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This study aims to characterise the so-called Sialkoti paper used to produce Pahari drawings preserved today in the Wereldmuseum in Leiden (Netherlands) (WML). These works originate from the Punjab Hills in India (today Himachal Pradesh) and are commonly known as 'Pahari miniature paintings'. The paper upon which these drawings are executed is said to have been produced in Sialkot during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when papermaking was an integral part of an overall regional economy correlated with other sectors such as agriculture and the textile industry. Although the term Sialkoti refers to identified papermills in Sialkot (now Pakistan), the paper from this region is yet to be subjected to a systematic study. This article therefore explores the paper(s) in question through macro- and microscopic observations of structure, pulp and fibres. The study of historical sources, complemented by the analysis of paper samples and fibre identification, has revealed that the pulp would have been prepared from a variety of manufactured products using different technologies, such as rags, cloth, mats, rope and other plant-based materials made from local bast fibres which, once tattered, were recycled to prepare the pulp. Microscopic study reveals that a variety of fibre combinations under different conditions and processing steps were used, in particular sunn hemp fibre (Crotalaria juncea L.), a plant species that has until now rarely been identified in historical paper. In addition, the presence of kenaf and jute fibres, as well as a significant quantity of cotton fibres, have also been demonstrated. To overcome the lack of comparative materials, our work was supported by a comparative study of several materials made from sunn hemp now held in the Ethnobotany Collection at Kew Gardens. Samples were taken from these materials and provided useful reference micrographs for the identification of the WML samples. The quality of the paper used by Pahari artists, as well as the raw materials available and their processing, are discussed in detail. Putting all the data, including technical and historical information into perspective, we conclude that the Pahari artists used a paper of inferior quality compared to other types of paper used for other purposes such as the creation of illuminated manuscripts in the Punjab plains. This study therefore provides useful analytical and material evidence that complements previous historical, technical and anthropological studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The projects commissioned to Guarino Guarini by the Order of Regular Theatine Clerics left a mark of his extraordinary ability to blend rationality and lucid imagination of geometric shapes in which the close relationship between art and science stands out. Most of realized buildings have been demolished or destroyed because of catastrophic events. Therefore, the problem of knowledge of such manufactured products arises increasing and integrating the available data with those newly acquired in emergency situations. This paper proposes a digital platform aimed to analyze and catalogue Guarini's heritage; the data sheets can be shared and easily implemented. A special section is dedicated to buildings no longer existing. The aim of this project project is to allow the faithfuls, visitors and the Fathers of the Order themselves to be able to "review" and "relive" the Theatine lost architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In this paper we introduced a model for prognosis of profit of industrial enterprises. This model gives a possibility to make a prognosis of profit of these enterprises with account increasing of quantity of manufactured products, as well as various expenses of enterprises (raw material purchase costs, transportation costs, ...). Design/Methodology/Approach: An analytical approach for analyzing of the influence of changing of various parameters on the profit of industrial enterprises has been introduced. Findings: The model gives a possibility to decrease risk of decreasing of profit due to decreasing of overhead expenses. Practical Implications: The model gives a possibility to make the prognosis of profit with account changing of quantity of manufactured products, as well as various expenses (raw materials, transportation costs, ...). Originality/Value: In this paper we introduce a model for prognosis of profit of industrial enterprises with account of changing the volume of manufacturing production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we aim to document and analyze the long arc of connectivity between China and Latin America. First, using analytical international trade and economic tools, we provide a new economic perspective of the First Globalization–-the Ming and early Qing China's economic and business links with Latin America and Europe. Second, due to U.S. government trade policies toward China in the 1990s, the Second China's Globalization was ushered in with its entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO). During this second phase, China exchanged manufactured goods with minerals and resources from Latin America. Finally, the tough technology and trade stance by the Trump and Biden Administrations prompted China to intensify the third phase of China interaction with Latin America. For the 2020s and beyond, one important pillar of the Third China-Latin America-Europe Globalization is heightened efforts for China to increase its digital-AI, telecommunication and platform business presence and access into the Latin American markets. To enrich our analysis, we will provide Chinese-style digital-AI business and economic models to help illustrate our discussions. Throughout our paper, we want to point out that government policies were instrumental in bringing forth these Three Globalizations that involve China-Latin America-Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manufacturing industry often uses 3D scanning technologies to inspect their products. Some of these techniques produce a point cloud that represent a section of the manufactured product. The clouds must be aligned to the model of the product in order to check its quality. Current registration methods are usually affected by dimensional problems or volumetric anomalies. This paper proposes a new method for the registration process aligning the cloud to the model in several steps. The first step is the state-of-the-art method. The second step uses the information acquired in the first one to perform a fine registration in order to not being affected by dimensional defects or little miss alignments in the previous step providing a huge improvement in the measurement of surface defects. In this paper, several techniques are proposed in order to provide a set of tools that the final users can tune to fit their needs. The whole procedure of registration can be run in real-time conditions using the sampling and caching strategies proposed. The methods proposed are tested over more than 10,000 profiles of a rail proving they successfully align the cloud and the model providing better results in the measurement of surface defects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Additive manufacturing also known as 3D printing is an evolving advanced manufacturing technology critical for the new era of complex machinery and operating systems. Manufacturing systems are increasingly faced with risk of attacks not only by traditional malicious actors such as hackers and cyber-criminals but also by some competitors and organizations engaged in corporate espionage. This paper aims to elaborate a plausible risk practice of designing and demonstrate a case study for the compromised-based malicious for polymer 3D printing system. Design/methodology/approach: This study assumes conditions when a machine was compromised and evaluates the effect of post compromised attack by studying its effects on tensile dog bone specimens as the printed object. The designed algorithm removed predetermined specific number of layers from the tensile samples. The samples were visually identical in terms of external physical dimensions even after removal of the layers. Samples were examined nondestructively for density. Additionally, destructive uniaxial tensile tests were carried out on the modified samples and compared to the unmodified sample as a control for various mechanical properties. It is worth noting that the current approach was adapted for illustrating the impact of cyber altercations on properties of additively produced parts in a quantitative manner. It concurrently pointed towards the vulnerabilities of advanced manufacturing systems and a need for designing robust mitigation/defense mechanism against the cyber altercations. Findings: Density, Young's modulus and maximum strength steadily decreased with an increase in the number of missing layers, whereas a no clear trend was observed in the case of % elongation. Post tensile test observations of the sample cross-sections confirmed the successful removal of the layers from the samples by the designed method. As a result, the current work presented a cyber-attack model and its quantitative implications on the mechanical properties of 3D printed objects. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the original work from the team. It is currently not under consideration for publication in any other avenue. The paper provides quantitative approach of realizing impact of cyber intrusions on deteriorated performance of additively manufactured products. It also enlists important intrusion mechanisms relevant to additive manufacturing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, China's foreign trade has continued to develop and achieved remarkable results, and the economic development trend has been steady and positive overall. However, although there are new opportunities for the development of China's foreign trade, it also faces new challenges and dilemmas. Therefore, in the current international trade situation, it is of great significance to study the impact of China's foreign trade on industrial structure and find the key points for the development of endogenous economic dynamics on this basis. China's industrial structure has undergone a clear process of upgrading and is a major trading country for industrially manufactured goods. The results of the analysis of the subsectors show that the trend of structural upgrading within the industry is equally significant. At the same time, there is often a significant trend of synergistic changes in the percentage of processing trade and the percentage change of trade in high-tech products. Based on this, this paper analyzes the correlation between China's foreign trade structure and industrial structure based on the correlation of mutual influence. The evolutionary algorithm has the advantages of a strong ability to search for global optimal solutions and good robustness, which is applied as the core algorithm of this paper. The study in this paper examines the interaction between industrial structure and trade structure from the perspective of matching the association between industrial structure and trade structure on the basis of measuring the industrial structure and trade structure at the regional level. The experimental results demonstrate the validity of the model in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the spatial variation in variety of manufactured consumer goods to study how choice fades across space. We use data on 132 consumer goods and over 800 brands available from a purpose‐designed survey of fixed shops and periodic market stalls in towns and villages in Ethiopia. We find that local consumer choice fades, with fewer varieties in remoter villages. On average, these villages have approximately half the number of available items compared to their nearest market town. A fall in travel time of a half‐hour is associated with 4 extra goods and 9 brands. Variety also increases with inequality and market size. Furthermore, we estimate a model of heterogeneous consumers with a preference for variety and monopolistically competitive traders to disentangle the role of transport costs from the taste for variety, and to assess the consequences for prices. Our model estimates suggest that local consumer prices contain a markup of 8% above source town prices and transport costs. We demonstrate the significant costs to consumers from both low variety and high trade costs. Ignoring such costs means that poverty is underestimated in remote places. In turn, when infrastructure investments raise variety, the likely fall in poverty will be underestimated too. This paper is part of the Economica 100 Series. Economica, the LSE "house journal" is now 100 years old. To commemorate this achievement, we are publishing 100 papers by former students, as well as current and former faculty. Andualem Mengistu is a researcher at the IGC, LSE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disabled people can be successfully employed in most production processes, provided that one knows how to exploit their abilities and take into account their limitations in order to give them an appropriate job. However, because the level and type of production must be constantly adapted to the needs of the market, the involvement of disabled people in the production process may also change. Additionally, people with disabilities have limitations as well as additional rights that must be considered. As a result, the organisation and planning of their work, side by side with other employees, becomes more complex. Computer simulations can be a support for organising and planning the involvement of employees with disabilities in production processes. The aim of the article is to show how simulations can facilitate the organisation of work of employees with disabilities, with the changing demand for manufactured products. The paper identifies the factors that should be considered, and then presents how the employment of disabled people can affect the operation of the production line and the commercial image of the company. The study uses a combination of System Dynamics and Discrete Event Simulations. The relevant data for the simulation were derived from a production company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasing complexity of production systems and manufactured products, operators face high demands for professional expertise and long-term concentration. Augmented reality (AR) can support users in their work by displaying relevant virtual data in their field of view. In contrast to the extensive research on AR assistance in assembly, maintenance, and training, AR support in quality inspection has received less attention in the industrial context. Quality inspection is an essential part of industrial processes; thus, it is important to verify whether AR assistance can support users in these tasks. This work proposes an AR-based approach for quality inspection. For this, pilot AR software was designed and developed. The proposed AR approach was tested with end users. The task efficiency, the error rate, the perceived mental workload, and the usability of the AR approach were analysed and compared to the conventional paper-based support. The field research confirmed the positive effect on user efficiency during quality inspection while decreasing the perceived mental workload. This work extends the research on the potential of AR assistance in industrial applications and provides experimental validation to confirm the benefits of AR support on user performance during quality inspection tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creativity is one of the most in-demand skills sought by employers, as organizations must continue to innovate to keep up with technological advancements and remain competitive in a globalized economy. This paper outlines a board game project that instructors can use to develop students' conceptual, functional, and visual creativity skills. The results provide each student with a meaningful experiential exercise working with a team that invents a board game and develops it all the way to a manufactured product. The step-by-step process is provided along with an instrument to measure the creative performance of the completed board games. Following the board game project, students write an experiential learning essay summarizing their concrete experiences, reflective observations, abstract conceptualizations, and plans for active experimentation according to Kolb's (1984) Experiential Learning Model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maintaining high levels of process quality is crucial to the competitiveness of manufacturing firms in today's increasingly global marketplace. To ensure the quality of manufactured products meets customer needs, process capability indices (PCIs) are widely used to analyze the process performance of various processing characteristics. Products characterise by processing characteristics of both unilateral and bilateral specifications are common in the current sales market. Manufacturing firms must often adopt multiple PCIs to analyze the process performance of a single product, which is inefficient in practical applications and management. Yield-based index C p k is not subject to this limitation. For this reason, we employed C p k to evaluate process performance and the effectiveness of improvement measures. In practice, C p k is estimated from samples, which means that misjudgment may occur in the assessment of process performance and improvement effectiveness due to sampling errors. We therefore derived the 100 (1 − α) % confidence interval of C p k and, based on the producer's perspective, used the upper confidence limit to evaluate improvement effectiveness. To lower the risk of misjudgment and increase the reliability of improvement effectiveness in the case of data uncertainty, this paper further proposes fuzzy estimation using the right-sided confidence interval of C p k and develops the fuzzy judgement model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital transformation driven by artificial intelligence (AI) allows Industry 4.0 and the internet of things (IIoT) to make significant advancements in automating, controlling, and improving the quality of numerous manufacturing processes. Three-dimensional (3D) surface topography of manufactured products holds important information about the quality of manufacturing processes. Surface topography consists of unique properties, which makes the current monitoring approaches ineffective in identifying local and spatial surface faults. In this paper, we develop a generalised spatially weighted autocorrelation approach based on AI for monitoring changes in products based on their 3D topographic surfaces. We propose two effective algorithms to identify and assign spatial weights to the topographic regions with suspicious characteristics. The normal surface hard thresholding algorithm initially enhances the representation of surface characteristics through binarization, followed by the normal surface connected-component labelling algorithm, which utilises the obtained binary results to identify and assign spatial weights to the suspicious regions. We then introduce a generalised spatially weighted Moran index, which exploits the assigned weights to locally characterise and monitor changes in the spatial autocorrelation structure of identified regions. After an anomaly surface is detected, we extract different fault diagnostic information. The proposed approach proves its robustness and efficiency in characterising, monitoring, and diagnosing different patterns of faults in 3D topographic surfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The known methods for the plastic shaping of axisymmetric parts with bilateral end thickenings and the die equipment used for their application have several significant drawbacks, which may reduce the quality of manufactured products, increase their cost, and limit the technological capabilities of production. As a rule, they provide alternate plastic shaping of end thickenings. In this paper, we propose a method of simultaneous stamping of end thickenings on a bar stock in split dies and a stamping device for its implementation. To establish the power modes of stamping we carried out the simulation of the process under study using the finite element method in the QForm software package. The dependencies of the stamping force on the geometric dimensions of the workpiece and friction conditions on the contact surfaces are established. The damageability of the workpiece material made of AA5056 alloy was assessed, and a diagram was obtained to determine the number of required stamping operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often difficult to ascertain the durability or longevity of construction products. Two opportunities arose to examine old AAC masonry material that had been used in construction with a reasonable knowledge of the manufactured characteristics of the product. The first of these was from blocks sampled from three locations within the internal and external walls of the H+H factory in England that was being dismantled in 2013. In the second case, a partly demolished wall provided an opportunity to salvage two almost complete blocks for testing. This paper will describe the tests, and the results and compare the results with the predicted physical characteristics of the manufactured products [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The precast concrete (PC) method involves manufacturing reinforced concrete building components in a factory that are then transported to and assembled on a construction site. Compared to conventional methods, PC is widely employed as an advantageous means of creating a sustainable environment and improving construction quality. However, due to time and cost increase, many modern PC factories inspect only randomly selected component samples, for which they write inspection reports using paper-based forms. The storage and management of these documents associated with inspections within factories are essential because any defects that occur during the manufacturing process adversely affect the subsequent delivery and assembly activities. In this study, a mobile application capable of automated documentation and the storage, and input of systematic data was developed to generate a system for comprehensive quality management and assurance within PC factories. The developed system was tested in a PC factory, achieving a 47% time-saving rate compared to the conventional inspection method. Inspection reports of the developed system contain considerably more information than those of the conventional method and fundamentally prevent the risk of document damage and loss as they are automatically archived on a server in digital format. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digitalisation of economic activities, combined with a secular slowdown in the growth of global output and trade, reduces the potential of traditional export‐oriented manufacturing as a development strategy. This paper takes a trade economics perspective to outline a possible response to the changed nature of industrialisation. The outlined response currently applies mainly to middle‐income countries but deserves attention also in longer‐term development strategies of low‐income countries. The paper argues that digital technologies affect trade costs through various mechanisms, which apply differently to manufactures and services and determine decisions of multi‐product firms on what to produce for what market. Emphasising big data analysis of customer preferences as an input to manufacturing, the paper finds that (i) industrialisation and service‐oriented development strategies are complements, rather than substitutes; (ii) access to data on customer preferences is an asset for developing countries; and (iii) data governance, which harnesses the increasing dependence of manufacturing on data, and innovation policies, which give greater importance to indigenous innovation, crucially augment the potential of industrialisation as a development strategy in a digital era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featured Application: In this paper, the anisotropy of the mechanical properties of additively manufactured products was investigated. When carrying out a lightweight design, considering the anisotropy during manufacturing, it can provide accurate performance estimates for subsequent manufacturing. The research object of this paper was the space node, which is very suitable for lightweight design because of its complex force. However, this method can also be used for those products that need to consider the performance after manufacture, especially in mass production, whereby the most suitable molding direction can be found using this method. At present, a large number of scholars have conducted related research on topology optimization for additive manufacturing (AM). However, there are few relevant research reports on the impact of different directions of additive manufacturing on the optimal design and manufacturing results. In this paper, using the bidirectional evolutionary optimization (BESO) method, anisotropic optimization analysis was carried out on space nodes that are currently popular in the field of additive manufacturing and topology optimization. The elastic constants in different directions were used as anisotropic material properties for optimization research in this paper through tensile testing, which was carried out on 316L stainless-steel specimens fabricated using Selective Laser Melting (SLM) technology. In addition, SEM analyses were performed to explore the microscopic appearance of the material. The study found that additive manufacturing is affected by the printing direction in terms of both macroscopic mechanical properties and microscopic material structure; the deformation obtained by anisotropic optimization was about 1.1–2.3% smaller than that obtained by isotropic optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last two decades, the electromagnetic field of the microwave range has been successfully introduced into various branches of the agribusiness industry as one of the most promising and advanced technologies for drying manufactured products. In this regard, the article proposes a new microwave irradiation technique for drying various objects based on a surface waveguide's properties. The paper analyses the main links that make up the surface waveguide as a microwave irradiation system and shows the ways of their implementation. The article describes the advantages of applying a vibratory device for exciting a surface wave, using a re-emitting antenna array, and operating a single conductor with a dielectric coating as a surface waveguide. Such advantages make it possible to introduce microwave drying units with the required distribution of electromagnetic field energy along the irradiated material, small dimensions, high drying quality, and low price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The manufacturing industry often faces challenges related to customer satisfaction, system degradation, product sustainability, inventory, and operation management. If not addressed, these challenges can be substantially harmful and costly for the sustainability of manufacturing plants. Paradigms, e.g., Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing, provide effective and innovative solutions, aiming at managing manufacturing operations, and controlling the quality of completed goods offered to the customers. Aiming at that end, this paper endeavors to mitigate the described challenges in a multi-stage degrading manufacturing/remanufacturing system through the implementation of an intelligent machine learning-based decision-making mechanism. To carry out decision-making, reinforcement learning is coupled with lean green manufacturing. The scope of this implementation is the creation of a smart lean and sustainable production environment that has a minimal environmental impact. Considering the latter, this effort is made to reduce material consumption and extend the lifecycle of manufactured products using pull production, predictive maintenance, and circular economy strategies. To validate this, a well-defined experimental analysis meticulously investigates the behavior and performance of the proposed mechanism. Results obtained by this analysis support the presented reinforcement learning/ad hoc control mechanism's capability and competence achieving both high system sustainability and enhanced material reuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wire and arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is a metal deposition technique with a fast rate and the possibility of a high volume of deposition. Because of its fast deposition and high heat input, the manufactured products have poor surface quality. This paper presents a study on the machining of Inconel 718 wall-shaped additive manufacturing (AM) products, a necessary step for the improvement of surface quality. Considering the possibility that the characteristics of the milling processes of AM products might differ from those of traditionally manufactured parts, in this research, two types of Inconel 718 were studied and compared: one was manufactured using WAAM, and the other was an Inconel 718 rolled bar (Aerospace Material Specifications 5662). Using the testing procedure, a conventional two-flute cutting tool was used to assess their machinability. For this process, multiple passes were performed at three different heights of the samples. Considering the peculiarities of the AM products, such as their uneven surfaces, dendritic microstructures, and anisotropy, the results were analyzed. After the machining operation, the effects on the products were also studied by analyzing their surface quality. This study found a higher stability in the cutting process for the AMS 5662 samples relative to the WAAM parts with less variability in the cutting forces overall, resulting in better surface quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mercosur and EU countries have a trade affinity due to similarities in consumer preferences (cultural and religious values and common consumption habits) and the existing complementarity in production (distinct climate, North–South hemisphere, and different degrees of added value goods). In this context, this paper evaluates the impact of the EU-Mercosur agreement on the Brazilian economy in terms of gross domestic output, trade, and welfare based on a computable general equilibrium model. To achieve this objective, the method includes two agreement scenario simulations: the first scenario considers the Mercosur-EU agreement including the UK as part of the bloc; in the second scenario, it considers the Mercosur-EU agreement with Brexit. In this way, the scenarios make it possible to analyze not only the gains in trade creation with the formation of the Mercosur-EU agreement but also to identify the effects of trade diversion due to the exit of the UK (BREXIT). For both scenarios, the results point out evidence of the positive effects on trade and the welfare level in Brazil, mainly on manufactured goods and agriculture—grains and crops. The main findings suggest that Mercosur benefits Brazilian trade, making it a strategic partner. Conversely, the paper concludes that Brexit could reduce the Brazilian trade gains from the EU-Mercosur agreement. Comparing the two scenarios, it is possible to observe that the Mercosur-EU gains in the Brexit scenario are smaller than in the alternative scenario. This aspect confirms the hypothesis that there is a negative effect on the Mercosur-EU agreement when Brexit is simulated (scenario 2). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Significant number of producers and manufacturers are realizing substantial financial and environmental benefits from sustainable/greener business practices. Sustainable production and manufacturing are the creation of manufactured products through economically-sound processes that minimize negative environmental impacts while conserving energy and natural resources. Sustainable manufacturing also enhances employee, community, and product safety. The aim of the paper is to provide the right information about using scheduling tools such as Advanced Planning and Scheduling tools to improve lead times, optimize constraints by this reduce waste time and lower emissions produced by producing the waste. This paper deals with problematic of production optimization and its impact on production efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Nostalgia in marketing is a marketing strategy that brands use; they use themes or products from the past in their current marketing strategy to create a unique emotional feeling in customers."(Jones, 2015) Nostalgia is a psychological phenomenon that many brands use by aligning their products and/or services with their consumers' positive memories of the past. This paper offers evidence that nostalgia marketing works using the context of two popular brands sold in the Indian subcontinent: Rasna & Tang. It also analyses how various factors such as age, gender, and religious festivals impact nostalgia marketing. It investigates how nostalgia directly impacts consumers' purchase behaviour, their repurchase decisions, their loyalty, their trust in the brands, and their product recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While services are an essential element in the global production, trade and consumption of manufactured goods, limited research has been conducted on the role of services in studies of global value chains (GVCs). Recently, however, an emerging literature on the 'servicification' of manufacturing in GVCs has evolved, most of which involves aggregate-level analyses of countries and sectors based on trade statistics. Previous studies have thus failed to explore whether and how local firms in developing countries may capture value and upgrade through their insertion into GVCs as service suppliers. In this paper, we contribute to the literature by analysing the development of an industry supplying wind-turbine services in South Africa. We draw on in-depth fieldwork, including fifty-two interviews and five case studies of firms operating as suppliers of various types of 'embedded' services to wind-power projects constructed in South Africa. We show the significant economic value in terms of the employment thereby created and the upgrading pathways of five local service-suppliers in knowledge-intensive and high value-added service activities. Our findings point to the benefit of devoting attention to the role of services in relation to upgrading in GVCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses export development in New Zealand in the 1970s and 1980s with reference to the long‐running literature about the sustainability of natural resource‐based growth, export diversification, and the role of state regulation and encouragement. Since 1970 New Zealand's export commodity mix has diversified. Pastoral exports, once dominant, are complemented by seafood, wine, fruit, vegetables, forest products and a range of manufactured goods. Diversification of export markets and commodities was a priority for policymakers from the mid‐1950s, and more so from the mid‐1970s. Export incentives were a chosen instrument. Seafood and kiwifruit were among the most significant examples of primary sector diversification. The paper finds that the circumstances of each industry required different government policies, and that entrepreneurship and innovation were significant alongside government policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance measure of total completion time (TCT) plays a key role in manufacturing to improve performance, e.g., reducing inventory levels. Moreover, since uncertainty is an inevitable part of certain manufacturing environments, it is especially important to address cases with uncertain processing times. This paper addresses the four-machine flowshop scheduling problem to minimize TCT with uncertain processing times. Due to the NP-hardness of the problem, different algorithms were presented as solutions in scheduling literature. In this paper, a new substantially improved algorithm is proposed and parameters of the algorithm are fine tuned. The proposed algorithm is compared to the best existing algorithm (RAIRO Operations Research 54, 529-553, 2020) in scheduling literature using extensive computational experiments and statistical analysis. Computational methods using the programming language python, along with statistical inference, is used to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm over the existing ones. Computational methods reveal that the proposed algorithm is, on average, 86.8% more effective than the best existing one in literature with similar computational times. A test of hypothesis further confirms the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm with a p-value of less than 0.00001, which is practically zero. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides detailed evidence on the extent of outsourcing and offshoring of manufacturing employment and value added using a regional subsystem input–output framework. The paper argues that direct employment and the value-added shares of manufacturing in the totals underestimate manufacturing's importance. Jobs in manufacturing subsystems accounted for more than 25% of total worldwide employment, in contrast to just 15% recorded in direct statistics. In major developed countries, the level of intersectoral outsourcing reached its upper limit at the beginning of the new millennium. At the same time, the offshoring of activities interlinked with manufacturing has become the dominant driver of deindustrialisation in these countries. While direct manufacturing employment and intersectoral outsourcing declined between 2000 and 2014, offshoring experienced a significant increase of 6.5 percentage points, from 29% to 35.5% of the total employment generated under the G7 manufacturing subsystem. Furthermore, 84% of the value added that existed to meet the final demand for manufactured products in G7 countries remained in G7 countries, while most of the jobs needed to meet G7 final demand have been offshored to developing countries. The paper concludes that the importance of manufacturing subsystems for the world economy did not decline over 2000–14, but there was a significant shift of manufacturing activities and related services from G7 countries to China and other rapidly growing economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is sustainable growth in the industries in various developing nations. Quality maintenance of the product under development is an essential part of the product development process. Product quality affects the performance of the product. Various kinds of issues in the manufacturing can impact negatively on the product. Therefore, it is needed to make sure that the manufactured products are fault-free by establishing and employing such softwares that will ultimately bring some ease in the fault detection process. This paper aims to diagnose faults on steel surfaces by using convolutional neural networks and classification by making use of 5 different types of classifiers. They are Support Vector machines, Naive Bayes Classifier, Decision Tree, K-nearest Neighbors, and Random Forest. We have used 4 different types of models namely, Alexnet, InceptionV3, Resnet and VGG16. The testing accuracy was found to be maximum for the VGG16 model which was recorded to be 75.02%. Among the classifiers, the best accuracy was found out with Random Forest and Decision Tree classifiers to be 74.9% and 74.3% respectively. The defects are classified among the 4 categories of defects and are highlighted using image segmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to conduct a comparative life cycle environmental analysis of alternative versions of a product that was manufactured with the use of additive technologies. The aim of the paper was to compare the environmental assessment of an additive-manufactured product using two approaches: a traditional one, based on the use of SimaPro software, and the authors’ own concept of a newly developed artificial intelligence (AI) based approach. The structure of the product was identical and the research experiments consisted in changing the materials used in additive manufacturing (from polylactic acid (PLA) to acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS)). The effects of these changes on the environmental factors were observed and a direct comparison of the effects in the different factors was made. SimaPro software with implemented databases was used for the analysis. Missing information on the environmental impact of additive manufacturing of PLA and ABS parts was taken from the literature for the purpose of the study. The novelty of the work lies in the results of a developing concurrent approach based on AI. The results showed that the artificial intelligence approach can be an effective way to analyze life cycle assessment (LCA) even in such complex cases as a 3D printed medical exoskeleton. This approach, which is becoming increasingly useful as the complexity of manufactured products increases, will be developed in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alcohol counterfeiting, which negatively affects people's lives in terms of economic, health, and social aspects, is one of the crucial problems that arise in many countries. For this reason, information should be made visible and traceable in all current flows of manufactured products from the raw material supplier to the retailer. In this study, a blockchain-based system architecture is proposed to ensure the traceability of raki (an anise-flavored Turkish drink), which is heavily counterfeited in Turkey. The information that adds value to the product is recorded in blocks in the blockchain, which is the building block of the system architecture, and this recorded information can be viewed by the relevant stakeholders. Product traceability is carried out with two smart contracts. With the Asset Registration Smart Contract (ARSC), assets are identified in the digital layer and the lot ID is assigned to the assets. The security of these smart contracts is ensured by storing recorded information in the blockchain, where it cannot be deleted or changed. Hyperledger Fabric, a blockchain platform, is used in the proposed architecture. In addition, QR codes integrated into the system act as a bridge between the physical and digital layers, directing consumers to the blockchain layer for traceability. Thus, the consumer will be able to see all the stages of the product that have transparently reached him and will be able to notice any counterfeiting event that may occur. In this context, it is foreseen that the proposed architecture will prevent raki counterfeiting as much as possible and provide transparency and traceability in all processes from raw material to bottle. This paper is arranged as follows. In Sec. 1, the problem is defined, the solution for the problem is explained, information is given about the technologies proposed for the solution, and current studies on the subject are discussed. In Sec. 2, the system architecture created for traceability is explained in detail. Section 3 describes the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the need to use very precise manufacturing processes, hydraulic applications are one of the most demanding parts in production. Such a feature requires using molded and properly machined parts. On the other hand, such an approach makes hydraulic parts very heavy and requires the use of large amounts of material. One of the most promising manufacturing technologies that could be a real alternative to hydraulic parts production is additive manufacturing (AM). This paper aims to study how the AM process affects the performance properties of the as-built state, and investigate changes after different types of postprocessing in the case of hydraulic check valves. Based on the obtained results, using proper postprocessing is a crucial feature of obtaining check valves that perform their functions in a hydraulic system. In as-built parts, the surface roughness of the valve seats significantly exceeds the acceptable range (almost nine times—from 4.01 µm to 33.92 µm). The influence of the surface roughness of the valve seats was verified via opening pressure and internal leakage tests based on ISO standards. The opening pressures in all tested samples were similar to those in the conventionally made counterparts, but in the case of internal leakage only a fully finished AM valve revealed promising results. The obtained results could be useful for various enterprises that are seeking weight reduction possibilities for their low-volume manufactured products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The post-colonial economy of African countries has continued to manifest all the characteristics of its colonial origins in terms of its structure, direction, and composition. Export of primary commodities continue to take precedence over exports of manufactured products. The African Continental Free Trade Area emerged after series of negotiations to address the problem of structural transformation through value added production, services and increased agglomeration in African economies. This paper examines the extent to which the AfCFTA can foster structural transformation and socio-economic development in Africa. The paper found that despite the challenges that may affect the implementation of the agreement, AfCFTA holds great potentials for the realisation of the social transformation in Africa through creation of regional value chains, unlocking the opportunities in free movement of factors of production and enhancing a stronger voice for Africa in the negotiation of trade and investment agreements with other regions of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quality control and defect detection are major challenges in industrial environments. The localization of these defects is of crucial importance, as they can affect the performance of manufactured products and even the safety of people. Defect detection methods based on visual sensors and image processing are nowadays the most common approaches. To detect subsurface defects it is common to combine active thermography and deep learning. In this paper, PCT (Principal Components Thermography) is employed to enhance the SNR (signal-to-noise ratio), leading to a significant improvement in the results. Recent developments in this field apply deep learning models for semantic segmentation and object detection. However, the quality of the predictions is not enough to ensure that all quality controls are met. In this paper, a combination of semantic segmentation and object detection is proposed to increase the reliability of predictions. To carry out this combination, a working methodology and two new ensembling strategies are proposed. After comparing the results of the proposed combination with the results of using only semantic segmentation methods in a real industrial scenario, where carbon fiber sheets are used, it is found that the proposal improves the segmentation metrics by a 5% to a 24%. Thus the reliability of the predictions is improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global value chains have been a major means of manufacturing and trading goods internationally. Economic efficiency was the sole factor driving the proliferation of GVCs and the China-centered GVCs were established in a variety of manufactured products. In recent years, the China–US trade war and the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic have sent shock waves and disrupted smooth operations of GVCs, which has triggered the geographic restructuring of GVCs, in particular value chain diversification away from China. This paper analyzes the centrality of China in value chains and the vulnerabilities of GVCs exposed to the trade war and the pandemic. This paper provides comprehensive empirical evidence on GVC restructuring from different perspectives and discusses policy options that China could cope with the tide of the value chain diversification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]