Temptations

The study considers the impact of consumerism and the consequences that the demands for food have had on the farm operations in rural Iowa. Human temptation to over consume has caused the industrialization of farming, resulting in the collapse of many small farms. The consumer demands created the need to preserve foods for longer periods of time. Food has become genetically modified to assist in the preservation to fulfill the needs of consumers. This farm’s heritage has left a desire to study spatial phenomenon to represent the understanding of the farm through the act of making

Who Should Bear the Risk? A Theoretical and Behavioral Investigation of After-Sales Service Contracts

Since downtime is expensive, it is key to use the right after-sales service contract to achieve high equipment availability. Resource-based contracts (RBCs) are common, but they fail to motivate suppliers to provide reliable products and services as suppliers are paid for their after-sales services. Performance-based contracts (PBCs) have been proposed as a way to solve this issue, as it shifts much of the downtime risk to the supplier by making him responsible for machine uptime, but then customers might reduce care efforts. We are the first to analytically incorporate the care in equipment availability. We propose the full-care contract (FCC) to achieve both high reliability and care, and maximize the chain efficiency. We find that only the FCC can achieve full chain efficiency. After discussing potential behavioral factors in this context, with a focus on risk aversion, we conduct a lab study with decision makers as suppliers. Experimental results confirm that the FCC achieves higher total profits than the PBC and RBC. We further find that subjects are more likely to switch from the RBC to the FCC than to the PBC, despite the higher risk involved in the FCC.Finally, we observe that effort levels set by suppliers are above normative predictions and we discuss potential explanations for this result

Morphology of Marburg Virus NP–RNA

AbstractWhen Marburg virus (MBGV) nucleoprotein (NP) is expressed in insect cells, it binds to cellular RNA and forms NP–RNA complexes such as insect cell-expressed nucleoproteins from other nonsegmented negative-strand RNA viruses. Recombinant MBGV NP–RNA forms loose coils that resemble rabies virus N–RNA. MBGV NP monomers are rods that are spaced along the coil similar to the nucleoprotein monomers of the rabies virus N–RNA. High salt treatment induces tight coiling of the MBGV NP–RNA, again a characteristic observed for other nonsegmented negative-strand virus N–RNAs. Electron microscopy of fixed Marburg virus particles shows that the viral nucleocapsid has a smaller diameter than the free, recombinant NP–RNA. This difference in helical parameters could be caused by the interaction of other viral proteins with the NP–RNA. A similar but opposite phenomenon is observed for rhabdovirus nucleocapsids that are condensed by the viral matrix protein upon which they acquire a larger diameter. Finally, there appears to be an extensive and regular protein scaffold between the viral nucleocapsid and the membrane that seems not to exist in the other negative-strand RNA viruses

Innovation histories workshop on the solar home system market in Kenya

This report presents proceedings of an innovation histories workshop on the Solar Home System (SHS) Market in Kenya. The workshop was held on 3 June 2013 at Silver Springs Hotel in Nairobi Kenya. Stakeholders in the SHS market convened to reflect, draw on, capture and share thoughts and experiences to develop a comprehensive national innovation history, illustrating actions of key actors in Kenya who have contributed to the success of the Kenyan SHS market. Stakeholders from the United Kingdom and Kenya comprised researchers, policymakers, private sector actors and the media. The one-day workshop saw the participants developing a personal innovation history timeline as well as contributing through participatory and interactive approaches to develop a national SHS innovation history timeline. Participants expressed satisfaction in the process that led to the development of the innovation history timeline and expressed interest to participate in any future research and workshop on the subject

Towards Sustainable Innovation

With sustainability having gained a lot of momentum over the last years and companies implementing strategies to create corporate sustainability, there are lots of opportunities for innovation. Thus, the two concepts of sustainability and innovation should not be considered separately – they are closely interlinked with one another. The main goal of sustainable innovation is to develop new products and technologies that have a positive impact on the company’s triple-bottom-line. To meet this aim, they have to be ecologically and economically beneficial as well as socially balanced. In order to help companies to improve their sustainable innovation process practically, this book is structured into five possible phases of a sustainable innovation process: Awareness of a sustainability problem Identification & Definition of the problem Ideation & Evaluation of the solutions Testing & Enrichment of the solutions Implementation of the solutions & Green Marketin

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Using Thiel Soft-Embalmed Donors to Teach the Female Pelvic Exam to Medical Students

At the Quillen College of Medicine, first year medical students are taught how to perform the female pelvic exam as part of the “Introduction to Physical Exam” course. Our previous research has found that students feel more confident and report a higher level of perceived transferability to live patients when learning the pelvic exam on soft-embalmed donors in comparison to low-fidelity mannequins. Our goal in this project was to incorporate soft-embalmed donors into the curriculum of first year medical students, making this teaching method available to all students, and objectively assess their skills as well as their retention. During the “Introduction to Physical Exam” course, high fidelity soft embalmed donors were available for students to practice the female pelvic exam with instruction from attending physicians. After learning exam techniques, all 67 students were given a survey to assess their confidence, perceived transferability, and preference for either soft embalmed donors or mannequins. They were also invited back the following week to assess their short term retention and ability to accurately perform the pelvic exam, with the option of using communication skills learned elsewhere in the ETSU curriculum. Thirteen students returned for this follow-up session and completed surveys to reassess their experience. We plan to follow this cohort of students throughout their medical school career to assess long term retention. All return participants felt they retained the pelvic exam knowledge learned the week prior, with 61.54% agreeing, and 38.46% strongly agreeing. Most felt prepared to now do a pelvic exam on a live patient (53.85% agreed, 38.46% strongly agreed). Students also reported that feedback on their communication and procedural skills was beneficial to the learning process. The use of high fidelity soft embalmed donors in medical education provides students with a realistic model to learn and become confident in performing pelvic exams. We have seen that this education model helps them retain their knowledge on pelvic exam technique. We look forward to following this cohort of students to see if this retention of knowledge persists into their third year of medical school

The Use of the iPACK Block with the Adductor Canal Block (ACB) Decreases 48-hour Narcotic Usage and Postoperative Pain following Total Knee Arthroplasty

Adductor Canal and iPACK Blocks reduce pain levels and narcotic consumption following Total Knee Arthroplastyhttps://knowledgeconnection.mainehealth.org/lambrew-retreat-2023/1023/thumbnail.jp

Raising Sustainability

The contributions that follow in this issue of the Interface address some operationalisations of sustainable development that have prevailed in planning policy in recent years