Within the United States solar energy industry, there is a general motto of “set it and forget it” with solar energy. This notion is derived from much of the research and reliability studies around the photovoltaic (PV) panels themselves, not necessarily the PV system as a whole (including the inverter and other components). This implies that maintenance and regular monitoring is not needed. Yet many things can go wrong to cause the actual performance to deviate from the expected performance. If failures and/or unanticipated degradation issues go undetected, they will lead to reduced energy generation (and associated electricity credits) and/or potential loss of component warranty because of manufacturer turnover. Given the size of the problem and gaps with current solutions, the authors propose that PV system owners need an unbiased third-party off-the-shelf system-level predictive maintenance tool to optimize return-on-investment and minimize time to warranty claim in PV installations. This paper reviews the literature highlighting challenges, current approaches, and opportunities for PV predictive maintenance. The paper concludes with a call to action for establishing a collaborative agenda toward prioritizing PV predictive maintenance.

Purpose: Investing in Industry 4.0 is an important consideration for manufacturing firms who strive to remain competitive in this global economy, but the uncertainty and complexity of where to focus technology investments is a problem facing many manufacturers. The purpose of this paper is to highlight a region of manufacturing firms in the Midwest USA to investigate the role of firm size, access to funds and industry type on decision to invest in and deploy various Industry 4.0 technologies. Design/methodology/approach: A survey was developed, piloted, and deployed to manufacturing companies located in the Midwest USA, specifically, Indiana, USA. A total of 138 manufacturing firms completed the full survey. The survey participants were requested to rank order the various technology categories with respect to previous historical spending, workforce capabilities and anticipated return on investment. The survey was supplemented with publically available data. Due to the use of rank-order data to identify Industry 4.0 priorities, a non-parametric analysis was completed using the Kruskall Wallis test. Findings: The findings suggest that manufacturers with less than 20 employees and/or less access to funds (sales less than $10m) prioritize digital factory floor technologies (e.g. technology directly impacting productivity, quality and safety of manufacturing processes). Larger manufacturers with 20 or more employees and/or access to more funds (sales greater than or equal to $10m) prioritize enterprise support operations technologies. Originality/value: Research studies and reports tend to lump manufacturing’s perspective of Industry 4.0 into one homogenous group, and rarely acknowledge the limited participation of “smaller” Small and medium-sized enterprises, which account for the far majority of manufacturing firms in the USA. The value of this study is on the “novelty of approach,” in that the data collection and analysis focuses on heterogeneity of manufacturing firms with respect to size, access to funds and industry type. The findings and recommendations are beneficial and relevant to organizations supporting Industry 4.0 efforts through workforce development and economic development initiatives.

The purpose of this study was to identify demographic, clinical, psychosocial, physical and environmental factors that are associated with participation in and adherence to a combined resistance and endurance exercise program among cancer survivors, shortly after completion of primary cancer treatment. Data from the randomized controlled Resistance and Endurance exercise After ChemoTherapy (REACT) study were used for this study. The participants of the REACT study were randomly allocated to either a high intensity (HI) or low-to-moderate intensity (LMI) exercise program. Patients’ participation rate was defined as the cancer survivors’ decision to participate in the REACT study. Exercise adherence reflected participants’ attendance to the scheduled exercise sessions and their compliance to the prescribed exercises. High session attendance rates were defined as attending at least 80 % of the sessions. High compliance rates were defined as performing at least of 90 % of the prescribed exercise across all sessions. Correlates of exercise adherence were studied separately for HI and LMI exercise. Demographic, clinical, and physical factors were assessed using self-reported questionnaires. Relevant clinical information was extracted from medical records. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were applied to identify correlates that were significantly associated with participation, high session attendance, high compliance with resistance and high compliance with endurance exercises. Participants were more likely to have higher education, be non-smokers, have lower psychological distress, higher outcome expectations, and perceive more exercise barriers than non-participants. In HI exercise, higher self-efficacy was significantly associated with high session attendance and high compliance with endurance exercises, and lower psychological distress was significantly associated with high compliance with resistance exercises. In LMI exercise, being a non-smoker was significantly associated with high compliance with resistance exercises and higher BMI was significantly associated with high compliance with resistance and endurance exercises. Furthermore, breast cancer survivors were less likely to report high compliance with resistance and endurance exercises in LMI exercise compared to survivors of other types of cancer. The discriminative ability of the multivariable models ranged from 0.62 to 0.75. Several demographic, clinical and psychosocial factors were associated with participation in and adherence to exercise among cancer survivors. Psychosocial factors were more strongly associated with adherence in HI than LMI exercise. This study was registered at the Netherlands Trial Register [ NTR2153 ] on the 5th of January 2010.

Higher education provides plenty of opportunity for theory and in many cases, even the ability to apply theory in a laboratory setting. Yet, there remains limited opportunity for students to learn by doing through participation in authentic learning experiences. The purpose of this paper is to provide one potential solution for integrating authentic learning into the engineering classroom by cultivating the entrepreneurial mindset. As entrepreneurship serves as an integral part of the economy, developing an entrepreneurial mindset through authentic learning experiences is essential for engineers. While online discussion prompts represent a useful way for educators to facilitate student learning, less is known about how to facilitate online discussions in a way that truly cultivates an entrepreneurial mindset for engineering students. In this paper, the key intentions of entrepreneurially-minded learning are reviewed, and a guide for creating online discussions applicable to any engineering course is presented. Example online discussion prompts incorporating the entrepreneurial mindset are then shared from an Introduction to Engineering course. Results from a mixed methods survey instrument suggests positive impacts towards student perceptions of online discussions and development of the entrepreneurial mindset. Recommendations for effectively and efficiently facilitating online discussions for entrepreneurially-minded learning in the engineering classroom are offered.

Developing and underdeveloped countries face innumerable problems related to the accessibility and quality of energy that put the lives of patients, health-care infrastructures, and health workers at risk. Current approaches, such as grid power, unsustainable energy sources such as diesel or gas, and mobile health clinics, have proven insufficient to address this issue. In response, access to reliable health care and electricity has undergone multiple transformations in the last decade, especially in remote and rural areas. Good health and clean energy are two of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, originally designed to be a “shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” Unfortunately, little is known about the interaction between health-care access and energy access in developing and underdeveloped countries, mainly in remote or rural areas. For this reason, this study conducts a review of the literature, including current approaches, challenges, and opportunities for the implementation of solar energy in health centers. As a result, several challenges and opportunities in three impact areas are presented: (1) operational, (2) environmental, and (3) economic. This study delivers detailed information that allows the implementation of solar energy in the health-care sector (in a more effective manner) by sharing best practices.

Engineer, innovators, and designers play a critical role in the economy by addressing pressing problems and creating solutions that are new and innovative. It is a role that involves technical skills but also requires curiosity, an ability to connect pieces of knowledge to discover solutions, and a focus on value creation – which are all characteristic of the entrepreneurial mindset. There are many different design-focused frameworks that can be used to enhance the entrepreneurial mindset; this study focuses on four of them: systems thinking, design thinking, the value proposition canvas, and the business model canvas. The purpose of this paper is to highlight a new approach to developing the entrepreneurial mindset that goes beyond the proverbial “checking boxes” to providing an approach for demonstrating the integration of doing (artifact development) and thinking (reflection). This innovative and experimental approach offers two unique attributes. First, it is a scaffold in that instruction of each of the four modules builds on the other, further enhancing and grounding the learning experience. Second, students are required to continuously reflect on the process. This encourages students to think about learning in a holistic manner, allowing the ability to connect classroom learning with specific current and future utility. The findings suggest that students were able to recognize why the design-focused frameworks and learning activities were important outside of the classroom, particularly in relation to workforce preparation and securing future employment.