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The purpose of this paper is to verify the feasibility and evaluate the dimensional accuracy of two rapid casting (RC) solutions based on 3D printing technology: investment casting starting from 3D‐printed starch patterns and the ZCast process for the production of cavities for light‐alloys castings.

Starting from the identification and design of a benchmark, technological prototypes were produced with the two RC processes. Measurements on a coordinate measuring machine allowed calculating the dimensional tolerances of the proposed technological chains. The predictive performances of computer aided engineering (CAE) software were verified when applied to the ZCast process modelling.

The research proved that both the investigated RC solutions are effective in obtaining cast technological prototypes in short times and with low costs, with dimensional tolerances that are completely consistent with metal casting processes.

The research assessed the feasibility and dimensional performances of two RC solutions, providing data that are extremely useful for the industrial application of the considered technologies.

The paper deals with experimental work on innovative techniques on which data are still lacking in literature. In particular, an original contribution to the determination of dimensional tolerances and the investigation on the predictive performances of commercial CAE software is provided.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how the direct access to additive manufacturing (AM) systems impacts on education of future mechanical engineers, within a Master’s program at a top Italian University.

A survey is specifically designed to assess the relevance of entry-level AM within the learning environment, as a tool for project development. The survey is distributed anonymously to three consecutive cohorts of students who attended the course of “computer-aided production (CAP)”, within the Master of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering at Politecnico di Torino. The course includes a practical project, consisting in the design of a polymeric product with multiple components and ending with the production of an assembled prototype. The working assembly is fabricated by the students themselves, who operate a fused deposition modelling (FDM) machine, finish the parts and evaluate assemblability and functionality. The post-course survey covers diverse aspects of the learning process, such as: motivation, knowledge acquisition, new abilities and team-working skills. Responses are analyzed to evaluate students’ perception of the usefulness of additive technologies in learning product design and development. Among the projects, one representative case study is selected and discussed.

Results of the research affirm a positive relationship of access to AM devices to perceived interest, motivation and ease of learning of mechanical engineering. Entry-level additive technologies offer a hands-on experience within academia, fostering the acquisition of technical knowledge.

The survey is distributed to more than 200 students to cover the full population of the CAP course over three academic years. The year the students participated in the CAP course is not tracked because the instructor was the same and there were no administrative differences. For this reason, the survey administration might be a limitation of the current study. In addition to this, no gender distinction is made because historically, the percentage of female students in Mechanical Engineering courses is about 10 per cent or lower. Although the answers to the survey are anonymous, only 37 per cent of the students gave a feedback. Thus, on the one hand, impact assessment is limited to a sample of about one-third of the complete population, but, on the other hand, the anonymity ensures randomization in the sample selection.

Early exposure of forthcoming designers to AM tools can turn into a “think-additive” approach to product design, that is a groundbreaking conception of geometries and product functionalities, leading to the full exploitation of the possibilities offered by additive technologies.

Shared knowledge can act as a springboard for mass adoption of AM processes.

The advantages of adopting AM technologies at different levels of education, for diverse educational purposes and disciplines, are well assessed in the literature. The innovative aspect of this paper is that the impact of AM is evaluated through a feedback coming directly from mechanical engineering students.

Additive manufacturing is today a viable industrial solution alongside traditional processes. Techniques like selective laser sintering (SLS) address the issues of digital production and mass customization in a variety of materials. Composite parts can be obtained with specific functional and mechanical properties. Building orientation during additive manufacturing often causes anisotropy of parts' properties that is still unspecified in technical information. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanical performances and failure mechanisms of an aluminium‐filled polyamide and of a new alumina‐polyamide composite produced by SLS, in comparison with unfilled PA.

A specific focus is set on the evaluation of primary and secondary anisotropy in the case of metal or ceramic filler, as well as on the specific contribution of powder distribution modes and joining phenomena. Macroscopic mechanical tests and the observation of joining and failure micro‐mechanisms are integrated.

The results prove the absence of relevant anisotropy amongst specimens that are produced with the axis parallel to the plane of powder deposition. Samples whose axis is parallel to the growth direction Z, instead, reveal a significantly different response with respect to other orientations.

An original explanatory model is assumed and validated, based on an anisotropic distribution of the reinforcing particles during parts' production, which determines the efficacy of the strengthening mechanisms during crack propagation.

The purpose of this paper is to report an interdisciplinary, cooperative-learning project in a second-year course within the “Enzo Ferrari” Master of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering. The work aims to raise awareness of the educational impact of additive manufacturing and reverse engineering.

Students are asked to develop, concurrently, the design and the manufacturing solution for an eye-tracker head mount. A digital head model is reverse engineered from an anatomical mannequin and used as an ergonomic mock-up. The project includes prototype testing and cost analysis. The device is produced using additive manufacturing techniques for hands-on evaluation by the students.

Results of the presented case study substantiate the authors’ belief in the tremendous potential of interdisciplinary project-based learning, relying on innovative technologies to encourage collaboration, motivation and dynamism.

The paper confirms a spreading conviction that the soon-to-be engineers will need new practice-oriented capabilities to cope with new competitive scenarios. Engineering education must adapt to the social, rather than industrial, revolution that is being brought about by additive fabrication.

Insurance‐linked securities can benefit both issuers and investors; they supply insurance and reinsurance companies with additional risk capital at reasonable prices (with little or no credit risk), and supply excess returns to investors that are uncorrelated with the returns of other financial assets. This article explains the terminology of insurance and reinsurance, the structure of insurance‐linked securities, and provides an overview of major transactions. First, there is a discussion of how stochastic catastrophe modeling has been applied to assess the risk of natural catastrophes, including the reliability and validation of the risk models. Second, the authors compare the risk‐adjusted returns of recent securitizations on the basis of relative value. Compared with high‐yield bonds, catastrophe (“CAT”) bonds have wide spreads and very attractive Sharpe ratios. In fact, the risk‐adjusted returns on CAT bonds dominate high‐yield bonds. Furthermore, since natural catastrophe risk is essentially uncorrelated with market risk, high expected excess returns make CAT bonds high‐alpha assets. The authors illustrate this point and show that a relatively small allocation of insurance‐linked securities within a fixed income portfolio can enhance the expected return and simultaneously decrease risk, without significantly changing the skewness and kurtosis of the return distribution.

This study aims to offer a bibliometric and coding analysis of blockchain articles published in the accounting, auditing and accountability fields.

The data were collected using the Scopus database and a bibliometric and qualitative coding analysis with the keywords “blockchain” and “accounting” or “auditing” or “accountability.” Of the 514 initial sources, 93 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and conference proceedings in the areas of business, management and accounting were finally selected. Nonscientific sources such as nonpeer-reviewed books and white papers were excluded.

This study reveals a promising and multidisciplinary field of research dominated by scholars and less by practitioners. Qualitative research, especially discourse analysis, is the most used method among authors. This study gives some useful insights about blockchain's definition and characteristics, business models, processes involved, connection with other technologies and relationships with accounting theories. Among the most interesting insights, the results confirm that technology as an external force can create an intersection among several research areas: accounting, auditing, accountability, business, management, computer science and engineering fields. Finally, in terms of research themes, although blockchain has a clear effect on auditing accounting, the links with the area of accountability are less clear and validated.

This study highlights the current state of the field, combining methodological approaches and providing valuable future research insights. Additionally, it is also a starting point for professionals to fully understand blockchain's characteristics and potential with a constructive and systemic approach.

This study aims to take a holistic perspective to investigate how open innovation supports sustainability and the contribution to the Unite Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The study is based on an in-depth single case study of Andriani SpA, a leading Italian company in the food industry. The case is built by triangulating data from direct observations, documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews.

The findings show an organization that has developed its competitive advantage by adopting open innovation to embed sustainability in its strategy and business model. The case study complements the understanding of how open innovation can effectively drive strategic renewal and innovation activities to address sustainability objectives in the food industry.

This study contributes to theoretical development by offering new and insightful explanations of firms' strategic behaviour and coevolution toward sustainability via open innovation. It provides practitioners, policymakers, researchers and students with reflections and inspiration about how open innovation may be deployed to support a holistic strategic renewal aimed at sustainability objectives, such as the SDGs, in the food industry.

The Mechanical Engineering course at the University of Campinas is composed of different disciplines in the areas of materials, mechanical design, manufacturing (production and manufacturing), computational systems, thermal and fluids. In the manufacturing area, in particular, there is a discipline entitled Productive Systems whose main objective is to offer to the student a global vision about operations management. In the field of operations management, sustainability is gaining more and more importance; thus, it is important to develop in the students a critical sense about social and environmental aspects. Thus, this paper aims to present the main initiatives developed in the discipline to promote sustainability in engineering students.

Since 2015, the professors responsible for the Productive Systems discipline, assisted by post-graduate students and professors from other universities, have begun to redesign the discipline, including debates, lectures, projects and other initiatives to provide a critical view concerning the traditional concepts taught. The discipline has been performed three times with this new conception. The methodology to structure this research was literature review, documental analyses of the discipline records and meetings with professors that participated in the initiatives. An Action Research approach was performed by two professors and a graduate student. The authors of this paper also compared the results with those obtained by initiatives performed at Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden).

This study allowed to reinforce some results from initiatives performed at Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden); however, some differences were identified. For example, similar to the initiatives mentioned, the professors of University of Campinas had problems with didactic books, as they loosely integrate the basic operations management concepts with sustainable development fundamentals. On the other hand, debates related to social sustainability were considered positive from the point of view of the professors and students, differing from initiatives performed at Chalmers University of Technology.

Results come from one field study (University of Campinas) when professors of the Mechanical Engineering course try to integrate operations management concepts and sustainable development. Different results may be observed by other higher education institutions.

The authors of this paper believe that the diffusion of these initiatives can stimulate other professors and researchers in the field to broaden the academic debate about the insertion of sustainability into engineering courses.

There are few papers presenting didactic experiences and empirical results about the integration of operations management concepts and sustainable development. Results of this paper reinforce some good practices and they also present other ones, in a way that extend the debate about educational engineering.

With a growing list of available materials and processes, the inherent mechanical and thermophysical properties of three-dimensional (3D) prints are important design targets. This paper aims to study the functionality of binder jet 3D printed objects for thermally activated building construction elements and recyclable formwork for concrete structures.

Binder jet printed sand samples with various material and post-processing parameters (infiltration and baking) are prepared and studied. Using a statistical experiment design, the mechanical (flexural and compressive strength) and thermal (conductivity and specific capacity) characteristics are quantified.

Relative to the unprocessed “green” print samples, post-processing improved the flexural and compressive strength of the samples by factors of 6.9 and 21.6, respectively; the thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity were improved by factors of 7.7 and 1.2, respectively. For the investigated temperature range (20°C–200°C), the “green” prints showed excellent stability while the stability of post-processed samples depended on the infiltrate used. Microscopic images of the microstructures offered evidence to support improvement in the mechanical and thermo-physical characteristics of the 3D printed sand elements.

The literature review concluded that optimal printing parameters and infiltration under vacuum could further improve the mechanical and thermo-physical properties of the binder jet printed elements. However, both these factors were not explored in this research. The statistical experimental design approach provided more flexibility to choose the number of experiments for a fixed amount of time and resources. However, for future work, a more extensive number of experiments and reproducibility testing for each combination of binder-infiltrate is recommended.

3D printing has been identified as a promising opportunity to reduce material usage and improve construction efficiency in the field of architecture and building engineering. The emerging fabrication technologies are further expected to significantly reduce the operational energy of buildings through performance integration, i.e. multi-functional building elements with integrated heat- and mass-transfer capabilities to replace conventional systems.

This study has quantified the impact of infiltration on the mechanical and thermo-physical characteristics of sand-printed elements and, as such, reports reproducible functional performance maps for sand-print applications. The research demonstrates a way to achieve the desired functional characteristics of 3D prints through combinations of material selection and process/post-processing parameters.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that human resource development (HRD) needs to embrace and include futures and foresight learning (FFL) as a new addition to its field of theorising and practice. The question to consider is: How can FFL become a new feature of HRD? A key part of the authors’ argument is that the inclusion of FFL will enable HRD to add to the success of any organisation and make a vital contribution to the management of people at work.

This paper firstly considers some of the debates surrounding the meaning of HRD. The authors suggest that instability of the time serves to disturb any comforts that have been created in HRD and that there is a need to consider how there might be different futures for what we still call HRD in research, practice and praxis. This paper then considers how FFL might become one possibility for expanding the existing boundaries of HRD. The authors characterise futures and foresight as a learning process, which provides new but complementary features to what is already considered as HRD. This paper will show how FFL can lead to organisation's success and the way this can be achieved.

There is a wide variety of meanings of the term HRD; however, HRD is still cast as a “weakened profession” which has to play a subservient role to others in the workplace. Over the last 15 years, the expansion of the meaning of HRD has been seen as evidence of its evolving and emerging nature and development based on a co-creation with other disciplines. This creates a space for FFL, defined as an ongoing learning process to find predictable, probable, possible and/or a variety of long-term futures. FFL embraces three key processes of scanning, futuring and reconfiguring, all of which contain a high potential for participants and others to learn as they proceed, providing outcomes at each stage. FFL has been shown to enhance organisation performance and success and HRD interventions can play a key part in implementation. This represents a significant opportunity for the HRD profession to move from weakness towards strength.

For HRD researchers, while FFL is not yet on its radar, the authors would argue that the uncertainties of the future require that more attention be given to what might lie ahead. Indeed, HRD researchers need to ask the question: What is the future of HRD research? In addition, if the authors’ call for FFL to be included in the practice of HRD, such practice will itself provide new pathways for HRD research. Further research questions might include: To what extent is FFL practiced in organisations and what role do HRD practitioners play in delivery? How does FFL impact on organisation behaviour and outcomes? What new products and services emerge from FFL? What new skills are required to deliver FFL? Can FFL enhance the status of HRD practitioners in the work place and its role in decision-making? and How can the HRD profession develop as a hybrid profession with respect to machine learning (ML)/artificial intelligence (AI)?

FFL produces outcomes that have importance for strategy, HRD practitioner can learn to facilitate FFL by action learning and in leadership development programmes. FFL offers a significant opportunity to enhance the importance of HRD in organisations and beyond. FFL offers those involved in HRD a significant opportunity to transfer ideas into practice that have an impact on organisation sustainability. HRD can play a significant role in the design and delivery of ML and AI projects.

This paper concludes with a call for embracing FFL as a challenging but important addition to how we talk about learning at work. The authors argue that FFL offers a significant opportunity to enhance the importance of HRD in organisations and beyond. At its centre, FFL involves learning by people, groups, organisations and machines and this has to be of concern to HRD.