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The main objective of this paper is to report the development of an indirect force control strategy designed to operate with industrial robotic deburring applications. More specifically, the system reported here is developed to debur high‐quality knives that incorporate innovative design from well‐known authors (fashion designers). Therefore, these products are very difficult to manufacture and have quality requirements incompatible with human‐based deburring, since humans introduce too many unacceptable deviations as a consequence of their incapacity to maintain concentration for long periods of time.

Since a good model of the environment is difficult to obtain, namely on industrial applications, a simple strategy was designed to obtain the relevant parameters leading to an acceptable performance. Consequently, the system implements an indirect force control strategy as a way to use actual robot controllers, explore the computing power of external personal computers, and the advanced features of modern force‐torque sensors. The proposed strategy is presented in some detail and further discussed using a few test‐case experiments.

Experiments show a usable setup for contour following which is very useful to obtain the work‐piece profile. A good selection of the path step seems to be, as expected, one of the most important variables to achieve good results: the smaller the increment over the trajectory the more regular is the resulting force profile. Low speeds also seem to lead to better results. The strategy implemented to maintain contact with the object and keep contact force at a certain level seems to result over surfaces with a smooth and large radius continuity, although there are significant force variations on impact with objects (which is not important since impacts can be planned), especially at the higher speeds, and even more significant near object edges. The desired contact force is also a parameter that should be tested. In the presented experiments, a contact force of 10 N was selected and oscillations of 1 N were observed around this value. In an industrial environment, more exposed to noise and vibrations, a higher contact force may be required. On the other hand, the increase of the contact force also increases the flexion of the sensing tool what brings more uncertainty to the calculated contact point. Large force oscillations imply more uncertainty of the obtained work‐piece contour. Like in any industrial process selected parameters are the ones that show acceptable results at higher execution speeds.

The objective of the presented setup is to find the better compromise for a particular industrial application, achieving acceptable operational cycle times.

The obtained results are encouraging and the ability to perform contour recognition under a specified contact force can be very useful with the automatic deburring system being developed. In fact, this feature enables the system to acquire the exact contour of the working piece in the exact same conditions that will be used for the subsequent deburring task. This will contribute to minimize error and increase the process speed.

The military operation of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine exerted additional pressure on prices on the aluminum market since aluminum supplied by Russia accounts for about 10% of the total volume of US imports. It is known that Russia has become the largest aluminum producer after China, and now there is also an increase in aluminum production. Since electricity prices remain relatively low in Russia, especially in energy-surplus Siberia, the increase in output along with the increase in metal prices is a positive factor, since 70% of the primary aluminum produced is exported and only less than a third is consumed domestically. At the same time, high aluminum prices may constrain the expansion of domestic consumption of the metal and may force manufacturers to look for a cheaper alternative. In general, the increase in aluminum prices coincides with the general “supercycle” of raw materials in the last year and a half, and there is a chance to stabilize aluminum prices at current high levels, which will be facilitated, among other things, by new metallurgical projects in Russia. At the same time, it is worth noting that limited metal supplies will haunt the industry for most of 2022, and some experts predict that it may take up to five years to solve the problems.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a multidimensional innovation index (MII) framework for measuring and benchmarking multidimensional innovation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and groups of SMEs.

A counting dual cut-off method is employed. First, output and input innovation profiles and composite scores of individual SMEs are computed. Second, a set of four composite innovation indices are generated characterizing the group of SMEs under analysis: MIIo and MIIi measure multidimensional output and input innovation, respectively; while MIIr and MIIa assess the ratio and average of MIIo and MIIi, respectively. To test the MII framework, a survey was conducted among SMEs of the metalworking industry in Portugal.

In 2012, about 28.9 percent (42.2 percent) SMEs of the Portuguese metalworking industry were determined to be multidimensional output (input) innovative. The average percentage of dimensions for which output (input) innovative SMEs were innovative was 65.0 percent (66.0 percent). Thus, the industry MII vector was (MIIo; MIIi; MIIr; MIIa)=(0.188, 0.279, 0.674; 0.233). Significant differences were found across the industry, individual SMEs’ multidimensional output and input innovation scores, enabling the identification of groups of SMEs, which can be characterized and compared by computing the corresponding and specific MII vectors.

The research has limitations because of the small size of the sample and the benchmarking possibilities it provides.

The novelty of the MII framework lies in the counting dual cut-off method employed.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a questionnaire to assess the expectations of university teachers about the importance of generic competences in Higher Education Institutions of Ecuador (E-DUC, acronym in Spanish), based on the competences typology from the Tuning Latin America Project.

A questionnaire with Likert scales was administered to 458 university teachers from seven universities in Ecuador. Exploratory and confirmatory analyzes have been carried out to validate the theoretical model.

After the validation process, four groups of generic competences were confirmed and the measurement model showed high levels of reliability, as well as content and construct validity.

Since tuning project has an international scope, the research could be replicated in other Latin American countries for comparability purposes regarding teachers’ perceived importance of generic competences in teaching activity. In addition, further research can relate teachers’ expectations with teaching performance and other constructs, based on a broad theoretical framework.

These technical characteristics allow the use of E-DUC as an instrument to measure the expectations of teachers on the general competences that are worked on in higher education in Ecuador. Data about these perceptions are useful for the design of teachers’ training programs, curriculum reforms and other higher education policies.

It is the first research carried out in Ecuador and Latin America in order to validate a scale for measuring the expectations of teachers about the importance of the generic competences proposed in the Tuning Latin America Project.

Using the theory of sensibility, the purpose of this paper is to analyze how T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land furthers our understanding of sustainable property management.

Inter-connected indicators of environmental performance disclosures (EPD) and epistemological-based aesthetic environmental accounts (EBAEA) are used to textually analyze The Waste Land’s heightening of sustainable property management.

The results of the study show that the level of EPD of The Waste Land was 80 per cent, while the level of The Waste Land’s EBAEA was 100 per cent. In terms of sustainable property management, the images of sustainable property management that permeate The Waste Land furthers our understanding of the apprehension of urban living, the intensification of assets and materials, the intrusiveness of city landmarks, the ephemeralness of the profit and loss, the inconstancy of water and the tension of torrid landscapes.

A research implication arising from the results of the study is that the property-poetry nexus may actualize new possibilities for discerning and imagining sustainable property management.

The results of the study offer fruitful paths for understanding sustainability endeavour for planners, property managers, valuers, occupiers, accountants and developers.

The Waste Land’s complex, multi-vocal, figurative, seemingly ambiguous lines render a sophisticated form of sustainable property scholarship that shapes aesthetic environmental accounts.

The study’s originality rests in its methodological approach to identify, interpret and understand sustainable property management in a modernist poem.