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Purpose - In a growing number of competitive sectors with closed-loop supply chains, the reverse component has become an inherent part of the business, not to mention a core competence; hence the need to have performance measures that can be used to provide an accurate diagnosis of the state of the supply chain by addressing both its forward and its reverse components. It is also important to identify the level of existing integration between parties, as this has been associated with supply chain performance. This paper seeks to address this issue.Design methodology approach - Elements gathered from the literature reviewed are used to present a set of measures that can be applied for auditing purposes in: the forward supply chain; product returns and reverse logistics; flows of materials and information and integration between supply chain tiers. To illustrate the use of the proposed set of measures for auditing purposes a case study involving a major European mobile phone network operator was analysed using the operator's own brand of handsets characterised for having a closed-loop supply chain.Findings - The proposed set of measures for auditing purposes provide an overall picture of the performance of a closed-loop supply chain by revealing high levels of stock for the products analysed, consequence of the difficulty to generate accurate forecasts and the accumulation of high quantities of product prior to launch. Also the methodology presented in this paper identifies links between product returns (faulty and non-faulty) to operations in the forward component of the supply chain (design, sourcing, manufacturing and forecasting) and also indicates how performance is affected because of integration.Research limitations implications - The proposed set of measures for auditing purposes is relevant to closed-loop supply chains which are related to products with short life cycles and during their lifetime can experience faulty and non-faulty returns. The scope of the study presented may look limited; however, the application of the performance measures presented in this research can become a fundamental component of larger audit exercises. Further research should be carried out with supply chains on products with lifetime cycles that span long periods of time.Practical implications - For industry sectors with closed-loop supply chains, the availability of a set of measures that address the forward and reverse components plus integration can provide a detailed picture of the performance of value streams over traditional approaches to measurement that focus on only one component of the supply chain. The set of measures has the potential to be used to achieve better customer service and reduction in costs involving shipping, warehousing, labour and call centres.Originality value - The contribution of this research on closed-loop supply chains is a methodology that defines performance measures for auditing purposes of the forward and reverse components of supply chains and assists in assessing the importance of integration between different tiers of supply chains.

Models for light dark matter particles with masses below 1 GeV/c [Formula omitted] are a natural and well-motivated alternative to so-far unobserved weakly interacting massive particles. Gram-scale cryogenic calorimeters provide the required detector performance to detect these particles and extend the direct dark matter search program of CRESST. A prototype 0.5 g sapphire detector developed for the [Formula omitted]-cleus experiment has achieved an energy threshold of [Formula omitted] eV. This is one order of magnitude lower than for previous devices and independent of the type of particle interaction. The result presented here is obtained in a setup above ground without significant shielding against ambient and cosmogenic radiation. Although operated in a high-background environment, the detector probes a new range of light-mass dark matter particles previously not accessible by direct searches. We report the first limit on the spin-independent dark matter particle-nucleon cross section for masses between 140 and 500 MeV/c [Formula omitted].

Models for light dark matter particles with masses below 1 GeV/c 2 are a natural and well-motivated alternative to so-far unobserved weakly interacting massive particles. Gram-scale cryogenic calorimeters provide the required detector performance to detect these particles and extend the direct dark matter search program of CRESST. A prototype 0.5 g sapphire detector developed for the ν -cleus experiment has achieved an energy threshold of E t h = ( 19.7 ± 0.9 )  eV. This is one order of magnitude lower than for previous devices and independent of the type of particle interaction. The result presented here is obtained in a setup above ground without significant shielding against ambient and cosmogenic radiation. Although operated in a high-background environment, the detector probes a new range of light-mass dark matter particles previously not accessible by direct searches. We report the first limit on the spin-independent dark matter particle-nucleon cross section for masses between 140 and 500 MeV/c 2 .

In this paper we address a parameter estimation, sensitivity and control strategies analyses for influenza disease using a model the flows of people between four states: susceptible, exposed, infectious, recovered. We solved a curve-fitting mathematical model to Mexican influenza data using a nonlinear least-square method and the Landweber iteration. An optimal control problem is formulated and analyzed based on models between four states: susceptible, exposed, infectious, recovered; model considering educational campaign, vaccination and medical treatment as strategies for disease control. The sensitivity analysis is performed to determine which model parameters are the most important to disease transmission and prevalence. The numeric results suggest that an adequate implementation of these strategies during the outbreak of an epidemic could significantly mitigate the propagation of the disease.

CRESST is a direct dark matter search experiment, aiming for an observation of nuclear recoils induced by the interaction of dark matter particles with cryogenic scintillating calcium tungstate crystals. Instead of confining ourselves to standard spin-independent and spin-dependent searches, we re-analyze data from CRESST-II using a more general effective field theory (EFT) framework. On many of the EFT coupling constants, improved exclusion limits in the low-mass region (< 3–4 GeV/\\[c^2\\]) are presented.

We coupled dinitrogen (N₂) fixation rate estimates with molecular biological methods to determine the activity and abundance of diazotrophs in coastal waters along the temperate North American Mid-Atlantic continental shelf during multiple seasons and cruises. Volumetric rates of N₂ fixation were as high as 49.8 nmol N L−1 d−1 and areal rates as high as 837.9 μmol N m−2 d−1 in our study area. Our results suggest that N₂ fixation occurs at high rates in coastal shelf waters that were previously thought to be unimportant sites of N₂ fixation and so were excluded from calculations of pelagic marine N₂ fixation. Unicellular N₂-fixing group A cyanobacteria were the most abundant diazotrophs in the Atlantic coastal waters and their abundance was comparable to, or higher than, that measured in oceanic regimes where they were discovered. High rates of N₂ fixation and the high abundance of diazotrophs along the North American Mid-Atlantic continental shelf highlight the need to revise marine N budgets to include coastal N₂ fixation. Integrating areal rates of N₂ fixation over the continental shelf area between Cape Hatteras and Nova Scotia, the estimated N₂ fixation in this temperate shelf system is about 0.02 Tmol N yr−1, the amount previously calculated for the entire North Atlantic continental shelf. Additional studies should provide spatially, temporally, and seasonally resolved rate estimates from coastal systems to better constrain N inputs via N₂ fixation from the neritic zone.

Flexibility and innovation at creating shapes, adapting processes, and modifying materials characterize composites materials, a “high-tech” industry. However, the absence of standard manufacturing processes and the selection of materials with defined properties hinder the configuration of the composites materials supply chain. An interesting alternative for a “high-tech” industry such as composite materials would be to review supply chain lessons and practices in “low-tech” industries such as food. The main motivation of this study is to identify lessons and practices that comprise innovations in the supply chain of a firm in a perceived “low-tech” industry that can be used to provide guidelines in the design of the supply chain of a “high-tech” industry, in this case composite materials. This work uses the case study/site visit with analogy methodology to collect data from a Spanish leading producer of fresh fruit juice which is sold in major European markets and makes use of a cold chain. The study highlights supply base management and visibility/traceability as two elements of the supply chain in a “low-tech” industry that can provide guidelines that can be used in the configuration of the supply chain of the composite materials industry.

Coherent elastic neutrino–nucleus scattering (CEνNS) offers a unique way to study neutrino properties and to search for new physics beyond the Standard Model. Nuclear reactors are promising sources to explore this process at low energies since they deliver large fluxes of anti-neutrinos with typical energies of a few MeV. In this paper, a new-generation experiment to study CEνNS is described. The NUCLEUS experiment will use cryogenic detectors which feature an unprecedentedly low-energy threshold and a time response fast enough to be operated under above-ground conditions. Both sensitivity to low-energy nuclear recoils and a high event rate tolerance are stringent requirements to measuring CEνNS of reactor anti-neutrinos. A new experimental site, the Very-Near-Site (VNS), at the Chooz nuclear power plant in France is described. The VNS is located between the two 4.25 GWth reactor cores and matches the requirements of NUCLEUS. First results of on-site measurements of neutron and muon backgrounds, the expected dominant background contributions, are given. In this paper a preliminary experimental set-up with dedicated active and passive background reduction techniques and first background estimations are presented. Furthermore, the feasibility to operate the detectors in coincidence with an active muon veto at shallow overburden is studied. The paper concludes with a sensitivity study pointing out the physics potential of NUCLEUS at the Chooz nuclear power plant.

The M onument experiment measures ordinary muon capture (OMC) on isotopes relevant for neutrinoless double-beta ( 0 ν β β ) decay and nuclear astrophysics. OMC is a particularly attractive tool for improving the theoretical description of 0 ν β β decay. It involves similar momentum transfers and allows testing the virtual transitions involved in 0 ν β β decay against experimental data. During the 2021 campaign, M onument studied OMC on 76 Se and 136 Ba, the isotopes relevant for next-generation 0 ν β β decay searches, like L egend and n EXO . The experimental setup has been designed to accurately extract the total and partial muon capture rates, which requires precise reconstruction of energies and time-dependent intensities of the OMC-related γ rays. The setup also includes a veto counter system to allow selecting a clean sample of OMC events. This work provides a detailed description of the M onument setup operated during the 2021 campaign, its two DAQ systems, calibration and analysis approaches, and summarises the achieved detector performance. Future improvements are also discussed.

In this work, we want to highlight the potential of lithium as a target for spin-dependent dark matter search in cryogenic experiments, with a special focus on the low-mass region of the parameter space. We operated a prototype detector module based on a \\[\\hbox {Li}_2\\hbox {MoO}_4\\] target crystal in an above-ground laboratory. Despite the high background environment, the detector sets a competitive limit on spin-dependent interactions of dark matter particles with protons and neutrons for masses between \\[0.8~\\hbox {GeV/c}^2\\] and \\[1.5~\\hbox {GeV/c}^2\\].