We concentrate on a family of discrete event systems obtained from a simple modular design principle that include in a controlled way primitives to deal with concurrency, decisions, synchronization, blocking , and bulk movements of jobs. Due to the functional complexity of such systems, reliable throughput approximation algorithms must be deeply supported on a structure based decomposition tech...

The past decade has seen a resurgence of interest in the supply security of mineral raw materials. A key to the current debate is the concept of ‘criticality’. The present article reviews the criticality concept, as well as the methodologies used in its assessment, including a critical evaluation of their validity in view of classical risk theory. Furthermore, it discusses a number of risks pre...

Abstract—In this study, the feasibility of incorporating ceramic waste from bricks (perforated brick and double hollow brick) and extruded polystyrene (XPS) waste, is analysed. Results show that it is possible to incorporate up to 25% of ceramic waste and 4% of XPS waste over the weight of gypsum in a gypsum matrix. Furthermore, with the addition of ceramic waste an 8% of surface hardness incre...

Lignocellulose in the form of forestry, agricultural, and agro-industrial wastes is accumulated in large quantities every year. These materials are mainly composed of three groups of polymers, namely cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Cellulose and hemicellulose are sugar rich fractions of interest for use in fermentation processes, since microorganisms may use the sugars for growth and prod...