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This paper aims at conducing a bibliometric literature review targeting some key themes of sustainability in the manufacturing and production sector. A first sample of 631 papers was found by using an appropriate combination of keywords in the SCOPUS database over a 22 year period (2000-2021). The sample was then reduced to 563 manuscripts, by removing the papers not expressively focused on the targeted topic. Finally, the analysis of the author keywords was carried out by dividing the 22 years period into 4 timespans, to determine the past and current trends within the research topic. The results highlighted a dominance of general themes related to sustainable and green aspects; at the same time, some specific subjects related to different aspects of manufacturing and production were identified, such as the design, the performance evaluation and the introduction of new Industry 4.0 technologies. Other themes, like human factors, companies’ resilience, flexibility or agility, appear to be not so considered in the studies reviewed; these themes could represent interesting topics for future research activities.

This paper deals with the tricky issue of forecasting the number of daily orders received by a delivery company that operates through the internet. The research tries to address the problem through the Multilayer Perceptron Neural Network (MLP). The more important step of the methodology is the identification and characterization of the features to adopt as inputs for the MLP in the cited case. The number of visits (NVs) to the company website, months, days of the week and the public holidays are the four features used to predict the number of received orders (NOs). The Levenberg Marquardt back-propagation algorithm was used to train the model. The proposed methodology was applied by a delivery company, which operates in Italy, to forecast the daily demand. The results showed a good accuracy of the MLP in predicting the NOs, with a Root Mean Squared Error of the 20% from the actual NOs.

Since years, researchers have proposed job rotation as a solution to balance physical workload and reduce ergonomic risk among operators. Simulation is a strong tool for rapid ergonomic analysis, which allows testing different configurations and evaluating the characteristics of different operators. Thanks to such tool, this study proposes a new approach to improve a real system and reduce the ergonomic risk among operators. A real assembly station has been involved in the study and a postural analysis has been performed considering real variables of the system. Different potential workers with different anthropometric characteristics have been tested. The critical situations have been identified and solved proposing different job rotation solutions. Simulation results confirm that job rotation is a good approach to reduce the ergonomic risk and they provide practical guidelines for task assignment.

In last years several assessment methodologies were applied to evaluate the risks connected manufacturing and maintenance practices. The law and the best practices in industry are growing up in importance and relevance. Many times the assessment is related only to the expert opinion. This paper deals with the presentation of a new assessment method, adaptable also to a specific risk such as the mechanical one, using as assessment tools the check-lists and the Petri Nets. Moreover, a real case with the safety analysis for a machine in a carpentry factory is presented, to appraise the effectiveness of the method presented.

Abstract: The evaluation of mural invasion (T) in primary urinary bladder carcinoma is important in the planning of an appropriate surgical or radiochemotherapeutic strategy. Previous investigators using computed tomography (CT) have evaluated the bladder filled with urine, urine opacified with iodinated constrast material, or air insufflation. The purpose of this trial was to establish which of these three techniques was the most accurate by comparing data obtained in postoperative staging (pT). Sixty-five patients with primary bladder cancer were enrolled, all of whom were studied by spiral CT with these three techniques. Patients were assigned to four stage groups:Ta–T1, T2–T3a, T3b, and T4. The results demonstrated total accuracies of 95% for the air-insufflated bladder, 90.5% for opacified urine, and 87% for noncontrast studies. In conclusion, the air-insufflated bladder is the more accurate technique in the evaluation of the T parameter in primary bladder cancer, especially in the first and third stage groups.

We conducted computed tomographic examinations of the chest in 171 patients with lung cancer whose disease was subsequently surgically staged; routine mediastinal exploration was undertaken in all patients undergoing thoracotomy (151), and in 20 patients only anterior mediastinotomy or mediastinoscopy was performed. We have considered three groups of patients: In Group I (including all 171 patients) mediastinal lymph nodes were evaluated for metastatic involvement; nodes were considered diseased when >1 cm. Sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were 95%, 83%, and 89%. Among these 171 patients, 34 (Group II) had a central tumor otherwise considered operable, which was shown on plain roentgengrams to be in contact with the mediastinum; infiltration of hilar and mediastinal vessels and of mediastinal tissues was investigated preoperatively with computed tomography and then ascertained at thoracotomy. Sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were 68%, 72% and 70%. Twenty-seven patients (Group III) had a peripheral tumor abutting the pleural surface and suspected to invade the parietal pleura and chest wall; patients with evident bone infiltration were excluded. Sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of computed tomography were 50%, 90%, and 65%.

Abstract: We present a case of a urothelial neoplasm arising within a direct bladder hernia in the inguinal canal. Bladder hernias are rarely found preoperatively and are exceptional sites of neoplasm. Spiral computed tomography with gaseous insufflation of the bladder demonstrated the bladder hernia and the extension of the neoplasm in the inguinal canal more accurately than other computed tomographic techniques with nonopacified and iodinated urine.