Process integration consists of numerous techniques that allow engineers to evaluate entire processes or sites, rather than focus on individual unit operations. It includes hierarchical design methods, knowledge-based systems, numerical and graphical techniques, and pinch analysis (1, 2). In the area of energy effi ciency, pinch methods dominate. Indeed, the terms pinch analysis and process int...

Underactuated robotic hands are favorable for some applications due to its simplicity in mechanism and control compared with fully actuated hand. Incorporating sensors makes it possible for a hand to accomplish low level task autonomously. This project aims at analyzing pinch quality of an underactuated hand that was developed for underwater teleoperation with 8 sensor channels on each finger, ...

[Purpose] The aim of the present study was to investigate and compare the effects of whirlpool bath and neuromuscular electrical stimulation on complex regional pain syndrome. [Subjects and Methods] Sixty outpatients (30 per group) with complex regional pain syndrome participated. They received 15 treatment 5 days per week for 3 weeks. The outcome measures were the visual analogue scale for pai...

Shortcut methods are valuable tools in the early stages of chemical process design, where numerous flowsheet alternatives need to be evaluated to determine the most energy-efficient, feasible flowsheet. Various shortcut methods based on tray-to-tray calculation and pinch point analysis for the inspection of feasibility and the determination of the minimum energy demand (MED) for homogeneous non...

A thin cut made through a z-pinch by an intense laser beam can become a magnetically insulated diode crossed by an intense ion beam. For larger cuts, the gap is crossed by an intense relativistic electron beam, stopped by magnetic bremsstrahlung resulting in a pointlike intense x-ray source. In either case, the impedance of the pinch discharge is increased, with the power delivered rising in th...

The generalization of the pinch technique beyond one loop is presented. It is shown that the crucial physical principles of gauge-invariance, unitarity, and gauge-fixing-parameter independence are instrumental for accomplishing this task, and is explained how the aforementioned requirements single out at two loops exactly the same algorithm which has been used to define the pinch technique at o...

In this Letter, the influence of the "Coriolis drift" on small scale instabilities in toroidal plasmas is shown to generate a toroidal momentum pinch velocity. Such a pinch results because the Coriolis drift generates a coupling between the density and temperature perturbations on the one hand and the perturbed parallel flow velocity on the other. A simple fluid model is used to highlight the p...

This study investigated how the posture of the thumb while performing common pinch movements and the levels of pinch force applied by the thumb affect the arthrokinematics of the trapeziometacarpal joint in vivo. Fifteen subjects performed the pinch tasks at the distal phalange (DP), proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joint, and metacarpophalangeal (MP) joint of the index finger with 0%, 50%, and 8...