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As environmental regulations become rigid and the cost of freshwater increases, wastewater is considered as a major resource in China. The paper presented a study on the implementation of the advanced treatment process using dynamic membrane (DM) in reusing of printing wastewater. The DM was well formed by circulating 1.5g/L of PAC in 20 minutes, the trans-membrane pressure of 200 kPa and the cross-flow velocity of 0.75m/s. The printing effluents were treated in effluent treatment plants comprising a physicochemical option followed by biological process. The treated effluent contained chemical oxygen demand (COD), color and turbidity in the range of 45-60 mg/L, 0.030-0.045 (absorbance at 420 nm) and 3-5 NTU. The results showed that the COD, color and turbidity removal efficiencies of the DM permeate were 84%, 85% and 80%, respectively. The wastewater treated by DM was reused as process water and the final concentrated retentate could be discharged directly into sewage treatment works with no additional treatments. Cleaning and regeneration of DM were very convenient if necessary. The proper process was that the polluted DM was cleaned with tap water at high cross-flow velocity. When irreversible pollutants accumulate, it would be rinsed with chemicals tested and the membrane flux would be restored up to 95%. The result showed that DM was considered as a promising method for purification aimed at reuse of printing wastewater, resulting in direct environmental and economic benefits.

At the SEKE'99 conference, knowledge engineering researchers held a panel on the merits of meta-knowledge (i.e. problem solving methods and ontologies) for the development of knowledge-based systems. The original panel was framed as a debate on the merits of meta-knowledge for knowledge maintenance [21]. However, the debate quickly expanded. In the end, we were really discussing the merits of different technologies for the specification of reusable components for KBS. In this brief article we record some of the lively debate from that panel and the email exchanges it generated.

Software reuse has been getting the attention of the software industry due to its potential to revamp the software development process. The systematic use of software reuse is practical and the industrial user data shows that it improves the productivity and quality of the software. However there are issues which have been limiting the widespread use of software reuse. These relate to software component representation, its storage and retrieval. This paper presents a new software component representation model based on information retrieval theory and pairs of words. The model can implement a domain independent component library and allows one to use uncontrolled vocabulary and automatic indexing. It can be readily implemented in the existing systems.

In this paper we present SMDP (Scenario Model Development Process), an XML-based methodology for the description and manipulation of scenarios that are used to formalize and reuse software requirements. SMDP is an iterative and incremental process that supports scenario evolution during the requirements engineering process. The formalization of scenarios through the underlying XML-based language of SMDP makes them immediately available to further automatic manipulation (e.g., to automatically generate test cases) without the need for intermediate models, as it is usually done in semi-formal approaches. Thanks to the implementation of a software assistant environment for SMDP, the methodology is currently being experimented on a variety of case studies, in particular web applications.

In software product line engineering (SPLE), many studies have been conducted on commonality- and variability-based feature extraction methods and on the reasoning and refinement of feature models (FMs), aiming to enhance the appropriateness and reusability of the constructed FMs in compliance with feature-oriented development. The existing methods, however, failed to assure the developed applications that contain ambiguities between the features generated in FMs by analyzers' intuitions, and hindered the reuse of such applications. Moreover, the accuracy measurements of models based on mathematics-based theoretical verification methods are difficult to apply in practice. Therefore, a refinement technique is demanded to enhance the FM accuracy.

This paper aims to identify abnormal feature duplications and collisions based on the feature attributes to address the potential ambiguities between the features in an FM generated for a target domain, and to construct more precise FMs by presenting a technique for eliminating such abnormalities. For this purpose, the profiles of the formalized attributes were first defined based on MDR. Based on the semantics and relationships between the attributes, the duplications and collisions were identified using an analysis matrix, and were generalized to formulate rules by level. Such rules were evaluated to remove the duplications and collisions. In addition, using a supporting analyzer, the features in the initial FM were registered on a repository and were analyzed for feature duplications and collisions based on the saved attribute data.

The refinements of the ambiguities between such features are likely to enable the construction of more precise application FMs and the generation of common features with higher reusability. Further, the environments using support tools are expected to provide convenience in the similarity analysis and reuse of features.

In Production Systems Engineering (PSE), domain experts aim at reusing partial system designs implemented as Industry 4.0 assets and software. However, the knowledge on assets is often scattered across engineering artifacts from multiple disciplines and domain experts, making it difficult to find reusable assets and map them to requirements. In this paper, we (i) identify challenges and requirements for the representation of reuse knowledge in PSE, based on the results of a domain analysis in automotive manufacturing; (ii) refine the Industry 4.0 Asset Network (I4AN) meta-model that integrates multi-disciplinary dependencies between the assets; (iii) introduce the I4AN reference model that exposes recurring patterns; and (iv) present basic and applied patterns for reuse in PSE that aim at improving reuse efficiency and lowering risks. We evaluate the I4AN reference model and patterns with reuse scenarios in a feasibility study in automotive manufacturing. The study results indicate that the I4AN reference model and patterns satisfy the elicited requirements and enable PSE domain experts to identify patterns for reuse and sufficiently complete sets of reusable assets in their contexts.

A modularity concept for structuring and developing large logic programs and logical knowledge bases is presented. The concept is motivated from work in the field of algebraic specification, and enforces an extreme modularity discipline that goes beyond the one found in imperative or logic programming languages. As concrete programming languages (respectively knowledge representation formalisms), we consider Horn logic and equational logic programming. We give formal semantics for single modules and discuss correctness and verification issues. Large systems are constructed as interconnections of single modules. We introduce the so-called module operations of composition, actualization, and union, and give results concerning compositionality of semantics and correctness preservation.

Software Configuration Management and software reuse are now generally considered to be important technologies in software engineering. Both have been proposed for making a significant improvement in productivity and quality. However, these two technologies have been investigated separately. In order to make Software Configuration Management and reuse more effective, both approaches require to be introduced into a development or maintenance environment together. The authors have developed a process model for Maintenance with Reuse (MwR) to support Software Configuration Management for a reuse library within a maintenance environment. As software reuse and Software Configuration Management as well as software reuse and software maintenance have many similarities in their activities, and these areas can therefore be integrated within a software maintenance environment. An integrated approach to the common areas of these different activities will greatly contribute to the productivity and quality of software. This paper will address an integrated approach that can overcome some of the barriers that exist in software maintenance and reuse. A process model of an integrated approach has been created and validated using Process Weaver. In order for the reuse library to allow accesses from many potential reusers, the process model has been implemented on the WWW. The paper describes an integrated process model and its prototype to support change and version control for evolution of software components within both a reuse library and a legacy system.

Predicting native conformations using computational protein models requires a large number of energy evaluations even with simplified models such as hydrophobic-hydrophilic (HP) models. Clearly, energy evaluations constitute a significant portion of computational time. We hypothesize that given the structured nature of algorithms that search for candidate conformations such as stochastic methods, energy evaluation computations can be cached and reused, thus saving computational time and effort. In this paper, we present a caching approach and apply it to 2D triangular HP lattice model. We provide theoretical analysis and prediction of the expected savings from caching as applied this model. We conduct experiments using a sophisticated evolutionary algorithm that contains elements of local search, memetic algorithms, diversity replacement, etc. in order to verify our hypothesis and demonstrate a significant level of savings in computational effort and time that caching can provide.

Models are executable prototypes. Modeling is closely tied to simulation, which refers to the exercise of a model over a variable parametric space. Model simulations not only provide the engineer with feedback pertaining to the validity of a proposed design, but additionally allow competing designs to be compared on one or more parameters (i.e., sensitivity analysis). Models are defined from a base of several hundred primitive constructs. These constructs can define additional constructs hierarchically.

An expertⁿ–system was constructed, which retrieves software for reuse. This expert system is itself reusable and consists of many sub-systems – any one of which can invoke any other. A key feature is that any expertⁿ–system need never be modified, for purposes of reuse, once saved in a repository. Rather, it communicates all information back to the caller and lets the caller decide how and when to use it. Thus, blocks in an expertⁿ–system have very low coupling (i.e., no off-model connections). In addition, expertⁿ–systems are, as their name suggests, organized in a hierarchy. This means that very complex decision-making systems can be called into play with minimal effort. Growing the repository is equivalent to learning.

Nowadays the complexity of design processes, no matter which design domain (CAD, software engineering, etc.) they belong to, requires system support by means of so-called repositories. Repositories help managing design artifacts by offering adequate storage and manipulation services. Some of the most important features of a repository are version management and activity management. Versioning comprises the specification, storage, and maintenance of versioned design objects whereas activity management is responsible for cooperation control, designflow management and management of design transactions processing versioned design objects. Regarding these issues (version and activity management) repository technology, as we think, should not only provide pre-defined services, but should be flexible enough to reflect different application needs. For that reason, we propose to provide repository managers by generic methods, i.e. by generating the corresponding functionality. In this paper, we consider a representative cooperation model, which is based on versioning services, in order to identify the major data manipulation and activity control needs of cooperative design applications. We will focus on the data manipulation needs by introducing our generative approach for customizing versioning facilities. Additionally, we will outline our ideas of applying a generative approach also for the provision of tailored activity control services. Thus, the paper wants to show that by exploiting generic methods and reuse as well as the extensibility properties of new object-relational database technology, repository managers can be flexibly tailored to special application needs and, thereby, applications do not have to be forced to deal with systems only providing pre-defined services.

In this paper, one of the informally described models of agent cooperation (Jennings, 1995) has been used to develop and formally specify a generic model of a cooperative agent (GCAM). The compositional development method for multi-agent systems DESIRE supported the principled design of this model of cooperation. To illustrate reusability of the generic model, two application domains have been addressed: collaborative engineering design, and Call Center support.

Knowledge resource reuse is becoming a widespread approach in the ontology engineering field because it can speed up the ontology development process. In this context, the NeOn Methodology specifies some guidelines for reusing different types of knowledge resources (ontologies, nonontological resources, and ontology design patterns). These guidelines prescribe how to perform the different activities involved in any of the diverse types of reuse processes. One such activity is to select the best knowledge resources for reuse in an ontology development. This selection activity is a complex decision-making problem involving conflicting objectives, like understandability, integration or reliability. We propose a multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT) approach to deal with the selection of the best domain ontologies for reuse, stressing the identification of attributes to measure ontology performances. We take advantage of the sensitivity analysis tools provided by the GMAA system, a PC-based decision support system based on an additive multi-attribute utility model, to exploit imprecise information on the inputs. An example concerning the selection of a subset of ontologies for reuse in the development of a new ontology in the sports domain illustrates the approach.

This article describes a framework for managing the life cycle of knowledge in organisations and to utilise this framework for reusing and repurposing knowledge work. The framework emerges from years of work with the laboratories and facilities that are under the direction of the US Department of Energy (DOE). The article begins by describing the phases in the life cycle of knowledge in organisations. Next, the article describes the theoretical foundation for the framework, the Collaborative Cognition Model, followed by sections that detail the implementation of the framework. Finally, a discussion section summarises the framework and discusses future directions to enhance and extend the framework for reusing and repurposing knowledge work in organisations.

Supply chains have been more serious for environmental issues for not only the reduction of CO₂ emission but also for material starvation. To enhance a closed loop supply chain for assembled product, a disassembly system is required. At end-of-life, the assembly products at recycling organization should be disassembled environmentally and economically for not only low carbonization but also of material circulation. This recycling and reusing of product enables to reduce CO₂ release because the virgin materials which release CO₂ volumes caused by production and logistics can be saved by the usage of the recovered materials. Parts with higher recycling and CO₂ saving rates ought to be chosen and physically disassembled, but the manual disassembly brings a higher cost, rather than discarding the parts. Therefore, material recovery value is also to be considered for parts selection during the assembly operation. Parts information like material recovery value, CO₂ release, weight, precedence relationships are required for environmental and economic parts selection. This study proposes a CAD based approach for environmental and economic parts selection for disassembly using solid works sustainability. It considers higher CO₂ saving rate, higher recycling rate and higher material recovery value as environmental and economic criteria for parts selection.

In this paper, we present a multi-criteria optimization model of a disassembly-to-order system to determine the best combination of the number of each product type to be taken back at the end-of-life and disassembled to meet the demand for items and materials retrieved from them under a variety of physical, financial and environmental constrains so as to achieve the preemptive goals of maximum total profit, maximum sales from materials, minimum number of disposed items, minimum number of stored items, minimum cost of disposal and minimum cost of preparation, in that order. When solved, the model provides the number of reused, recycled, stored and disposed items as well as the values of a host of other performance measures. A case example is presented to illustrate the model's implementation.

This paper reviews the problems that many electronics manufacturers are facing in a society of rules and regulations that are becoming increasingly environmentally conscious. The effect of electronics assembly, disassembly, and disposal on the environment is reviewed, and the potential hazards of continuing the present trends in electronics parts disposal is discussed. The paper contains a comprehensive survey of previous works related to environmentally conscious manufacturing practices, recycling, and the complexities of disassembly in the electronics industry. Interest in this area has intensified in recent years due to an increased awareness of the problem in a world of high technology where electronic products dominate. Industrial applications of recycling programs are presented and existing methodologies and evaluation systems are discussed. In order to promote and support this new environmental ethic in electronics assembly and disassembly, the need for improved methods of electronics reuse, minimization of life-cycle scrap, development of planning tools, and an increase in research activity in this area are also highlighted.

The ability to efficiently and effectively reuse ontologies is commonly acknowledged to play a crucial role in the large scale dissemination of ontologies and ontology-driven technology, being thus a pre-requisite for the ongoing realization of the Semantic Web. In this article, we give an account of ontology reuse from a process point of view. We present a methodology that can be utilized to systematize and monitor ontology engineering processes in scenarios reusing available ontological knowledge in the context of a particular application. Notably, and by contrast to existing approaches in this field, our aim is to provide means to overcome the poor reusability of existing resources — rather than to solve the more general issue of building new, more reusable knowledge components. To do so we investigate the impact of the application context of an ontology — in terms of tasks this ontology has been created for and will be utilized in — has on the feasibility of a reuse-oriented ontology development strategy and provide guidelines that take these aspects into account. The applicability of the methodology is demonstrated through a case study performed in collaboration with an international eRecruitment solution provider.

Over the past few years, several empirical studies have estimated the economic benefits of treating and reusing wastewater for different purposes and in different countries. This work has resulted in an expanded data pool potentially usable for evaluating the social and economic implications of wastewater investments, particularly those incorporating reuse projects. We present the results of a systematic and comprehensive review of available empirical studies that assessed individual willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates of recycled wastewater. Using a meta-analysis method (MA), we investigated the results of 84 WTP estimates from 22 international studies covering 12 countries. From our general meta-regression model, we estimated the mean WTP for recycled wastewater at US$ 52.62 per-household/per-year. We find that WTP can vary in a systematic and predictable way with respect to key factors that determine an individual’s WTP for recycled water, such as socio-economic and contextual characteristics as well as the individuals’ attitudes and perceptions concerning recycled water. We demonstrate that such categories of variables are important for the potential use of MA for value transfer. This finding can be useful to inform and guide research and development on future empirical valuation studies, and to facilitate the use of value-transfer methods through the MA model.

Organic wastes associated with food in urban areas are of critical concern due to the economic costs and environmental impacts associated with transport and disposal. Food wastes could be converted into soil amendments for urban agriculture and landscaping, recycling nutrients, and improving urban resilience and sustainability. Organic wastes can be composted, to produce valuable soil conditioners and fertilisers, or bioconverted, to produce a wide range of products, as evidenced in later chapters. Alternatively, they can be recovered using thermal treatment converting biomass into biochar to amend problematic soils, improve water conservation and purity, decrease crop pollutant accumulation, and increase crop yield. Retaining proportion of organic wastes, potentially supplemented with inert wastes such as paper waste, will encourage and enhance the development of urban agriculture, as well as stimulate other contemporary urban initiatives such as green walls, rooftop farming, vertical farming, and community gardening. Benefits would also include both short- and longer-term utilisation, restoration, and re-activation of marginal, vacant, and derelict land. A more closed urban food cycle would improve food security, socio-economic, and health systems while also enhancing education and societal engagement with nature. Better food waste recycling in urban areas will support and build smart and sustainable urban living.