relative percentages of the three sterol fractions (the desmethyl, monomethyl and dimethyl sterols) and in the percentage composition of each fraction. Campesterol, stigmasterol, sitosterol and Δ⁵-avenasterol were the major desmethyl sterols, whereas obtusifoliol, gramisterol, cycloeucalenol and citrostandienol were the major monomethyl sterols, and α-amyrin, β-amyrin, cycloartenol and 24-methylene cycloartanol were the main dimethyl sterols in all species. Differences were also observed among the four species in sterol patterns of the free sterols compared to the sterol esters.Sesamum alatum contained less tocopherols (210–320 mg/kg oil), andS. radiatum andS. angustifolium contained more tocopherols (ca. 750 and 800 mg/kg oil, respectively) than didS. indicum (490–680 mg/kg oil). The four species were comparable in tocopherol composition, with γ-tocopherol representing 96–99% of the total tocopherols. The four species varied widely in the identity and levels of the different lignans. The percentages of these lignans in the oils ofS. indicum were sesamin (0.55%) and sesamolin (0.50%).Sesamum alatum showed 1.37% of 2-episesalatin and minor amounts of sesamin and sesamolin (0.01% each).Sesamum radiatum was rich in sesamin (2.40%) and contained minor amounts of sesamolin (0.02%), whereS. angustifolium was rich in sesangolin (3.15%) and also contained considerable amounts of sesamin (0.32%) and sesamolin (0.16%).     

Activation of Ni/A12O3 catalysts through modification of the Al2O3 support

The effect of alumina pretreatment on the performance of alumina supported nickel catalysts was demonstrated in gas phase hydrogenation of toluene to methylcyclohexane. The state of the alumina was changed from pure to pure phase through various heat treatments in air. The catalysts were prepared from vapor phase by saturating the accessible binding sites on the pretreated alumina with the nickel precursor. The highest number of active sites for hydrogenation was observed for catalysts prepared on alumina having an incomplete phase transition and a / alumina phase ratio between 0.5 and 10. Results from temperature programmed desorption (TPD) studies revealed that a maximum in weakly chemisorbed hydrogen as well as in total amount of desorbed hydrogen was found for the same catalysts. By hydrogen chemisorption studies the total hydrogen uptake was found to correlate with the observed hydrogenation maximum. It is suggested that both the chemical and physical properties of the alumina influence the activity. An optimal metal-support interaction and structural defects on the alumina due to the phase transition can explain the observed maximum in the number of active sites and in hydrogen uptake.     

The real-time,high-resolution x-ray video microscopy of solidification in aluminum alloys

The directional solidification of thin alloy sheets in a Bridgman furnace has been studied by x-radiography using high-brilliance synchrotron x-radiation in combination with a low-noise, fast-readout camera. Spatial resolutions down to 1.5 μm and a temporal resolution of about 0.15 s have permitted real-time video microscopy of microstructural evolution during columnar and equiaxed dendrite growth and eutectic and monotectic growth. The technique has also allowed for direct observations of important solidification phenomena such as dendrite fragmentation and porosity formation, primarily in aluminium alloys. As a result, insights have been gained into mechanisms of dendrite fragmentation, criteria for dendrite tip kinetics and interface stability during transient growth, and microstructure formation mechanisms during monotectic solidification. The results are expected to be important for validation of dendrite growth models. This paper presents a review of the technique as well as examples of images obtained during solidification of aluminum alloys.     

A Hybrid Color Quantization Algorithm Incorporating a Human Visual Perception Model

Color quantization is a common image processing technique where full color images are to be displayed using a limited palette of colors. The choice of a good palette is crucial as it directly determines the quality of the resulting image. Standard quantization approaches aim to minimize the mean squared error (MSE) between the original and the quantized image, which does not correspond well to how humans perceive the image differences. In this article, we introduce a color quantization algorithm that hybridizes an optimization scheme based with an image quality metric that mimics the human visual system. Rather than minimizing the MSE, its objective is to maximize the image fidelity as evaluated by S‐CIELAB, an image quality metric that has been shown to work well for various image processing tasks. In particular, we employ a variant of simulated annealing with the objective function describing the S‐CIELAB image quality of the quantized image compared with its original. Experimental results based on a set of standard images demonstrate the superiority of our approach in terms of achieved image quality.     

Open to a Select Few? Matching Partners and Knowledge Content for Open Innovation Performance

The purpose of the paper is to illuminate the costs and benefits of crossing firm boundaries in inbound open innovation (OI) by determining the relationships among partner types, knowledge content and performance. The empirical part of the study is based on a survey of OI collaborations answered by R&D managers in 415 Italian, Finnish and Swedish firms. The results show that the depth of collaboration with different partners (academic/consultants, value chain partners, competitors and firms in other industries) is positively related to innovation performance, whereas the number of different partners and size have negative effects. The main result is that the knowledge content of the collaboration moderates the performance outcomes and the negative impact of having too many different kinds of partners. This illustrates how successful firms use selective collaboration strategies characterized by linking explorative and exploitative knowledge content to specific partners, to leverage the benefits and limit the costs of knowledge boundary crossing processes.