Key Challenges Research Articles

Translation Strategies of Ambiguity in English Language and Literature

The translation of English language and literary works has always been crucial for cross-cultural communication. However, a key challenge in translating such works is the accurate communication of ambiguity, which refers to expressions deliberately used in English texts with unclear meanings. These expressions are often poetic and carry deep symbols and implications, adding a unique charm to literary works. This article explores the manifestations of ambiguity in English language and literature and the translation strategies that can be employed to optimize the translation of ambiguity in the English language and literature.

Controlling photopolymerization reaction in layer‐by‐layer photopolymerization in 3D printing

AbstractToday, controlling the photopolymerization process during the 3D printing in vat photopolymerization is a key challenge. In this work, it is shown that using a relatively limited set of parameter, it is possible to estimate key factors involved in such process. On the basis of 16 formulations containing different concentrations of photoinitiator and UV filter, attempt was made to rationalize the photonic parameters used in the 3D printing process, that is, the depth of penetration Dp and the critical energy Ec. It is shown that the experimental Dp values can be correlated with calculated ones from Bouguer–Beer–Lambert law. Real‐time Fourier‐transform infrared spectroscopy (RT‐FTIR) experiments were performed under similar conditions as in 3D printing. The conversion profiles were used to estimate the Ec values. The limits of this approach was discussed as a function of the UV filter concentration. Finally, the RT‐FTIR curves are exploited to predict the in‐depth conversion of the different 3D printed layers and compared to experimental results obtained by confocal Raman microscopy.

Consensus-Based Overarching Principles and Recommendations on the Use of Biosimilars in the Treatment of Inflammatory Arthritis in the Gulf Region.

Though biologic agents have significantly improved the treatment of inflammatory arthritis (rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and axial spondyloarthritis), high costs, stringent regulations, strict reimbursement criteria, and existing patents have limited patient access to treatments. While being highly similar in quality, safety, and efficacy to biologic reference products, biosimilars can reduce the financial burden and prevent underutilization of medication. The objective of this initiative was to develop an evidence-based consensus of overarching principles and recommendations aimed at standardizing the use of biosimilars in treating inflammatory arthritis in the Gulf region. A task force of practicing rheumatologists, a clinical pharmacist, a health economist, patients, regulators, and payors from across the Gulf region developed recommendations and overarching principles based on the outputs of a systematic literature review conducted to address Patient-Intervention-Comparison-Outcome (PICO) questions specific to key challenges regarding the use of biosimilars for the treatment of inflammatory arthritis in the region. As the data before 2017 have been previously reviewed in another publication, the current review focused on data published between January 2017 and August 2022 (PROSPERO ID CRD42022364002). Consensus on each statement required a level of agreement of 70% or greater. Consensus was reached for five overarching principles and nine recommendations by the task force. The principles emphasize the importance of improving the awareness, understanding, and perception of biosimilars, as well as the need for regulated regional real-world data generation and protocols to make biosimilars a viable and affordable treatment option for all patients. The consensus recommendations advocate the need for shared treatment decisions between rheumatologists and patients when considering biosimilars. They further recommend that confirmation of a biosimilar's efficacy and safety in a single indication is sufficient for extrapolation to other diseases for which the reference product has been approved. Finally, there is a need for pharmacovigilance and national health policies governing the adoption and prescription of biosimilars in clinical practice across the region. These are the first consensus recommendations for the Gulf region based on a systematic literature review and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) guidelines, integrating clinical evidence with clinical expertise to optimize decision making for the use of biosimilars in patients with inflammatory arthritis. They were formulated based on predominantly international data because of the limited regional data and therefore can be generalized to serve as recommendations for healthcare professionals in other parts of the world.

Study of the Construction of Sports and Health Service Platforms for the Disabled in China

With the rapid development of the economy, the living standards of Chinese people have generally improved. Consequently, sports facilities have been improved and the concept of sports has been redefined. The implementation of the national fitness program has stimulated the public’s interest in sports. However, the popularization and development of sports for the disabled still face a series of obstacles. To enhance the quality of disabled sports public services in China, safeguard the rights of individuals with disabilities, and foster societal harmony, this paper adopts a multifaceted approach. Drawing upon literature review and logical analysis, it aims to provide policy guidance, optimize service delivery, enhance supervision mechanisms, facilitate feedback mechanisms, and implement scientific management practices. Drawing from successful cases in the United States, this paper aims to address key challenges in the provision of sports public services for individuals with disabilities in China. By examining the service content offered by relevant platforms in the US, specific solutions are proposed to overcome existing shortcomings in China’s disabled sports public services. Additionally, the paper outlines a construction model for sports health service platforms catering to people with special needs.

Experimental investigation and tomography analysis of Darcy-Forchheimer flows in thermal protection systems

In thermal protection systems (TPS), Darcy’s law or Darcy-Forchheimer’s law is employed to model the pyrolysis gas flow within the anisotropic porous ablator depending on the flow regime considered. A key challenge with using these laws is first, the knowledge of the validity domain of each flow regime in terms of a critical Reynolds number (Rec). Secondly, the lack of data on macroscopic properties, namely, the permeability and Forchheimer tensors is particularly challenging for the relevance of the models. The objective of this work is to contribute to overcoming these challenges by performing experimental and X-ray tomographic image-based characterization of Calcarb, a commercial carbon preform used for manufacturing TPS. For this purpose, fluid flow within Calcarb was studied experimentally in the Through-Thickness (TT) and the In-Plane (IP) directions for Reynolds numbers of 0.05 to 10.46 -representative of the TPS application. Tomography image-based micro-scale simulations, involving the direct resolution of the Navier–Stokes equations under both flow regimes, were also performed. Experimental results exhibit the anisotropic nature of Calcarb, namely through Rec values, corresponding to the Darcy flow regime limit, slightly different in the two directions (Rec of 0.31 and 0.43) with measured permeability values of 1.248×10−10 m2 and 1.615×10−10 m2 for TT and IP directions respectively. In the Forchheimer regime, experimental Forchheimer coefficients β were 2.0010×105 m−1 (TT) and 1.4948×105 m−1 (IP). During the simulation process, a numerical strategy was defined to obtain the permeability tensor yielding values within 8% of the experimental ones. The comparison of experimental results vs simulation results in the Forchheimer regime was performed through the analysis of the pressure gradients as functions of Re in the x, y, and z directions. The numerical estimations were compared successfully with experimental measurements, with a discrepancy of 5.2%, for Re values up to 2.4.

Development of an evidence-informed governance and stewardship framework for elderly healthcare in Iran: A qualitative study

BackgroundThe ageing population poses significant challenges to healthcare systems, necessitating the establishment of high-functioning, integrated frameworks for elderly healthcare. This study aimed to explore the key challenges associated with the stewardship of elderly care in Iran and to develop a holistic stewardship framework. MethodsFor this qualitative study, thirty semi-structured interviews were conducted with key Iranian healthcare stakeholders, utilizing purposive and snowball sampling during 2021–2022. Inductive open coding was utilized to generate new concepts related to key stewardship challenges. The World Health Organization's conceptual framework, outlining the three stewardship tasks, served as the basis for crafting a tailored framework for elderly healthcare stewardship in Iran. ResultsFourteen main challenges and 38 sub-challenges were identified for elderly healthcare stewardship in Iran, categorized according to the WHO framework's three stewardship tasks. Challenges related to WHO stewardship task 1, involving health policy formulation and vision definition, included challenges in vision definition, planning, policymaking, and intergovernmental institutional superiority. Challenges related to WHO stewardship task 2, delineating governance and stewardship through control and regulation, encompassed issues such as support for the elderly, system responsiveness, behavior of healthcare providers, organizational structure, and cross-sectoral leadership challenges. Challenges associated with WHO stewardship task 3, about the use of collective intelligence, explored stakeholder collaboration, information for decision-making, and challenges within the elderly information system, covering data documentation, reporting, analysis, accessibility, distribution, and circulation. Subsequently, a framework was developed, covering areas like defining the vision and direction of health policy, managing information systems, evidence-informed policymaking, and delivering elderly health services with a holistic approach. ConclusionThe present framework shows how a management information system, guided by evidenced-informed policymaking and the formulation of customized health policies, can facilitate the provision of elderly health services based on identified needs. It presents a governance and stewardship pathway that can be adopted by Iranian health policymakers and similar middle-income countries facing analogous challenges in ageing and aged care system stewardship, serving as a model for developing their own frameworks.

Latinx for whom? Reflections upon the linguistic shaping of Latin American identities in the United States

ABSTRACT This article critically examines the growing utilization of the term Latinx in the United States (US) as an all-inclusive, nonbinary ethnonym that challenges the injustices experienced by discriminated minorities, mostly LGBTQIA + people of Latin American descent in the United States. Despite its relevance, the term Latinx presents key challenges, beginning with its use as a catch-all category and substitute for other ethnonyms (i.e. Hispanics and Latinos) that speak to diverse racial/ethnic identities. Latinx’s two-fold framing effect has contributed to invisibilizing the experiences of cisgender people, along with transgender individuals who see themselves as binary, and of gender nonconforming populations. In supporting these claims, the author self-reflects on her Latina positionality to question the use of Latinx as a wide-ranging label. Finally, this essay offers concrete recommendations on how to properly use Latinx to include diverse Latin/a/o/x identities in the US and beyond.

COVID-19 surveillance in fragile health systems, armed conflict and humanitarian crisis, the case of Yemen

ABSTRACT Background Yemen is a poor country facing armed conflict which significantly disrupted the Health System. Yemen reported fewer COVID-19 cases than neighbouring countries, yet the case fatality rate (19.6%) remained five times the global average. Conflict typically hinders surveillance, however obtaining representative mortality and morbidity indicators remains essential to efficacious epidemic planning. We aimed to explore challenges hindering COVID-19 surveillance in Yemen and opportunities for addressing them, to increase surveillance effectiveness in such conflict and resource-constraint settings. Methods Qualitative study question guide was used for in-depth interviewswith 30 healthcare workers who worked in Yemen’s surveillance system during the pandemic. Participants were recruited through in-country gatekeepers using a ‘snowball’ sampling technique. Thematic framework analysiswas used. Findings A basic level of preparedness existed following responses to previous epidemics, including activating Rapid Response Teams (RRTs), and electronic disease surveillance. Key challenges included the ongoing conflict, an unstable health system, minimal infrastructure restorations, misinformation, community incompliance, and inadequate laboratory diagnostics or transportation capabilities. Participants recommended addressing these barriers through strengthening RRTs, transportation and laboratory testing capacities, implementing community awareness campaigns, alongside improving primary health care services and inter-governorate governance. Conclusion Active community surveillance by RRTs supplemented with community volunteers is imperative and necessary nationwide. National community awareness campaigns on case detection, reporting, and addressing misinformation are essential to implementing such community surveillance. Increased utilization of mobile laboratories could enhance laboratory testing capacity in underserved areas. For each recommendation to be effectively implemented, the international community must provide sufficient resources and financial aid.

Entropy-Based Behavioral Closeness Filtering Chaotic Activity Method

In the era of big data, one of the key challenges is to discover process models and gain insights into business processes by analyzing event data recorded in information systems. However, Chaotic activity or infrequent behaviors often appear in actual event logs. Process models containing such behaviors are complex, difficult to understand, and hide the relevant key behaviors of the underlying processes. Established studies have generally achieved chaotic activity filtering by filtering infrequent activities or activities with high entropy values and ignoring the behavioral relationships that exist between activities, resulting in effective low-frequency behaviors being filtered. To solve this problem, this paper proposes an entropy-based behavioral closeness filtering of chaotic activities method. Firstly, based on the behavior profile theory of high-frequency logging activities, the process model is constructed by combining the feature network and the module network. Then, the identification of suspected chaotic activity sets is achieved through the Laplace entropy value. Next, a query model is built based on logs containing suspicious chaotic activity. Finally, based on the succession relationship, the behavioral closeness of the query model and the business process model is analyzed to achieve the goal of accurately filtering chaotic activities to retain behaviors beneficial to the process. To evaluate the performance of the method, we validated the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in synthetic logs and real logs, respectively. Experimental results showed that the proposed method performs better in precision after filtering chaotic activities.

Physicochemical properties of carbonized grass (CG): Implications for soft clay improvement

In global environmental governance, effectively and sustainably treating soft clay remains a key challenge. The production of traditional soil stabilizers, like cement, not only consumes vast non-renewable resources but also poses issues related to high energy consumption and environmental burdens. Hence, there is an urgent need to identify sustainable alternatives. This study introduces carbonized grass (CG) prepared from waste cutting grass as a sustainable material, experiments on soft clay and research on its physical and chemical properties, and adds wood charcoal (WC) and carbonized cow dung compost (CC) as controls. The study assesses the impact of carbonization temperature (500–1000 °C) on the water absorption properties of WC, CC, and CG. Using CG produced by a homemade dry distillation gasifier (SDDG) as raw material, it is added directly or together with calcined oyster shell waste (COS) into the soft clay, and a cone penetration test is conducted. The impact of different initial moisture contents (30%, 50% and 70%) of soft clay and the blending amounts of CG and CG-COS on the strength of the samples was studied, and an evaluation formula was proposed. Test results showed that CG exhibited a significant advantage in stabilizing high-moisture clay compared to CC and WC. After 28 days, the incorporation of CG significantly reduces the amount of COS (about 40%). Employing Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS), the physical and chemical properties of the samples were analyzed. The analysis confirmed CG's unique honeycomb structure, acting as nucleation sites between particles. Additionally, its strong water absorbency aided in shortening the distance between particles, promoting the bonding of hydrated calcium silicate (C-S-H) with soil particles, leading to an improvement in sample strength. The results showed that improving soft clay with CG-COS significantly reduces the use of traditional stabilizers while leading to a substantial increase in soil strength. Additionally, this approach contributes to a noteworthy reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, recycling cutting grass for CG preparation as a substitute for conventional soil stabilizers emerges as a green and viable method.

Wearable Sweat Management Technologies

AbstractThe aging population and increasing prevalence of diseases among younger individuals have heightened the pressing demand for wearable health monitoring devices among the general public. In comparison to self‐health monitoring at physical signal level, wearable biochemical monitoring can provide more comprehensive and insightful information regarding one's own health status. Wearable sweat‐sensing technologies hold great potential for non‐invasive and continuous biochemical monitoring, and have emerged as a focal point of wearable health monitoring research. The effective management of sweat, encompassing convenient induction, reliable collection, and efficient flow control and storage, is fundamental in wearable sweat sensing. To elucidate the research progression in these aspects, this review first summarizes sweat secretion mechanisms, induction method, and sampling mode. Additionally, detailed summaries and discussion on sweat sampling and transport modes are provided. Furthermore, within the context of epidermal microfluidics, the technologies on sweat flow control and storage management based on microvalves are discussed. Lastly, current commercialization and key challenges are summarized.

The survey on multi-source data fusion in cyber-physical-social systems: Foundational infrastructure for industrial metaverses and industries 5.0

As the concept of Industries 5.0 develops, industrial metaverses are expected to operate in parallel with the actual industrial processes to offer “Human-Centric” Safe, Secure, Sustainable, Sensitive, Service, and Smartness “6S” manufacturing solutions. Industrial metaverses not only visualize the process of productivity in a dynamic and evolutional way, but also provide an immersive laboratory experimental environment for optimizing and remodeling the process. Besides, the customized user needs that are hidden in social media data can be discovered by social computing technologies, which introduces an input channel for building the whole social manufacturing process including industrial metaverses. This makes the fusion of multi-source data cross Cyber–Physical–Social Systems (CPSS) the foundational and key challenge. This work firstly proposes a multi-source-data-fusion-driven operational architecture for industrial metaverses on the basis of conducting a comprehensive literature review on the state-of-the-art multi-source data fusion methods. The advantages and disadvantages of each type of method are analyzed by considering the fusion mechanisms and application scenarios. Especially, we combine the strengths of deep learning and knowledge graphs in scalability and parallel computation to enable our proposed framework the ability of prescriptive optimization and evolution. This integration can address the shortcomings of deep learning in terms of explainability and fact fabrication, as well as overcoming the incompleteness and the challenges of construction and maintenance inherent in knowledge graphs. The effectiveness of the proposed architecture is validated through a parallel weaving case study. In the end, we discuss the challenges and future directions of multi-source data fusion cross CPSS for industrial metaverses and social manufacturing in Industries 5.0.

Findings from the Polish InsurTech market as a roadmap for regulators

The dynamic development of modern technologies has changed the rules of the game in the financial market, including the insurance sector. While introducing digital business models may bring certain advantages for insurers, there is a widespread expectation of consumers to manage their financial affairs anytime and anywhere. This article sets out by demonstrating recent phenomena on the insurance market arising from its digitalisation, i.e., automation, personalisation, insurance on-demand, machine learning & artificial intelligence, Big Data, concluding distance contracts; along with the threats to consumer safety they pose a cyber risk that may materialise at different stages of the digital insurance selling process. Further, to provide insights into how modern digital insurance markets work, the article presents the results of a study conducted by the authors on a representative sample of 2,136 respondents from Poland. The study allows one to identify certain behaviour patterns of customers in their dealings with providers of insurance products and services as well as their approach to technological innovations introduced by the traders. Crucially, the study shows that insurance consumers have a positive attitude towards the use of modern technologies in insurance, however, their knowledge on this subject is still limited. Specifically, insurance consumers tend to be more afraid of cyber risks than any legal risks resulting from deploying new technologies in the insurance sector. In conclusion, the article maps out key regulatory challenges related to ensuring consumer protection on digital insurance markets.

Carbon Dots: A Bright Future as Anticounterfeiting Encoding Agents.

Counterfeit products and data vulnerability present significant challenges in contemporary society. Hence, various methods and technologies are explored for anticounterfeiting encoding, with luminescent tracers, particularly luminescent carbon dots (CDs), emerging as a notable solution. CDs offer promising contributions to product security, environmental sustainability, and the circular economy. This critical review aims to highlight the luminescence responsiveness of CDs to physical and chemical stimuli, achieved through nanoengineering their chemical structure. The discussion will delve into the various tunable luminescence mechanisms and decay times of CDs, investigating preferential excitations such as up-conversion, delayed fluorescence, fluorescence, room temperature phosphorescence, persistent luminescence, energy and charge transfer, as well as photo-chemical interactions. These insights are crucial for advancing anticounterfeiting solutions. Following this exploration, a systematic review will focus on the research of luminescent CDs' smart encoding applications, encompassing anticounterfeiting, product tracing, quality certification, and information encryption. Finally, the review will address key challenges in implementing CDs-based technology, providing specific insights into strategies aimed at maximizing their stability and efficacy in anticounterfeiting encoding applications.

Challenges and opportunities for process intensification in Europe from a process systems engineering perspective

Process Intensification (PI) is an effective way to enhance process efficiency and sustainability at affordable costs and efforts, attracting particular interest in the European area, as one of the most important chemical production areas in the world. PI primarily contributes by developing and testing new processing technologies that once integrated within a process improve the overall process performance substantially but as a result, it may alter the overall process (flowsheet) structure and its dynamic behavior. As such PI plays a key role in improving energy efficiency, optimizing resource allocation, and reducing environmental impact of industrial processes, and thereby leading to a cost-effective, eco-efficient, low-carbon and sustainable industry. However, along with opportunities, the PI new technologies have challenges related to failures in longer-term performance. In this respect, Process Systems Engineering (PSE) stance is more on integration aspects of new PI technologies into processes by making process (re)designs, doing operability studies, and performance optimizations within a supply chain setting. PSE contributes to overcoming the challenges by providing systematic approaches for the design and optimization of PI technologies. This perspective paper is a lightly referenced scholarly opinion piece about the status and directions of process intensification field from a PSE viewpoint. Primarily, it focuses on PSE perspectives towards sustainable lower energy usage process systems and provides a brief overview of the current situation in Europe. It also emphasizes the key challenges and opportunities for (new) PI technologies considering their integration in a process in terms of process synthesis and design, process flowsheet optimization, process and plantwide control, (green) electrification, sustainability improvements. Potential research directions on these aspects are given from an industrial and academic perspective of the authors.

An integrated approach in the management of Cardiovascular Diseases

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death globally. According to WHO an estimated 17.9 million people died from CVDs in 2019, representing 32% of all global deaths. Of these deaths, 85% were due to heart attack and stroke. India has one of the highest burdens of cardiovascular disease worldwide. The annual number of deaths from CVD in India is projected to rise from 2.26 million (1990) to 4.77 million (2020). The rate of incidence of cardiac disorders is almost doubled in Indian population which is an alarming fact. Cardiovascular Disease is largely the product of interactions of modifiable risk factors like changing lifestyles, bad eating habits and rapidly evolving socio-economic determinants like access to healthcare. There is a need of developing an integrative approach which conceptualizes a unique blend of different systems to bring the balance of body, mind and spirit for perfect health. Ayurveda holds the breakthrough to the key challenges that the India and in turn the world is facing in present era in cardiac care. Various scattered literature can be brought together and a clinical cardiology in Ayurveda can be given to modern society. Present paper is an effort towards Integrative approach for the management of CVDs.

Quantifying the impacts of management and herbicide resistance on regional plant population dynamics in the face of missing data

Abstract A key challenge in the management of populations is to quantify the impact of interventions in the face of environmental and phenotypic variability. However, accurate estimation of the effects of management and environment, in large‐scale ecological research is often limited by the expense of data collection, the inherent trade‐off between quality and quantity, and missing data. In this paper we develop a novel modelling framework, and demographically informed imputation scheme, to comprehensively account for the uncertainty generated by missing population, management, and herbicide resistance data. Using this framework and a large dataset (178 sites over 3 years) on the densities of a destructive arable weed (Alopecurus myosuroides) we investigate the effects of environment, management, and evolved herbicide resistance, on weed population dynamics. In this study we quantify the marginal effects of a suite of common management practices, including cropping, cultivation, and herbicide pressure, and evolved herbicide resistance, on weed population dynamics. Using this framework, we provide the first empirically backed demonstration that herbicide resistance is a key driver of population dynamics in arable weeds at regional scales. Whilst cultivation type had minimal impact on weed density, crop rotation, and earlier cultivation and drill dates consistently reduced infestation severity. Synthesis and applications: As we demonstrate that high herbicide resistance levels can produce extremely severe weed infestations, monitoring herbicide resistance is a priority for farmers across Western Europe. Furthermore, developing non‐chemical control methods is essential to control current weed populations, and prevent further resistance evolution. We recommend that planning interventions that centre on crop rotation and incorporate spring sewing and cultivation to provide the best reductions in weed densities. More generally, by directly accounting for missing data our framework permits the analysis of management practices with data that would otherwise be severely compromised.

The democratization of tourism distribution: a Horizon 2050 paper

Purpose Emphasizing the critical role of technology-enabled distribution in tourism, this study, a viewpoint, aims to highlight the potential of democratized technologies in readdressing the competitive imbalance between small- and medium-sized tourism enterprises (SMTEs) and their larger peers in today’s online marketplace. By enhancing competitiveness and performance, democratized technologies can strengthen the resilience, sustainability and competitive position of the SMTEs on which tourism depends, helping to support the Horizon 2050 agenda and UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Design/methodology/approach Examining the development of online and electronic distribution in tourism, the viewpoint identifies the key challenges to the successful use of technology-based distribution systems by SMTEs, as well as highlights the trend toward democratized technologies as a potential solution to help improve technology take-up and performance. Findings With no/low initial capital or operating costs, and little need for technical expertise, democratized technologies have the potential to overcome two of the three key challenges limiting the successful adoption and use of distribution technologies by SMTES. The key blockage remains one of managerial awareness and acceptability. With informal organization structures, little managerial or technical training and an ingrained reluctance to change, SMTE managers remain unfamiliar of the possibilities offered by this developing trend. While this challenge could be addressed by awareness building and training, in the longer run, it is likely that more substantial progress will arise from generational change in SMTE management, with digitally native successors more likely to exploit this development to improve competitiveness and performance. Originality/value Emphasizing the pivotal role that democratized technology can potentially play in redressing the competitive imbalance between SMTEs and their larger peers in the distribution space, this viewpoint serves as a call for action for tourism businesses to re-examine their approach to technology adoption and leverage democratized technologies to address current deficiencies in their distribution approach, helping to improve competitiveness and performance, thus supporting the Horizon 2050 initiative and furthering the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Heavy Traffic Joint Queue Length Distribution withoutResource Pooling

This paper studies the Heavy Traffic (HT) joint distribution of queue lengths in an Input-queued switch (IQ switch) operating under the MaxWeight scheduling policy. IQ switchserve as representative of SPNs that do not satisfy the socalled Complete Resource Pooling (CRP) condition, and consequently exhibit a multidimensional State Space Collapse (SSC). Except in special cases, only mean queue lengths of such non-CRP systems is known in the literature. In this paper, we develop the Transform method to study the joint distribution of queue lengths in non-CRP systems. The key challenge is in solving an implicit functional equation involving the Laplace transform of the HT limiting distribution. For the general n x n IQ switch that has n2 queues, under a conjecture on uniqueness of the solution of the functional equation, we obtain an exact joint distribution of the HT limiting queue-lengths in terms of a non-linear combination of 2n iid exponentials.

Advances in Membrane Separation for Biomaterial Dewatering.

Biomaterials often contain large quantities of water (50-98%), and with the current transition to a more biobased economy, drying these materials will become increasingly important. Contrary to the standard, thermodynamically inefficient chemical and thermal drying methods, dewatering by membrane separation will provide a sustainable and efficient alternative. However, biomaterials can easily foul membrane surfaces, which is detrimental to the performance of current membrane separations. Improving the antifouling properties of such membranes is a key challenge. Other recent research has been dedicated to enhancing the permeate flux and selectivity. In this review, we present a comprehensive overview of the design requirements for and recent advances in dewatering of biomaterials using membranes. These recent developments offer a viable solution to the challenges of fouling and suboptimal performances. We focus on two emerging development strategies, which are the use of electric-field-assisted dewatering and surface functionalizations, in particular with hydrogels. Our overview concludes with a critical mention of the remaining challenges and possible research directions within these subfields.