Transportation Usage And Characteristics Of Washington State Warehouse/Distribution Center Businesses: A First Look

The paper provides an analysis and overview of the operations of the warehouse/distribution center businesses in the state of Washington, with implications for all national and international distribution businesses

Empirical estimation of attributes influencing warehouse/distribution center operations An in-depth analysis of the Washington warehouse industry

According to a recent Strategic Freight Transportation Analysis report, an estimated 21.6 million truck trips are made each year on Washington state highways. An estimated 45% of transported freight originated from or is destined for a warehouse or distribution center within the state. The growing amount of congestion within the state of Washington has prompted concern over the state’s ability to anticipate and provide for current and future freight transportation infrastructure needs. The general objective of this research is to investigate the operations and transportation usage of warehouse/distribution centers in Washington. Three specific objectives were outlined for this research. 1) Provide a description of the common operations and functions performed in the warehouse/distribution center industry and assess those characteristics associated with warehouses in Washington. 2) Determine the relationship of warehouse size, and the number of inbound and outbound truckloads as variables in the warehouse/distribution center industry based upon warehouse functions in relation to facility location. Warehouses in the state of Washington are sorted into two regions, eastern and western. 3) Evaluate the same three issues in relation to warehouse functions and whether they are involved with international trade. Warehouses within the state were sorted into two warehouse types, international and domestic. A multiple linear regression utilizing the stepwise procedure is performed in SAS to evaluate the relationships among warehouse size, and the number of inbound and outbound truckloads relative to warehouse functions. Upon analysis, public warehouses serve a critical role in the number of truckloads occurring within eastern Washington. Meanwhile, cold storage and ‘Other’ warehouse facilities generate a large number of truckloads in western Washington. Warehouses in eastern Washington operating a private fleet are typically smaller, while western warehouses outsourcing to third-party providers are larger. A noticeable increase occurs in the number of truckloads for domestic warehouses which offer cross-docking services and handle a greater number of products. For international warehouses, cold storage facilities have significantly more truckload movement than other facilities types. The size of both domestic and international warehouses is significantly influenced by the number of bays and number of employees within a facility

Transportation Usage and Characteristics of the Washington Warehouse/Distribution Center Industry

It is estimated that there are 21.6 million truck trips made each year on Washington state highways. It is further estimated that 45% of transported freight originated from or is destined for a warehouse or distribution center within the state. The growing amount of congestion within the state of Washington has prompted concern over the state’s ability to anticipate and provide for current and future freight transportation infrastructure needs. The objective of this study was to determine freight mobility issues for the Warehouse/Distribution Center industry in Washington State. The scope of this project was primarily two-fold:, to assess the operations of Warehouse/Distribution Centers and to evaluate infrastructure adequacy, and identify deficiencies and investment needs related to transportation. The sample used for this study was compiled from local, county, state, and federal agencies. Collected information was categorized by the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) or North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes associated with industries that operate in the storage and distribution of freight. The data collection method chosen for this study was a mail survey. The survey questionnaire and subsequent analysis were divided into four sections: Warehouse Operations, Inter-modal Systems, International Trade, and Other Transportation Related Issues. The information collected includes the following: Warehouse/distribution center characteristics (hours of operation, square footage of facility, and type of products handled) Daily time distribution of inbound and outbound shipments Mode distribution among inbound and outbound shipments Key routes utilized for inbound and outbound shipments Country of origin and destination of products Mode distribution among imports and exports Ranking of transportation issues Indicators of freight chokepoints The paper provides an analysis and overview of the operations and needs of the warehouse/distribution center industry in the state of Washington

Neuronal nicotinic receptors as new targets foramphetamine-induced oxidative damage and neurotoxicity

Amphetamine derivatives such as methamphetamine (METH) and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy) are drugs widely abused in a recreational context. This has led to concern because of the evidence that they are neurotoxic in animal models and cognitive impairments have been described in heavy abusers. The main targets of these drugs are plasmalemmal and vesicular monoamine transporters, leading to reverse transport and increased monoamine efflux to the synapse. As far as neurotoxicity is concerned, increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) production seems to be one of the main causes. Recent research has demonstrated that blockade of 7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR) inhibits METH- and MDMA-induced ROS production in striatal synaptosomes which is dependent on calcium and on NO-synthase activation. Moreover, 7 nAChR antagonists (methyllycaconitine and memantine) attenuated in vivo the neurotoxicity induced by METH and MDMA, and memantine prevented the cognitive impairment induced by these drugs. Radioligand binding experiments demonstrated that both drugs have affinity to 7 and heteromeric nAChR, with MDMA showing lower Ki values, while fluorescence calcium experiments indicated that MDMA behaves as a partial agonist on 7 and as an antagonist on heteromeric nAChR. Sustained Ca increase led to calpain and caspase-3 activation. In addition, modulatory effects of MDMA on 7 and heteromeric nAChR populations have been found

Membrane compartments and purinergic signalling: the role of plasma membrane microdomains in the modulation of P2XR-mediated signalling.

Purinergic signalling is implicated in virtually any cellular and physiological function. These functions are mediated through the activation of different receptor subfamilies, among which P2X receptors (P2XRs) are ligand-gated ion channels that respond mostly to ATP. In addition to forming a nonselective cation channel, these receptors engage with a complex network of signalling pathways, including protein kinase cascades, lipid signal mediators and proteases. It is poorly understood how P2XR stimulation couples to such a variety of intracellular pathways and how the outcome from this complex signalling network is tuned. In this context, segregation of receptors and other signalling components at the plasma membrane is an attractive explanation. Lipid rafts are microdomains of biological membranes with unique physicochemical properties that make them segregate from the bulk of the membrane, provoking the differential partition of receptors and signalling molecules among different domains of the plasma membrane. Here we give an overview of the properties of lipid rafts and how they are studied, along with recent advances in the understanding of their role in modulating P2XR-mediated signalling.Journal ArticleResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tReviewSCOPUS: sh.jFLWINinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

The trade-off between growth rate and locomotor performance varies with perceived time until breeding

Environmental circumstances can cause changes in early growth patterns that subsequently affect the adult phenotype. Here we investigated how different growth trajectories affected subsequent locomotor performance, and how such effects were influenced by the perceived time until the key life-history event of reproduction. Using juvenile three-spined sticklebacks Gasterosteus aculeatus, we show that a brief period of manipulated temperature in early life (independent of food supply) caused effects on skeletal growth trajectory not only during the manipulation itself, but also during a subsequent compensatory phase. The outcome of these changes was that fish in all treatment groups reached the same average size by sexual maturity, despite having different growth patterns. However, their growth trajectory had impacts on both pre-breeding swimming endurance and its decline over the course of the breeding season, such that swimming ability was negatively correlated with skeletal growth rate during the compensation period. We also show for the first time that negative compensation' (i.e. a decelerating growth trajectory) led to an improved swimming performance compared with steadily growing controls. Replicate experiments and photoperiod manipulations, moreover, revealed that the effects of growth rate on subsequent swimming performance were greater when the perceived time until the breeding season was shorter. These results show that the costs of accelerated or decelerated growth can last well beyond the time over which growth rates differ, and are affected by the time available until an approaching life history event such as reproduction, possibly because of the time available to repair the damag