A comprehensive approach to handle the dynamics of customer’s needs in Quality Function Deployment based on linguistic variables

In the contexture of a customer-driven goods or service design process, a well-timed update of customer’s requirements may not only serve as a necessity indicator to observe how things change over time, but also it incorporates the firms a better ground to interoperate different strategies to meet the future needs of its customer. This paper proposes a systematic methodology to deal with the customer needs’ dynamics, in terms of their relative weights, in the QFD. Compared with previous research, the contribution of this paper is fourfold. First, it applies some linguistic variables to get preferences of customers and experts to determine the relative importance of customer requirements (CRs) and the relationships between customer requirements and engineering characteristics (ECs). Second, it proposes the implementation of a forecasting technique. Third, it describes more comprehensively on how future uncertainty in the weights of customer’s needs could be estimated and transmitted into the design attributes. Fourth, it proposes the implementation of a quantitative approach, which takes into account the decision maker’s attitude towards risk to optimize the QFD decision making analysis. Finally, a real-world application of QFD is provided to demonstrate the practical applicability of the proposed methodology

Modulation of dendritic cells by human neutrophil elastase and its inhibitors in pulmonary inflammation

Dendritic cells (DC) are sentinels of the immune system that display an extraordinary capacity to present antigen to naïve T cells and initiate immune responses. DCs are distributed throughout the lungs in the conducting airways of the tracheobronchial tree and in the parenchymal lung, and play a pivotal role in controlling the immune response to inhaled antigens. The respiratory surface is continually exposed to potentially injurious particulates and pathogenic organisms, to which tightly regulated innate and adaptive immunological responses are made. The airways are usually sterile in healthy individuals. However, patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and cystic fibrosis (CF) have increased susceptibility to microbial infections and increased neutrophil elastase (NE) in lung secretions. This thesis was designed to test the hypotheses that; (i) excess NE may result in a dysregulation of lung DCs function in pulmonary chronic diseases, and (ii) the natural NE inhibitors in the respiratory system are able to rescue the NE-mediated dysregulation of DCs and potentially enhance their antigen presenting activity. The data in this thesis demonstrate that purified human NE down-regulated murine bone marrow (BM)-derived DC co-stimulatory molecules (CSM; CD40, CD80 and CD86), which was due to its proteolytic activity. NE-treated LPS-matured DCs were less efficient at presenting ovalbumin (OVA) peptide to naïve OVAspecific transgenic (D011.10) T cells. In addition, immature DCs (iDC) simultaneously treated with LPS and NE failed to mature fully and produced significantly less IL-12 and TNF-α than DCs matured in the presence of LPS alone. Similarly, treatment of mature DC (mDC) with pooled and individual COPD and CF sputum samples caused a reduction in CD80 and CD86 levels (but not CD40) which positively correlated with the NE concentration present in the samples. The demonstration that NE could adversely affect DC phenotype and function suggested that augmentation of NE inhibitors could reverse this process and preserve DC function in inflammatory microenvironments. Over-expression of an NE specific inhibitor (elafin) in the lungs of mice (using either replication-deficient adenovirus [Ad] or elafin transgenic [eTg] mice) increased the number (immunofluorescence) and activation status (flow cytometric measurement) of CD11c+/MHCII+ lung DCs in in vivo models. Replication-deficient Ad vectors encoding NE inhibitors, namely elafin, secretory leukocyte protease inhibitor (SLPI) and α1-protease inhibitor (α1-PI), were also used to infect DCs in vitro, to further study the effect of these NE-inhibitors on DCs in isolation. These findings suggest that purified NE and NE-containing lung inflammatory secretions are powerful down-regulators of DC maturation, resulting in reduced capacity of these potent APCs to efficiently present antigens; whereas, NE inhibitors could boost immunity by increasing the activation state and/or number of DCs

B Cells Promote Pancreatic Tumorigenesis

Summary: Three recent studies, approaching the question from different angles and using different and/or overlapping models, provide compelling evidence for the involvement of tumor-infiltrating B cells in the initiation and progression of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. These studies highlight the need for a better understanding of pancreatic tumor–immune system interactions and the immunologic mechanisms that promote or inhibit tumorigenesis, paving the way for better treatment strategies.Bloodwise (UK) (Visiting Fellowship Grant (14043)

Biosynthesis of Nano-Calcite and Nano-Hydroxyapatite by the Probiotic Bacteria of Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus coagulans

Background and objective: In recent years, the green synthesis of nanomaterials has received more attention than chemical synthesis due to its eco-friendly and compatibility. Material and methods: In this study Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus coagulans, two potential probiotics, were used and grown Bacillus in medium culture containing insoluble calcium phosphate produced nano-hydroxyapatite and nano-calcite. The nano-hydroxyapatite was purified from nano-calcite by heat treatment and washing with a 200 nm filter. The structures, characteristics, and elemental analysis of nano-sized material were studied by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, energy dispersive X-ray, and X-ray fluorescence. Results: The results showed that hydroxyapatite is made only in a medium containing insoluble calcium phosphate sublimated with urea which is induced phosphatase and urease. Here, for the first time, the braided bacterial nano-hydroxyapatite similar to the bone structure was made in the medium, which caused the production of urease and phosphatase (Maximum 99 U/L) enzymes, and the particle size was less than 100 nm. The ratio of calcium to phosphorus in crude hydroxyapatite and calcite crystal particles made by B. coagulans was 2.9, however, this ratio for pure hydroxyapatite was 1.7. Conclusion: Since the particles are made by antibacterial probiotics, the biological production of these particles makes them a suitable candidate to be used in food, toothpaste, and sanitation products. Braided hydroxyapatite can substitute the needle-like type of food additives for infants and elders due to its safety

Comparing total productivity through effiency and effectiveness in two Iranian banks

The objective of this study is to compare the productivity level of both private and government banks in Iran based on their effectiveness and efficiency as well as their total productivity and partial productivity. The subjects used in this research were Mellat Bank (private) and Melli Bank (government). In order to obtain substantial findings, a sequential mixed method was applied for this research. Firstly, the Modified Delphi Method; a qualitative approach was conducted upon 20 top managers from each bank. In this phase, the determinants of productivity consist of input, output and outcome as the main criteria. This is further divided into: labour, capital, and deposit as the sub-criteria of input; investment and partnership, as well as loans and advances as the sub-criteria of output; and customer satisfaction, job satisfaction and profits as the sub-criteria of outcome. On a micro level, labour is further sub-categorised into the number of employees, education level, experience and personnel cost; capital is further divided into IT capital and Non IT capital; and deposit is further sub-categorised into several accounts namely current, saving, and investment. As such, a three-stage Productivity Estimation Model for Mellat Bank and Melli Bank was formed. The second phase of the research is the quantitative approach in which the Fuzzy AHP method was used. In order to obtain the weights from Fuzzy AHP method, questionnaires were distributed to the same 20 top managers from each bank. Furthermore, the secondary data from annual reports were used to derive these determinants: effectiveness, efficiency, total productivity and partial productivity. Finally, it appears that both banks (Melli Bank and Mellat Bank) are located in the Golden Quadrant where the efficiency level of Mellat Bank is more than that of Melli Bank (1.17 as compared to 1.02) but the effectiveness level of Mellat Bank (0.77) is less than that of Melli Bank (0.84). In addition, total productivity level of Mellat Bank has been computed to be 0.9 while for Melli Bank it is 0.86. With regards to the partial productivity level the capital productivity of Melli Bank is slightly more thant that of Mellat Bank (0.77 as compared to 0.74) but the labor and deposit productivity of Mellat Bank are higher than that of Melli Bank with1.17 and 0.77 respectively. Suggestions have been made for managers and also academic researchers to further this study

(p)ppGpp-mediated stress response induced by defects in outer membrane biogenesis and ATP production promotes survival in <i>Escherichia coli</i>

Abstract Cellular growth requires a high level of coordination to ensure that all processes run in concert. The role of the nucleotide alarmone (p)ppGpp has been extensively studied in response to external stresses, such as amino acid starvation, in Escherichia coli, but much less is known about the involvement of (p)ppGpp in response to perturbations in intracellular processes. We therefore employed CRISPRi to transcriptionally repress essential genes involved in 14 vital processes and investigated whether a (p)ppGpp-mediated response would be induced. We show that (p)ppGpp is produced and required for a pertinent stress response during interference with outer membrane biogenesis and ADP synthesis specifically. When these processes were perturbed via the transcriptional repression of essential genes, wild type E. coli MG1655 ceased growing and entered a semi-dormant state, whereas isogenic (p)ppGpp0 cells continued to grow uncontrollably to the point of lysis. Furthermore, in vivo measurements revealed that the ATP levels were intrinsically offset in (p)ppGpp0 cells, further indicating a role for the alarmone in cellular energy homeostasis. In summary, our investigation suggests that (p)ppGpp acts as a coordinator of cell growth in response to imbalances in outer membrane biogenesis and adenosine ribonucleotide synthesis, elucidating novel roles for (p)ppGpp in bacterial physiology

A Robust Two-Stage Stochastic Location-Routing-Inventory Model for Perishable Items

The aim of this study is to develop a robust two-stage stochastic location-routing-inventory model for perishable items. The proposed model is implemented in a two-stage structure. The first-stage decisions determine the establishment of distribution centres and the second-stage decisions identify the other variables of the problem. In order to reduce the effect of different scenarios on the outputs of the problem, the two-stage model is developed to a robust model. Two variability criteria called \u27Partial Lower Deviation from Mean\u27 (PLDM) and \u27Partial Lower Deviation from Target\u27 (PLDT) are considered for the problem. This robust model can manage the variability of different scenarios considering the variability needed for the problem. The summary of the results of the models indicate that the supply cost, the setup cost, the vehicle supply cost, and the production cost comprise 55%, 28%, 3%, and 14% of the total costs of the supply chain, respectively. Similarly, the ratio of net profit margin to the total revenue of the supply chain derived from the division of the objective function by the revenue function is 15%. Among free, fresher first, older first, and mixed policies, the free policy provides the decision maker with more profit than the other three policies since it imposes less constraints on the model

Commitment and customer loyalty in Business To Business context

Understanding what makes business-to-business (B2B) relationships lasting and stable is one of the main areas of academic interest in the study of organizational relations. To retain the organization’s current customers and to make them loyal is a critical component for a company to be successful. Customers should identify groups of suppliers based on develop strategies that are appropriate for further increasing loyalty under the conditions that exist for the product and service. In the current paper, the authors investigate the different factors, which influence commitment and customer loyalty on B2B context. The following paper explains the relationship between commitment and customer loyalty by investigating relevant theories and past studies. This paper uncovers that the literature proffer a affluent, yet fragmented, photograph of which variable or key success factor is, and how it can be increased and profitable to customer loyalty in automotive industry. The outcomes must lead management with the ability to map out a typology of loyalty using the available composite measures of loyalty, purchase intentions and attitudinal loyalty. The classification system can be useful to industrial customers as they try to increase their loyalty