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The case presents a qualitative situation that has been developed following the methodology of the classics of economics, i.e., philosophical, from which logic, which laid the foundations of the knowledge of economics, derives. The case analyzes a warehouse company’s general situation that operates with apparent effectiveness in the Peruvian market. First, it relates the author’s personal experience who, together with his partner, proposes the generational change in the company between his son and himself, with expectations of an improvement in the management of the company in the face of the imminent and rapid technological innovation. Likewise, the company's problems are exposed because of the death of one of the partners, the constant innovation in the market, and the changes in the chain of command. Faced with this situation, the discussion may focus on the approach to future decisions in the company.El caso presenta una situación cualitativa que se ha desarrollado siguiendo la metodología de los clásicos de la economía, es decir, filosófica, de la que deriva la lógica que sentó las bases del conocimiento de la economía. El caso analiza la situación general de una empresa almacenista que opera con aparente efectividad en el mercado peruano. En primer lugar, se relata la experiencia personal del autor quien, junto a su socio, propone el relevo generacional en la empresa entre su hijo y él mismo, con expectativas de una mejora en la gestión de la empresa ante la inminente y rápida innovación tecnológica. Asimismo, se exponen los problemas de la empresa por el fallecimiento de uno de los socios, la constante innovación en el mercado y los cambios en la cadena de mando. Ante esta situación, la discusión puede centrarse en el planteamiento de decisiones futuras en la empresa

A New LCA Methodology of Technology Evolution (TE-LCA) and its Application to the Production of Ammonia (1950-2000) (8 pp)

Goal, Scope and Background: This paper presents a new LCA method of technology evolution (TE-LCA), and its application to the production of ammonia, the second largest chemical product in the world, over the last fifty years. The TE-LCA of a chemical process is the procedure in which historical information on a process, mainly the evolution of technical parameters, is translated by simulation to mass and energy balances as a function of time. These mass and energy balances are then transformed into environmental impact indicators using common LCA approaches. Finally, the evolution of environmental impact resulting from the investigated process can be related to its technical and other, i.e. legislative, developments. Methods: The technological evolution of the production of ammonia was compiled according to three basic sources of information: patents, publications and industry data. From these sources in a first step, the major technological advances of the process were identified as a function of time delivering different process variants that were modelled using the simulation software Aspen Plus®. In a second step, the evolution of environmental regulations is studied. For those energy related emissions that were regulated, e.g. SOx and NOx, it was assumed that threshold values defined in legislation were realized immediately. The aggregation of both steps allows the calculation of the emissions resulting from the production (cradle to gate view) of the investigated chemical as a function of time. Results and Discussion: The application of the TE-LCA to the production of ammonia revealed when and to which extent technological and legislative developments resulted in the reduction of energy related emissions in the production of this chemical compound. Overall, the reduction of emissions from ammonia production was highly influenced by the technological development and only to a lower extent by environmental regulations. Conclusion: The results obtained from the TE-LCA method is useful to reveal how the environmental performance of a process developed in the past and to identify the reasons for this development. The investigated case study of ammonia production shows that investment in technological development also paid off in terms of being ahead of tightened environmental legislation that might bear potential cost consequences such as carbon dioxide tax. Outlook: The presented method can be easily extended by including an economic analysis, which provides additional information on why certain technological developments were enforced and which the economic consequences of changes in environmental legislation were. The new methodology has to be applied to additional case studies, i.e. to other chemical sectors than basic chemicals and to other branches than chemicals. In other chemical sectors, toxic emissions from the production process might have to be considered and trade-offs between these and the overall energy consumption might resul

Indicadores de atenção básica em saúde bucal: associação com as condições socioeconômicas, fluoretação de águas e a estratégia de saúde da família no Sul do Brasil

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Ciências da Saúde. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Saúde Pública.Analisou-se os indicadores de saúde bucal do pacto de atenção básica do SUS (cobertura, razão de exodontias em relação aos procedimentos individuais e cobertura de procedimentos coletivos na população de até 14 anos de idade) em municípios do Sul do Brasil (n=1159) entre 2000 a 2005. Adicionalmente testaram-se associações dos indicadores com variáveis socioeconômicas, de provisão de serviços odontológicos, fluoretação de águas e cobertura da saúde bucal na estratégia de saúde da família. Foram associados positivamente com o aumento da cobertura, o estado (RS com a menor), população rural, IDH, número de dentistas pela população e cobertura da saúde bucal no PSF. Para razão de exodontias foram associados o estado (SC e RS maiores), negativamente com população rural, IDH, número de dentistas pela população e cobertura da saúde bucal no PSF e positivamente o índice de Gini. Procedimentos coletivos foram associados negativamente com índice de Gini, intensidade de indigência e razão do número de dentistas pela população e positivamente com estado (menor no RS), população rural IDH e cobertura da saúde bucal no PSF. This paper analyzed the primary dental care indicators of the Brazilian National Health System (SUS) as following coverage of dental attendance, ratio between dental extraction and dental procedures and coverage of preventive measures among children up to 14 years-old in the municipalities from the southern region of Brazil (n=1159) between years 2000 and 2005. In addition, the association of these indicators with socioeconomic indicators, dental services, water fluoridation and coverage of the oral health care in the Family Health Program (FHP) was tested. The increase of the coverage of dental attendance was positively associated with percentage of rural population, Human Development Index (HDI), number of dentists per capita and FHP coverage. Dental extraction was negatively associated with percentage of rural population, HDI, number of dentists per capita and the FHP coverage, and positively associated with Gini index. Preventive dental measures were negatively associated with Gini index, poverty and number of dentists per capita, and positively associated with the percentage of rural population, HDI and FHP coverage

Reversible tetraplegia caused by a transoral penetrating stick injury

A 3-year-old, male German shepherd dog was referred because of acute tetraplegia following endoscopic removal of stick fragments from the oral cavity. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed an extradural T2W- and T1W-hypointense linear structure within the vertebral canal at the level from the C1 to mid-C2 cervical vertebral body, causing pronounced dorsolateral spinal cord compression and spinal cord oedema extending to the caudal end of the C2 vertebra. A dorsal laminectomy was performed at the level of the C1-C2 vertebra. Three wooden fragments with lengths of up to 4 cm, which were located adjacent to the spinal cord, were removed from the vertebral canal. The dog was still tetraplegic after surgery. Postoperative care consisted of analgesics, antibiotics, bladder management, intensive neurorehabilitation and physical therapy. Recovery of ambulation was regained 3 weeks after surgery

How genome editing changed the world of large animal research

The first genetically modified large animals were developed in 1985 by microinjection to increase the growth of agricultural livestock such as pigs. Since then, it has been a difficult trail due to the lack of genetic tools. Although methods and technologies were developed quickly for the main experimental mammal, the mouse, e.g., efficient pronuclear microinjection, gene targeting in embryonic stem cells, and omics data, most of it was—and in part still is—lacking when it comes to livestock. Over the next few decades, progress in genetic engineering of large animals was driven less by research for agriculture but more for biomedical applications, such as the production of pharmaceutical proteins in the milk of sheep, goats, or cows, xeno-organ transplantation, and modeling human diseases. Available technologies determined if a desired animal model could be realized, and efficiencies were generally low. Presented here is a short review of how genome editing tools, specifically CRISPR/Cas, have impacted the large animal field in recent years. Although there will be a focus on genome engineering of pigs for biomedical applications, the general principles and experimental approaches also apply to other livestock species or applications

Pequeña empresa: papel de nuevo gerente de marketing Escobita Nueva

It presents the case of a family-owned garment company whose development has responded more to the founder's desire to provide his family with a sufficiently comfortable living than to the entrepreneurial vision that would have allowed it to respond to market signals, which has led the company to lose ground to the competition. The organization of production is described; the market strategy: product, price, distribution and sales, promotion and advertising; the characteristics of the market and the competition; and the financial situation. When the founder's son takes over the business, he evaluates this situation and considers different alternatives for action: specializing in a new product line; maintaining the same product line, but with new designs; entering other markets; changing its pricing policy; its distribution and sales system, as well as promotion and advertising. The discussion of the case can be oriented towards the analysis of these options.Se presenta el caso de una empresa familiar de confección cuyo desarrollo ha respondido más al deseo del fundador de proporcionar a su familia una vida suficientemente cómoda que a la visión empresarial que le habría permitido responder a las señales del mercado, que ha llevado a la empresa perder terreno frente a la competencia. Se describe la organización de la producción; la estrategia de mercado: producto, precio, distribución y ventas, promoción y publicidad; las características del mercado y la competencia; y la situación financiera. Cuando el hijo del fundador se hace cargo del negocio, evalúa esta situación y considera diferentes alternativas de acción: especializarse en una nueva línea de productos; manteniendo la misma línea de productos, pero con nuevos diseños; entrar en otros mercados; cambiar su política de precios; su sistema de distribución y ventas, así como de promoción y publicidad. La discusión del caso puede orientarse hacia el análisis de estas opciones

Oncostatin M promotes lipolysis in white adipocytes

Oncostatin M (OSM) is a member of the glycoprotein 130 cytokine family that is involved in chronic inflammation and increased in adipose tissue under obesity and insulin resistance. OSM was shown to inhibit adipogenesis, suppress browning, and contribute to insulin resistance in cultured white adipocytes. In contrast, OSM may have a metabolically favourable role on adipocytes in mouse models of obesity and insulin resistance. However, a putative role of OSM in modulating lipolysis has not been investigated in detail to date. To address this, cultured white adipocytes of mouse or human origin were exposed to 10 or 100 ng/ml of OSM for various time periods. In murine 3T3-L1 cells, OSM stimulation directly activated hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL) and other players of the lipolytic machinery, and dose-dependently increased free fatty acid and glycerol release. In parallel, OSM attenuated insulin-mediated suppression of lipolysis and induced phosphorylation of serine-residues on the insulin receptor substrate-1 (IRS1) protein. Key experiments were verified in a second murine and a human adipocyte cell line. Inhibiton of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)-1/2 activation, abolished OSM-mediated HSL phosphorylation and lipolysis. In conclusion, OSM signalling directly promotes lipolysis in white adipocytes in an ERK1/2-dependent manner

Dynamic Virtualized Deployment of Particle Physics Environments on a High Performance Computing Cluster

The NEMO High Performance Computing Cluster at the University of Freiburg has been made available to researchers of the ATLAS and CMS experiments. Users access the cluster from external machines connected to the World-wide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG). This paper describes how the full software environment of the WLCG is provided in a virtual machine image. The interplay between the schedulers for NEMO and for the external clusters is coordinated through the ROCED service. A cloud computing infrastructure is deployed at NEMO to orchestrate the simultaneous usage by bare metal and virtualized jobs. Through the setup, resources are provided to users in a transparent, automatized, and on-demand way. The performance of the virtualized environment has been evaluated for particle physics applications

Tracks in the Snow - Advantage of Combining Optical Methods to Characterize Marine Particles and Aggregates

Settling marine aggregates, such as zooplankton fecal pellets and marine snow, transport organic matter from the surface ocean to the deep sea and are largely responsible for the ocean’s sequestration of carbon. However, our understanding of the functioning of the biological pump and the distribution of particulate organic matter in the water column often hinge on limited bulk data from sediment traps, large volume filtration or instantaneous snap-shots from in situ optical systems that only see a small part of the particle and aggregate spectra. We evaluated the added value of combining different optical systems to detect a range of organic and inorganic particle types during a case-study in the Cape Blanc upwelling region. Laboratory calibrations showed that one camera system detected large organic aggregates well and in situ data showed that it correlated positively with fluorescence. The other camera was better at detecting small, mainly inorganic particles which were not seen by the first camera and correlated positively with turbidity. The combined deployments of the two optical systems together with fluorescence and turbidity sensors showed potentials for added insights into spatial (depth) and temporal (diurnal) particle dynamics. The case study exemplified the different efficiencies of two camera systems to detect particles of different types in marine waters. From this, the results highlighted the importance of discriminating between qualitative and quantitative ranges of imaging systems, in order to understand the quantitative range of sizes as well as types of particles detected by a given system. This is especially important when optical systems are used to estimate carbon fluxes and particulate organic matter distribution in the water column from vertical profiles of particle size-distribution and abundance

Diagnostic utility of cerebrospinal fluid immunocytochemistry for diagnosis of feline infectious peritonitis manifesting in the central nervous system

Objectives The aim of the study was to evaluate whether an ante-mortem diagnosis of central nervous system (CNS) feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is possible via immunocytochemical staining (ICC) of feline coronavirus antigen (FCoV) within macrophages of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Methods Prospectively, CSF samples of 41 cats were investigated, including cats with histopathologically confirmed FIP and neurological signs (n = 10), cats with confirmed FIP without CNS involvement (n = 11), cats with neurological signs but another confirmed CNS disease (n = 17), and cats without neurological signs and a disease other than FIP (n = 3). ICC staining of CSF macrophages was performed in all cats. Sensitivity, specificity, positive (PPV) and negative predictive values (NPV) of CSF ICC were calculated. Results Of 10 samples from cats with CNS FIP, eight had detectable CSF macrophages, seven of which were positive for FCoV. Ten of 11 samples from cats with confirmed FIP without neurological signs had macrophages in the CSF, with all 10 being ICC-positive. In cats with other CNS disorders, 11/17 had macrophages, two of which stained positively. In cats with diseases other than FIP and without neurological disorders, 2/3 revealed macrophages, with one cat showing positive ICC staining. Diagnosis of FIP via CSF ICC had a sensitivity of 85.0% and a specificity of 83.3%. PPV and NPV were 85.0% and 83.3%. Conclusions and relevance CSF ICC is a highly sensitive test for ante-mortem diagnosis of FIP manifesting in the CNS. However, CNS ICC specificity is too low to confirm FIP and the method should only be applied in conjunction with other features such as CSF cytology. CNS ICC could be helpful to discover pre-neurological stages of CNS FIP