Standardization of Project Management Practices of Automotive Industry Suppliers - Systematic Literature Review

This paper deals with the issue of standardization of project management (PM) practices of development activities of automotive industry suppliers. Development activities are critically important for ensuring the final quality of the developed products and related production systems while keeping the target costs. The key to their successful management is considered the use of modern PM practices. In order to represent the current best practices and to be apparent and transparent, the PM practices must be properly standardized. A comprehensive branch standard of PM in automotive industry is however missing. In order to fill the gap in the current state of knowledge, consecutive steps of standardization were defined. This article describes one of the initial steps, a systematic literature review of existing resources that could serve as a valuable basis for standardization. The results show that general PM standards are suitable for treating the quality of project processes and branch PM standards of automotive industry for treating the quality of project product – manufacturing processes of automotive suppliers. The paper discusses the individual methods within both groups in more detail and recommends what purpose they are suitable for

Fungal ectoparasites increase winter mortality of ladybird hosts despite limited effects on their immune system

Winter represents a challenging period for insects inhabiting temperate regions. A plethora of studies have investigated how environmental conditions such as temperature affect insect overwintering success. However, only a few studies have focused on biotic factors and the mechanisms affecting the overwintering performance of insects. Here, we investigated the effects of the parasitic fungus Hesperomyces virescens on the overwintering performance and immune system functioning of the invasive ladybird Harmonia axyridis. Winter survival was significantly lower for infected than for uninfected ladybirds. Body mass loss during overwintering tends to be higher for infected individuals compared to uninfected ones and for larger ladybirds. In addition, parasitic infection reduced post-winter longevity without food in male but not female ladybirds. Total haemocyte and protein concentration as well as antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli significantly decreased during ladybird overwintering. However, haemolymph parameters were only poorly affected by Hesperomyces infection, with the exception of antimicrobial activity against E. coli that tended to be higher in infected ladybirds. Interestingly, none of the pre-winter haemolymph parameters were good predictors of ladybird winter survival. Overall, our results indicate that energy exhaustion unrelated to immune system challenge is the most probable explanation for increased overwintering mortality in infected ladybirds.Fil: Knapp, Michal. Czech University Of Life Sciences Prague; República ChecaFil: Řeřicha, Michal. Czech University Of Life Sciences Prague; República ChecaFil: Haelewaters, Danny. University of Ghent; BélgicaFil: González, Ezequiel. Czech University Of Life Sciences Prague; República Checa. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; Argentin

Standardizace postupů vývoje produkčních systémů sériových dodavatelů automobilového průmyslu – systematická literární rešerše

Článek pojednává o problematice standardizace postupů projektového managementu vývojových aktivit sériových dodavatelů automobilového průmyslu. Vývojové aktivity mají kritický význam pro zajištění výsledné kvality vyvíjených produktů a souvisejících výrobních systémů při dodržení cílových nákladů. Za klíč k jejich úspěšnému řízení je považováno využívání moderních postupů projektového managementu. Aby však postupy projektového managementu byly skutečně efektivní, zřejmé a transparentní, musí dodavatelské podniky postupy PM řádně standardizovat. Ucelený oborový standard PM v automobilovém průmyslu, který by dodavatelům automobilového průmyslu dával potřebný návod a základ pro standardizaci, však chybí. Absence oborového standardu projektového managementu byla identifikována jako mezera současného stavu znalostí a pro její vyplnění byly definovány konkrétní kroky standardizace. Tento článek popisuje jeden z jejích počátečních kroků, systematickou literární rešerši dostupných zdrojů, které se problematikou zabývají a které dodavatelským podnikům poslouží jako cenný základ pro standardizaci. Pro úspěšný projektový management je nezbytné, aby byla současně ošetřena kvalita procesů projektu a kvalita produktu projektu. Výsledky rešerše ukazují, že pro ošetření kvality procesů projektu jsou vhodné obecné standardy projektového managementu, pro ošetření kvality produktu projektu oborové standardy projektového managementu automobilového průmyslu. Příspěvek v rámci obou skupin jednotlivé publikace podrobněji rozebírá a doporučuje, k jakému účelu jsou vhodné.Příspěvek byl vytvořen za podpory projektu SGS-2023-025 s názvem "Ekologicky udržitelná výroba“ řešeného v rámci Interní grantové agentury Západočeské univerzity v Plzni

The WID-BC-index identifies women with primary poor prognostic breast cancer based on DNA methylation in cervical samples

Genetic and non-genetic factors contribute to breast cancer development. An epigenome-based signature capturing these components in easily accessible samples could identify women at risk. Here, we analyse the DNA methylome in 2,818 cervical, 357 and 227 matched buccal and blood samples respectively, and 42 breast tissue samples from women with and without breast cancer. Utilising cervical liquid-based cytology samples, we develop the DNA methylation-based Women’s risk IDentification for Breast Cancer index (WID-BC-index) that identifies women with breast cancer with an AUROC (Area Under the Receiver Operator Characteristic) of 0.84 (95% CI: 0.80–0.88) and 0.81 (95% CI: 0.76–0.86) in internal and external validation sets, respectively. CpGs at progesterone receptor binding sites hypomethylated in normal breast tissue of women with breast cancer or in BRCA mutation carriers are also hypomethylated in cervical samples of women with poor prognostic breast cancer. Our data indicate that a systemic epigenetic programming defect is highly prevalent in women who develop breast cancer. Further studies validating the WID-BC-index may enable clinical implementation for monitoring breast cancer risk.publishedVersio

A Catalog of the Highest-energy Cosmic Rays Recorded during Phase I of Operation of the Pierre Auger Observatory

A catalog containing details of the highest-energy cosmic rays recorded through the detection of extensive air-showers at the Pierre Auger Observatory is presented with the aim of opening the data to detailed examination. Descriptions of the 100 showers created by the highest-energy particles recorded between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2020 are given for cosmic rays that have energies in the range 78 EeV to 166 EeV. Details are also given of a further nine very-energetic events that have been used in the calibration procedure adopted to determine the energy of each primary. A sky plot of the arrival directions of the most energetic particles is shown. No interpretations of the data are offered

A Catalog of the Highest-energy Cosmic Rays Recorded during Phase I of Operation of the Pierre Auger Observatory

A catalog containing details of the highest-energy cosmic rays recorded through the detection of extensive air showers at the Pierre Auger Observatory is presented with the aim of opening the data to detailed examination. Descriptions of the 100 showers created by the highest-energy particles recorded between 2004 January 1 and 2020 December 31 are given for cosmic rays that have energies in the range 78–166 EeV. Details are also given on a further nine very energetic events that have been used in the calibration procedure adopted to determine the energy of each primary. A sky plot of the arrival directions of the most energetic particles is shown. No interpretations of the data are offered

Arrival Directions of Cosmic Rays above 32 EeV from Phase One of the Pierre Auger Observatory

A promising energy range to look for angular correlations between cosmic rays of extragalactic origin and their sources is at the highest energies, above a few tens of EeV (1 EeV equivalent to 10^(18) eV). Despite the flux of these particles being extremely low, the area of similar to 3000 km^(2) covered at the Pierre Auger Observatory, and the 17 yr data-taking period of the Phase 1 of its operations, have enabled us to measure the arrival directions of more than 2600 ultra-high-energy cosmic rays above 32 EeV. We publish this data set, the largest available at such energies from an integrated exposure of 122,000 km^(2) sr yr, and search it for anisotropies over the 3.4 pi steradians covered with the Observatory. Evidence for a deviation in excess of isotropy at intermediate angular scales, with similar to 15 degrees Gaussian spread or similar to 25 degrees top-hat radius, is obtained at the 4 sigma significance level for cosmic-ray energies above similar to 40 EeV

Search for Ultra-high-energy Photons from Gravitational Wave Sources with the Pierre Auger Observatory

A search for time-directional coincidences of ultra-high-energy (UHE) photons above 10 EeV with gravitational wave (GW) events from the LIGO/Virgo runs O1 to O3 is conducted with the Pierre Auger Observatory. Due to the distinctive properties of photon interactions and to the background expected from hadronic showers, a subset of the most interesting GW events is selected based on their localization quality and distance. Time periods of 1000 s around and 1 day after the GW events are analyzed. No coincidences are observed. Upper limits on the UHE photon fluence from a GW event are derived that are typically at & SIM;7 MeV cm(-2) (time period 1000 s) and & SIM;35 MeV cm(-2) (time period 1 day). Due to the proximity of the binary neutron star merger GW170817, the energy of the source transferred into UHE photons above 40 EeV is constrained to be less than 20% of its total GW energy. These are the first limits on UHE photons from GW sources

Searches for Ultra-High-Energy Photons at the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Pierre Auger Observatory, which is the largest air-shower experiment in the world, offers unprecedented exposure to neutral particles at the highest energies. Since the start of data collection more than 18 years ago, various searches for ultra-high-energy (UHE, E greater than or similar to 10^(17) eV) photons have been performed, either for a diffuse flux of UHE photons, for point sources of UHE photons or for UHE photons associated with transient events such as gravitational wave events. In the present paper, we summarize these searches and review the current results obtained using the wealth of data collected by the Pierre Auger Observatory