A framework for industrial systems modeling and simulation

To successfully compete in a global market, manufacturing production systems are being forced to reduce time to market and to provide improved responsiveness to changes in market conditions. The organizations that comprise the business links in the production system must constantly make tradeoffs between time and cost in order to achieve a competitive but quick response to consumer demand. Due to the inherent uncertainty of consumer demand, these tradeoffs are, by definition, made with incomplete information and can incur significant financial and competitive risk to the organization. Partnerships between organizations are a mechanism for increasing the information in the decision making process by combining information from the two partners. Partnerships are inherently difficult to implement due to trust issues. A mechanism for investigating and validating the mutual benefit to partnering would be useful in designing and implementing partnerships. This paper describes the development of a software framework for industrial systems modeling and simulation. The framework provides a mechanism for investigating changes to industrial systems in a manner which minimizes the effort and computational power needed to develop focused simulations. The architecture and it`s component parts are described

Factors linked to severe thrombocytopenia during antiviral therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis c and pretreatment low platelet counts

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Baseline low platelet count (< 150,000/μL) increases the risk of on-treatment severe thrombocytopenia (platelet count < 50,000/μL) in patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC) undergoing antiviral therapy, which may interrupt treatment. The purpose of this study was to identify risk factors for severe thrombocytopenia during treatment for CHC in patients with baseline thrombocytopenia.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Medical records were reviewed for 125 patients with CHC treated with antiviral therapy according to the standard of care, with regular follow-up examinations. Early platelet decline was defined as platelet decrease during the first 2 weeks of therapy.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Severe thrombocytopenia developed in 12.8% of patients with baseline thrombocytopenia, and predicted a higher therapeutic dropout rate. Multivariate analysis revealed baseline platelet count < 100,000/μL and rapid early platelet decline (> 30% decline in the first 2 weeks) were significantly associated with severe thrombocytopenia (<it>P </it>< 0.001 and 0.003, odds ratios, 179.22 and 45.74, respectively). In these patients, baseline PLT ≥ 100,000/μL and lack of rapid early platelet decline predicted absence of severe thrombocytopenia (negative predictive values were 95.1% and 96.6%, respectively). In contrast, baseline platelet count < 100,000/μL combined with rapid early platelet decline predicted severe thrombocytopenia (positive predictive value was 100%).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>For patients with CHC on antiviral therapy, baseline platelet counts < 100,000/μL and rapid early platelet decline can identify patients at high risk of developing on-treatment severe thrombocytopenia.</p

Images in Medicine - A Variant of Poland Syndrome

A 30-year-old man presented with aesthetic complaints of weakness on the right side along with maldevelopment of right hand since birth. The birth history was uneventful. There was no history of exposure to teratogenic drugs. Seven other siblings were normal. The parents did not have a similar defect

Study on the organoleptic intensity scale for measuring oral malodor

The 0-5 organoleptic scale is used widely in breath research and in trials to measure the efficacy of anti-odor agents. However, the precise relationship between odor scores and gas concentrations of target odorants is unknown. The purpose of this study was to relate mean organoleptic scores from odor judges (n = 7) for pure odorants (n = 8) representative of those found in oral malodor. Judges used a common 0-5 scale to report the odor intensity of sample sets in random order of concentration. Regression analysis of data showed that odor score was proportional to the log concentration of odorant, and comparison of slopes showed H2S to be the most significant in terms of odor power. Detection thresholds (mol.dm-3) were: Skatole (7.2 × 10 -13) < methylmercaptan (1.0 × 10-11) < trimethylamine (1.8 × 10-11) < isovalerate (1.8 × 10-11) < butyrate (2.3 × 10-10) < hydrogen sulphide (6.4 × 10-10) < putrescine (9.1 × 10 -10) < dimethyl disulphide (5.9 × 10-8). The study demonstrates the exponential nature of the olfactory response and shows that any single compound's contribution to malodor depends on odor power and threshold in addition to concentration

Halitosis management by the general dental practitioner--results of an international consensus workshop

Clinical investigations on patients suffering from halitosis clearly reveal that in the vast majority of cases the source for an offensive breath odor can be found within the oral cavity (90%). Based on these studies, the main sources for intra-oral halitosis where tongue coating, gingivitis/periodontitis or a combination of the two. Thus, it is perfectly logical that general dental practitioners (GDPs) should be able to manage intra-oral halitosis under the conditions found in a normal dental practice. However, GDPs who are interested in diagnosing and treating halitosis are challenged to incorporate scientifically based strategies for use in their clinics. Therefore, the present paper summarizes the results of a consensus workshop of international authorities held with the aim to reach a consensus on general guidelines on how to assess and diagnose patients' breath odor concerns and general guidelines on regimens for the treatment of halitosis.status: publishe