Ness Technologies

Biodegradable polyesters are a promising solution for plastic pollution; however, their widespread adoption is hindered by their poor mechanical properties and lack of marine degradability. Conventional bulk property modifications cannot overcome this trade-off. Herein, the incorporation of polycaprolactone-grafted polyrotaxane, a mechanically interlocked supramolecular additive that modifies the polymer chain mobility and crystallization behavior, is demonstrated to simultaneously enhance the toughness and marine biodegradability of polyesters. Using poly(butylene succinate) as a model system, we demonstrate that the toughness increased by 300% without reducing the tensile strength and Young’s modulus. Remarkably, this molecular engineering approach creates a “multi-lock biopolymer” to enhance the marine biodegradation 4-fold, with UV exposure triggering accelerated degradation to 10-fold. This strategy provides a new pathway for the development of high-performance biodegradable plastics with tunable degradation profiles, thereby addressing both the mechanical and environmental challenges of sustainable polymers.

The need for business processes was essentially caused by the development of management. Any process may involve different departments, and the process itself may include different specialties, different geographic locations, management levels, and other organizational boundaries. Organizations perform better when they manage their business processes properly and pay attention to even the smallest detail in each process. To properly manage business processes, it is necessary to describe in detail the stages that are carried out during the process. People who are involved and responsible for the proper functioning of the business process exchange information, and at each stage of the exchange they may need to use different technologies. On the part of the company, during the correct planning, it is necessary to think about the optimization of each stage, which gives us the opportunity to improve the generation of the product or service. The most obvious example of optimization is when an organization accelerates a business process by changing the process steps, which helps to deliver services/products to customers more efficiently. Unfortunately, many companies today do not consider it necessary to focus on process management, which in turn prevents the organization from developing. It is in such companies that each unit operates independently, often with its own budget, individually developed procedures and IT systems, which ultimately leads to a disconnection between the organization and the customer. Only integrated business processes ensure the creation of a product orservice in accordance with customer needs. Process-oriented organizations tend to outperform organizations that do not focus on processes. Since business process management was created in organizations, a new challenge arose and managers faced the following question: what should be the concept of business processes? The article is based on papers that provide a range of answers to this question. Each paper addresses a specific aspect of a common challenge, covering different management methods, techniques and tools for organizations to capture, analyze and improve their business processes.

Current treatment options for osteoporosis primarily involve pharmacotherapies, but they are often accompanied by undesirable side effects. Utilization of mechanical stress which can noninvasively induce bone formation has been suggested as an alternative to conventional treatments. Here, we examined the efficacy of mechanical stress induced by electrical stimulation, radial extracorporeal shock waves, and ultrasound for estrogen-deficient osteoporosis. Female Wistar rats were divided into following five groups: sham-operated group, untreated after ovariectomy, and treated with electrical stimulation, radial extracorporeal shock wave, or ultrasound starting at 8weeks after ovariectomy for 4weeks. Trabecular bone architecture of the femur was assessed by micro-CT and its biomechanical properties were obtained by mechanical testing. The femurs were further evaluated by histochemical, immunohistochemical, and real-time PCR analyses. Radial extracorporeal shock wave and ultrasound treatment improved trabecular bone microarchitecture and bone strength in osteoporotic rats, but not electrical stimulation. The shock wave decreased osteoclast activity and RANKL expression. The exposure of ultrasound increased osteoblast activity and β-catenin-positive cells, and they decreased sclerostin-positive osteocytes. These findings suggest that mechanical stress induced by radial extracorporeal shock wave and ultrasound can improve estrogen-deficient bone loss and bone fragility through promoted bone formation or attenuated bone resorption.

Fractures associated with osteoporosis are a major public health concern. Current treatments for fractures are limited to surgery or fixation, leading to long-term bedrest, which is linked to increased mortality. Alternatively, utilization of physical agents has been suggested as a promising therapeutic approach for fractures. Here, we examined the effects of ultrasound, radial extracorporeal shock waves, and electrical stimulation on normal or osteoporotic fracture healing. Femoral bone defects were created in normal or ovariectomized rats. Rats were divided into four groups: untreated, and treated with ultrasound, shock waves, or electrical stimulation after surgery. Samples were collected at 2 or 4 weeks after surgery, and the healing process was evaluated with micro-CT, histological, and immunohistochemical analyses. Ultrasound at intensities of 0.5 and 1.0 W/cm2 , but not 0.05 W/cm2 , accelerated new bone formation. Shock wave exposure also increased newly formed bone, but formed abnormal periosteal callus around the defect site. Conversely, electrical stimulation did not affect the healing process. Ultrasound exposure increased osteoblast activity and cell proliferation and decreased sclerostin-positive osteocytes. We demonstrated that higher-intensity ultrasound and radial extracorporeal shock waves accelerate fracture healing, but shock wave treatment may increase the risk of periosteal callus formation.

The article presents an approach for development of the model of top-level processes based on the methodology of process-project management. Model development involves the definition of two levels—strategic and operational. Strategic level includes such business processes, as design of the business system, the improvement of the architecture of the business management system, etc. Operational level includes managerial processes, value-added chain, support processes. There are various options for the implementation of the value-added chain. This article discusses the typical processes of the value-added chain for the production, trade, services, performing individual customer orders. Moreover, an example of the model of top-level processes and projects for the group of companies operating in the sector of public catering is given.

Multi Level Inverter generates output voltage with very low harmonic distortion. This is achieved by providing multiple steps in the output voltage. They are used for high power applications with improved power quality. Circuit complexity is a major issue in most of the conventional topologies of Multi Level Inverters. As the number of levels increases, the no of switches will increase and the switching scheme will be more complicated. In this paper, a modified reduced switch inverter topology with unequal switching scheme is used to drive a single phase induction motor load. Simulation and result analysis of this 11 level MLI is carried out using PSIM software and hardware implementation is carried out to evaluate the performance to prove the effectiveness of the MLI.

In this paper a novel Mapping Multiplexing Technique (MMT) is demonstrated. Four channels, (4 × 10 Gbit/s) were successfully multiplexed and transmitted over a single wavelength, which can present a possible transmission rate of 40 Gbit/s per wavelength. The performance of MMT system is examined, with comparison to 40 Gbit/s RZ-OOK, NRZ-OOK and 4-ary techniques. This scheme features a receiver sensitivity and chromatic dispersion tolerance of -27.2 dBm and 260 ps/nm, respectively. A comparison with conventional RZ-OOK and NRZ-OOK techniques shows a clear advantage of the proposed MMT system.

The effect of self-phase modulation (SPM) on 40 Gb/s absolute polar duty cycle division multiplexing (AP-DCDM) is investigated and reported. The study includes the influence of launched power, number of channels and dispersion compensation method. Dispersion post-compensation and combination of dispersion pre- and post-compensation are used to manage the transmission links. At high powers, SPM degrades the pulse recompression process and provides an upper bound on the AP-DCDM transmitted pulse energy. It is demonstrated that the 40 Gb/s AP-DCDM system shows a 4.1 dB improvement and less than 1 dB penalty in terms of SPM tolerance in comparison to 40 Gb/s 4-ary and on off-keying (OOK) systems, respectively. The SPM effect is stronger in the 100 post-compensated link than that in the combination of pre- and post-compensated links. Dispersion pre-compensation of 18 22 is found as the optimum range of pre-compensation ratio for AP-DCDM system, which makes optimisation of the launched power possible.

We propose and investigate a technique to reduce the spectral width as well as increase the tolerance to chromatic dispersion (CD) using improved return-to-zero (RZ) on-off-keying (OOK) over absolute polar duty cycle division multiplexing (AP-DCDM) technique. The proposed channel multiplexing and demultiplexing are performed electrically using only one modulator for n number of users, which is very economical. It is demonstrated that the spectral width occupied by 30 Gb/s RZ-OOK without AP-DCDM measured at −20 dB from the peak power is around 105 GHz whereas, this value can be reduced to around 64 GHz for 30 Gb/s RZ-OOK over AP-DCDM. This amount of saving in the spectral width is a significant achievement, which leads to better tolerance to CD. Its tolerance to CD is in the range of ±109 and ±155 ps/nm, for the worst and the best users, respectively. These values are higher than that of 30 Gb/s conventional RZ-OOK, which is around ±86.5 ps/nm. At 120 Gb/s RZ-OOK over AP-DCDM (the worst user) has pre-amplified receiver sensitivity and optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) of −22.5 dBm and 28.57 dB, respectively.