Procter & Gamble (Switzerland)

The traditional process of insulation drying in oven chambers with hot air circulation (HAC) is a flexible method that simultaneously can dry a mixture of active parts with different capacities and voltages. The process employs a few empirical recipes with cycle times that are not specific for each design but group active parts in a range of capacities and voltages. The recipes are devised to ensure low levels of moisture in the units with the heaviest and thickest insulation assemblies but carry the disadvantage of unnecessarily extending the cycle for the ones with the lightest insulation assemblies. These recipes consider extra time to cover scenarios when oven doors are repeatedly opened to either put active parts inside the oven or take them out. It is a great challenge to optimize this operation if controlled manually. Digital transformation of drying process is required to optimize cycle times, ensure low moisture levels, minimize over exposure of active parts to heat, and save energy. Moisture content in the insulation is the key parameter that must be known if operation of the drying process is to be controlled, but there is no sensor that can measure it directly. Also, the heating of the active parts is not uniform, so moisture removal is not uniform either. Combining the principles of heat and mass transfer with experimental data, it is possible to calculate moisture content in the active part insulation if parameters like time, temperature, and relative humidity in the oven chamber are measured. Experiments done at manufacturing site and at research laboratory were performed to produce data that allowed to tune up physical parameters like coefficients of moisture diffusion, mass transfer, and heat transfer. In this way, a virtual moisture sensor has been developed and implemented as part of the digital transformation of the drying process with HAC. The devised architecture, the software design, as well as the Internet of Things (IoT) based monitoring system are presented as well as the flow of the digitized data. Examples of graphics used by the staff to monitor the evolution of the drying process parameters are also shown. Finally, some benefits of the digital transformation of the drying process are shown by analyzing a sample of 28 identical active parts that were dried in an oven with HAC.

Abstract The laundry process is energy-intensive and an important target for reducing residential environmental impacts. Category life-cycle analysis (LCA) studies show the primary environmental impact is due to the energy consumed during the use phase, mainly for heating water. However, doing the laundry is a complex socio-technical system, where addressing sustainability requires not only technical levers but also an understanding of users’ habits, practices, and belief systems. This study investigates if and how consumers change their laundry habits and product satisfaction when using a technically lower-performing eco-brand detergent compared to a heavy duty high-performance detergent. These represent two distinct sustainable innovation strategies within the detergent industry, i) high-performance detergents formulated to provide excellent cleaning performance at lower wash temperatures and ii) eco-brand detergents optimized for a lower ingredient footprint but reducing cleaning performance. It is hypothesized that consumers may compensate in ways detrimental to the overall sustainability of the laundry lifecycle. The results showed significantly lower consumer satisfaction with the eco-brand performance which led to compensatory behavior including increased detergent dosing and higher wash temperatures. This study confirms the importance of detergent cleaning performance for sustainable consumer habit changes regarding lower wash temperatures.

We report here on the recent use of the Orchidée software by three different young composers in various compositional and instrumental contexts. Orchidée is a computer-aided orchestration environment designed to aid musicians exploring the space of instrument timbre mixtures and finding timbre combinations that fit a set of user-specified perceptual requirements. The first beta version of the software was released by the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique's (IRCAM's) Music Representations Group in 2009, after four years of intensive research, and it can already handle a small range of real-life situations, typically timbre imitation or orchestral synthesis, under instrumental constraints. Detailed examples, including score and audio excerpts, are provided.

The objective of this study was to compare efficacy and safety of continuous versus intermittent oral dosing of ibandronate. Two hundred forty women aged 55-75 years with postmenopausal osteoporosis were randomized to active treatment or placebo. Similar total doses of ibandronate were provided by treatment regimens with either continuous 2.5 mg of ibandronate daily (n = 81) or intermittent 20 mg of ibandronate every other day for the first 24 days, followed by 9 weeks without active drug (n = 78). The placebo group (total, n = 81) was crossed over after 12 months to receive either continuous (n = 37) or intermittent ibandronate (n = 35). By 24 months, bone mineral density (BMD) had increased significantly relative to baseline in both active treatment groups. The continuous and intermittent groups showed statistically equivalent increases in lumbar spine BMD of +5.64% (+/-0.53) and +5.54% (+/-0.53) and in total hip of +3.35% (+/-0.40) and +3.41% (+/-0.40), respectively (per protocol population). Biochemical markers of bone turnover decreased significantly in both treatment groups. The level of marker suppression was similar, although the intermittent group displayed, as expected, more fluctuation over the treatment period. The frequency of adverse events was similar in the treatment groups. In conclusion, the intermittent and continuous regimens showed equivalent changes in BMD and bone turnover. These results confirm previous preclinical findings indicating that the efficacy of ibandronate depends on the total oral dose given rather than on the dosing schedule. This supports development of new flexible dosing regimens targeted to minimize the frequency of dosing, which are expected to improve convenience and lead to enhanced long-term patient compliance.