Converting a remote control car into an automatic guided vehicle

Published ArticleRecently, a lot of research has been published in the field of Automatic Guided Vehicles. One of the crucial starting points is to decide what base to use for the vehicle. The development of the base seldom forms part of the research and usually researchers try to obtain an existing base to start from. In this paper the possibility to use a remote control car as an Automatic Guided Vehicle base will be investigated

Using an ethnostatistical analysis to interpret data: the Nike case

This study reviews a 1997 study released by Nike to resolve wage controversies in subcontracted Asian factories. An ethnostatistical analysis is provided to show how the application of the three levels of ethnostatistics can help us understand differing interpretations of the same data. The current analysis is evidence of the way in which context, assumptions and methodology, and rhetoric and language can influence the outcome of quantitative studies. The current study is an important methodological note because academic researchers are being called to answer important questions regarding the global operations of transnational corporations. This raises the question of our role as academic researchers and what standards, such as validity and reliability, should be met

The gas vesicles, buoyancy and vertical distribution of cyanobacteria in the Baltic Sea

The mean pressures required to collapse gas vesicles in turgid cells of cyanobacteria from the Baltic Sea were 0·91 MPa (9·1 bar) in Aphanizomenon flos-aquae, 0·83 MPa in Nodularia sp. collected from the main deep basins and 0·34 MPa in Nodularia from shallower coastal regions. The gas vesicles were strong enough to withstand the depth of winter mixing, down to the permanent halocline (60 m in the Bornholm Sea, 90 m in the Eastern Gotland Sea) or to the sea bottom (30 m or less in the shallow Arkona Sea and Mecklenburg Bight). The cyanobacteria had low cell turgor pressures, within the range 0·08–0·18 MPa. The colonies were highly buoyant: the Aphanizomenon colonies floated up at a mean velocity of 22 m per day and the Nodularia colonies at 36 m per day. The colonies remained floating when up to half of the gas vesicles had been collapsed. In summer the cyanobacteria were mostly restricted to the water above the thermocline and in calm conditions their concentration increased towards the top of the water column. A series of colony concentration profiles indicated that, following a deep mixing event, the population of colonies moved upward with a net velocity of 22 m per day, similar to the colony floating velocity. This demonstrated that the buoyancy provided by gas vesicles would give a selective advantage to populations of cyanobacteria by enabling them to float into the higher irradiance of the near-surface water

A Values-Based and Integral Perspective of Strategic Management

Landrum, Gardner, and Boje apply a Model for Integral Strategy which uses internal, competitive, and external tiers of strategic planning to combine economic, social, and environmental organizational imperatives with values, social responsibility, and sustainability. Their approach seeks to balance short-term with long-term objectives and economic with non-economic concerns all while addressing the sustainability challenges facing organizations today

A Values-Based and Integral Perspective on Strategic Management

Landrum, Gardner, and Boje apply a Model for Integral Strategy which uses internal, competitive, and external tiers of strategic planning to combine economic, social, and environmental organizational imperatives with values, social responsibility, and sustainability. Their approach seeks to balance short-term with long-term objectives and economic with non-economic concerns all while addressing the sustainability challenges facing organizations today

First-principles-informed energy span and microkinetic analysis of ethanol catalytic conversion to 1,3-butadiene on MgO

Kinetic modeling of single-step catalytic conversion of ethanol to 1,3-butadiene is necessary to inform accurate process design. This paper uses first-principles-informed energy span and microkinetic analysis to explore the reaction free energy landscapes and kinetic limitations of competing reaction pathways on a MgO (100) step-edge. Previous studies suggested mechanisms proceeding via both dehydrogenation and dehydration of ethanol, and highlighted sensitivity to conditions and catalyst composition. Here, we use the energy span concept to characterize the theoretical maximum turnover and degree of turnover frequency control for states in each reaction pathway, finding the dehydration route to be less active for 1,3-butadiene, and suggesting rate-determining states in the dehydrogenation, dehydration, and condensation steps. The influence of temperature on the relative rate contribution of each state is quantified and explained through the varying temperature sensitivity of the free energy landscape. A microkinetic model is developed to explore competition between pathways, interaction with gas-phase species, and surface coverage limitations. This suggests that the turnover may be significantly lower than predicted solely based on energetics. Turnover frequency determining states found to have high surface coverage include adsorbed ethanol and two longer, oxygenated hydrocarbons. The combined energy span and microkinetic analysis permits investigation of a complex system from two perspectives and helps elucidate conflicting observations of rate determining steps and product distribution by considering both energetic and kinetic limitations. The impact of uncertainty in the energy landscape is quantified using a correlated error model. While the range of predictions is large, the average performance and trends are similar

Leading change in academic pharmacy: Report of the 2018-2019 aacp academic affairs committee

© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Delivering an effective drug load to the posterior section of the ocular tissues, while using a non-invasive technique, has always been a challenge. In this regard, the goal of the present study was to develop sustained release triamcinolone acetonide (TA) loaded polymeric matrix films for ocular delivery. The TA-films were prepared in two different polymer matrices, with drug loadings of 10% and 20% w/w, and they were evaluated for ocular distribution in vivo in a conscious rabbit model. A 4% w/v TA suspension (TA-C) was used as a control for in vitro and in vivo studies. The TA-films, prepared with melt-cast technology, used polyethylene oxide (PEO) and Soluplus® as the polymer matrix. The films were evaluated with respect to assay, content uniformity, excipient interaction, and permeability across isolated rabbit sclera. The distribution of TA in the ocular tissues, post topical administration, was determined in New Zealand male albino rabbits as a function of dose, and was compared against TA-C. The assay of the 10% and 20% w/w film was in the range from 70–79% and 92–94% for the Soluplus® and PEO films, respectively, and content uniformity was in the range of 95–103% for both the films. The assay of the TA from Soluplus® films was less compared with the PEO films and showed an interaction with TA, as revealed by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). Hence, Soluplus® films were not selected for further studies. No interaction was observed between the drug and PEO polymer matrix. The enhancement of trans-scleral flux and permeability of TA was about 1.16 and 1.33-folds, respectively, from the 10% w/w PEO and 3.5 and 2.12-folds, respectively, from the 20% w/w PEO films, as compared with TA-C formulations. The in vivo studies demonstrate that significantly higher TA levels were observed in the anterior and posterior segments of the eye at the end of 6h with the PEO films. Therefore, the PEO based polymeric films were able to deliver TA into the back of the eye efficiently and for prolonged periods. View Full-Tex

Re-storying and visualizing the changing entrepreneurial identities of Bill Gates and Richard Branson.

The storytelling in textual and visual re-constructions of Bill Gates and Richard Branson by their organizations produces entrepreneurial identities bound into particular social power-knowledge relations. Our purpose is to examine how these organizations, and their critics, mobilize storytelling in acts of re-storying (enlivening) or re-narrating (branding a monologic) practices using Internet technologies to invite viewers to frame the world of entrepreneurship. We use visual discourse and storytelling methods to analyze how Microsoft and Virgin Group use various kinds of entrepreneurial images and textual narratives to re-narrate and produce particular brands of capitalism. These organizations' scoptic regimes of representation are contested in counter-visualizing and counterstory practices of external stakeholders. We suggest that the image and textual practices of storytelling have changed as both entrepreneurs court philanthropic and social entrepreneur identity markers. Our contribution to entrepreneurial identity is to apply double and multiple narrations, the appropriation of another's narrative words (or images) into another's narrative, and relate such storytelling moves to visuality