This work will seek to define the current status and assist in the evolving status of automation in the textile industry in the United states, relevant for the US Military functions.

Between 370,000 and 750,000 cardiopulmonary resuscitations are attempted each year in US hospitals. Approximately 80% of these patients do not survive to discharge. However, for many, pulseless ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation (VT/VF) is the first monitored arrhythmia, which may be treated successfully with prompt defibrillation. The American Heart Association recommends defibrillation therapy within two minutes of cardiac arrest onset. Yet for 30% of patients, defibrillation is delayed more than two minutes, reducing their chance of survival to hospital discharge by half. There are few more important objectives in hospitalizing a patient at risk than being able to promptly respond to potentially fatal arrhythmias, yet there is little reliable evidence to guide how this should be done. There is a need for a better understanding of the impact on monitoring effectiveness of variables such as monitor watchers������������������ workload, communication pathways, and supportive technologies including alarms and automated notification systems. In situ simulation of cardiac arrhythmias allows us to measure the effect of these factors on response times without putting patients at risk. Our objective is to identify and test determinants of effective cardiac monitoring schemes. To achieve this objective, we will first compare 10 monitoring setups including remote telemetry, local monitoring by nurses, and local monitoring with automated notifications across multiple hospitals. We will conduct task analyses in each setting including interviews, observations, and 3 VT/VF simulations. The task analyses will allow us to characterize each setup by the sequence and timing of events from the beginning of an arrhythmia to a nurse arriving in the patient������������������s room and to establish the relevant actors and system constraints. Second, we will choose the 3 setups that have the shortest response time (from arrhythmia start to nurse in room) and conduct detailed observations and 20 VT/VF simulations in each one. Among the data collected will be the proportion of critical and non-critical alarms responded to and their associated response times and the distribution of time spent on nursing tasks. These data will inform development of a computer simulation model of each setup that will allow us to identify the most efficient one. The simulation models will also allow us to conduct sensitivity (���������������what-if������������������) analyses. Finally, we will implement the monitoring setup determined by the simulation models to be the most efficient in a patient care unit that employs a different setup. We will conduct 40 VT/VF simulations prior to the implementation and 40 additional simulations following it. We hypothesize that response times to the critical arrhythmias will be shorter with the new monitoring setup. The expected outcome of this study is a catalog of monitoring factors that can favorably and unfavorably impact response times to critical arrhythmias. The knowledge gained will inform efforts to develop and study interventions to improve response time to cardiac arrhythmias and will ultimately help to develop evidence-based monitoring standards. The application of such standards is expected to improve survival after in-hospital cardiac arrest.

The loss of premium performance film due to visible distortions created by adhesive tape used in roll to roll processing will be addressed by developing a combination of interventions which may include changes in film attachment to the core, adhesion to the core, and core characteristics. The combination of changes may require a change in equipment used in the take up process, roll to roll process parameters and core specifications.

Objective: Designing and optimizing the supply chain has become a priority as well as a necessity for the survival of the US textile complex. However, the focus has been primarily on forward supply chain operations, and there has been very little consideration of utilizing recovered products or recycled raw materials and the reverse supply chain As such, many of the current networks and/or products are currently not suitable for closed loop recycling. Closed loop recycling is becoming increasingly important due to consumers? heightened environmental consciousness, governmental legislation, and raw material costs owing to fluctuations in oil prices. In 2007, the United States generated 254.1 million tons of municipal solid waste. Of this total disposal, 11.9 million tons were discarded textile wastes. Only 1.9 million tons, or 15.9%, were recovered for recycling, energy generation, or composting (U.S. EPA website). Because of the large amount of textiles consumed on a yearly basis, developing closed loop recycling systems has the potential to have a significant positive environmental impact, and, if efficient, a positive impact on revenues of textile companies as well. Developing an efficient closed loop recycling system for textile materials involves both creating processes to transform the used material into a desirable output and then setting up and operating appropriate manufacturing and logistics distribution structures for the arising flows of recovered products. This project will investigate and focus on the latter. The following figure illustrates the forward and reverse supply chain for a general product where the recovered/returned product can be used in many ways within the supply chain.

Designing and optimizing the supply chain has become a priority as well as a necessity for the survival of the US textile complex. However, the focus has been primarily on forward supply chain operations, and there has been very little consideration of utilizing recovered products or recycled raw materials and the reverse supply chain As such, many of the current networks and/or products are currently not suitable for closed loop recycling. Closed loop recycling is becoming increasingly important due to consumers? heightened environmental consciousness, governmental legislation, and raw material costs owing to fluctuations in oil prices. In 2007, the United States generated 254.1 million tons of municipal solid waste. Of this total disposal, 11.9 million tons were discarded textile wastes. Only 1.9 million tons, or 15.9%, were recovered for recycling, energy generation, or composting (U.S. EPA website). Because of the large amount of textiles consumed on a yearly basis, developing closed loop recycling systems has the potential to have a significant positive environmental impact, and, if efficient, a positive impact on revenues of textile companies as well. Developing an efficient closed loop recycling system for textile materials involves both creating processes to transform the used material into a desirable output and then setting up and operating appropriate manufacturing and logistics distribution structures for the arising flows of recovered products. This project will investigate and focus on the latter. The following figure illustrates the forward and reverse supply chain for a general product where the recovered/returned product can be used in many ways within the supply chain.

Designing and optimizing the supply chain has become a priority as well as a necessity for the survival of the US textile complex. However, the focus has been primarily on forward supply chain operations, and there has been very little consideration of utilizing recovered products or recycled raw materials and the reverse supply chain As such, many of the current networks and/or products are currently not suitable for closed loop recycling. Closed loop recycling is becoming increasingly important due to consumers? heightened environmental consciousness, governmental legislation, and raw material costs owing to fluctuations in oil prices. In 2007, the United States generated 254.1 million tons of municipal solid waste. Of this total disposal, 11.9 million tons were discarded textile wastes. Only 1.9 million tons, or 15.9%, were recovered for recycling, energy generation, or composting (U.S. EPA website). Because of the large amount of textiles consumed on a yearly basis, developing closed loop recycling systems has the potential to have a significant positive environmental impact, and, if efficient, a positive impact on revenues of textile companies as well. Developing an efficient closed loop recycling system for textile materials involves both creating processes to transform the used material into a desirable output and then setting up and operating appropriate manufacturing and logistics distribution structures for the arising flows of recovered products as well as determining operational policies. Current ITT research involves determining facility locations and recycling costs, primarily for carpet. This project proposes to further develop the operational decision making portion of the closed loop textile recycling framework by developing a detailed simulation model and considering two different types of textiles products, an apparel garment and a technical textile product.

The primary focus of this project is to streamline pathways through which students receive an education that equips them with the computing tools necessary for them to serve as future computing leaders of society. Ultimately, the proposed activities are designed to make the computing education more relevant to the ever-changing needs of the computing workforce in the United States. To achieve these objectives, the institution proposes assembling a community of individuals, each of whom is invested in their own unique way to revitalizing the undergraduate computing education. The community will involve faculty representatives from several academic departments, faculty from CISE disciplines, and delegates from industry partner organizations. Faculty learning communities are nothing new to academe. The goal of the efforts proposed here is to put a new twist on a proven faculty collaboration method. To date, many learning communities have been limited to faculty involvement only, and involvement from engineering faculty in these formal university-wide communities has been somewhat disappointing. Although, these university communities can be an effective means of addressing many issues pertinent to education, the proposed activities seek to encourage a variety of key computing stakeholders outside of the university to participate. The community created would partner with local industry leaders to open up meaningful channels for dialogue to flow from industry to the university. The community seeks to view industry partners as customers so that university educators can perform a needs-assessment by which the computing skills relevant to today's computing professionals are determined. Faculty can then translate these needs into their respective curricula in order to create a diverse, flexible education that will result in a diverse, flexible workforce of computing professionals.

Efficient implementation of closed-loop supply chains requires setting up appropriate logistics distribution structures for the arising flows of used and recovered products. In this research, we propose developing a logistics network design in a reverse logistics context that can be used in the textile industry. We propose developing a framework that can be utilized to design these types of reverse production systems for several different sectors (i.e., carpet. industrial textiles, and apparel). Even though these three types may undergo different processes of demanufacturing, remanufacturing and/or recycling (see Figure 1) the same basic methodology should be applicable with different inputs. The research will look at developing a mixed integer programming model that represents the key inputs of determining the number, location size of the collection sites as well as processing facilities and logistics needed to support this infrastructure. Moreover, we use our model to analyze the impact of the uncertainty of product return flows on the logistics networks in order to develop a robust solution. While product recovery may efficiently be integrated in existing logistics structures in many cases, other examples require a more comprehensive approach redesigning a company's logistics network in an integral way.

The numerous challenges faced today by global business organizations especially the US textile and apparel industry is expected to increase in intensity and complexity as we move through this century. This increasingly competitive environment has resulted in firms looking for efficient and competitive supply chains that will offer flexibility as well as robustness to combat this competitiveness. The dynamics of faster product development have both benefited the consumer and set new expectation standards for firms to meet market requirements. However, not understanding where you are in the Supply Chain Evolution curve or the linkages that occur within your own chain may lead to vulnerabilities or failures. If portions of your chain are eliminated or diminished, how will this affect your company? This research aims to identify and explore the supply chain linkages that exist for several selected markets (e.g., performance fabrics, industrial fabrics, automotive, etc.). The strengths, opportunities and vulnerabilities of each of the supply chains will be identified in order to assist the US industry in making better strategic decisions.

In order to make intelligent decisions relative to sourcing textile products, a decision maker needs the ability to quantify the differences in performance (financial, service, and/or otherwise) between a cost-effective but long lead-time supplier and one that is fast and responsive but not as cost-effective. More importantly, there is evidence to suggest that companies often do not use an accurate model of total cost of goods in making sourcing decisions but instead rely on production/labor cost without taking into account the true landed costs. In this research, we plan to develop a comprehensive cost model of various sourcing strategies from many different regions/distribution channels (i.e. domestic, Americas, India/Pakistan, and the Far East). In addition, we will extend our previous ITT work by employing the developed cost model with our dynamic Sourcing simulation tool and again look at the effect that inventory and demand variations have on the profitability and service of organizations employing a more accurate total cost of goods.