Cottage industries comprise a sub-group of informal sector income generation activities which are conducted in the home environment and organized around families or households. Cottage industry workers may be at risk of exposure to harmful substances associated with their work, and given the lack of separation of cottage industry activities from living spaces, their families and neighbors may s...

The NSERC Strategic Grant project, with industrial co-funding from Rio Tinto Alcan and in kind support from Environment Canada, awarded to Dr. Chris Wood (McMaster University) and Dr. Jim McGeer (Wilfrid Laurier University) has officially started in September. The project is titled “Development of a Tissue Residue Approach for Risk Assessment of Metals in the Canadian Freshwater Environment. Th...

This report, prepared by the Center for Competitive Analysis of the University of Missouri Outreach and Extension (UO/E), provides an overview of some important aspects of the Sheet Metal Work industry (“sheet metal industry”), Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code 3444. Its primary intended audiences are UO/E, which may consider educational programming designed to assist business owner...

The metal fmishing industry uses over 40 production processes to produce a wide range of metal products. Waste streams generated include wastewater, waste oils, spent solvents, and spent process solutions. Current1,v a wide variety of techniques which minimize waste are available. Cost-effective methods to reduce electroplating wastewater contamination include water conserv&ion and drag-out red...

The purpose of our research project is to develop a “clean interface” between design and fabrication facilities for the production of custom machined parts. The research accomplishments are summarized: 1.Creation of a new format for data exchange, NCML (Numerically Controlled Markup Language), 2. Development of three prototype systems to illustrate how NCML can be effectively used to conduct E-...

Die performance and its service life is a non-trivial issue in metal forming industry as many factors in die life cycle from design, fabrication, to downstream service, all affect it. In this report, a simulation-based approach for die life estimation and improvement is developed by employing the FEM technology and metal fatigue theory. Using industrial part as case study, the validity, robustn...

The semiconductor industry is headed towards a new era of scaling and uncertainty with new key building blocks for the next-generation chips, the high-κ metal-gate transistor. There is a need for statistical characterization of high-κ metal-gate digital gates as a function of process parameter variations to make them available for designers. In this paper, we present a methodology for PVT aware...

Supported metal oxide based olefin metathesis catalysts are widely used in the chemical industry. In comparison to their organometallic catalyst cousins, the oxide catalysts have much lower activity due to the very small fraction of active sites. We report that a simple pretreatment of MoO3/SiO2 and WO3/SiO2 under an olefincontaining atmosphere at elevated temperatures leads to a 100−1000fold i...

Workers in the road construction industry include asphalt plant, ground construction, and road paving workers. These individuals can be exposed to a wide range of potentially hazardous substances. A summary of levels of exposure to different substances measured during road construction is presented. In modern road paving, workers typically are exposed to 0.1 to 2 mg/m3 of bitumen fume, which in...

Metal fiber porous materials with intrinsic properties of metal and functional properties of porous materials have received a great deal of attention in the fundamental research and industry applications. With developments of the preparation technologies and industrial requirements, porous fiber metals with excellent properties are developed and applied in many industry areas, e.g., sound absor...