Machine vision technology has revolutionised the process of automated inspection in manufacturing. The specialist techniques required for inspection of natural products, such as food, leather, textiles and stone is still a challenging area of research. Topological variations make image processing algorithm development, system integration and mechanical handling issues much more complex. The practical issues of making machine vision systems operate robustly in often hostile environments together with the latest technological advancements are reviewed in this volume. Features: - Case studies based on real-world problems to demonstrate the practical application of machine vision systems. - In-depth description of system components including image processing, illumination, real-time hardware, mechanical handling, sensing and on-line testing. - Systems-level integration of constituent technologies for bespoke applications across a variety of industries. - A diverse range of example applications that a system may be required to handle from live fish to ceramic tiles. Machine Vision for the Inspection of Natural Products will be a valuable resource for researchers developing innovative machine vision systems in collaboration with food technology, textile and agriculture sectors. It will also appeal to practising engineers and managers in industries where the application of machine vision can enhance product safety and process efficiency.

The use of tritium as a basic fuel material in a thermonuclear fusion reactor raises particular safety issues due to the combined effects of its physicochemical properties and its radioactive nature. Furthermore, the possibility of attaining further significant progress in developing and demonstrating the feasibility of tritium burning devices relies on the handling of tritium macroquantities, say tens of grams, in a safe and reliable manner. It is also certain that, apart from technological constraints, any validation and exploitation of thermonuclear fusion as a source of energy will be strongly conditioned by the application of stringent operational and environmental safety criteria derived from the norms of modern legislation and public acceptance considerations. This publication illustrates the most prominent safety aspects associated with the safe operation, maintenance and experimental utilization of a tritium handling facility. Besides the need for safe and reliable systems for tritium containment, monitoring and storage, particular attention is devoted to problems linked with tritium--material interaction and tritium processing, according to the different options applicable both to the tritium handling laboratory and future fusion devices. Selected topics, such as biological hazard, dosimetry, radiological protection and environmental safety are reviewed with particular attention to implications for operators and general public. Finally, outstanding experience gained during the recent JET operation and after many years of dismantling tritiated facilities at CEN--Valduc are illustrated. The book is principally addressed to scientists concerned with tritium R&D activities, as well as to designers and operators of tritium handling plants.

The series Advances in Industrial Control aims to report and encourage technology transfer in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline. New theory, new controllers, actuators, sensors, new industrial processes, computer methods, new applications, new philosophies. . . , new challenges. Much of this development work resides in industrial reports, feasibility study papers and the reports of advanced collaborative projects. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of such new work in all aspects of industrial control for widerand rapid dissemination. Benchmarking is a technique first applied by Rank Xerox in the late 1970s for business processes. As a subject in the commercial arena, benchmarking thrives with, for example, a European Benchmarking Forum. It has taken rather longer for benchmarking to make the transfer to the technical domain and even now the subject is making a slow headway. Akey research step in this direction was taken by Harris (1989) who used minimum variance control as a benchmark for controller loop assessment. This contribution opened up the area and a significant specialist literature has now developed. Significant support for the methodologywas given by Honeywell who have controller assessment routines in their process control applications software; therefore, it is timely to welcome a (first) monograph on controller performance assessment by Biao Huang and Sirish Shah to the Advances in Industrial Control series.

Advanced communications and information technologies provide the basis for operational risk management. In order to support managers in real-time risk assessment and decision-making, the advanced technologies must be complemented by an appropriate reasoning logic. This book presents such a reasoning logic for operational risk management. Chapter 1 discusses the need for operational risk management and the feasibility of its use based upon advances in sensing, mobile communications, and satellite positioning technologies. Chapter II presents a reasoning logic for operational risk management that capitalizes upon these developments. Chapter III illustrates the integration of the reasoning logic in hypermedia, multimedia, and virtual reality systems, coupled with the capabilities provided by the Internet. Chapters IV-VI illustrate the realism of operational risk management for hazardous material transportation, emergency response, air raid command, and emergency response at a nuclear power generation facility. The book closes with an experimental assessment of the logic and associated decision aids in Chapter VII. Audience: Researchers, who will find the most recent advances in operational risk management with experimental assessments. Practitioners, who are provided with a detailed description of operational risk management and the latest advances in information and communications technologies to implement this new approach for managing risks in operational settings, such as transportation of hazardous materials and emergency response. Students, who will learn the basic concepts in theory and practice of building models for decision and risk analysis, and embedding them into commercial software as decision support systems.

Compiled by an experienced practitioner in the field, this book contains definitions of the major terms used in reliability engineering and software assessment. Approximately 2,000 definitions have been carefully selected from standards and literature published by such leading institutions as the IEEE and IEC. Alternative definitions of the same term are given where relevant, enabling readers to compare and contrast, thereby giving useful insights into different aspects of the same term. Extensive cross-referencing makes the book both easy to use and practical.

A quarter of the century has elapsed since I gave my first course in structural reliability to graduate students at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Since that time on I have given many courses and seminars to students, researchers, designers, and site engineers interested in reliability. I also participated in and was responsible for numerous projects where reliability solutions were required. During that period, the scope of structural reliability gradually enlarged to become a substantial part of the general reliability theory. First, it is apparent that bearing structures should not be isolated objectives of interest, and, consequently, that constntCted facilities should be studied. Second, a new engineering branch has emerged -reliability engineering. These two facts have highlighted new aspects and asked for new approaches to the theory and applications. I always state in my lectures that the reliability theory is nothing more than mathematized engineering judgment. In fact, thanks mainly to probability and statistics, and also to computers, the empirical knowledge gained by Humankind's construction experience could have been transposed into a pattern of logic thinking, able to produce conclusions and to forecast the behavior of engineering entities. This manner of thinking has developed into an intricate network linked by certain rules, which, in a way, can be considered a type of reliability grammar. We can discern many grammatical concepts in the general structure of the reliability theory.

A survey of recent developments in the field of plutonium disposal by the application of advanced nuclear systems, both critical and subcritical. Current national R&D plans are summarized. The actinide-fuelled critical reactors are associated with control problems, since they tend to have a small delayed neutron fraction coupled with a small Doppler effect and a positive void coefficient. Current thinking is turning to accelerator-driven subcritical systems for the transmutation of actinides. The book's conclusion is that the various systems proposed are technically feasible, even though not yet technically mature. The book presents a unique summary and evaluation of all relevant possibilities for burning surplus plutonium, presented by experts from a variety of different disciplines and interests, including the defence establishment. The obvious issue - the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons - is vital, but the matter represents a complex technological challenge that also requires an assessment in economic terms.

Engineering Asset Management Review focuses on life cycle management of the physical assets required by a private or public firm for the purpose of making products and/or for providing services in a manner that satisfies various business performance rationales. In exploring the wide ranging issues involved in the management of engineered assets that constitute our built environment, this book takes a broad view of the inter- and multi-disciplinary approach which combines science, engineering, and technology principles with human behavior and business practice.

The purpose of Engineering Asset Management Review is to publish research and opinions which explore strategic and tactical issues, as well as technical data and information. It also examines the issues involved in the creation (formulation and design), acquisition (procurement, installation, and commissioning), maintenance, operation, decommissioning, disposal, and/or rehabilitation of physical assets. The range of articles covers all industry sectors and physical asset types (infrastructure, plant, equipment and facilities).

The aim of this volume is to provide a forum for

1. the assembly of a body of knowledge in the emerging field of engineering asset management;

2. knowledge transfer between researchers, scholars and practitioners;

3. cross-disciplinary interaction between engineers, technologists, economists, environmental practitioners, behavioral scientists, and business managers; and

4. the presentation of a wide spectrum of viewpoints and approaches from designers, developers, project managers, owners, operators, users, and vendors.

This book is concerned with Intelligent Control methods and applications. The field of intelligent control has been expanded very much during the recent years and a solid body of theoretical and practical results are now available. These results have been obtained through the synergetic fusion of concepts and techniques from a variety of fields such as automatic control, systems science, computer science, neurophysiology and operational research. Intelligent control systems have to perform anthropomorphic tasks fully autonomously or interactively with the human under known or unknown and uncertain environmental conditions. Therefore the basic components of any intelligent control system include cognition, perception, learning, sensing, planning, numeric and symbolic processing, fault detection/repair, reaction, and control action. These components must be linked in a systematic, synergetic and efficient way. Predecessors of intelligent control are adaptive control, self-organizing control, and learning control which are well documented in the literature. Typical application examples of intelligent controls are intelligent robotic systems, intelligent manufacturing systems, intelligent medical systems, and intelligent space teleoperators. Intelligent controllers must employ both quantitative and qualitative information and must be able to cope with severe temporal and spatial variations, in addition to the fundamental task of achieving the desired transient and steady-state performance. Of course the level of intelligence required in each particular application is a matter of discussion between the designers and users. The current literature on intelligent control is increasing, but the information is still available in a sparse and disorganized way.

When data is collected on failure or survival a list of times is obtained. Some of the times are failure times and others are the times at which the subject left the experiment. These times both give information about the performance of the system. The two types will be referred to as failure and censoring times (cf. Smith section 5). * A censoring time, t, gives less information than a failure time, for it is * known only that the item survived past t and not when it failed. The data is tn and of censoring thus collected as a list of failure times t , . . . , l * * * times t , t , . . . , t * 1 z m 2. 2. Classical methods The failure times are assumed to follow a parametric distribution F(t;B) with and reliability R(t;B). There are several methods of estimating density f(t;B) the parameter B based only on the data in the sample without any prior assumptions about B. The availability of powerful computers and software packages has made the method of maximum likelihood the most popular. Descriptions of most methods can be found in the book by Mann, Schafer and Singpurwalla (1974). In general the method of maximum likelihood is the most useful of the classical approaches. The likelihood approach is based on constructing the joint probability distrilmtion or density for a sample.

This book presents thirty-one extensive and carefully edited chapters providing an up-to-date survey of new models and methods for reliability analysis and applications in science, engineering, and technology. The chapters contain broad coverage of the latest developments and innovative techniques in a wide range of theoretical and numerical issues in the field of statistical and probabilistic methods in reliability.

With the end of the Cold War, new opportunities for interaction have opened up between the United States and the countries of the Former Soviet Union. Many of these important initiatives involve the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Atomic Energy (MINA TOM). Currently, collaboration is under way which involves reactor safety, the disposition of fissile materials from the weapons program, radioactive waste disposal, and the safety of nuclear warheads. Another fruitful area of interchange resulted from the radiochemical storage tank accident at the site of the Siberian Chemical Compound at Tomsk-7 in 1993. DOE and MINATOM agreed to meet and exchange information about the accident for the purposes of improving safety. A meeting on the Tomsk tank accident was held in Hanford, Washington in 1993, followed by a second meeting in st. Petersburg, Russia in 1994 in which the agenda expanded to include radiochemical processing safety. A third exchange took place in 1995 in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and additional papers were presented on nonreactor nuclear safety. Following a planning session in 1996 in Seattle, Washington, it was decided to hold a fourth technical exchange on the broader subject of nuclear materials safety management. Through a grant from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Disarmament Programme, the meeting took place on March 17- 21, 1997, in Amarillo, Texas as a NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) through grant no. DISRM 961315.

This book contains a selection of papers presented at the "European Robotics and Intelligent Systems Conference" (EURISCON '91) held in Corfu. Greece (June 23-28. 1991). It is devoted to the analysis. design and applications of technological systems with built-in intelligence achieved through appropriate blending of mathematical, symbolic. sensing. computer processing. and feedback control concepts. methods and software / hardware tools. System intelligence includes human-like capabilities such as learning. observation. perception. interpretation. reasoning. planning. decision making. and action. Integrated intelligent decision and control systems obey Saridis' prinCiple of Increasing Precision with Decreasing Intelligence (IPDI). and have a hierarchical structure with three basic levels. namely Organization. Coordination. and Execution Levels. As we proceed from the organization to the execution level. the precision about the jobs to be completed increases and accordingly the intelligence reqUired for these jobs decreases. As an example. it is mentioned here that in an intelligent robotic system the organization tasks can be realized using a neural net. the coordination tasks by a Petri net. and the execution tasks by local sensors and actuators. The field of intelligent systems is a new interdisciplinary field with continuously increasing interest and expansion. It is actually the outcome of the synergetic interaction and cooperation of classical fields such as system theory. control theory. artificial intelligence. operational research. information theory. electronics. communications. and others.

Consideration was given to more advanced theoretical approaches and novel applications of reliability to ensure that topics having a futuristic impact were specifically included. The entries have been categorized into seven parts, each emphasizing a theme that seems poised for the future development of reliability as an academic discipline with relevance. The topics, when linked with utility theory, constitute the science base of risk analysis.

Improving the quality of products and manufacturing processes at low cost is an economic and technological challenge to industrial engineers and managers alike. In today's business world, the implementation of experimental design techniques often falls short of the mark due to a lack of statistical knowledge on the part of engineers and managers in their analyses of manufacturing process quality problems. This timely book aims to fill this gap in the statistical knowledge required by engineers to solve manufacturing quality problems by using Taguchi experimental design methodology. The book increases awareness of strategic methodology through real-life case studies, providing valuable information for both academics and professionals with no prior knowledge of the theory of probability and statistics. Experimental Quality: Provides a unique framework to help engineers and managers address quality problems and use strategic design methodology. Offers detailed case studies illustrating the implementation of experimental design theory. Is easily accessible without prior knowledge or understanding of probability and statistics. This book provides an excellent resource for both academic and industrial environments, and will prove invaluable to practising industrial engineers, quality engineers and engineering managers from all disciplines.

Advances in information technology provide opportunities for the development of computer systems that support risk managers in complex tasks. Leading experts report on the potentials and limitations concerning the use of computer systems in risk management. Their reports are based on many years of experience in their fields which include: risk analysis, systems engineering, geographic information systems, decision support systems, human--machine systems, and psychology. The book addresses four major issues in computer supported risk management: Conceptual aspects: the role, design, and use of computers in risk management Planning and policy analysis: transportation, equity analysis, emergency management, group decision making Operational decision making: nuclear power monitoring, emergency response, public safety warning, satellite tracking Commercial applications: GIS from IIASA, InterClair from IAEA, EPA software, cleanup decision support software survey. This book is meant for researchers, who will find the emerging issues in risk management that are motivated by the encounter of new tasks and novel technology; practitioners who will have descriptions and references of the state-of-the-art models and software; and students who will learn the basic concepts needed to develop advanced information and decision support systems in risk management.

Nonlinearity and stochastic structural dynamics is of common interest to engineers and applied scientists belonging to many disciplines. Recent research in this area has been concentrated on the response and stability of nonlinear mechanical and structural systems subjected to random escitation. Simultaneously the focus of research has also been directed towards understanding intrinsic nonlinear phenomena like bifurcation and chaos in deterministic systems. These problems demand a high degree of sophistication in the analytical and numerical approaches. At the same time they arise from considerations of nonlinear system response to turbulence, earthquacke, wind, wave and guidancy excitations. The topic thus attracts votaries of both analytical rigour and practical applications. This books gives important and latest developments in the field presenting in a coherent fashion the research findings of leading international groups working in the area of nonlinear random vibration and chaos.

This collection of papers is a state of the art presentation of theories and methods related to the problem of the behaviour of mechanical structures under variable loads beyond their elastic limit In particular, the problems of shakedown, ratchetting, transient and asymptotic cyclic states are addressed. The volume is composed of four chapters devoted to material modelling for cyclic loading conditions; general theory of accommodated states of structures; effects of changes of the geometry on the inelastic structural response; and numerical techniques with applications to particular engineering problems. It was aimed to provide a unified approach in order to understand both inelastic material and structural response under variable loading conditions. The attempt to extend the classical shakedown theory of Melan and Koiter to geometrically non-linear problems is presented in several papers. The industrial application of cyclic plasticity to the analysis and the design of pressure bellows, compensators, turbine disks, or flange connections under thermal and pressure cycles illustrates the great potential of the numerical techniques developed for this purpose using mostly min-max approaches. The treatment of railway problems and the analysis and optimisation of pavements are further examples of important areas of applications. Emphasis was laid on approaches that take into account the fact that loading histories are often not precisely known Therefore, the center of interest lies in other than step by step calculation methods.

In this global wake-up call, nuclear physicist Jeff Eerkens explores remedies for the impending energy crisis, when oil and natural gas are depleted. The Nuclear Imperative demonstrates that solar, wind, and biomass power are incapable of supplying the enormous quantities of electricity and heat needed for manufacturing portable synthetic fuels to replace our current use of fossil fuels. It offers a fresh look at uranium-produced energy as the optimal affordable solution.

Industrial development is essential to improvement of the standard of living in all countries. People's health and the environment can be affected, directly or indirectly by routine waste discharges or by accidents. A series of recent major industrial accidents and the effect of pollution highlighted, once again, the need for better management of routine and accidental risks. Moreover, the existence of natural hazards complicate even more the situation in any given region. In the past effort to cope with these risks, if made at all, have been largely on a plant by plant basis; some plants are well equipped to manage environmental and health hazards, while others are not. Managing the hazards of modern technological systems has become a key activity in highly industrialised countries. Decision makers are often confronted with complex issues concerning economic and social development, industrialisation and associated infrastructure needs, population and land use planning. Such issues have to be addressed in such a way that ensures that public health will not be disrupted or substantially degraded. Due to the increasing complexity of technological systems and the higher geographical density of punctual hazard sources, new methodologies and a novel approach to these problems are challenging risk managers and regional planers. Risks from these new complex technological systems are inherently different form those addressed by the risk managers for decades ago.

Optimization in Quality Control presents a broad survey of the state of the art in optimization in quality, and focuses on industrial and national competitiveness. Each chapter has been carefully developed and refereed anonymously by experts in the area of optimization in quality control. Some of the topics covered in this volume include: * fundamentals of optimization techniques * contemporary approaches to optimization models in process control * economic design of control charts * determining optimal target values in multiple criteria economic selection models * examining quality improvement schemes by trading off between expected warranty servicing costs and increasing manufacturing costs * designing optimal inspection plans. This book will serve as an important reference source for academics, professionals and researchers.

Reliability, Maintainability, and Supportability play a crucial role in achieving a competitive product. While manufacturing costs are important for the success of a product, they are not the sole domains in realizing its competitive edge. Improved manufacturing and operating quality and performance coupled with reduced acquisition cost and in-service cost of ownership are important in achieving business success. It is the early phase of design which offers the greatest opportunity to address these requirements, and thus create life cycle effectiveness. The main objective of Reliability, Maintenance and Logistic Support - A Life Cycle Approach is to provide an integrated approach to reliability, maintainability, maintenance and logistic support analysis. We not only look at the ways we can improve the design process to ensure the product offers value for money, but we also consider how the owners can get the most from these products once they have entered service. The approach provides a meaningful way of integrating reliability, maintenance and supportability to enhance the product performance and sales opportunities. Hence, the book covers the following objectives: (1) Introduce the concepts of reliability, maintainability and supportability and their role in the system life cycle and effectiveness. (2) Introduce the basic probability and statistical techniques that are essential for modelling reliability, maintainability and supportability problems. (3) Introduce reliability measures: how to predict them; how to determine from in-service real-world data; how to use them. (4) Analysis of advanced models in Reliability. (5) Discuss basic and advanced concepts in both maintainability and maintenance including preventive, corrective and condition based maintenance. (6) Discuss maintenance management and optimization concepts, such as reliability-centered maintenance and age-related maintenance. (7) Provide basic concepts in supportability and Integrated logistic support. (8) Discuss techniques for design for reliability, maintainability and supportability. (9) Analysis of simple and advanced models in spares forecasting and optimization. (10) Discuss data analysis, data management and data mining techniques.

Considering the ability of food processing companies to consistently manu facture safe foods with uniform quality over the past 20 or 30 years without these new tools and new systems, one might expect that quality control improvements would be marginal. On the other hand, these changes have already provided sub stantial opportunities for process and product improvement. This second edition is intended to update the basic concepts and discuss some of the new ones. Preface to the First Edition If an automobile tire leaks or an electric light switch fails, if we are short-changed at a department store or erroneously billed for phone calls not made, if a plane de parture is delayed due to a mechanical failure-these are rather ordinary annoy ances which we have come to accept as normal occurrences. Contrast this with failure of a food product. If foreign matter is found in a food, if a product is discolored or crushed, if illness or discomfort occurs when a food product is eaten-the consumer reacts with anger, fear, and sometimes mass hys teria. The offending product is often returned to the seller, or a disgruntled letter is written to the manufacturer. In an extreme case, an expensive law suit may be filed against the company. The reaction is almost as severe if the failure is a dif ficult-to-open package or a leaking container. There is no tolerance for failure of food products."

This book provides an overview of key topics related to space business and management. Case studies and an integrative section are included to illustrate the fundamental concepts and to build intuition. Key topics in the field, such as risk management and cost management, are covered in detail.

These are the papers presented at the Fib-RILEM workshop held in Madrid, Spain, in November 2010. The assessment of deterioration and aging of concrete structures, most commonly through reinforcement corrosion, is not considered in current structural codes or standards. Some guidelines manuals exist, and research has been done, but there is as yet no accepted methodology nor models that could be used by engineers. This book deals with all aspects related to modelling of corroding structures and provides state-of-the-art information on structural models for corroding structures.