Statistical method of finding quality indicators distribution of surfaces treated in thickness of gas-thermal coatings in various depths

Проаналізовано статистичну залежність показників якості (на прикладі параметрів шорсткості та мікротвердості) оброблених поверхонь деталей з порошковими газотермічними покриттями системи Ni-Cr-B-Si у діапазоні товщин 0,6…2,4 мм, нанесеними газополуменевим напилюванням, від глибини розташування цих поверхонь (від величини прийнятого припуску). Результати дослідження є основою для визначення припуску на обробку покриттів за допомогою ймовірнісно-статистичного методу, вирішують проблему визначення припусків на оброблення газотермічних порошкових покриттів системи Ni-Cr-B-Si та дозволяють під час механічного оброблення забезпечити найвищі показники якості обробленої поверхні.A gas-thermal coatings application in production is not widely spread. The reasons are those, that they have three thickness zones, which differ in quality, and while processing the working surfaces are often formed in areas with worse quality and results in shortening of the parts operating life. It is caused by the fact that the information in technical reference literature on the depth of processing in the coating thickness is not available (in other words, in mechanical engineering production regulations on the fixed allowances for surfaces machining are not available). In monolithic materials processing technologists provide the necessary quality indicators by choosing the optimal values of machining allowances, varying cutting modes and geometric parameters of the instrument. When processing the coatings, which are heterogeneous and differ in great quality indicators dispersion in their volume, to provide the quality only by selection of modes and processing parameters is not possible. It is necessary, first of all, to form a work surface in the most qualitative coating layer. It is obligatory to know the location of this layer in the coating. Due to the heterogeneity of coatings to determine the location of the most qualitative coating layer is possible only by mathematical statistics methods, which allow to process a large amount of experimental data. The article analyzes the statistical relationship of quality indicators (for example, roughness parameters and microhardness) of treated surfaces with sintered gas-thermal coatings of Ni-Cr-B-Si system in the thicknesses range 0,6...2,4 mm, coated with gas-flamed spraying, with location depth of these surfaces (the value of standard allowance). The results of research are the basis for determining an allowance for coatings processing using probabilistic-statistical method. They solve the problem of determining allowances for processing sintered gas-thermal coatings of Ni-Cr-B-Si system and they allow to receive the best indicators of the treated surface, when machining, provide economy of powders and reduce the costs of gases

Equity in community health insurance schemes: evidence and lessons from Armenia

Introduction Community health insurance (CHI) schemes are growing in importance in low-income settings, where health systems based on user fees have resulted in significant barriers to care for the poorest members of communities. They increase revenue, access and financial protection, but concerns have been expressed about the equity of such schemes and their ability to reach the poorest. Few programmes routinely evaluate equity impacts, even though this is usually a key objective. This lack of evidence is related to the difficulties in collecting reliable data on utilization and socio-economic status. This paper describes the findings of an evaluation of the equity of Oxfam's CHI schemes in rural Armenia

Calpain system regulates muscle mass and glucose transporter GLUT4 turnover

The experiments in this study were undertaken to determine whether inhibition of calpain activity in skeletal muscle is associated with alterations in muscle metabolism. Transgenic mice that overexpress human calpastatin, an endogenous calpain inhibitor, in skeletal muscle were produced. Compared with wild type controls, muscle calpastatin mice demonstrated normal glucose tolerance. Levels of the glucose transporter GLUT4 were increased more than 3-fold in the transgenic mice by Western blotting while mRNA levels for GLUT4 and myocyte enhancer factors, MEF 2A and MEF 2D, protein levels were decreased. We found that GLUT4 can be degraded by calpain-2, suggesting that diminished degradation is responsible for the increase in muscle GLUT4 in the calpastatin transgenic mice. Despite the increase in GLUT4, glucose transport into isolated muscles from transgenic mice was not increased in response to insulin. The expression of protein kinase B was decreased by approximately 60% in calpastatin transgenic muscle. This decrease could play a role in accounting for the insulin resistance relative to GLUT4 content of calpastatin transgenic muscle. The muscle weights of transgenic animals were substantially increased compared with controls. These results are consistent with the conclusion that calpain-mediated pathways play an important role in the regulation of GLUT4 degradation in muscle and in the regulation of muscle mass. Inhibition of calpain activity in muscle by overexpression of calpastatin is associated with an increase in GLUT4 protein without a proportional increase in insulin-stimulated glucose transport. These findings provide evidence for a physiological role for calpains in the regulation of muscle glucose metabolism and muscle mass

Role of Continuous Glucose Monitoring in Clinical Trials: Recommendations on Reporting.

Thanks to significant improvements in the precision, accuracy, and usability of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM), its relevance in both ambulatory diabetes care and clinical research is increasing. In this study, we address the latter perspective and derive provisional reporting recommendations. CGM systems have been available since around the year 2000 and used primarily in people with type 1 diabetes. In contrast to self-measured glucose, CGM can provide continuous real-time measurement of glucose levels, alerts for hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia, and a detailed assessment of glycemic variability. Through a broad spectrum of derived glucose data, CGM should be a useful tool for clinical evaluation of new glucose-lowering medications and strategies. It is the only technology that can measure hyperglycemic and hypoglycemic exposure in ambulatory care, or provide data for comprehensive assessment of glucose variability. Other advantages of current CGM systems include the opportunity for improved self-management of glycemic control, with particular relevance to those at higher risk of or from hypoglycemia. We therefore summarize the current status and limitations of CGM from the perspective of clinical trials and derive suggested recommendations for how these should facilitate optimal CGM use and reporting of data in clinical research

The NuTeV Anomaly, Neutrino Mixing, and a Heavy Higgs Boson

Recent results from the NuTeV experiment at Fermilab and the deviation of the Z invisible width, measured at LEP/SLC, from its Standard Model (SM) prediction suggest the suppression of neutrino-Z couplings. Such suppressions occur naturally in models which mix the neutrinos with heavy gauge singlet states. We postulate a universal suppression of the Z-nu-nu couplings by a factor of (1-epsilon) and perform a fit to the Z-pole and NuTeV observables with epsilon and the oblique correction parameters S and T. Compared to a fit with S and T only, inclusion of epsilon leads to a dramatic improvement in the quality of the fit. The values of S and T preferred by the fit can be obtained within the SM by a simple increase in the Higgs boson mass. However, if the W mass is also included in the fit, a non-zero U parameter becomes necessary which cannot be supplied within the SM. The preferred value of epsilon suggests that the seesaw mechanism may not be the reason why neutrinos are so light.Comment: 19 pages, REVTeX4, 8 postscript figures. Updated references. Typos correcte

Political pluralism as a factor in the development of modern society and state

This paper presents the results of a study devoted to the legal phenomenon of political pluralism as a factor in the development of modern society and the state by the example of classical democratic countries. At the same time, attention is focused on such components of political pluralism as formalization of freedom of speech and assembly; a multi-party system, as well as a mechanism for coordinating the interests of various social groups at the parliamentary leve

Measurements of the SUSY Higgs self-couplings and the reconstruction of the Higgs potential

We address the issue of the reconstruction of the scalar potential of a two-Higgs doublet model having in mind that of the MSSM. We first consider the general CP conserving dim-4 effective potential. To fully reconstruct this potential, we show that even if all the Higgs masses and their couplings to the standard model particles are measured one needs not only to measure certain trilinear Higgs self-couplings but some of the quartic couplings as well. We also advocate expressing the Higgs self couplings in the mass basis. We show explicitly, that in the so-called decoupling limit, the most easily accessible Higgs self-couplings are given in terms of the Higgs mass while all other dependencies on the parameters of the general effective potential are screened. This helps also easily explain how, in the MSSM, the largest radiative corrections which affect these self couplings are reabsorbed by using the corrected Higgs mass. We also extend our analysis to higher order operators in the effective Higgs potential. While the above screening properties do not hold, we argue that these effects must be small and may not be measured considering the foreseen poor experimental precision in the extraction of the SUSY Higgs self-couplings.Comment: 25 pages, 3 figure

How and When Socially Entrepreneurial Nonprofit Organizations Benefit From Adopting Social Alliance Management Routines to Manage Social Alliances?

Social alliance is defined as the collaboration between for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Building on the insights derived from the resource-based theory, we develop a conceptual framework to explain how socially entrepreneurial nonprofit organizations (SENPOs) can improve their social alliance performance by adopting strategic alliance management routines. We test our framework using the data collected from 203 UK-based SENPOs in the context of cause-related marketing campaign-derived social alliances. Our results confirm a positive relationship between social alliance management routines and social alliance performance. We also find that relational mechanisms, such as mutual trust, relational embeddedness, and relational commitment, mediate the relationship between social alliance management routines and social alliance performance. Moreover, our findings suggest that different types of social alliance motivation can influence the impact of social alliance management routines on different types of the relational mechanisms. In general, we demonstrate that SENPOs can benefit from adopting social alliance management routines and, in addition, highlight how and when the social alliance management routines–social alliance performance relationship might be shaped. Our study offers important academic and managerial implications, and points out future research directions