AGENTS OF TRUST: BUSINESS ASSOCIATIONS IN AGRI-FOOD SUPPLY SYSTEMS

The generation of trust between business partners is a strategic issue for firms in competitive agri-food markets. It is asserted that business associations can be important facilitators of trust between firms. Cross-national comparative research on the UK and Dutch potato industries is conducted to find out how and to what extent business associations perform functions that can facilitate trust. The results show that there are considerable national differences in the intensity and range of such functions performed by business associations. The findings indicate that, in spite of globalization trends, nationally distinct ways of generating trust via business associations continue to exist.Industrial Organization, Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

The PROOF Distributed Parallel Analysis Framework based on ROOT

The development of the Parallel ROOT Facility, PROOF, enables a physicist to analyze and understand much larger data sets on a shorter time scale. It makes use of the inherent parallelism in event data and implements an architecture that optimizes I/O and CPU utilization in heterogeneous clusters with distributed storage. The system provides transparent and interactive access to gigabytes today. Being part of the ROOT framework PROOF inherits the benefits of a performant object storage system and a wealth of statistical and visualization tools. This paper describes the key principles of the PROOF architecture and the implementation of the system. We will illustrate its features using a simple example and present measurements of the scalability of the system. Finally we will discuss how PROOF can be interfaced and make use of the different Grid solutions.Comment: Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP03), La Jolla, CA, USA, March 2003, 5 pages, LaTeX, 4 eps figures. PSN TULT00

ROOT Status and Future Developments

In this talk we will review the major additions and improvements made to the ROOT system in the last 18 months and present our plans for future developments. The additons and improvements range from modifications to the I/O sub-system to allow users to save and restore objects of classes that have not been instrumented by special ROOT macros, to the addition of a geometry package designed for building, browsing, tracking and visualizing detector geometries. Other improvements include enhancements to the quick analysis sub-system (TTree::Draw()), the addition of classes that allow inter-file object references (TRef, TRefArray), better support for templated and STL classes, amelioration of the Automatic Script Compiler and the incorporation of new fitting and mathematical tools. Efforts have also been made to increase the modularity of the ROOT system with the introduction of more abstract interfaces and the development of a plug-in manager. In the near future, we intend to continue the development of PROOF and its interfacing with GRID environments. We plan on providing an interface between Geant3, Geant4 and Fluka and the new geometry package. The ROOT GUI classes will finally be available on Windows and we plan to release a GUI inspector and builder. In the last year, ROOT has drawn the endorsement of additional experiments and institutions. It is now officially supported by CERN and used as key I/O component by the LCG project.Comment: Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP03), La Jolla, Ca, USA, March 2003, 5 pages, MSWord, pSN MOJT00

The ALICE Off-Line Strategy: A Successful Migration to OO

The ALICE Experiment has chosen to start developing its software directly in OO, using the services of the ROOT system, which is ALICE's official candidate for the common LHC framework. This had lead to the definition of a complete environment (AliRoot) where the software developed by the different experimental groups is being integrated. Different test-benches for I/O and Simulation have been set up based on real production code. This allows early assessment of technology, both software and hardware in a realistic production environment. Different codes, such as GEANT3, GEANT4 and FLUKA, or the reconstruction algorithms by the physicists developing the detectors, have been easily integrated in the framework, that has shown to be both evolutive and modular.The ALICE Collaboration has adopted this setup and we are now successfully migrating the users into it. This talk describes the AliRoot environment and its future evolution

ROOT, an object oriented data analysis framework

ROOT is an object-oriented framework aimed at solving the data analysis challenges of high-energy physics. Here we discuss the main components of the framework. We begin with an overview describing the framework's organization, the interpreter CINT, its automatic interface to the compiler and linker ACLiC, and an example of a first interactive session. The subsequent sections cover histogramming and fitting. Then, ROOT's solution to storing and retrieving HEP data, building and managing of ROOT files, and designing ROOT trees. Followed by a description of the collection classes, the GUI classes, how to add your own classes to ROOT, and PROOF, ROOT's parallel processing facility

ALICE Data Challenges

When fully operational, the ALICE experiment will take data at a rate of 1.5 GB/s. This rate is more than an order of magnitude higher than that of the other LHC experiments. To be ready for this very high rate and to understand early on what the possible problems might be, we have decided to start the ALICEData Challenges (ADC). The idea is that the ADCs will be repeated once or twice a year until the LHC goes online. The unique aspect of the ADCs is that it involves the complete ALICE data taking chain: form DAQ, via event builder, via filter, to object database to mass storage system. Progressively, with each ADC we shall try to achieve higher data rates, more realistic event filters and raw data models

Tau is central in the genetic Alzheimer-frontotemporal dementia spectrum

In contrast to the common and genetically complex senile form of Alzheimer's disease (AD), the molecular genetic dissection of inherited presenile dementias has given important mechanistic insights into the pathogenesis of degenerative brain disease. Here, we focus on recent genotype-phenotype correlative studies in presenile AD and the frontotemporal dementia (FTD) complex of disorders. Together, these studies suggest that AD and FTD are linked in a genetic spectrum of presenile degenerative brain disorders in which tau appears to be the central player

Korrekturosteotomie bei lateraler Tibiakopfimpression und Valgusfehlstellung

Zusammenfassung : Operationsziel : Verbesserung der Gelenkkongruenz bei fehlverheilten Frakturen des lateralen Tibiaplateaus, Schmerzreduktion, Vorbeugung einer Arthrose. Indikationen : Valgusfehlstellung der proximalen Tibia und damit verbundene intraartikuläre Impression des Tibiaplateaus Kontraindikationen : Patienten in schlechtem Allgemeinzustand. Hochgradiges Defizit der Kniegelenkfunktion. Patientenalter > 65 Jahre. Chronische Infektion. Weichteilprobleme. Unfähigkeit des Patienten, die Extremität nach der Operation abrollend zu belasten. Operationstechnik : Tangentiale Osteotomie des mittlerer Fibuladrittels. Gerader lateraler oder parapatellarer Zugang zur lateralen proximalen Tibia. Laterale Arthrotomie des Kniegelenks. Proximale keilförmige öffnende ("open wedge‘ Osteotomie der Tibia. Intraartikuläre Korrektur der Impression des lateralen Tibiakondylus durch subchondrales Einstößeln von Spongiosa. Beurteilung der Achsenverhältnisse des Beins. Interposition kortikospongiöser Knochentransplantate zur Stützung der öffnenden Osteotomie. Bei Bedarf interne Fixation. Weiterbehandlung : Kontinuierliche passive Bewegung bis 90° Flexion ab dem 1. postoperativen Tag. Nach Anlage einer stabilisierenden Schiene dürfen die Patienten 8 Wochen abrollend mobilisieren. Nach radiologischer Knochenheilung schrittweiser Aufbau der Belastung. Ergebnisse : Zwischen 1977 und 1998 wurden 23 Patienten operiert. Zwei Fehlschläge waren zu verzeichnen, wovon einer in einer Arthrodese und der andere in einem totalen Gelenkersatz mündete. Nach durchschnittlich 14 Jahren (5-6 Jahre) wurden 21 Patienten nachuntersucht. Zwei Patienten litten unter einer signifikanten Verschlechterung der Arthrose, vier Patienten wiesen eine leicht progrediente Knorpeldegeneration auf, und bei 15 Patienten war das Ausmaß des Gelenkverschleißes unverändert. Durchschnittlich konnten der tibiofemorale Winkel um 8,6° (13-14,4°), die Tibiakopfimpression um 6 mm (4-9 mm) und der Bewegungsumfang um 12° (0-20°) verbessert werden. Pseudarthrosen fanden sich nich