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Reverse Logistics Networks (RLNs) have grown in importance after return policies became compulsory. Lately, questions have been raised whether they effectively decrease environmental impact: efforts to optimize the eco-efficiency of RLNs through minimizing costs and emissions were deployed, but results are not advancing with the necessary speed. Alternatively, the eco-effectiveness ("doing the rig
Purpose: to propose two enhancements for the European Union’s Circular Material Use rate (CMU): inclusion of Preparation for Reuse (PfR) flows and enhanced reproducibility across lower levels of analysis. Methods: PfR flows are added to the material flow Sankey Diagram. The Local Circularity Rate (LCR) is based in the CMU and is broke down in three waste-related ratios: recovered-to-treated (RCV-t
Municipal Solid Waste Management is yet to be eco-effectively performed, especially in developing countries. In Brazil, a considerable fraction of waste has been improperly landfilled, generating environmental, social and economic problems. In 2018, the government of the state of Paraná released a revised version of its waste management plan, defining improvement strategies to be gradually impleme
The challenge to develop sustainable products increases as resources becomes scarcer. Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) and Ecodesign have emerged to diminish product environmental impact from material gaining to disposal. LCA methods and tools, however, were not conceived to spur product design activities and decisions towards sustainable End-of-life (EoL) product conception, while Ecodesign requires ma
Sustainable supply chain design can be performed using optimisation strategies for minimising environmental impacts while maximising profit. It is not clear how such strategies influence the resilience of a supply chain – its ability to handle disturbances without compromising its function. This research used the ecosystem network analysis (ENA) to evaluate the resilience during the design of a su
Anthropocentrism and disciplinary research have not led to effective solutions to sustainability problems. A shift is required towards biocentric, transdisciplinarity-based solutions, to mitigate rebound effects and unintended, negative effects. In the field of Sustainable Supply Network Design, such shift implies on developing resilient solutions that maximize environmental benefits instead of mi
One of the best opportunities to deliver sustainable principles is during the product development process. To be considered truly sustainable, a product must be designed respecting three dimensions: economic, environmental and societal, in a systemic approach. From this perspective, this paper aims to overview sustainable product design and interfaces with its supporting processes, taking advantag
INTRODUCTION: Reporting of sex and gender analysis in medical research has been shown to improve quality of the science and ensures findings are applicable to women and men. There is conflicting evidence on whether efforts by funding agencies and medical journals to encourage reporting of sex and gender analysis has resulted in tangible improvements. This study mapped the inclusion of sex and gend
Fundamental bounds on the performance of monochromatic scattering-cancellation and field-zeroing cloaks made of prescribed linear passive materials occupying a predefined design region are formulated by projecting field quantities onto a sub-sectional basis and applying quadratically constrained quadratic programming. Formulations are numerically tested revealing key physical trends as well as adv
Considerable time is often spent optimizing antennas to meet specific design metrics. Rarely, however, are the resulting antenna designs compared to rigorous physical bounds on those metrics. Here, we study the performance of optimized planar meander line antennas with respect to such bounds. Results show that these simple structures meet the lower bound on the radiation quality factor (Q-factor)
Physical limitations of antennas above infinite perfect electric conductor (PEC) ground planes are determined using the stored electromagnetic energy. Stored energies are computed with the method of moments (MoM) and the image theory. Convex optimization is used to derive the G/Q ratio and Q-factor for a reference geometry, and the results are compared for different antenna types.
Electromagnetic vector spherical waves have been used recently to model antenna-channel interaction and the available degrees of freedom in multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems. However, there are no previous accounts of a method to estimate spherical wave coefficients from channel measurements. One approach for this, using a 3-D positioner, is presented and analyzed in this letter. Measu
Physical bounds on the directivity Q-factor quotient and optimal current distributions are determined for antennas of arbitrary shape and size using an optimization formulation. A variational approach offers closed form solutions for small antennas expressed in the polarizability of the antenna structure. Finite sized antennas are solved using Lagrangian parameters in a method of moments formulati
It is common that PID control loops function satisfactorily most of the time, but that they have issues with violating input, state, or output constraints. While MPC solves this problem in principle, it is in practice not straightforward to replace a functioning PID controller with an MPC implementation. This is particularly true for loops that are critical to plant operation, where stops associat
