IDEA challenge 2022 dataset: Prototypes from a design Hackathon.

The IDEA Challenge 2022 prototyping dataset comprises a total of 240 prototype entries with 1049 edges (connections) and can provide valuable insights into prototyping practices, offering practical knowledge essential for developing prototyping strategies and generating hypotheses for future studies. Data were collected using Pro2booth - an online platform which captured comprehensive information about prototypes and participating teams' development process, including details about the creators, purpose, timing, and methods of creation. It is particularly relevant to design researchers, engineering and design students, educators, and industry professionals seeking to enhance their prototyping skills and strategies. It serves as a robust foundation for subsequent studies, allowing for comparative analyses, hypothesis verification, and trend exploration. It also has the potential to inform meta-analyses across similar design scenarios, providing a comprehensive understanding of prototyping processes.

A Cost-Benefit Analysis Simulation for the Digitalisation of Cold Supply Chains.

This paper investigates using simulation to predict the benefits and costs of digitalising cold distribution chains. The study focuses on the distribution of refrigerated beef in the UK, where digitalisation was implemented to re-route cargo carriers. By comparing simulations of both digitalised and non-digitalised supply chains, the study found that digitalisation can reduce beef waste and decrease the number of miles driven per successful delivery, leading to potential cost savings. Note that this work is not attempting to prove that digitalisation is appropriate for the chosen scenario, only to justify a simulation approach as a decision making tool. The proposed modelling approach provides decision-makers with more accurate predictions of the cost-benefit of increased sensorisation in supply chains. By accounting for stochastic and variable parameters, such as weather and demand fluctuations, simulation can be used to identify potential challenges and estimate the economic benefits of digitalisation. Moreover, qualitative assessments of the impact on customer satisfaction and product quality can help decision-makers consider the broader impacts of digitalisation. Overall, the study suggests that simulation can play a crucial role in facilitating informed decisions about the implementation of digital technologies in the food supply chain. By providing a better understanding of the potential costs and benefits of digitalisation, simulation can help organisations make more strategic and effective decisions.

Required parameters for modelling heterogeneous geographically dispersed manufacturing systems.

COVID-19 and global crises/events are driving governments to rethink their national manufacturing strategies. The drastic change of societal conditions has exposed our reliance on a constrained set of production practices. Furthermore, the future manufacturing landscape indicates - supply chain crises, trade agreements and natural disasters - a high level of volatility which requires a response that is far from being achieved. While these emergent challenges have called the efficacy of established practices into question, new manufacturing technologies, such as Additive Manufacturing (AM), present the capability to provide a solution. One proposal is agent-based brokering of AM which could be a method for tackling local, regional, national, and international production needs. However, to achieve the reality of brokered AM, it is imperative that the diversity of AM capability is considered. Diversity that existing homogeneous modelling of AM and manufacturing systems rarely consider or capture. This paper conceptualizes the reality of AM systems and elucidates parameters that are necessary for successful modelling and subsequent co-ordination. Having presented the required parameters the paper continues to discuss requisite levels of abstraction, suitable performance metrics and the role of humans in agent-based manufacturing systems.

A 3D in vitro model of the human breast duct: a method to unravel myoepithelial-luminal interactions in the progression of breast cancer.

BACKGROUND: 3D modelling fulfils a critical role in research, allowing for complex cell behaviour and interactions to be studied in physiomimetic conditions. With tissue banks becoming established for a number of cancers, researchers now have access to primary patient cells, providing the perfect building blocks to recreate and interrogate intricate cellular systems in the laboratory. The ducts of the human breast are composed of an inner layer of luminal cells supported by an outer layer of myoepithelial cells. In early-stage ductal carcinoma in situ, cancerous luminal cells are confined to the ductal space by an intact myoepithelial layer. Understanding the relationship between myoepithelial and luminal cells in the development of cancer is critical for the development of new therapies and prognostic markers. This requires the generation of new models that allows for the manipulation of these two cell types in a physiological setting. METHODS: Using access to the Breast Cancer Now Tissue Bank, we isolated pure populations of myoepithelial and luminal cells from human reduction mammoplasty specimens and placed them into 2D culture. These cells were infected with lentiviral particles encoding either fluorescent proteins, to facilitate cell tracking, or an inducible human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) expression construct. Myoepithelial and luminal cells were then recombined in collagen gels, and the resulting cellular structures were analysed by confocal microscopy. RESULTS: Myoepithelial and luminal cells isolated from reduction mammoplasty specimens can be grown separately in 2D culture and retain their differentiated state. When recombined in collagen gels, these cells reform into physiologically reflective bilayer structures. Inducible expression of HER2 in the luminal compartment, once the bilayer has formed, leads to robust luminal filling, recapitulating ductal carcinoma in situ, and can be blocked with anti-HER2 therapies. CONCLUSIONS: This model allows for the interaction between myoepithelial and luminal cells to be investigated in an in-vitro environment and paves the way to study early events in breast cancer development with the potential to act as a powerful drug discovery platform.