Stability of large amplitude forced motion of a simply supported beam

The large amplitude steady state forced motion of a simply supported beam with ends restrained to remain a fixed distance apart is represented by a series of linear normal modes. The validity of the assumption of single mode response is examined by investigating the stability of the unforced modes when a single mode is forced. The equations include the effects of an initial axial load and numerical examples are presented for axial loads in both the pre- and post-buckling regions. It is concluded that the approximation of single mode response is not always valid because of the possible instability of higher modes.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/32653/1/0000018.pd

Factors Affecting the Innovation Process in the Cypriot Food and Beverage Industry

The Food and Beverage industry, a leading sector of the Cypriot manufacturing industry is under investigation in our study. The influence of innovation as a development vehicle is considered and factors affecting it have been investigated. In order to define and introduce these factors affecting innovation in the Cypriot manufacturing sector a nationwide survey is carried out. All five prefectures (Nicosia, Ammochostos, Limasol, Larnaca and Paphos) are covered and a sample of 5% of the whole Food and Beverage sector is surveyed. A closed questionnaire, made of five sections is used in order to collect information that will be used in a second stage in order to introduce the innovation factors affecting industrial development. The results illustrate the gradual adoption of a pro-innovation culture in the Cypriot Food and Beverage Industry. Among others it was shown, that companies that have proceeded with product innovation, process innovation and organizational innovation have experienced the impact of innovation on their organizational performance.Innovation, Factor analysis, Total Quality Management

A report on forest fires in cyprus

In the last few years a number of catastrophes have taken place in Cyprus; accumulating loses of millions of pounds, destroying valuable ancient pine tree forests and disrupting rural life for days and in a few cases weeks and months. A survey, aiming to gather information and opinions about the current fire safety situation in wildland fires was carried out. The aim of this study is to provide the reader with an adequate idea about the existing situation in Cyprus as far as safety is concerned in wildland areas

Effects of air embolism size and location on porcine hepatic microcirculation in machine perfusion

The handling of donor organs frequently introduces air into the microvasculature, but little is known about the extent of the damage caused as a function of the embolism size and distribution. Here we introduced embolisms of different sizes into the portal vein, the hepatic artery, or both during the flushing stage of porcine liver procurement. The outcomes were evaluated during 3 hours of machine perfusion and were compared to the outcomes of livers with no embolisms. Dynamic contrast-enhanced ultrasound (DCEUS) was used to assess the perfusion quality, and it demonstrated that embolisms tended to flow mostly into the left lobe, occasionally into the right lobe, and rarely into the caudate lobe. Major embolisms could disrupt the flow entirely, whereas minor embolisms resulted in reduced or heterogeneous flow. Embolisms occasionally migrated to different regions of the same lobe and, regardless of their size, caused a general deterioration in the flow over time. Histological damage resulted primarily when both vessels of the liver were compromised, whereas bile production was diminished in livers that had arterial embolisms. Air embolisms produced a dose-dependent increase in vascular resistance and a decline in oxygen consumption. This is the first article to quantify the impact of air embolisms on microcirculation in an experimental model, and it demonstrates that air embolisms have the capacity to degrade the integrity of donor organs. The extent of organ damage is strongly dependent on the size and distribution of air embolisms. The diagnosis of embolism severity can be safely and easily made with DCEUS

Depletion of Ras Suppressor-1 (RSU-1) promotes cell invasion of breast cancer cells through a compensatory upregulation of a truncated isoform

Extracellular matrix (ECM)-adhesion proteins and actin cytoskeleton are pivotal in cancer cell invasion. Ras Suppressor-1 (RSU-1), a cell-ECM adhesion protein that interacts with PINCH-1, thus being connected to Integrin Linked Kinase (ILK), alpha-parvin (PARVA), and actin cytoskeleton, is up-regulated in metastatic breast cancer (BC) samples. Apart from the originally-identified gene (RSU-1L), an alternatively-spliced isoform (RSU-1-X1) has been reported. We used non-invasive MCF-7 cells, expressing only RSU-1L, and highly invasive MDA-MB-231-LM2 expressing both isoforms and generated stable shRNA-transduced cells lacking RSU-1L, while the truncated RSU-1-X1 isoform was depleted by siRNA-mediated silencing. RSU-1L depletion in MCF-7 cells resulted in complete abrogation of tumor spheroid invasion in three-dimensional collagen gels, whereas it promoted MDA-MB-231-LM2 invasion, through a compensatory upregulation of RSU-1-X1. When RSU-1-X1 was also eliminated, RSU-1L-depletion-induced migration and invasion were drastically reduced being accompanied by reduced urokinase plasminogen activator expression. Protein expression analysis in 23 human BC samples corroborated our findings showing RSU-1L to be upregulated and RSU-1-X1 downregulated in metastatic samples. We demonstrate for the first time, that both RSU-1 isoforms promote invasion in vitro while RSU-1L elimination induces RSU-1-X1 upregulation to compensate for the loss. Hence, we propose that both isoforms should be blocked to effectively eliminate metastasis. © 2019, The Author(s)

A Strategic Approach for Automation Technology Initiatives Selection

Part 1: Knowledge-Based Performance ImprovementInternational audienceDespite the rapid development of new manufacturing technologies, a large portion of adoptions fail to achieve expected benefits. Existing models for technology selection are criticized for requiring large computations, and for being time consuming and difficult to use. This paper presents a strategic approach to support decision-makers in automation technology selection that is efficient and easy to apply in practice. It involves technology strategy decisions, process and technology analyses, technology/process ranking and considerations on investment and implementation. The approach has been developed through literature reviews and close collaboration with two case companies, utilizing the action research method. Its use is illustrated in an ongoing automation project at a world leading supplier of plastic pipes systems

Profiling Web users using big data

Profiling Web users is a fundamental issue for Web mining and social network analysis. Its basic tasks include extracting basic information, mining user preferences, and inferring user demographics (Tang et al. in ACM Trans Knowl Discov Data 5(1):2:1–2:44, 2010). Although methodologies for handling the three tasks are different, they all usually contain two stages: first identify relevant pages (data) of a user and then use machine learning models (e.g., SVM, CRFs, or DL) to extract/mine/infer profile attributes from each page. The methods were successful in the traditional Web, but are facing more and more challenges with the rapid evolution of the Web each persons information is distributed over the Web and is changing dynamically. As a result, available data for a user on the Web is redundant, and some sources may be out-of-date or incorrect. The traditional two-stage method suffers from data inconsistency and error propagation between the two stages. In this paper, we revisit the problem of Web user profiling in the big data era and propose a simple but very effective approach, referred to as MagicFG, for profiling Web users by leveraging the power of big data. To avoid error propagation, the approach processes all the extracting/mining/inferring subtasks in one unified framework. To improve the profiling performance, we present the concept of contextual credibility. The proposed framework also supports the incorporation of human knowledge. It defines human knowledge as Markov logics statements and formalizes them into a factor graph model. The MagicFG method has been deployed in an online system AMiner.org for profiling millions of researchers—e.g., extracting E-mail, inferring Gender, and mining research interests. Our empirical study in the real system shows that the proposed method offers significantly improved (+ 4–6%; p≪0.01 , t test) profiling performance in comparison with several baseline methods using rules, classification, and sequential labeling