Immunogenicity and efficacy of non-adjuvant tissue culture-based rabies vaccine produced in Ethiopia

Rabies is 100% fatal, but it is preventable. More than 95% of human rabies cases occur in improperly treated individuals. This is partly due to the fact that modern post-exposure rabies prophylaxis is expensive and therefore not readily available in many endemic regions. Nervous tissue vaccine has been in use for more than 100yrs. These vaccines have now been superseded in purity, potency, immunogenicity and safety. The efficacy and immunogenicity of inactivated tissue culture rabies vaccine, produced in Ethiopia was evaluated. Twelve experimental dogs from local breed were duly conditioned during a quarantine period and assigned to two groups randomly. Animals in group I (cases) were vaccinated subcutaneously with 1 ml of our experimental vaccine. Dogs in group II served as non-vaccinated controls. The immune response of each dog was monitored for 90 days. On the day 90 after final sampling, all dogs were challenged in the masseter muscle with a rabies street virus of canine origin. To evaluate the titer of the rabies virus neutralizing antibodies (VNA), sera were analyzed by Fluorescent Antibody Virus Neutralization (FAVN) Test. Geometric Mean Titers (GMT) to rabies virus was determined at days 7, 15, 21, 30, 60 and 90. Geometric mean titers were equal to 1.59, 1.73, 2.19, 3.58, 3.17 and 3.35 IU/ml respectively. All dogs showed VNA titers higher than the 0.5 IU/ml mandated WHO recommended threshold. All vaccinated dogs, survived the challenge. In contrast, 83.3% of dogs in the control (non-vaccinated group), developed rabies and died. This study indicated that cell culture-based anti-rabies developed inhouse, with no adjuvant is efficacious and immunogenic

Lean Product Development: Fact Finding Research in Italy

Companies have to constantly innovate and introduce new products to the market to win the current pressure they are facing in the globalization era. New Product Development (NPD) Process is becoming crucial, and its performances determine the success of the whole enterprise. Most efforts have been dedicated to improve the phase using different tools and methodologies. Particularly some are trying to apply lean product development to foster the efficiency and effectiveness of their NPD. Though literatures show its success, its implementation is complex and ask for relevant efforts to get benefits out of it. The contribution of this work is to understand if the application of Lean in NPD is currently diffused in Italy. In order to do this we analyzed the development phases of eleven SME and large Italian companies working in mechanical and electronics sector. As a methodology a direct interview has been conducted using semi-structured questioner consists of 39 questions divided into 5 sections. The first section was about lean product development process, the second section was about lean product design, the third section was about knowledge based engineering, and fourth was about cost estimation and the last part consists of additional question about the challenges to implement lean in product development. The interview personnel were project managers, product designers and technical directors. From the study it is found out that most of the companies seldom integrate lean thinking in their product development. Moreover, the early involvement of suppliers in NPD is low, rather the traditional concurrent engineering practice is seen to be adopted by many of the companies interviewed by integrating for example manufacturing starting from concept phase to launch phase. However, the study is a fact finding research, and it is neither intended to be exhaustive nor to be accurate to draw complete conclusions about lean adoption in Italian manufacturing industries

Set Based Concurrent Engineering: Serious Gaming and Implications for Practice.

This paper presents a Serious Game (SG) about SBCE (Set-Based Concurrent Engineering) which is one element of Lean practice in Product Development (PD). The game is structured in two stages that simulate the traditional approach to product concept development called PBCE (Pont Based Concurrent Engineering) and SBCE processes. Although SBCE is becoming popular in academia, its understanding and level of adoption in practice are low. Thus, the game is designed to bring a hand on experience to practionaires to understand and reflect on the benefits and applicability of SBCE in a particular company’s context. This paper presents some of the learning outcomes gained through running the game in a company which designs and manufactures products for HVAC/R (heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration) markets. Moreover, some practical and theoretical insights gained throughout the game play are discussed

Integration of Sustainability in New Product Development Process: Italian Experiences

Decisions that are made during NPD process lock-in around 80-90% of a product‟s life cycle sustainability performances. Therefore, investigating how companies are integrating sustainability in their NPD process is the main target of this paper. From literature, a three pillar framework (Strategy-Tool-Process) has been developed that outlines “a must to have” elements to successfully integrate sustainability and life cycle thinking in NPD process. Based on the framework a questionnaire has been developed to assess manufacturing companies operating in Italy in Electrical, Mechanical, and Automotive sectors. The empirical study was conducted on 10 companies which have high innovation cycles and are the target of many product based EU legislations (e.g. WEEE, ELV, EuP, REACH, RoHS, and others). The results show that companies still consider sustainability as a constraint rather than opportunity for eco-innovation. Moreover, companies are trying to meet the minimum requirements asked by legislations, despite the efforts made by academia to drive strategic push, effective tools, and suitable NPD process paradigms to foster sustainable product innovations. Keywords: Sustainability, Lifecycle Thinking, NPD (New Product Development), Eco-design

Lean Product and Process Development: a Learning Kit

This paper aimed at introducing the concept of Lean Product and Process Development through an easy learning kit. There are four key pillars in which the learning kit is organized. The first one is called “Learning MyWaste”, a methodology for practitioners to understand, identify, measure and improve product development wastes in their organization. The second part of the kit is “New Product Development Process Simulation”, which teaches companies how to change their process variables in order to improve their New Product Development (NPD) process performances using a system dynamics model. The third part of the kit concerns with the development of a business game to let player understand how to create value in NPD while eliminating wastes. The last part of the kit focuses on the development of Set Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE) game, where SBCE is the backbone of Lean Product and Process Development. This paper presents the four pillars and gives inklings about the progress of their deployment

Lean Product Development Business Game, a Conceptual Work

Developing new products faster than competitors do is a formidable strategic weapon to succeed in increasingly turbulent market. The Toyota way of product development, called lean product development (Lean PD), has been enabling companies to develop products faster and with fewer engineering hours by fostering the real customer value in the design and development process of a product. Among many of the lean PD principles and practices, identifying waste and eliminating them is fundamental step for successful implementation of Lean PD. However, those wastes in product development are tacit and intangible and too hard to identify and stream line a development process. Moreover, the knowledge workers typically involved in product design and development are left unscrutinized about the waste they incur in their work, but the Lean PD thinking enable them to focus on the innovative part of their work by eliminating unnecessary non value adding (NVA) activities. The main objective of this paper is to design a Business Game that will be used to train and experience design experts and students to identify new product development (NPD) wastes and relate the impact of their actions to the development performances using game simulation. The paper is a conceptual framework that only outlines requirements for the game