Procurement decisions and information sharing under multi-tier disruption risk in a supply chain

We consider a manufacturer's procurement decision in a three-tier supply chain (SC) under disruption risk. The manufacturer sources components from a single first-tier supplier (FT). The FT, in turn, sources raw materials from a single second-tier supplier (ST). Suppliers in both tiers are unreliable, i.e. prone to disruption risk. Increasing SC visibility through information sharing is a potential disruption management strategy for the manufacturer. While the manufacturer can obtain disruption risk information for the FT, disruption risk information for the ST is not easily accessible to the manufacturer except through the FT, who may not be willing to share ST information. We study different mechanisms under which the manufacturer can obtain ST information, and its impact on manufacturer's and FT's decisions and potential profits. We show that information sharing makes the manufacturer's procurement decisions more conservative, i.e. carrying more inventories, but the FT's procurement decision is contingent on the ST's reliability; more proactive (conservative) when ST is unreliable (reliable), i.e. carrying less (more) inventories. We demonstrate that there are two ways to induce the FT to share its information, and numerically show that their effectiveness is contingent on multiple factors, including FT and ST reliabilities and information sharing costs.     

Effect of Decarburization on the Residual Stresses Produced by Shot Peening in Automotive Leaf Springs

The shot peening is used in the leaf springs manufacturing process for producing a compressive residual stress field (CRSF) at and near the surface that improves the fatigue resistance. The resulting CRSF is influenced by the surface ferrite thickness associated with the decarburization. Hence, this work aims to extend the knowledge on the influence of the decarburization on the CRSF for the given shot peening conditions. A study on the laboratory scale was conducted for an SAE 5160 steel grade used in the automotive industry. Next, specimens with different decarburization depths were treated using industrial shot peening, and the resulting CRSF was characterized. The CRSF was found to be influenced by the decarburization depth. It is assumed that the elastic deformation mechanism is predominant at low decarburization depths, followed by a zone in which both the elastic and plastic deformation have competing mechanisms that contribute to the CRSF, and at higher decarburization depths, the dominant mechanism is plastic deformation. The values for σ_srs and σ_mcrs decrease as the decarburized depth increases, and suitable CRSFs were obtained below a decarburization depth of 120 µm in industrial leaves. Furthermore, the prediction based on expressions correlating the measured variables was good in these leaves.     

Software SOLEEC Applied for Parabolic Trough Solar Collector Designing

The present work describes software SOLEEC （copyright 03-2012-070510302900-01 Mexico）, a numerical tool for PTC （parabolic trough collector） designing. Software SOLEEC is divided into two main parts. The first one allows solar resource assessment for a specific place on the Earth. The computation and assessment can be done for a specific day on the year, for one specific month and the monthly averages along the year. The last one gives annual charts such as： solar constant, Earth declination, insolation hours, and sunrise and sunset hours. The second part has four different execution options for PTC designing, that is, using options one and two user can get five different designs based on receiver outer diameter evaluating solar radiation data along the full year or only one solar radiation value （monthly）, on the other hand options three and four were developed to compute the thermal evaluation for an operating collector for twelve solar radiation values （annually） or a specific month computation, respectively.     

An Evolutionary Perspective on Water Governance: From Understanding to Transformation

Many water related problems can be attributed to governance failure at multiple levels of governance rather than to the resource base itself. At the same time our knowledge on water governance systems and conditions for success of water governance reform is still quite limited. Water governance is a fast growing field of scholarly expertise which has largely developed over the past 10 to 15 years. This paper summarizes the development of the field over the past decade(s). On one hand it addresses the current state of understanding of factors that determine the success of water governance systems. On the other hand it has a strong emphasis on processes of transformation and change in water governance as governing the transformation of water governance is the key challenge in moving towards more sustainable water governance and management.     

Modeling of bioethanol production in unconventional bioreactor assisted by electromagnetic field

The aim of this paper was to estimate fermentation kinetic parameters to develop a mathematical model of the bioethanol production under magnetic field effect. Thus, a non‐structured mathematical model was developed considering three non‐lineal kinetic models typically known as Levenspiel, Aiba, Jerusalimsky, which take into account inhibitory effects of the high product concentration on yeasts. The non‐lineal differential equations system solution was carried out by MatLab software using the Runge–Kutta fourth‐order multivariable method. This method was improved through a replication scheme coupled with Newton–Raphson method modified with a damping Broyden parameter. Experimental data on substrate consumption, biomass formation and ethanol production were collected at magnetic field intensities (H) of 414, 796 and 1216 A/cm during 16 h of fermentation. Consequently, the adjusted model for biomass, consumed substrate and bioethanol produced allowed us to correlate fermentation kinetic parameters with the magnetic field. The best result was observed when Jerusalimsky model modified with a magnetic field parameter was considered, because the RMSD order and R‐square correlation coefficient were around 10^?3 and higher than 0.95, respectively. These results are important to understand the phenomenological behavior of this unconventional bioprocess and be helpful to further sensibility analysis and scale up of the bioethanol production assisted by electromagnetic field. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effect of merging levels of locomotion scores for dairy cows on intra- and interrater reliability and agreement

Locomotion scores are used for lameness detection in dairy cows. In research, locomotion scores with 5 levels are used most often. Analysis of scores, however, is done after transformation of the original 5-level scale into a 4-, 3-, or 2-level scale to improve reliability and agreement. The objective of this study was to evaluate different ways of merging levels to optimize resolution, reliability, and agreement of locomotion scores for dairy cows. Locomotion scoring was done by using a 5-level scale and 10 experienced raters in 2 different scoring sessions from videos from 58 cows. Intra- and interrater reliability and agreement were calculated as weighted kappa coefficient (κw) and percentage of agreement (PA), respectively. Overall intra- and interrater reliability and agreement and specific intra- and interrater agreement were determined for the 5-level scale and after transformation into 4-, 3-, and 2-level scales by merging different combinations of adjacent levels. Intrarater reliability (κw) ranged from 0.63 to 0.86, whereas intrarater agreement (PA) ranged from 60.3 to 82.8% for the 5-level scale. Interrater κw = 0.28 to 0.84 and interrater PA = 22.6 to 81.8% for the 5-level scale. The specific intrarater agreement was 76.4% for locomotion level 1, 68.5% for level 2, 65% for level 3, 77.2% for level 4, and 80% for level 5. Specific interrater agreement was 64.7% for locomotion level 1, 57.5% for level 2, 50.8% for level 3, 60% for level 4, and 45.2% for level 5. Specific intra- and interrater agreement suggested that levels 2 and 3 were more difficult to score consistently compared with other levels in the 5-level scale. The acceptance threshold for overall intra- and interrater reliability (κw and κ ≥0.6) and agreement (PA ≥75%) and specific intra- and interrater agreement (≥75% for all levels within locomotion score) was exceeded only for the 2-level scale when the 5 levels were merged as (12)(345) or (123)(45). In conclusion, when locomotion scoring is performed by experienced raters without further training together, the lowest specific intra- and interrater agreement was obtained in levels 2 and 3 of the 5-level scale. Acceptance thresholds for overall intra- and interrater reliability and agreement and specific intra- and interrater agreement were exceeded only in the 2-level scale.