Ultrastructural and Textural Properties of Restructured Beef Treated with a Bacterial Culture and Splenic Pulp

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Instron measurements were used to evaluate the effects of an Achromobacter iophagus culture {BC) and splenic pulp (SP) treatments one structural and textural properties of flaked and restructured beef steaks. Both treatments improved the textural character is tics of the product when conditioned at 35°C . Electron microscopy studies revealed that the bacterial culture treatment caused a greater effect than SP on the connective tissue elements, with a degradation of the endomysial sheath and sarcolemma. Treatment with splenic pulp produced an overall excessive disruption a t the Z-lines with little definition of the A-bands

A Quality-Aware Approach to Web Services Procurement

Web services bring programmers a new way to develop advanced applications able to integrate any group of services on the Internet into a single solution. Web services procurement (WSP) is focussed on the acquisition of web services, including some complex tasks such as the specification of demands, the search for available offers, and the best choice selection. Although the technology to support them already exists, there are only a few approaches wherein qualityof- service in demands and offers is taken into account, in addition to functionality. In this paper, we present some implementation issues on a quality-aware approach to WSP, whose solution is mainly based on using mathematical constraints to define quality-of-service in demands and offers.Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIC2000-1106-C02-01Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología FIT-150100-2001-78Junta de Comunidades de Castilla La Mancha PCB-02-00

Automating the Procurement of Web Services

As government agencies and business become more dependent on web services, software solutions to automate their procurement gain importance. Current approaches for automating the procurement of web services suffer from an important drawback: neither uncertainty measures nor non-linear, and complex relations among parameters can be used by providers to specify quality-ofservice in offers. In this paper, we look deeply into the roots of this drawback and present a proposal which overcomes it. The key point to achieve this improvement has been using the constraint programming as a formal basis, since it endows the model with a very powerful expressiveness. A XML-based implementation is presented along with some experimental results and comparisons with other approaches.Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología TIC 2000–1106–C02–01Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIC2003-02737-C02-01Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología FIT-150100-2001-7

Automated reasoning on feature models

Software Product Line (SPL) Engineering has proved to be an effective method for software production. However, in the SPL community it is well recognized that variability in SPLs is increasing by the thousands. Hence, an automatic support is needed to deal with variability in SPL. Most of the current proposals for automatic reasoning on SPL are not devised to cope with extra– functional features. In this paper we introduce a proposal to model and reason on an SPL using constraint programming. We take into account functional and extra–functional features, improve current proposals and present a running, yet feasible implementation

International Stem Cell Collaboration: How Disparate Policies between the United States and the United Kingdom Impact Research

As the scientific community globalizes, it is increasingly important to understand the effects of international collaboration on the quality and quantity of research produced. While it is generally assumed that international collaboration enhances the quality of research, this phenomenon is not well examined. Stem cell research is unique in that it is both politically charged and a research area that often generates international collaborations, making it an ideal case through which to examine international collaborations. Furthermore, with promising medical applications, the research area is dynamic and responsive to a globalizing science environment. Thus, studying international collaborations in stem cell research elucidates the role of existing international networks in promoting quality research, as well as the effects that disparate national policies might have on research. This study examined the impact of collaboration on publication significance in the United States and the United Kingdom, world leaders in stem cell research with disparate policies. We reviewed publications by US and UK authors from 2008, along with their citation rates and the political factors that may have contributed to the number of international collaborations. The data demonstrated that international collaborations significantly increased an article's impact for UK and US investigators. While this applied to UK authors whether they were corresponding or secondary, this effect was most significant for US authors who were corresponding authors. While the UK exhibited a higher proportion of international publications than the US, this difference was consistent with overall trends in international scientific collaboration. The findings suggested that national stem cell policy differences and regulatory mechanisms driving international stem cell research in the US and UK did not affect the frequency of international collaborations, or even the countries with which the US and UK most often collaborated. Geographical and traditional collaborative relationships were the predominate considerations in establishing international collaborations

Jean Briggs's Never in Anger as an Ethnography of Experience

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66542/2/10.1177_0308275X9301300406.pd

The state of HRM in the Middle East:Challenges and future research agenda

Based on a robust structured literature analysis, this paper highlights the key developments in the field of human resource management (HRM) in the Middle East. Utilizing the institutional perspective, the analysis contributes to the literature on HRM in the Middle East by focusing on four key themes. First, it highlights the topical need to analyze the context-specific nature of HRM in the region. Second, via the adoption of a systematic review, it highlights state of development in HRM in the research analysis set-up. Third, the analysis also helps to reveal the challenges facing the HRM function in the Middle East. Fourth, it presents an agenda for future research in the form of research directions. While doing the above, it revisits the notions of “universalistic” and “best practice” HRM (convergence) versus “best-fit” or context distinctive (divergence) and also alternate models/diffusion of HRM (crossvergence) in the Middle Eastern context. The analysis, based on the framework of cross-national HRM comparisons, helps to make both theoretical and practical implications