A review of e-maintenance capabilities and challenges

Within the era of e-manufacturing and e-business, e-maintenance provides the opportunity for a new maintenance generation. E-maintenance integrates existing telemaintenance principles, with web-services and modern e-collaboration principles. Collaboration allows not only to share and exchange information but also knowledge and (e)-intelligence. This paper outlines the basic capabilities provided by e-maintenance to companies as well as describes emerging challenges to benefit from these new operational improvement opportunitie

Methodological developments for probabilistic risk analyses of socio-technical systems

International audienceNowadays, the risk analysis of critical systems cannot be focused only on a technical point of view. Indeed, several major accidents have changed this initial way of thinking. As a result, there exist numerous methods that allow to study risks by considering on the main system resources: the technical process, the operator constraining this process, and the organisation conditioning human actions. However, few works propose to jointly use these different methods to study risks in a global approach. In that way, this paper presents a methodology, which is under development between CRAN, EDF and INERIS, allowing an integration of these different methods to probabilistically estimate risks. This integration is based on unification and structuring knowledge concepts; and the quantitative aspect is achieved through the use of Bayesian Networks. An application of this methodology, on an industrial case, demonstrates its feasibility and concludes on model capacities, which are about the necessary consideration of the whole causes for a system weakness treatment, and the classification of these contributors considering their criticality for this system. This tool can thus be used to help decision makers to prioritise their actions

Mobile Maintenance Management

The paper gives a short overview of the enabling tools and technology available to the maintenance engineer in manufacturing industry, in relation to the emergence of e-maintenance practices and the introduction of mobile computing devices. An analysis of the main characteristics of the e- maintenance concepts and the associated challenges is provided, highlighting the lack of use of condition-based maintenance strategies. The potential of using ubiquitous computing in industrial maintenance practice is then examined, followed by an original vision for the adoption of mobile maintenance management solutions, which can facilitate the implementation of condition-based- maintenance. This vision is supported today by the European Integrated Project DYNAMITE 017498 (Dynamic Decisions in Maintenance)

Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation in Dialysis Patients

Background/Aims: Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has emerged as a new therapeutic option for high-risk patients. However, dialysis patients were excluded from all previous studies. The aim of this study is to compare the outcomes of TAVI for dialysis patients with those for patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) stages 3 and 4 and to compare TAVI with open surgery in dialysis patients. Methods: Part I: comparison of 10 patients on chronic hemodialysis with 116 patients with non-dialysis-dependent CKD undergoing TAVI. Part II: comparison of transcatheter (n = 15) with open surgical (n = 24) aortic valve replacement in dialysis patients. Results: Part I: dialysis patients were significantly younger (72.3 vs. 82.0 years; p < 0.01). Hospital stay was significantly longer in dialysis patients (21.8 vs. 12.1 days; p = 0.01). Overall 30-day mortality was 3.17%, with no deaths among dialysis patients. Six-month survival rates were similar (log-rank p = 0.935). Part II: patient age was comparable (66.5 vs. 69.5 years; p = 0.42). Patients in the surgical group tended to stay longer in hospital than TAVI patients (29.5 vs. 22.5 days; p = 0.35). Conclusion: TAVI is a safe procedure in patients on chronic hemodialysis. Until new data become available, we find no compelling reason to refuse these patients TAVI. Copyright (C) 2012 S. Karger AG, Base

Value-in-use of e-maintenance in service provision: survey analysis and future research agenda

Servitisation strategies entail many benefits to manufacturing industry. In this context, e-maintenance can bring support to new industrial services by enhancing the effectiveness of service delivery processes, thus, improving the ultimate benefits obtained by service provision. This article presents a study on the value-in-use that different technological innovations can offer to maintenance service provision. The final results of a survey capturing experts’ knowledge into a method for value analysis are discussed and eventually a future research agenda is suggested to investigate further how the use of e-maintenance technologies can potentiate the value-in-use of industrial service provision

Independent Eigenstates of Angular Momentum in a Quantum N-body System

The global rotational degrees of freedom in the Schr\"{o}dinger equation for an $N$-body system are completely separated from the internal ones. After removing the motion of center of mass, we find a complete set of $(2\ell+1)$ independent base functions with the angular momentum $\ell$. These are homogeneous polynomials in the components of the coordinate vectors and the solutions of the Laplace equation, where the Euler angles do not appear explicitly. Any function with given angular momentum and given parity in the system can be expanded with respect to the base functions, where the coefficients are the functions of the internal variables. With the right choice of the base functions and the internal variables, we explicitly establish the equations for those functions. Only (3N-6) internal variables are involved both in the functions and in the equations. The permutation symmetry of the wave functions for identical particles is discussed.Comment: 24 pages, no figure, one Table, RevTex, Will be published in Phys. Rev. A 64, 0421xx (Oct. 2001

Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis after Pemetrexed and Cisplatin for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer in a Patient with Sharp Syndrome

Background: Pemetrexed is an antifolate drug approved for maintenance and second-line therapy, and, in combination with cisplatin, for first-line treatment of advanced nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer. The side-effect profile includes fatigue, hematological and gastrointestinal toxicity, an increase in hepatic enzymes, sensory neuropathy, and pulmonary and cutaneous toxicity in various degrees. Case Report: We present the case of a 58-year-old woman with history of Sharp's syndrome and adenocarcinoma of the lung, who developed toxic epidermal necrolysis after the first cycle of pemetrexed, including erythema, bullae, extensive skin denudation, subsequent systemic inflammation and severe deterioration in general condition. The generalized skin lesions occurred primarily in the previous radiation field and responded to immunosuppressive treatment with prednisone. Conclusion: Although skin toxicity is a well-known side effect of pemetrexed, severe skin reactions after pemetrexed administration are rare. Caution should be applied in cases in which pemetrexed is given subsequent to radiation therapy, especially in patients with pre-existing skin diseases

Dusting Tommy’s and Grace’s Portfolios: A Document Analysis of L2 English Learners’ Language Learning Strategies

In the field of language learning strategies, Griffiths and Oxford (2014) suggested that more qualitative studies need to be conducted as a supplement to the mainstream survey research. These qualitative methods might include interviews, think-aloud protocols, diaries, observation, and so on. Nevertheless, few studies use document analysis as a method. At best, it is marginalized as a supplement to other qualitative methods (Ahmed, 2010). This study intended to depict the process of L2 English learners’ strategy use by utilizing document analysis as a major method. In-depth interviews were conducted to corroborate the document analysis as a means of triangulation. In order to identify the learners’ strategies, the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (Oxford, R. L., 1990) was employed as the coding scheme. The data from the interviews and documents yielded major themes and case examples