Mines ParisTech

About: Mines ParisTech is a education organization based out in Paris, France. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Finite element method & Microstructure. The organization has 6564 authors who have published 11676 publications receiving 359898 citations. The organization is also known as: École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris & École des mines de Paris.

Minding the Gaps: Creating Resilience in Health Care

Abstract: Resilience is the intrinsic ability of a system to adjust its functioning prior to, during, or following changes and disturbances so that it can sustain required operations, even after a major mishap or in the presence of continuous stress. As an emergent property of systems that is not tied to tallies of adverse events or estimates of their probability, resilience provides the means for organizations to target resource investments by integrating safety and productivity concerns. Resilience engineering (RE) can enable an organization to cope with and recover from unexpected developments, such as maintaining the ability to adapt when demands go beyond an organization’s customary operating boundary. Understanding resilience makes the difference between organizations that inadvertently create complexity and miss signals that risks are increasing, and those that can manage high-hazard processes well. We discuss two examples of resilience: the response of an emergency department staff to surges in patient volume and design improvements to the infusion device control/display interface.

X-ray and neutron imaging – Complementary techniques for materials science and engineering

Abstract: Using X-ray and neutron radiography and tomography, images of material and component inhomogeneities and their development with time can be obtained. Due to their non-destructiveness and non-invasive nature both methods give insight into the function of devices and their decay processes. Fundamentals of X-ray and neutron radiography and tomography are briefly outlined, examples for both techniques are given, their complementarities are highlighted and emerging techniques and frontiers are discussed.

Activation and deactivation of self-healing in supramolecular rubbers

Abstract: A remarkable self-healing property has been achieved recently with rubbers formed by a supramolecular network of oligomers. Here we explore this property through a tack-like experiment where two parts of supramolecular rubber are simply brought into contact and then taken apart. These experiments reveal that the self-adhesive strength of rubber surfaces is significantly enhanced by fracture or other damaging processes. The mechanical energy required to separate two fracture surfaces that were brought back into contact is about one order of magnitude larger than that for surfaces close to thermodynamic equilibrium. Moreover, we find that fracture faces stored apart at room temperature still self-heal after 12 h but that this self-healing can be fully deactivated within a couple of hours by annealing around 90 °C. More generally, these results provide useful quantitative data to investigate the intensity and kinetics of self-healing in these soft rubbers.