Optimal replenishment decisions under two-level trade credit with partial upstream trade credit linked to order quantity and limited storage capacity

[[abstract]]This paper extends the previous economic order quantity (EOQ) models under two-level trade credit such as Goyal (1985), Teng (2002), Huang (2003, 2007), Kreng and Tan (2010), Ouyang et al. (2013), and Teng et al. (2007) to reflect the real-life situations by incorporating the following concepts: (1) the storage capacity is limited, (2) the supplier offers the retailer a partially upstream trade credit linked to order quantity, and (3) both the dispensable assumptions that the upstream trade credit is longer than the downstream trade credit N<M and the interest charged per dollar per year is larger than or equal to the interest earned per dollar per year Ic<Ie are relaxed. We then study the necessary and sufficient conditions for finding the optimal solution for various cases and establish a useful algorithm to obtain the solution. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the theoretical results and provide the managerial insights.[[notice]]補正完畢[[incitationindex]]SCI[[booktype]]紙本[[booktype]]電子

Effects of natto extract on endothelial injury in a rat model

Vascular endothelial damage has been found to be associated with thrombus formation, which is considered to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. A diet of natto leads to a low prevalence of cardiovascular disease. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of natto extract on vascular endothelia damage with exposure to laser irradiation. Endothelial damage both in vitro and in vivo was induced by irradiation of rose bengal using a DPSS green laser. Cell viability was determined by MTS assay, and the intimal thickening was verified by a histological approach. The antioxidant content of natto extract was determined for the free radical scavenging activity. Endothelial cells were injured in the presence of rose bengal irradiated in a dose-dependent manner. Natto extract exhibits high levels of antioxidant activity compared with purified natto kinase. Apoptosis of laser-injured endothelial cells was significantly reduced in the presence of natto extract. Both the natto extract and natto kinase suppressed intimal thickening in rats with endothelial injury. The present findings suggest that natto extract suppresses vessel thickening as a synergic effect attributed to its antioxidant and anti-apoptosis properties

Attentive Neural Architecture Incorporating Song Features For Music Recommendation

Recommender Systems are an integral part of music sharing platforms. Often the aim of these systems is to increase the time, the user spends on the platform and hence having a high commercial value. The systems which aim at increasing the average time a user spends on the platform often need to recommend songs which the user might want to listen to next at each point in time. This is different from recommendation systems which try to predict the item which might be of interest to the user at some point in the user lifetime but not necessarily in the very near future. Prediction of the next song the user might like requires some kind of modeling of the user interests at the given point of time. Attentive neural networks have been exploiting the sequence in which the items were selected by the user to model the implicit short-term interests of the user for the task of next item prediction, however we feel that the features of the songs occurring in the sequence could also convey some important information about the short-term user interest which only the items cannot. In this direction, we propose a novel attentive neural architecture which in addition to the sequence of items selected by the user, uses the features of these items to better learn the user short-term preferences and recommend the next song to the user.Comment: Accepted as a paper at the 12th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys 18

Pronounced activation of protein kinase C, ornithine decarboxylase and c-jun proto-oncogene by paraquat-generated active oxygen species in WI-38 human lung cells

AbstractParaquat (methyl viologen, PQ) is a widely used herbicide that produces oxygen-derived free radicals and severely injures human lungs. In this study we examined the effects of PQ on the protein kinase C (PKC), ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) and c-jun oncogene expression in WI-38 human lung cells. Exposure of cells to 25–200 μM PQ resulted in an increase of [3H]phorbol dibutyrate (PDBu) binding and PKC redistribution in a dose-dependent manner. Interestingly, a superoxide dismutase mimic, 4-hydroxyl-2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl (Tempol, 2.5 mM) and catalase (400 μg/ml) could significantly reduce the PQ-stimulated increase of phorbol ester binding and particular PKC phosphorylatiog activity, but dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO, 1.5%), an effective ·OH trapping agent, failed to prevent this stimulation. In addition, an endogenous substrate of PKC, 80 kDa protein, was found to be highly phosphorylated in intact WI-38 cells treated with 50 AM PQ. The increase of phosphorylated proteins could be completely or partly abolished by Tempol or catalase, but only the phosphorylation of 80 kDa protein was diminished by protein kinase C inhibitor, 1-(5-isoquinolinyl-sulfonyl)-2-methylpiperazine (H-7). A maximal peak of ODC activity was observed at 6 h of treatment with 50 μM PQ. PQ induced activity was reduced at the following rates, Tempol 85%, DMSO 80% and catalase 45%, but H-7 failed to do so. Furthermore, we found that the level of c-jun mRNA was transiently increased by PQ and the peak appeared at 1 h of treatment. When correlated with the PKC result, Tempol, catalase and H-7 all effectively blocked PQ-elicited c-jun transcript expression, but DMSO only exhibited a weakly inhibitory effect. We therefore propose that superoxide anion (O2− and H2O2 generated by PQ could activate PKC and lead to induction of c-jun gene expression; on the other hand, O2− and ·OH might trigger other kinase pathways to elevate ODC activity. Finally, the sequential expression of c-jun oncogene, and ODC may cooperate to relieve the oxidative damages elicited by PQ

Pancreatic Tail Cancer with Sole Manifestation of Left Flank Pain: A Very Rare Presentation

Pancreatic cancer is sometimes called a “silent disease” because it often causes no symptoms in the early stage. The symptoms can be quite vague and various depending on the location of cancer in the pancreas. The anatomic site distribution is 78% in the head of the pancreas, 11% in the body, and 11% in the tail. Pancreatic cancer is rarely detected in the early stage, and it is very uncommon to diagnose pancreatic tail cancer during an emergency department visit. The manifestation of pancreatic tail cancer as left flank pain is very rare and has seldom been identified in the literature. We present a case of pancreatic tail cancer with the sole manifestation of dull left flank pain. Having negative findings on an ultrasound study initially, this female patient was misdiagnosed as having possible acute gastritis, urolithiasis or muscle strain after she received gastroendoscopy and colonofiberscopy. Her symptoms persisted for several months and she visited our emergency department due to an acute exacerbation of a persistent dull pain in the left flank area. Radiographic evaluation with computed tomography was performed, and pancreatic tail tumor with multiple metastases was found unexpectedly. We review the literature and discuss this rare presentation of pancreatic tail cancer