The work contains the results of the Sixth International Conference on Advanced Manufacturing Systems and Technology – AMST’02, which was held in Udine in June 2002. It presents up-to-date information on the latest developments – research results and experience – in the field of machining of conventional and advanced materials, machine tools and flexible manufacturing systems, forming, nonconventional processes, robotics, measurement and control, quality, design and ecodesign, rapid prototyping, rapid tooling and manufacturing, materials and mechanics.

Manufacturing a product is not difficult, the difficulty consists in manufacturing a product of high quality, at a low cost and rapidly. Drastic technological advances are changing global markets very rapidly. In such conditions the ability to compete successfully must be based on innovative ideas and new products which has to be of high quality yet low in price. One way to achieve these objecti ves would be through massive investments in research of computer based technology and by applying the approaches presented in this book. The First International Conference on Advanced Manufacturing Systems and Technology AMST87 was held in Opatija (Croatia) in October 1987. The Second International Conference on Advanced Manufacturing Systems and Technology AMSV90 was held in Trento (Italy) in lune 1990. The Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Conferences on Advanced Manufacturing Systems and Technology were all held in Udine (Italy) as follows: AMST93 in April 1993, AMST96 in September 1996, AMST99 in June 1999 and AMST02 in June 2002.

This book illustrates the main characteristics, challenges and optimisation requirements of robotic disassembly. It provides a comprehensive insight on two crucial optimisation problems in the areas of robotic disassembly through a group of unified mathematical models. The online and offline optimisation of the operational sequence to dismantle a product, for example, is represented with a list of conflicting objectives and constraints. It allows the decision maker and the robots to match the situation automatically and efficiently. To identify a generic solution under different circumstances, classical metaheuristics that can be used for the optimisation of robotic disassembly are introduced in detail. A flexible framework is then presented to implement existing metaheuristics for sequence planning and line balancing in the circumstance of robotic disassembly. Optimisation of Robotic Disassembly for Remanufacturing provides practical case studies on typical product instances to help practitioners design efficient robotic disassembly with minimal manual operation, and offers comparisons of the state-of-the-art metaheuristics on solving the key optimisation problems. Therefore, it will be of interest to engineers, researchers, and postgraduate students in the area of remanufacturing.

Liposomal Encapsulation in Food Science and Technology provides all the possible applications of liposomes in food and allied systems, along with recent advances made in these fields. This helps researchers in food science and technology, as well as those in interdisciplinary fields, better explore the opportunities that liposomal encapsulation offers. Among other topics, the book covers formulation and characterization of liposome, liposome mediated encapsulation of antimicrobials and probiotics, liposome-assisted delivery of enzymes and proteins, and liposome for delivery of dietary nutrients and nutraceuticals, etc. This approach facilitates building better dedicated or tandem approaches in respective fields for process/product development. Written by an international team of contributors, the book will aid academicians in developing more industry useful tools/techniques/products. - Brings a broader overview of different modules of liposomal encapsulation of bioactive food supplements - Provides all the possible applications of liposomes in food and allied systems, along with recent advances made in these fields - Includes chemical, physical, medical and stability related chapters

The main features of high-temperature superconductors (HTSC) that define their properties are intrinsic brittleness of oxide cuprates, the layered anisotropic structure and the supershort coherence length. Taking into account these features, this treatise presents research into HTSC microstructure and properties, and also explores the possibilities of optimization of the preparation techniques and superconducting compositions. The "composition-technique-experiment-theory-model," employed here, assumes considerable HTSC defectiveness and structure heterogeneity and helps to draw a comprehensive picture of modern representations of the microstructure, strength and the related structure-sensitive properties of the materials considered. Special attention is devoted to the Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O and Y-Ba-Cu-O families, which currently offer the most promising applications. Including a great number of illustrations and references, this monograph addresses students, post-graduate students and specialists, taking part in the development, preparation and research of new materials. The new edition had been updated intensively, especially experimental investigations and modeling conductive and elastic properties of HTC superconductors have been added.