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This paper describes the TURTLE project that aim to develop sub-systems with the capability of deep-sea long-term presence. Our motivation is to produce new robotic ascend and descend energy efficient technologies to be incorporated in robotic vehicles used by civil and military stakeholders for underwater operations. TURTLE contribute to the sustainable presence and operations in the sea bottom. Long term presence on sea bottom, increased awareness and operation capabilities in underwater sea and in particular on benthic deeps can only be achieved through the use of advanced technologies, leading to automation of operation, reducing operational costs and increasing efficiency of human activity.

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In this work we present a tabu search metaheuristic method for solving the permutation flow shop scheduling problem with sequence dependent setup times and the objective of minimising total weighted tardiness. The problem is well known for its practical applications and for the difficulty in obtaining good solutions. The tabu search method proposed is based on the insertion neighbourhood, and is characterised by the selection and evaluation of a small subset of this neighbourhood at each iteration; this has consequences both on diversification and intensification of the search. We also propose a speed-up technique based on book keeping information of the current solution, used for the evaluation of its neighbours. © 2014 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

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This article presents a critical review of lean assessment in manufacturing and service settings as a base for development of a lean assessment framework for healthcare organizations, aiming to help them throughout a long journey. Having as starting point lean projects’ failures in four public hospitals, the authors discover the lack of monitoring (among other reasons) as the main issue. This article proposes a monitoring instrument for preventing returns to the comfort zone and guiding the lean journey. The healthcare lean assessment (HLA) can be used as an “as is” diagnosis tool, assessing whether each process should be improved, disrupted, or eliminated and also as an ongoing implementation assessment, providing control measures and correction actions. Although the framework proposed requires empirical testing in further research for universal application, it can help healthcare organizations by providing a transformation roadmap and monitoring instrument and also contributes to the growing stream of academic research in this area. © IIE, INCOSE.

Abstract
The organizations ability to manage corporate environmental performance is emerging as a strategic issue for companies. Environmental decision-making requires an explicit methodology in which it must be possible to articulate the involvement of various stakeholders, incorporate multi-disciplinary knowledge, and integrate criteria involving trade-offs in order to deal with different opinions and heterogeneous factors. The choice of sustainable options for the company and the creation of commitments among stakeholders are a must for businesses. The main motivation of this paper is to present results from the initial steps of the development of a methodology to support decision-making of corporate environmental strategies. Illustrations from an ongoing case study are presented. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.