Criteria for Integration of Flows on Levels of Aggregation

The article describes the processes and connections that occur on the road from of cellular integration to the integration of the supply chain. How to make the transition to higher levels? What is the first step and which approach is essential to ensure continuous improvement? With the changing in the organizational environment nowadays it is not satisfactory only a leveled increase. Global optimum of improvements always overcome the amount of local optimums. This idea and approach must be used when talking about flows and aggregation.production flow, cellular production, value stream mapping, continuous improvement, biological system.

SERVICE MANAGEMENT – MODERN APPROACH BETWEEN PAST AND FUTURE

The article presents some basic concepts related to service management, highlighting central characteristics described in three temporary dimensions: past, present and future. The research includes an incursion into classical theories, analyzing present trends and the ability to see them both as opportunities and as barriers for the future of what we define as service management. One of the key elements identified as feasible and improvable in a short time plane is the e-learning service. The research provides a global frame for different areas of modernization in service management, considering the fact that modernization should be associated both with complete change and innovation and with existing elements’ improvement.Services, Economic development, Social development, State intervention, E-learning

Impact of Crisis on Logistics Management

Is the current situation facing the whole world and we need to adapt to withstand a fierce weather. Because the supply, which can be seen both as a sale (the manufacturers buy from suppliers) as well as a purchase (customers are supplied by producers) is the center of activities, we believe that a interpretation and a strategic direction to increase the competitiveness of extended supply chain, represents an initial starting point to save the current situation. We must understand that do not survive the nicest, smartest or the strongest, is the future of those who adapt best to change. In the global crisis context we must consider first the potential and not the market. Apparently the market is in a total collapse, but the potential still exists, even at minimum capacity it should work. Now they will be able to support only companies that eliminate almost all their losses and best manages their resources and activities.supply chain management; global crisis; restarting the business; procurement cycle.

Copolymers of amorphous polystyrene and crystallizable hydrogen bonding units

Copolymers are macromolecules composed of linear or non-linear arrangements of chemically different polymeric chain parts. In most cases the different constituting blocks are incompatible, giving rise to a rich variety of well-defined self-assembled structures both in bulk and in selective solvents. These self-assembled structures may form the basis for applications ranging from thermoplastic elastomers to information storage, drug delivery and photonic materials. As a result, there is a continuous investigation of the self-assembly process as well as of the response of these materials to external stimuli. Therefore, it is not surprising that these materials play an important role in contemporary macromolecular science, covering the full spectrum of polymer chemistry, polymer physics and applications. In the present thesis, copolymers of amorphous polystyrene and aliphatic or aromatic polyamide units, having various structures (diblock, multiblock and graft copolymers) were synthesized and their structure-properties relationships were investigated. These copolymers were applied in order to verify a so-called "sticky-blocks" concept, which aims at designing materials with improved processabilty as compared to high molecular weight industrially used polystyrenes. The principle of "sticky-blocks" lies in decreasing the molecular weight of polystyrene (thus improving melt flow) and compensating for the loss of entanglements per individual macromolecule, by creating hydrogen-bonded, semi-crystalline polymeric networks, which would have similar properties as the high molecular weight homo-polystyrenes. Polyamides we chosen to function as "sticky-blocks" due to their relatively low melt viscosity (200-400 Pas) and optimal mechanical and thermal properties at relatively low molecular weights (20,000-30,000 g/mol), inherent in the presence of relatively strong hydrogen-bond interactions. We demonstrated in this thesis that, by using aromatic polyamides (T6T6T) of (reported) high crystallinity and stability of the crystalline phase, segmented multiblock copolymers of polystyrene and T6T6T with molar masses up to around 40,000 g/mol can be relatively easily prepared. However, due to the very high incompatibility of the two phases, the synthesized multiblock copolymers displayed rather weak crystals and premature phase separation (presumed via liquid-liquid demixing), and the desired semi-crystalline network structure could not be obtained. Nevertheless, the thermal stability and moduli improved considerably, not only compared to neat PS of similar molecular mass (50,000 g/mol), but also compared to commercial PS with Mw ˜ 200,000 g/mol. Aliphatic polyamides (polyamide-6) were also used as "sticky blocks" in the preparation of diblock and graft copolymers. The diblock copolymers of polystyrene and polyamide-6 had a maximum molecular weight of 20,000 g/mol and were prepared via anionic polymerization of e-caprolactam, starting from PS end-functionalized macroinitiators. These semi-crystalline materials were presumed to be well-flowing (lack of entanglements), but were too brittle to possess measurable mechanical properties. Therefore, for achieving less brittle copolymers, graft copolymers of higher molecular weight (Mn up to 100,000 g/mol) were made via combined ATRP and reactive processing. The graft copolymers seemed the most promising materials to be used for achieving the goal of this thesis. As revealed by thermo-mechanical analyses (DMTA) and rheology, relatively stable crystalline polymeric networks can be formed. Moreover, the graft copolymers had a lower viscosity in the melt under injection moulding shear conditions, while maintaining and even improving some properties of commercial PS. Summarizing, by using this approach, the goal set for decreasing the molecular weight of the PS (thereby improving its flow properties) and compensating for the loss of entanglements per PS macromolecule by introducing "sticky blocks", can most probably be achieved when some further improvements suggested in this thesis can be realized

Radiometric Calibration of the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute Hyperspectral LiDAR

The algorithmic processing of multiwavelength sampled radiance data recorded by multispectral and hyperspectral LiDAR-instruments improves upon the accuracy of reflectance retrieval and target material characterization capabilities of the instrument. A simulation script was written to study different algorithmic waveform reconstruction procedures for intensity calibration of the Finnish Geodetic Research Institute hyperspectral LiDAR, considering environment of operation, processing speed, and digitization frequency. A Gaussian parametrization, a polynomial least squares, a cubic spline, and a Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm were analyzed in terms of acquiring waveform peak amplitude, spatio-temporal peak location, FWHM, and area parameters from the samples of an approximately 1 ns FWHM Gaussian pulse. The results show that the cubic spline algorithm is best suited for implementation with FGI-HSL, as it provides an error of $0.2575 \pm 0.191$\% in waveform peak amplitude retrieval at a sampling frequency of 4 GHz, and real-time processing capabilities at a pulse repetition frequency of 2 MHz. Based on the insight of this study, suggestions are given for algorithm choice depending on the spatio-temporal shape of the full-waveform and the required accuracy of waveform parameter retrieval as function of sampling frequency

Towards Personalized Medicine for Persistent Depressive Disorder: Moving from “one size fits all” to “what works for whom?”

Persistent Depressive Disorder (PDD) is, by definition, a chronic mental disorder that severely affects the quality of life of those affected. Despite numerous available treatment options, response and remission rates are generally scarce in patients with PDD, with effectiveness of different treatments varying between individual patients. However, empirical evidence predicting and understanding the individual treatment benefit is largely lacking. Personalized medicine aims to match patients with the most promising treatment on an individual basis by identifying pre-treatment characteristics that predict the outcome of a particular treatment for an individual patient. While other medical disciplines have achieved great progress in the field of personalized medicine, psychiatry still lags far behind, holding on to the ‘one size fits all’ concept, which assumes that a certain treatment will work equally well for all patients diagnosed with a particular disorder. This is also broadly applicable to the research field on PDD. The overarching aim of this publication-based dissertation is to advance the field of personalized medicine for PDD by providing evidence for the effectiveness of certain psychotherapeutic and pharmacological treatments for specific subgroups of patients with PDD based on their multivariable pre-treatment profile. Beginning with an introduction, this thesis will first provide a theoretical framework for the two main thematical concepts of this work, namely PDD and personalized medicine, as well as an overview of previous evidence on treatment prediction in patients with PDD. Afterwards, the main objectives and research questions of this thesis are presented with respect to two specific clinical decision-making scenarios that have been studied in the three scientific papers presented thereafter, namely the selection of and between two psychotherapies (Paper 1 and Paper 2) and the choice between psychotherapy and antidepressant medication (Paper 3). Paper 1 identified and combined pretreatment characteristics of patients with early-onset PDD that moderate their benefit from disorder-specific Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy (CBASP) versus nonspecific Supportive Psychotherapy (SP), thereby detecting two subgroups with differential treatment benefits. Paper 2 investigated treatment predictors and identified several subgroups of patients experiencing a comparable treatment effectiveness of CBASP and SP. Finally, following the same question and methodology as Paper 1 for the comparison of CBASP and pharmacotherapy with Escitalopram plus Clinical Management (ESC/CM), Paper 3 identified two subgroups of patients with differential benefit from these two treatment options. Altogether, the main findings of the three papers extend the body of evidence for treatment prediction in patients with PDD in several aspects: first, they show that behind the general cross-sample effects reported in the main studies, there exist underlying subgroup effects, suggesting that the effectiveness of the investigated treatments varies greatly depending on the patient’s pre-treatment profile. Second, they present novel methodological approaches together with advantages of a multivariable consideration of the pre-treatment profile and its prediction of treatment response. Third and lastly, they provide new evidence for whom the treatments studied are more or less likely to work, possible underlying reasons, and other research questions that arise and need to be investigated by future research