AN INVENTORY CONTROL POLICY WITH TRACKING INFORMATION FOR DUAL-CHANNEL SUPPLY CHAINS

Recently, many products have been sold through retail stores and direct sales via the Internet. For dual-channel supply chains, Chiang and Monahan (2010) and Chiang (2010) have proposed an inventory control policy; however, they assumed one-for-one replenishment and short replenishment lead times. For single-channel supply chains with long and uncertain replenishment lead times, Liu et al. (2009) have introduced tracking information into inventory control. However, they did not consider the cost of tracking information. Therefore, in this paper, a Markov chain model for dual-channel supply chains with long and uncertain replenishment lead times is developed, and an inventory control policy is proposed that considers tracking information and its cost. The performance of the proposed policy is evaluated and compared with two policies, one without tracking information and the other without reduplicated normal replenishment. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed policy

Calorimetric and Spectroscopic Studies of Water Adsorption onto Alkaline Earth Fluorides

Interactions between the surfaces of alkaline earth fluorides (CaF 2 , SrF 2 and BaF 2 ) and water molecules were investigated by calorimetric and spectroscopic methods. The exposed surfaces of the alkaline earth fluoride samples, with which the (100) crystalline plane is mainly associated, were found to be fully covered with strongly adsorbed water molecules, resulting in characteristic IR bands at 3684, 2561, 1947 and 1000 cm −1 , respectively. This surface was homogeneous towards further water adsorption. The strongly adsorbed water molecules were almost completely desorbed from the surface on evacuating the sample up to 473 K. The heat of immersion in water also increased with increasing pretreatment temperature; this may be attributed to surface rehydration of the alkaline earth fluorides. The state of the surface changed drastically as the pretreatment temperature was increased and stabilized towards incoming water molecules. Thus, the surface formed after evacuation at temperatures greater than 473 K was resistant to hydration even after immersion in water at room temperature. This surface was relatively heterogeneous towards water adsorption, although it behaved homogeneously towards argon adsorption. These facts indicate that strongly adsorbed water molecules appear to be somewhat specific towards the adsorption of further incoming water molecules. The adsorption properties of the (100) plane of alkaline earth fluorides towards water and argon molecules depend strongly on both the electrostatic field strength and the extent of rehydration of the alkaline earth fluoride surface

Prevalence of Circadian Rhythm Sleep-Wake Disorder in Outpatients with Schizophrenia and Its Association with Psychopathological Characteristics and Psychosocial Functioning

The prevalence of circadian rhythm sleep-wake disorder (CRSWD) among patients with schizophrenia is not clear. The effect of comorbid CRSWD on such patients has also not been fully evaluated yet. Outpatients with schizophrenia in the maintenance phase who visited Tokyo Women’s Medical University Hospital between April 2018 and March 2019 participated in this study. The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), the Clinical Global Impressions–Severity Illness Scale (CGI-S), Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF), World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule II, Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), and Morningness–Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ) were administered, and the patient responses with and without CRSWD were compared. Of the 105 patients with schizophrenia, 19 (18.1%) had CRSWD. There were trends toward higher BPRS and lower GAF scores in the CRSWD group than in the non-CRSWD group, although these did not reach statistical significance following a false discovery rate correction. Among the BPRS subitems, the anxiety scores were significantly higher in the CRSWD group than in the non-CRSWD group (p < 0.01). CRSWD was highly prevalent among patients with schizophrenia in the maintenance phase. Comorbidities of CRSWD may affect psychopathological characteristics and psychosocial functioning

Quantitative Evaluation of Human Cerebellum-Dependent Motor Learning through Prism Adaptation of Hand-Reaching Movement

<div><p>The cerebellum plays important roles in motor coordination and learning. However, motor learning has not been quantitatively evaluated clinically. It thus remains unclear how motor learning is influenced by cerebellar diseases or aging, and is related with incoordination. Here, we present a new application for testing human cerebellum-dependent motor learning using prism adaptation. In our paradigm, the participant wearing prism-equipped goggles touches their index finger to the target presented on a touchscreen in every trial. The whole test consisted of three consecutive sessions: (1) 50 trials with normal vision (BASELINE), (2) 100 trials wearing the prism that shifts the visual field 25° rightward (PRISM), and (3) 50 trials without the prism (REMOVAL). In healthy subjects, the prism-induced finger-touch error, i.e., the distance between touch and target positions, was decreased gradually by motor learning through repetition of trials. We found that such motor learning could be quantified using the “adaptability index (<i>AI</i>)”, which was calculated by multiplying each probability of [acquisition in the last 10 trials of PRISM], [retention in the initial five trials of REMOVAL], and [extinction in the last 10 trials of REMOVAL]. The <i>AI</i> of cerebellar patients less than 70 years old (mean, 0.227; n = 62) was lower than that of age-matched healthy subjects (0.867, n = 21; p < 0.0001). While <i>AI</i> did not correlate with the magnitude of dysmetria in ataxic patients, it declined in parallel with disease progression, suggesting a close correlation between the impaired cerebellar motor leaning and the dysmetria. Furthermore, <i>AI</i> decreased with aging in the healthy subjects over 70 years old compared with that in the healthy subjects less than 70 years old. We suggest that our paradigm of prism adaptation may allow us to quantitatively assess cerebellar motor learning in both normal and diseased conditions.</p></div

Scheme for prism adaptation of hand-reaching.

<p>(A) The experimental apparatus consists of a sensor on the participant’s right earlobe, goggles equipped with an electrically controlled shutter with a plastic or Fresnel prism plate, a touchscreen, and two computers. (B) Time sequence of a single trial shown from left to right. Every trial starts from the touch of a participant’s index finger at the sensor on the right earlobe. As soon as the participant releases their index finger from the sensor, vision is blocked by the shutter (MOVEMENT TIME). Immediately after reaching the touchscreen (TOUCH), the goggles become transparent, and the participant recognizes how their index finger deviated/hit the target for 100 ms (EXPOSURE). Subsequently, the target disappears (TARGET OFF) and the participant returns their index finger to the original position in preparation for the next trial.</p

Quantitative evaluation of prism adaptation.

<p>(A) An example of adaptation in a healthy subject (HN13) shown in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0119376#pone.0119376.g002" target="_blank">Fig. 2A</a>. The finger-touch error of the last 10 trials of PRISM, and that of the initial five and last 10 trials of REMOVAL are extracted from <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0119376#pone.0119376.g002" target="_blank">Fig. 2A</a>. Acquisition, retention, and extinction of adaptation were estimated from the probability of success (<i>a</i>) in the last 10 trials of PRISM (10/10), the probability of failure (<i>b</i>) in the initial five trials of REMOVAL (5/5), and the probability of success (<i>c</i>) in the last 10 trials of REMOVAL (10/10), respectively. <i>AI</i> was calculated as <i>a</i> × <i>b</i> × <i>c</i> and 1 in this case. (B) Similar analysis in CN4 shown in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0119376#pone.0119376.g002" target="_blank">Fig. 2B</a>. <i>a</i> = 1/10, <i>b</i> = 1/5, <i>c</i> = 6/10. <i>AI</i> = (1/10) × (1/5) × (6/10) = 0.012. Horizontally shaded areas in (A) and (B) represent the zone of “correct” touch (within ± 25mm). (C)–(F) Frequency distributions of <i>a</i> (C), <i>b</i> (D), <i>c</i> (E), and <i>AI</i> (F). Insets represent cumulative frequency curves. <i>F</i>(<i>x</i>) represents normal cumulative distribution function. (G) Frequency distribution of the time constant <i>τ</i> (for details, see <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0119376#sec002" target="_blank">Materials and Methods</a>). Insets represent cumulative frequency curves of <i>τ</i>. Red columns and lines in (C)–(G) show data for 21 HN subjects. Blue columns and lines in (C)–(G) show data for 62 CN patients. (H) Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis in the HN and CN groups. A purple line shows ROC curve for <i>AI</i>, a red line for the probability of acquisition, a blue line for the probability of retention, a green line for the probability of extinction, and a black line for <i>τ</i>.</p

<i>AI</i> and other clinical indexes in various cerebellar diseases.

<p>(A)–(C) Scatter plots comparing <i>AI</i> with SARA score (A), 9-Hole Peg Test (B), and disease duration (C) in CN and CE patients. Linear regression lines are overlaid. (D) Comparison of <i>AI</i> between the CBL (n = 24) and CBL+ (n = 32) groups. *<i>p</i> < 0.05 by Mann-Whitney U-test. Error bar represents SEM. (E) <i>AI</i> was significantly higher in pure parkinsonian MSA patients than in SCA6, SCA31, CCA, or MSA (MSA-C and MSA-P) patients. *<i>p</i> < 0.05, post hoc Steel-Dwass test.</p

<i>AI</i> of healthy subjects (HN and HE) and cerebellar patients (CN and CE).

<p>(A) Distribution of <i>AI</i>s and ages for all the participants analyzed. <i>AI</i> tended to decrease and showed a widespread distribution in the HE group. Cerebellar patients (CN and CE) showed lower <i>AI</i>s than the age-matched healthy subjects (HN and HE). † indicates four pure parkinsonian MSA patients without clinical cerebellar signs. (B) Comparison of <i>AI</i> among the HN, HE, CN and CE groups. In all panels, red circles and columns represent HN; magenta, HE; blue, CN; and green, CE. **<i>p</i> < 0.01, ****<i>p</i> < 0.0001, Kruskal-Wallis test or Steel-Dwass test. Error bar represents SEM.</p