UQ eSpace

Abstract

This thesis aims to analyse the evolution of lean manufacturing strategies, starting with the first concepts introduced by Toyota, and leading up to today's innovative approach that is known as Industry 4.0. The technologies and tools offered by the Internet of Things (IoT) environment have only been tested and implemented in the manufacturing industry in the last few years. Although the Industry 4.0 sector is still developing, it is clear how the correct implementation of modern IoT technologies could bring great benefits in terms of efficiency and flexibility. Although the ultimate goal is to create a completely autonomous company, a concept often referred to as Smart Factory, it is still necessary to proceed in small steps in order to gradually adapt the traditional company structure to a more modern, efficient and automated one. Subsequently, the ways in which these new technologies can be adapted, with low cost, within small and medium-sized companies will be analysed, and the existing machines in a company drill line will be used as a case study. Additionally, the ways in which low cost components and software represents a valid opportunity to start testing these new technologies will be demonstrated. In turn, the advantages that can be obtained will be described, in addition to the skills that can be developed, and which will be useful in dealing with higher levels of complexity in the future.

Absorption by Spinning Dust: A Contaminant for High-redshift 21 cm Observations

“…Measurements of atmospheric aerosols in Finnish forests (Dal Maso et al 2005) show a peak near a ≈ 30Å, and a second peak near 200Å, but little appears to be known about the abundances or compositions of very small aerosols at other locations or altitudes. Nanoparticles with sizes a 100Å are difficult to collect and identify.…”

Tomography: mathematical aspects and applications

“…Existence of minimizers of the M S functional in (21) was proven by De Giorgi, Carriero, Leaci in [33] in the framework of bounded variation functions without Cantor part (space SBV) introduced by Ambrosio and De Giorgi in [34]. Further regularity properties for optimal segmentation in the Mumford-Shah model were shown in [35,36,37,38].…”

Acute cardiovascular exercise does not enhance locomotor learning in people with stroke

“…Given the differences in the intensity and duration of the exercise protocols, the specific reasons for the discrepancies between the study by Charalambous et al (2018) and Nepveu et al (2017) are difficult to ascertain. It is possible, however, that the positive priming effects of acute exercise on the brain could be circumscribed only within a specific group of networks (Dal Maso et al 2018) involved in the consolidation of motor memories developed during the practice of some very specific types of tasks (e.g. visuo-motor tracking) and not others (e.g.…”