2,555 research outputs found
The impact of private label foods on supply chain governance
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the introduction of private label (PL) foods upon the governance of the food supply chains. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted a multi-case study research examining the launch and development of PL cheeses in four large national-wide retail chains. The paper focused on the category of Products of Designated Origin (PDO) cheeses, including the popular feta cheese. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews and secondary sources of information. Data analysis involved single-case and within-case analyses. Findings – There is a strong motive to launch and develop PL cheeses due to increasing consumer demand. Retailers choose suppliers based on criteria such as: compliance to quality assurance standards, modernisation of processing facilities, implementation of legislation, credibility, experience, and reputation. Retailers use contracts and prefer small suppliers than medium-sized companies. Supply chain governance turns from market to hierarchy status, which performs better in terms of supply chain cost, food quality, and consumer satisfaction. The structure of food industry is also affected by pressure put on medium-sized food companies. Research limitations/implications – The paper is based on a multiple case study design that does not provide static generalisations, yet it offers a stepping stone to building new theory about supply chain governance, how it evolves and its effects on supply chain performance. Practical implications – The introduction of PL cheeses favours small and dynamic cheese processing units willing to adopt retailer standards and prices over larger units, which poses a real threat to the survival of regional-wide food companies. Originality/value – Few studies have examined how supply chain governance evolves and what triggers a change in governance structures
D-brane Inspired Fermion Mass Textures
In this paper, the issues of the quark mass hierarchies and the Cabbibo
Kobayashi Maskawa mixing are analyzed in a class of intersecting D-brane
configurations with Standard Model gauge symmetry. The relevant mass matrices
are constructed taking into account the constraints imposed by extra abelian
symmetries and anomaly cancelation conditions. Possible mass generating
mechanisms including perturbative as well as non-perturbative effects are
discussed and specific patterns of mass textures are found characterized by the
hierarchies of the scales where the various sources contribute. It is argued
that the Cholesky decomposition of the mass matrices is the most appropriate
way to determine the properties of these fermion mass patterns, while the
associated triangular mass matrix form provides a unified description of all
phenomenologically equivalent symmetric and non-symmetric mass matrices. An
elegant analytic formula is derived for the Cholesky triangular form of the
mass matrices where the entries are given as simple functions of the mass
eigenstates and the diagonalizing transformation entries. Finally, motivated by
the possibility of vanishing zero Yukawa mass entries in several D-brane and
F-theory constructions due to the geometry of the internal space, we analyse in
detail all possible texture-zeroes mass matrices within the proposed new
context. These new texture-zeroes are compared to those existing in the
literature while D-brane inspired cases are worked out in detail.Comment: 58 pages, 7 figure
The multilevel trigger system of the DIRAC experiment
The multilevel trigger system of the DIRAC experiment at CERN is presented.
It includes a fast first level trigger as well as various trigger processors to
select events with a pair of pions having a low relative momentum typical of
the physical process under study. One of these processors employs the drift
chamber data, another one is based on a neural network algorithm and the others
use various hit-map detector correlations. Two versions of the trigger system
used at different stages of the experiment are described. The complete system
reduces the event rate by a factor of 1000, with efficiency 95% of
detecting the events in the relative momentum range of interest.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figure
The cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p57(Kip2) is epigenetically regulated in carboplatin resistance and results in collateral sensitivity to the CDK inhibitor seliciclib in ovarian cancer
Carboplatin remains a first-line agent in the management of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). Unfortunately, platinum-resistant disease ultimately occurs in most patients. Using a novel EOC cell line with acquired resistance to carboplatin: PEO1CarbR, genome-wide micro-array profiling identified the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p57(Kip2) as specifically downregulated in carboplatin resistance. Presently, we describe confirmation of these preliminary data with a variety of approaches
Phenomenological analysis of D-brane Pati-Salam vacua
In the present work we perform a phenomenological analysis of the effective
low energy models with Pati-Salam (PS) gauge symmetry derived in the context of
D-branes. A main issue in these models arises from the fact that the
right-handed fermions and the PS-symmetry breaking Higgs field transform
identically under the PS symmetry, causing unnatural matter-Higgs mixing
effects. We argue that this problem could be solved in particular D-brane
setups where these fields arise in different intersections. We further observe
that whenever a large Higgs mass term is generated in a particular class of
mass spectra, a splitting mechanism -reminiscent of the doublet triplet
splitting- may protect the neutral Higgs components from a heavy mass term. We
analyze the implications of each individual representation which in principle
is available in these models in order to specify the minimal spectrum required
to build up a consistent PS model which reconciles the low energy data. A short
discussion is devoted on the effects of stringy instanton corrections,
particularly those generating missing Yukawa couplings and contributing to the
fermion mass textures. We discuss the correlations of the intersecting D-brane
spectra with those obtained from Gepner constructions and analyze the
superpotential, the resulting mass textures and the low energy implications of
some examples of the latter along the lines proposed above.Comment: 50 pages, 3 figures (v2 - Minor corrections
Tests of the Equivalence Principle with Neutral Kaons
We test the Principle of Equivalence for particles and antiparticles, using
CPLEAR data on tagged K0 and K0bar decays into pi^+ pi^-. For the first time,
we search for possible annual, monthly and diurnal modulations of the
observables |eta_{+-}| and phi_{+-}, that could be correlated with variations
in astrophysical potentials. Within the accuracy of CPLEAR, the measured values
of |eta_{+-}| and phi_{+-} are found not to be correlated with changes of the
gravitational potential. We analyze data assuming effective scalar, vector and
tensor interactions, and we conclude that the Principle of Equivalence between
particles and antiparticles holds to a level of 6.5, 4.3 and 1.8 x 10^{-9},
respectively, for scalar, vector and tensor potentials originating from the Sun
with a range much greater than the distance Earth-Sun. We also study
energy-dependent effects that might arise from vector or tensor interactions.
Finally, we compile upper limits on the gravitational coupling difference
between K0 and K0bar as a function of the scalar, vector and tensor interaction
range.Comment: 15 pages latex 2e, five figures, one style file (cernart.csl)
incorporate
An integrated view on monitoring and compensation for dynamic optical networks: from management to physical layer
A vertical perspective, ranging from management and routing to physical layer options, concerning dynamic network monitoring and compensation of impairments (M&C), is given. Feasibility, reliability, and performance improvements on reconfigurable transparent networks are expected to arise from the consolidated assessment of network management and control specifications, as a more accurate evaluation of available M&C techniques. In the network layer, physical parameters aware algorithms are foreseen to pursue reliable network performance. In the physical layer, some new M&C methods were developed and rating of the state-of-the-art reported in literature is given. Optical monitoring implementation and viability is discussed.Publicad
Test of CPT Symmetry and Quantum Mechanics with Experimental data from CPLEAR
We use fits to recent published CPLEAR data on neutral kaon decays to
and to constrain the CPT--violation parameters
appearing in a formulation of the neutral kaon system as an open
quantum-mechanical system. The obtained upper limits of the CPT--violation
parameters are approaching the range suggested by certain ideas concerning
quantum gravity.Comment: 9 pages of uuencoded postscript (includes 3 figures
Phase Separation of Crystal Surfaces: A Lattice Gas Approach
We consider both equilibrium and kinetic aspects of the phase separation
(``thermal faceting") of thermodynamically unstable crystal surfaces into a
hill--valley structure. The model we study is an Ising lattice gas for a simple
cubic crystal with nearest--neighbor attractive interactions and weak
next--nearest--neighbor repulsive interactions. It is likely applicable to
alkali halides with the sodium chloride structure. Emphasis is placed on the
fact that the equilibrium crystal shape can be interpreted as a phase diagram
and that the details of its structure tell us into which surface orientations
an unstable surface will decompose. We find that, depending on the temperature
and growth conditions, a number of interesting behaviors are expected. For a
crystal in equilibrium with its vapor, these include a low temperature regime
with logarithmically--slow separation into three symmetrically--equivalent
facets, and a higher temperature regime where separation proceeds as a power
law in time into an entire one--parameter family of surface orientations. For a
crystal slightly out of equilibrium with its vapor (slow crystal growth or
etching), power--law growth should be the rule at late enough times. However,
in the low temperature regime, the rate of separation rapidly decreases as the
chemical potential difference between crystal and vapor phases goes to zero.Comment: 16 pages (RevTex 3.0); 12 postscript figures available on request
([email protected]). Submitted to Physical Review E. SFU-JDSDJB-94-0
- …